CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro yesterday said he was preparing legal action against Airbus due to a “serious fault” with the country’s presidential jet following five months of maintenance by the plane maker. Maduro said he had been concerned about flying in the plane after it returned from maintenance in Paris, and ordered his own technicians to carry out an inspection. “After 10 or 12 days, a serious fault appeared in one of the wings of the plane. After five months at Airbus in France – my God!” Maduro said during a televised broadcast. “With the help of an international law firm, we’re preparing legal actions against Airbus of France.” Maduro last week was briefly denied access to US airspace on his way to China, which he described as an example of “US aggression” against his socialist government. US authorities, who later approved his travel plan, said he had not been traveling in a state aircraft, which was required for diplomatic clearance. Maduro went in a Cuban plane. In an address on live TV, Maduro added that he skipped a planned visit this week to New York for the UN General Assembly due to concerns about possible “provocations” against him from right-wing American opponents. Since winning an April election to replace late Socialist leader Hugo Chavez, Maduro has been constantly alleging plots against him from opponents

By Stabroek News On In World |

ISIOLO, Kenya (Reuters) – One person was killed and three others were wounded in a grenade blast in the Kenyan town of Wajir, including a man suspected to have hurled the device at a supermarket, police said.

David Kirui, the police commander for the town, which is about 500 km (310 miles) northeast of the capital of Nairobi, said it was too early to say who was behind last evening’s attack. The region is prone to banditry and low-key clan clashes by pastoralist communities but has also suffered sporadic light arms attacks by the Islamist Somali militia group al Shabaab, which attacked a shopping mall in Nairobi last weekend and killed at least 72 people including foreigners in a four-day siege that captured global headlines.

Kirui said the man who was killed was a casual labourer and sometimes mason in the town dominated by a Somali population and located in an arid area near the border with Ethiopia and Somalia.

Kirui said the suspect suffered “serious injuries” from the shrapnel without elaborating, and he promised to track down five of his accomplices who had escaped under a hail of gunfire from police on patrol and others stationed nearby.