Briefly World

28,000 evacuated after Russia fire

MOSCOW: Over 28,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Russias Volga republic of Udmurtia as fire fighters battled a raging blaze and blasts in an underground arms depot storing 10,000 tonnes of shells. Thirty people were injured.

China makes contact with Libya oppn

BEIJING: Chinas Foreign Ministry said its ambassador to Qatar recently met with the head of Libyas rebel council. The announcement Friday appears to mark a change of tactics for China.

Ex-Black Panther leader Pratt,63,dies

NAIROBI: Former Black Panther Party leader Elmer Geronimo Pratt died early Friday from a medical ailment,possibly a stroke,an associate said. He was 63. Pratt was convicted in 1972 of being one of two men who fatally shot schoolteacher Caroline Olsen in Santa Monica in 1968.

Iraq: 12 killed in blast at Sunni mosque

BAGHDAD: Iraqi officials said 12 people were killed when a bomb exploded at a Sunni mosque north of Baghdad. Iraqi police and hospital officials in Tikrit said that the Friday bombing also wounded at least 25 people. There are conflicting accounts of whether it the blast was the work of a suicide bomber.