French Researcher Released By Iranian Authorties

PARIS: Iranian authorities released a young French academic who was accused of spying on bail, the French presidency announced, after she spent six weeks in Tehran’s notorious Evin jail.

University teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss, 24, was arrested in Tehran on July 1 after taking part in post-election street protests.

She will now have to stay at the French embassy in Tehran while she awaits the verdict in her trial, which was heard on August 8. Her father Remi Reiss said the young academic was “very happy” after being freed and seemed well.

Russia Blast 7 Killed

Russia: A suicide bomber exploded a truck at a police station in Russia’s restive North Caucasus Monday, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens of others, officials said.

The attacker rammed into the gates of the local police headquarters in the city of Nazran in Ingushetia and detonated his explosives at the moment when police officers were lining up for a morning check, said Kaloi Akhilgov, a spokesman for the regional president.

At least seven people were killed and 25 others were wounded, said Alexei Titarenko, a spokesman for the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry’s branch in southern Russia. The attacker apparently died in the blast, but officials wouldn’t immediately confirm that.

The police building was on fire and nearby apartment buildings were also damaged by the powerful blast, local officials said.

The suicide attack dents Kremlin claims to be restoring peace to the impoverished North Caucasus region after years of war.

Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya to the west, and other provinces in the region have been roiled by shootings, bombings and other attacks targeting police and government officials.

Ingushetia’s Kremlin-appointed president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was badly wounded in June’s bombing and hasn’t yet returned to his duties.

While large-scale fighting from the two wars that ravaged Chechnya since 1994 has ended, militants continue to mount hit-and-run attacks and skirmishes. Bloodshed has surged in recent months and increasingly spilled into Chechnya’s neighbors.