Protesters fill streets in Tunis
TUNIS, Tunisia, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Tunisia's prime minister named three opposition leaders to the interim unity government Monday as new street protests erupted.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi appointed Najib Chebbi, Ahmed Ibrahim and Mustafa Ben Jaafar to the Cabinet while keeping the incumbent ministers of the interior, finance, foreign affairs and defense, France 24 reported.
Meanwhile, new protests rose up in the streets of Tunis, police said.
Police used a water cannon to disperse protesters calling for the Constitutional Democratic Rally, the party of ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to relinquish its power, the BBC reported Monday.
The country has been in a state of emergency since Ben Ali was ousted Friday.
Ghannouchi said an agreement among political parties would be announced soon. He pledged to fill the power void after being asked to form a government by interim President Foued Mebazaa, the former parliamentary speaker.
Ben Ali, who had been in power for 23 years, fled to Saudi Arabia Friday after a month of protests across Tunisia over unemployment, food-price increases and corruption.
Demonstrations gained strength in December after the death of an unemployed man who set himself on fire to protest the lack of jobs in the country. Several similar incidents have been reported in other African countries but the motivations were not clear, the BBC said.
British tour operators continued their emergency evacuation of vacationers in Tunis Monday, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported. The British Foreign Office said between 1,000 and 1,500 expatriates, independent travelers and small tour groups were still in the African republic.
The Foreign Office has urged Britons "to leave Tunisia unless they have a pressing need to remain."
Floods most costly Aussie natural disaster
BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Australia's flood crisis will likely be the most expensive natural disaster it has ever had, the country's treasurer said Monday.
"It looks like this is possibly going to be, in economic terms, the largest natural disaster in our history," Wayne Swan, who is also deputy prime minister, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Rebuilding flooded areas -- including Brisbane, capital of the northeastern state of Queensland -- "will involve billions of dollars of commonwealth moneyand also state government money," and will likely take years, Swan said.
The massive cleanup in advance of the enormous rebuilding effort began during the weekend.
Since December, two-thirds of Queensland -- an area twice the size of Texas -- has been beset by flooding that has left more than 25 people dead and scores of others missing.
The unremitting floodwaters rolled southward into Victoria Monday and 3,500 people were evacuated in northern towns.
The floodwaters now threaten 1,400 homes in 43 other communities, the BBC reported.
More than 100 homes in Horsham, a town of 14,000 midway between Melbourne and Adelaide, were at least partly underwater late Monday despite some 45,000 sandbags laid by residents and State Emergency Service volunteers, Horsham Mayor Michael Ryan told the ABC.
The Wimmera River, which has flooded Horsham to historic proportions six other times since 1894, is expected to peak at 12.6 feet Tuesday, and its floodwaters will literally split the town in two, the emergency service said.
Flood victims complained about getting little warning before their homes were swamped.
18 die in Pakistan bus blast
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- An explosion tore through a passenger bus in Pakistan's northwest region Monday, killing at least 18 people, police said.
The blast occurred as the bus traveled on Hangu road in Kohat in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, formerly called the North-West Frontier province.
Geo News and CNN reported the death toll was 18.
At least nine other people were injured in the explosion near the border with Afghanistan.
It was not clear if the explosion was the work of militants or was caused by a natural gas container.
Geo News quoted Kohat police official Masood Afridi as saying the nature of the blast was not known. "Terrorism cannot be ruled out," he said.
The province has been the scene of militant violence in recent weeks. On Thursday, three people died in two separate attacks in Bannu district.
Those attacks came a day after a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a police station, killing at least 18 people.
Pakistan's northwest region is next to the country's tribal areas, which U.S. intelligence officials say they suspect have become a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida leaders to launch attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Scores of suspected U.S. drone missile strikes have targeted militants in the tribal areas.
Iran says stoning sentence is lifted
TEHRAN, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- An Iranian woman accused of killing her husband will not be stoned to death, a Parliament member said Monday.
"The stoning verdict of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani has not been finalized and it is suspended at the moment, but she is sentenced to 10-year jail term," Zohreh Elahian, chairwoman of the Parliament Human Rights Committee, wrote to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, the Iranian Student News Agency reported.
Elahian said the stoning was dropped because the husband's family has forgiven Mohammadi-Ashtiani.
The lawmaker asserted in her letter, "according to evidence the Iranian woman betrayed her family and killed her husband jointly with her beloved. She has confessed to her crimes during her trial."
Elahian said the Western media's coverage of the case was "psychological warfare" against Iran.
In December, Rousseff, then president-elect, voiced disappointment that Brazil abstained on a U.N. resolution condemning Iran's human rights record.
Reagan sons split on Alzheimer's claim
NEW YORK, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Michael Reagan angrily denied Monday his brother Ron's assertion that their father began showing Alzheimer's symptoms while president.
In his new book, "My Father at 100," younger son Ron Reagan says signs like memory loss emerged as early as 1984. Ronald Reagan was not diagnosed until 10 years later.
Nancy Reagan has not publicly commented her son's statements.
On Saturday, Michael stated on Twitter: "Ron, my brother was an embarrassment to his father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother."
Appearing on CBS' "The Early Show" Monday morning, Reagan said, "All these years I've listened to people like Bill Maher and other people on the left who inferred my father had Alzheimer's when he was president of the United States to somehow discount the great job my father did as president.
"So now for one of his sons to come out and in fact say, 'Yeah, he might have had Alzheimer's or he had Alzheimer's during that time,' just gives credence to people like Bill Maher and others. It absolutely offends me that somebody would say that when there's no evidence anywhere on the planet to back it up."
