World Scene

INDIA

HIV cases seen half of previous estimates

NEW DELHI — India has roughly 2.5 million people infected with HIV, less than half the number of cases that previous studies estimated, the health minister and international AIDS analysts said yesterday.

The drastically reduced numbers come from expanded surveys and an improved methodology, providing a far more accurate portrait of India’s HIV epidemic, said Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.

An earlier United Nations study estimated 5.7 million HIV cases, which would have been the highest total in the world.

According to the new data, India, which has a population of 1.1 billion, has fewer HIV cases than South Africa and Nigeria.

BRITAIN

Man with al Qaeda attack plans jailed

LONDON — A British court sentenced a man described by police as a terrorist “sleeper” to nine years in jail yesterday for possessing a trove of al Qaeda computer material, including documents suggesting hitting nightclubs and airports.

The court recommended Omar Altimimi, 37 — a failed asylum seeker living in Bolton in northern England whose precise identity police say they cannot determine — be deported after serving his sentence.

He was convicted in Manchester Crown Court of six charges of possessing material for the purpose of terrorism and two money-laundering charges.

CANADA

Outsider named to head Mounties

OTTAWA — Less than a month after an investigation found the culture inside the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to be “horribly broken,” Ottawa took the unprecedented step yesterday of naming an outsider to head the troubled federal force.

William Elliott, a senior bureaucrat and former national security adviser to two prime ministers, will become the first ever civilian to become commissioner of the 26,000-strong Mounties.

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