World Scene

Shamsuddin Batukayev, a 55-year-old Muslim scholar and a leader in the Chechen separatist movement in the 1990s, said this week that his bodyguards had foiled an attempt to assassinate him by overpowering an armed man who came to his home in Istanbul posing as a Chechen seeking his help.

Anatolia said police detained the suspect and three other people and seized a gun with a silencer during a search of the suspect’s hotel room.

On Wednesday, the four were being questioned by a court that will decide whether to charge them or set them free.

Anatolia identified the suspect as Barhram B. but did not reveal his nationality.

There was no information on the other three suspects.

Anatolia said the man told police during an initial questioning that he was given the task of killing Mr. Batukayev by someone he “did not know” while in Russia and another Russian - whose identity he also did not know - gave him the gun in Istanbul.

JAPAN

Officials find hot spot of radiation in Tokyo

TOKYO | Japanese officials have found a small area in Tokyo with higher levels of radiation than evacuation zones around the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Tokyo’s Setagaya city’s mayor says concerned parents monitoring for radiation asked them to conduct further tests on a roadside spot near a kindergarten.

Its radioactivity slightly exceeded that of an area about 25 miles from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.

Mayor Nobuto Hosakai said the cause is being investigated.

He said rainwater containing radioactive particles had been dripping from the roof of a building by the sidewalk.

Officials said Wednesday that an estimated annual exposure at the spot wouldn’t pose a health danger. The area has been closed off and city officials will survey nearly 260 parks.

UNITED KINGDOM

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