World Scene

KUWAIT

Fire at wedding kills 41 guests

KUWAIT CITY | A fire in a wedding tent Saturday killed at least 41 women and children and injured 76 others, authorities said.

The official Kuwait News Agency quoted fire officials saying 41 bodies had been recovered from the scene in Jahra, a tribal area west of Kuwait City.

Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Mohammed al-Saber said the cause of the fire was not immediately determined.

Wedding parties in this conservative oil-rich country are held separately for men and women. Children attend the women’s party.

Fire chief Brig. Gen. Jassem al-Mansouri said Saturday’s fire could mean a ban on holding similar parties in tents.

IRAN

Khamenei names new judiciary chief

TEHRAN | Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appointed a hard-line cleric as the country’s new judiciary chief after the end of his predecessor’s term, state television reported Saturday.

Sadeq Larijani’s appointment does not appear to be related to the turmoil that has wracked Iran since the disputed June presidential election. But the new judiciary chief will face an early test in determining how to respond to allegations that opposition protesters detained after the election were tortured to death.

Both reformists and conservatives have criticized the prisoner abuse and have called for those responsible to be punished. The anger on both sides of the political spectrum has intensified pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who reformists think stole the recent election with massive fraud.

INDIA

Bollywood icon detained in U.S.

NEW DELHI | Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was detained for two hours for questioning at a U.S. airport before being released by immigration authorities, a news agency reported Saturday.

Mr. Khan, one of the Indian film industry’s biggest stars, said he was detained because his name came up on a computer alert list at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, the Press Trust of India said.

Mr. Khan was let go after officials from the Indian Embassy in Washington intervened. Mr. Khan, 44, is in the United States to promote his new film, “My Name Is Khan,” a film about racial profiling.

In New Delhi, U.S. Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer said the U.S. Embassy was trying to “ascertain the facts.” He said Mr. Khan “is a very welcome guest in the United States.”

THAILAND

Elephant gets artificial leg

LAMPANG | An elephant who stepped on a land mine 10 years ago was fitted Saturday for a permanent artificial leg.

Motola became a symbol of the plight of today’s elephants, and her injury sparked international sympathy and donations.

Experts in Thailand were making a cast of the 48-year-old pachyderm’s injured left front leg for a plastic prosthetic limb, which was to be attached later Saturday.

Mosha, also a land mine victim, became the world’s first elephant with an artificial leg, attached in 2007. Soraida Salwala, secretary general of the Friends of the Asian Elephant, a nongovernmental group, said Mosha, now a 3-year-old, is faring well and has outgrown three of her prosthetic devices.

Both elephants have been cared for at the Elephant Hospital, set up by the group in 1993.

From wire dispatches and staff reports