Cleric in WTC bombing dies in jail

NEW YORK • Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian-born cleric linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, has died of natural causes in a United States prison facility, the Justice Department said. He was 78 years old.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Egypt's tourism sector recovering

CAIRO • Tourists are slowly returning to Egypt, easing pressure on a key sector battered by years of turmoil and the 2015 bombing of a plane carrying Russian holidaymakers, its tourism ministry said.

Visitors from China, Japan and Ukraine account for a large part of the growth, the ministry said.

Once a key foreign currency earner, the tourism sector crashed in 2011 after a popular uprising overthrew strongman Hosni Mubarak, ushering in years of sporadic unrest.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

19 dead in Argentina bus accident

MENDOZA (Argentina) • At least 19 people were killed and 20 injured after a bus overturned in Argentina, officials said.

The bus was travelling from the province of Mendoza towards Chile with 40 people on board when it overturned near Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside Asia. The authorities are investigating the cause of the accident, which occurred on a well-maintained major road between Argentina and Chile.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

SpaceX rocket blasts off on mission

CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida) • A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off yesterday from a historic Nasa launch pad at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida that has sat idle since the end of the space shuttle programme nearly six years ago.

The rocket, launched at 9.39am local time (10.39pm Singapore time), carried a cargo ship with about 2,500kg of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station.

REUTERS