WORLD briefs

RUSSIA. A suicide truck bomber killed 20 people and wounded 138 at a police headquarters in Ingushetia yesterday, the deadliest attack in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus since 2005 and a fresh threat to Moscow's control of its southern flank. The bomb, packed into a yellow truck, exploded at the gates of the main police station in Nazran, Ingushetia's largest city, as officers lined up at the start of their day.

BERLIN. An American man has been extradited to Germany to face charges that he raped and murdered a 19-year-old woman near where he worked on a US military base 25 years ago, police said yesterday. Robert Brown, a 49-year-old maintenance worker from Baltimore, was turned over by US Marshals to Hesse state police and flown to Germany on Sunday, German police said. Brown is accused of the 1984 rape and murder of Nicola Stiel, a German teen from the western town of Bad Kreuznach.

GUYANA. The Board of Directors of the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) has set 24 August 2009 as the date for the commencement of full operations of the CDF. The CDF, which was established under Article 158 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas Establishing the Community including the CSME, will provide technical and financial assistance to those countries, regions and sectors so designated by the Community as “Disadvantaged Countries, Regions and Sectors”.

ZAMBIA. Capping a six-year trial, former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba was cleared of corruption charges because of lack of evidence in a ruling that left his supporters jubilant but clean-government campaigners in Africa frustrated. Chiluba, was accused of diverting nearly $500,000 of state money into accounts to pay for an extravagant lifestyle when he served as Zambia's first democratically elected leader from 1991 to 2001, but the judge ruled the funds could not be traced to government coffers.

LIMA. Peruvian police say gunmen robbed 12 foreigners on an ecological tourism trip to the Manu nature reserve on a popular forest route. The incident occurred in the Tres Cruces area of the Cusco region, nearly 375 miles southeast of Lima. The tour included seven Dutch citizens, two Americans, two Indonesians and an Australian.