International Brief’s

Al Qaeda kills British hostage in Mali

*DUBAI/LONDON – Al Qaeda’s North African wing said yesterday it had carried out its threat to kill a British hostage it was holding in the Sahara. Britain said it had reason to believe the hostage, Edwin Dyer, had been killed and Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the killing as ‘a barbaric act of terrorism’ and said the killers would be hunted down.

Bin Laden threatens Americans in new tape *CAIRO – Osama bin Laden has threatened Americans in a new audio tape, saying President Barack Obama inflamed hatred toward the US by ordering Pakistan to crack down on militants in Swat Valley and block Islamic law in the area. Wife puts Berlusconi on the defensive *ROME – Just weeks ago Silvio Berlusconi appeared to have an ironclad grip on power. Now the Italian premier is looking suddenly vulnerable, with the heat coming from something almost unheard of in freewheeling Italy: a sex scandal.US eyes extra $200 m for displaced Pakistanis*ISLAMABAD – The United States aims to give Pakistan an extra $200 million for about two million people displaced by an offensive against Taliban militants, a US envoy said yesterday. Poland remembers its bloodless revolution of 1989 *WARSAW – It began in Poland at the ballot box: A season of revolutions that toppled communist regimes from Berlin to Bucharest was set in motion 20 years ago this week by the first semi-free elections ever to take place in the Soviet-dominated eastern bloc.