World Nation Briefs January 27, 2013
Man arrested after officer killed, two wounded
NEW ORLEANS - Police on Saturday arrested a man suspected of fatally shooting a police officer and critically wounding two sheriff's deputies after setting a deadly fire at a mobile home near a south Louisiana casino.
A Chitimacha tribal officer was pronounced dead at the scene of the shootings in Charenton, while two St. Mary Parish sheriff's deputies were critically wounded and taken to local hospitals, said Louisiana State Police Trooper Stephen Hammons.
Hammons said investigators found the burned remains of a man after extinguishing a fire at a mobile home that Wilbert Thibodeaux, 48, is suspecting of setting before the officers confronted him.
Hammons said the officers were responding to a report of an armed man walking down a road near the Cypress Bayou Casino when Thibodeaux allegedly shot them.
Thibodeaux was treated for a gunshot wound that wasn't considered life-threatening, according to Hammons, who said investigators were questioning him Saturday evening.
Rioting erupts after soccer fans sentenced to die
CAIRO - Relatives and angry young men rampaged through the Egyptian city of Port Said on Saturday in assaults that killed at least 27 people following death sentences for local fans involved in the country's worst bout of soccer violence.
Unrest surrounding the second anniversary of Egypt's revolution also broke out in Cairo and other cities for a third day, with protesters clashing for hours with riot police who fired tear gas that encompassed swaths of the capital's downtown.
The divisive verdict and bloodshed highlight challenges being faced by President Mohammed Morsi, who took office seven months ago following an Egyptian revolution that ousted autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak. Critics say Morsi has failed to carry out promised reforms in the country's judiciary and police force, and claim little has improved in the two years after the uprising against Mubarak.
The Islamist leader, Egypt's first freely elected and civilian president, met for the first time with top generals as part of the newly formed National Defense Council to discuss the deployment of troops in two cities. The military was deployed to Port Said hours after the verdict was announced, and warned that a curfew could be declared in areas of unrest.
Libya becoming incubator of turmoil
Libya's upheaval the past two years helped lead to the ongoing conflict in Mali, and now Mali's war threatens to wash back and further hike Libya's instability. Fears are growing that post-Moammar Gadhafi Libya is becoming an incubator of turmoil, with an overflow of weapons and Islamic jihadi militants operating freely, ready for battlefields at home or abroad.
The possibility of a Mali backlash was underlined the past week when several European governments evacuated their citizens from Libya's second largest city, Benghazi, fearing attacks in retaliation for the French-led military assault against al-Qaida-linked extremists in northern Mali.
More worrisome is the possibility that Islamic militants inspired by - or linked to - al-Qaida can establish a strong enough foothold in Libya to spread instability across a swath of North Africa where long, porous desert borders have little meaning, governments are weak, and tribal and ethnic networks stretch from country to country.
- The Associated Press