Man kills 13 relatives

REUTERS

BELGRADE: A Serbian war veteran who killed 13 relatives and neighbours in a dawn rampage in a Serbian village this week, before turning the gun on himself, died in hospital on Thursday. Belgrade’s Emergency Hospital said 60-year-old Ljubisa Bogdanovic died on Thursday afternoon and that his wife, whom he shot in the head and neck, was “in stable condition and recovering

from surgery.” Serbs were stunned by the massacre on Tuesday in a sleepy rural region some 40 km south west of the capital, Belgrade. Six men, six women and a 2-year child died, the gunman’s mother and son among them. The motive is not known. Police said Bogdanovic had fought in Croatia in 1991 during the Yugoslav wars and that he and his son had both lost their jobs last year. Reports said Bogdanovic’s father and uncle had killed themselves several years ago.

‘Little Prince’ 

PARIS: France is marking the 70th anniversary of the world-loved “The Little Prince” with a host of special editions, including a new biography of its author, native son Antoine de Saint-Exupery. “Le Petit Prince”, a series of parables in which a boy prince recounts his adventures among the stars to a downed pilot on Earth, was first published in New York in 1943, in English and French. Since then, more than 145 million copies have been sold worldwide, translated into 270 languages and dialectst.

New Egypt poll law

CAIRO: Egypt’s parliament approved a revised election law on Thursday setting the rules for lower house parliamentary polls due to be held later this year. The Islamist-led upper house will now send it to the Supreme Constitutional Court to check its legality. President Mohamed Mursi had originally called elections for April but postponed them when the court annulled the decree setting the dates. Mursi has said the elections could now begin in October.