August 13th, 2009
World Links: European Union Sanctions Burma, U.K. Mulls Releasing Lockerbie Bomber

The European Union extends sanctions against the Burmese government after the sentencing of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 18 months house arrest. The assets of the judges involved in sentencing Suu Kyi will be subject to freeze and the judges banned from traveling within the E.U.

Officials in Taiwan warn hundreds of villagers to flee an area feared to be in imminent danger from upstream mud lakes caused by Typhoon Morakot.

British officials are considering the compassionate release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer. Two hundred and seventy people died when Pan Am flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

Twenty three Philippine soldiers are killed during an assault on a major stronghold of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf. Thirty members of Abu Sayyaf are killed in the operation; initial reports indicate that one of the dead may be Khair Mundos, a member of the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah for whom the U.S. has offered a $500,000 bounty.

Former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani survives a Taliban ambush in Aghanistan’s Kunduz province. 14 civilians are also killed in two seperate roadside attacks as Taliban-related violence surges in advance of next week’s presidential elections.

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