TV News LIES

At least 25 people were killed and 60 injured Saturday in a bomb blast at an open air rally in central Iraq.

Officials said the attacker struck as Sunni candidate Muthana al-Jourani was meeting supporters in Baquba, 60km (35 miles) north-east of Baghdad, the BBC reported. No group has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has pardoned a US Air Force colonel convicted in absentia over the rendition of an Egyptian imam in 2003.

Joseph Romano was one of 23 Americans tried and sentenced by Italian courts over the CIA-led operation to abduct a cleric known as Abu Omar. The Egyptian said he was flown to his home country and tortured there.

Spain is set to enact its first regional ban on producing natural gas using hydraulic fracturing, yielding to objections from environmental groups that so-called fracking risks polluting drinking water.

In the northern Cantabria region, where energy companies say much of Spain’s gas exists in shale rock, the Parliament plans to vote April 8 on suspending the contested drilling technique “as long as current doubts on the technology remain,” according to the bill on the government’s website. All political parties in the region supported the law in a March 21 debate.

One of the heaviest storms recorded moved through the province hitting both the capital, Buenos Aires, and the city of La Plata. In La Plata, between 300mm (12in) and 400mm of rain fell in a few hours, At least 35 people were killed there, said provincial governor Daniel Scioli, adding that the city "has never seen anything equal" to it.

Mr Scioli said city authorities had been discovering the bodies as the flood waters slowly receded. At least another six people had died in the city of Buenos Aires on Tuesday.

A fire caused by faulty electrical equipment killed 13 boys at an Islamic school in Myanmar on Tuesday, the fire service said, although some Muslims voiced concern since it followed a wave of anti-Muslim violence in the Buddhist-majority country.

The boys suffocated after the fire broke out in a dormitory of the school in the central, multi-ethnic Botataung district of the former capital of Yangon at about 2:40 a.m. (2010 GMT on Monday).

It is a routine Nathan Blanc knows well. At 9am on Tuesday morning, the 19-year-old will report, as instructed in his draft papers, to a military base near Tel Aviv. There he will state his objection to serving in the Israeli army. Following his refusal to enlist, Blanc expects to be arrested and sentenced to between 10 and 20 days in jail.

He will then be taken to Military Prison Number 6 to serve his time. And then, following his release, the cycle will begin over again.