DAMASCUS - Twin bombs exploded near a tightly guarded government compound in the heart of Damascus yesterday, wounding four people. The bombings struck in the Abu Remmaneh district where several security service buildings and the office of vice-president Faruq al-Shara are located, state television said. The attack, which state media blamed on "terrorists" - the government's term for rebels - came a day after a bombing killed 15 people in a southern suburb of Damascus. AFP
SEATTLE - Richard Bach, the author of the 1970s bestselling book , was in a serious condition, after the small plane he was piloting flipped during a landing in Washington state. The plane's landing gear clipped a power line, leaving Bach, 76, suspended upside down and strapped in a harness. A group of tourists cut him loose. Reuters
ROME - The former archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, said the Catholic Church was "200 years out of date" in his final interview before his death. Martini, a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous church failing to move with the times. "Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous," Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily . Reuters
