Man nabbed over attack on Sydney police station

SYDNEY • Australian police yesterday arrested a man for an apparent attack on a Sydney police station after he set himself alight and drove a car into its underground car park.

Police said they had no reason to believe it was a terrorist attack or that the man, in his 60s, was connected to any terrorist organisation.

Media reported the man's car contained gas canisters while New South Wales state assistant police commissioner Dennis Clifford said there appeared to have been some kind of fire accelerant in it.

REUTERS

Submarine collision: Spain wants Britain to explain

MADRID • Spain said yesterday it had asked London for "urgent" explanations after a British nuclear submarine collided with a vessel off the coast of Gibraltar, forcing it to dock in the disputed territory.

The incident sparked environmental fears as well as concerns it could lead to yet another diplomatic row between London and Madrid, which wants Gibraltar back centuries after it was ceded to Britain in 1713.

The HMS Ambush submarine was submerged and carrying out a training exercise when it collided with an unspecified merchant vessel on Wednesday afternoon.

It damaged the front of the vessel's conning tower and forced it to dock for checks in the overseas British territory on Spain's southern tip known as "the Rock".

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Iran detains 40 terror group members

TEHERAN • Iran has arrested 40 members of a "terrorist group" who plotted to attack military targets in the south-east of the country, the interior minister said yesterday.

Iran's south-eastern province of Sistan-Balochistan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has been the scene of armed clashes in recent weeks between Iranian forces and Sunni militants.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Prosecutors seek longer jail term for Pistorius

JOHANNESBURG • South African prosecutors said yesterday they would push for a longer sentence for disgraced Paralympian Oscar Pistorius, describing his six-year jail term for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp as "shockingly too lenient".

"The sentence of six years' imprisonment, in all the circumstances, is disproportionate to the crime of murder committed (and) shockingly too lenient," the National Prosecuting Authority said in a statement.

After he was sentenced earlier this month, Pistorius' lawyers said the double-amputee Olympic sprinter would not appeal against the term.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE