News in Brief

Shebab attack Somalia intel HQ; 12 killed
Afp, Mogadishu

Somalia's Shebab rebels carried out a car bomb and gun attack against an intelligence headquarters in central Mogadishu on Sunday, leaving at least seven militants and five others dead. The al-Qaeda-linked militia claimed responsibility for the raid against the complex, which also houses a major detention facility.

Blast destroys Paris building; 2 killed
Afp, Bobigny

An eight-year-old child and an octogenarian were killed and dozens injured in a suspected gas explosion yesterday that reduced half of a four-storey residential block in a Paris suburb to rubble, emergency services said.Rescue workers are combing the site for an estimated nine people, including two children, who are still unaccounted for, sources said.

42 children killed in Syria in 36 hours
Afp, Beirut

At least 42 children have been killed in government air strikes and shelling across Syria in the last 36 hours, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said yesterday. It said 25 children had been killed between midnight on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, with 17 more killed between Friday and Saturday night.

Iceland issues red alert for aviation
Afp, Reykjavik

Iceland yesterday raised its aviation alert over its largest volcano to the highest level of red after a new eruption nearby. The alert entails a ban on all flights below 6,000 feet within a radius of 10 nautical miles of Bardarbunga. Sunday was the third time in a week that Iceland issued a red alert for aviation due to seismic activity near the volcano.

BBC Trust to get first femal boss
Afp, London

Former Financial Times Group chief Rona Fairhead is to become the first woman boss of the governing body of the BBC, the government said yesterday. Fairhead, 53, will replace Chris Patten, who quit as chairman of the BBC Trust in May after major heart surgery. Fairhead is also a non-executive director at PepsiCo and HSBC, and was chairwoman and chief executive of the Financial Times Group between 2006 and 2013.

Two more cured after receiving Ebola drug
CNN Online

Two more Liberian medical workers have survived Ebola. They were given ZMapp -- the experimental drug that's credited with saving the lives of two Americans infected with Ebola. Officials said that early treatment was key to the recovery of the Liberian medical workers.