Berlin – A Mozart opera production canceled over security concerns because of a scene depicting the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad will be staged Dec. 18 and 29, the Deutsche Oper Berlin said Wednesday.
The opera company said last week it would return Hans Neuenfels’ interpretation of “Idomeneo” to its winter lineup, after a new police security assessment determined no “concrete danger” existed, but it had not announced the dates.
Opera head Kirsten Harms canceled four November performances following a vague security warning from police linked to a scene where the severed heads of Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha and Neptune are presented.
Neuenfels refused to have the scene cut from his interpretation of the 225-year-old opera, saying it represented a protest against all organized religion.
Addtional nation/world news briefs:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
Suicide bomber hits NATO convoy; 2 hurt
A suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, wounding two soldiers and damaging a vehicle, while a NATO airstrike killed three suspected insurgents in the east.
British Gen. David Richards, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan, said he doesn’t have enough forces to defeat the Taliban within the next six months, but they can still make “sufficient improvements” to keep Afghans confident in the government and international community.
LONDON
2 brothers released in airliner bomb plot
Two brothers charged in an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners were released Wednesday after a British court ruled the evidence against them was insufficient to warrant a trial.
Umair Hussain, 25, and Mehran Hussain, 23, had been accused of failing to disclose information about their brother Nabeel Hussain, 22.
Nabeel Hussain is one of 11 people charged with conspiracy to murder and preparing acts of terrorism in the plot, which police said they foiled in August. He was granted bail Friday, along with a 17-year-old suspect who cannot be named because he is under age.
District Judge Quentin Purdy ordered the brothers freed during a hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court, meaning they no longer face any charges.
NEW ORLEANS
$405 million budget proposed by mayor
Mayor Ray Nagin proposed a $405 million city budget Wednesday that would increase spending on crime fighting, parks and youth programs in the hurricane-battered city.
The proposal doesn’t include increases in either taxes or fees.
It depends on $214.1 million from other revenue sources, including loans, plus $68.2 million from property taxes and $122.8 million from sales taxes.
Before Hurricane Katrina flooded the city in August 2005, New Orleans’ general fund budget was $471.7 million.
That fell to $346.6 million in fiscal year 2006 because so many homes and businesses that made up the city’s tax base had been damaged or wiped out.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
“Costumed” ex-inmate goes trick-or-treating
A jail went into lockdown and recounted its prisoners on Halloween night after a man was spotted trick-or-treating in an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit.
“Bad choice of costume,” said Susan Tolchin, chief adviser to Westchester County executive Andrew Spano.
Oscar Aponte, a former inmate of the jail, was taking his daughter trick-or-treating in Peekskill on Tuesday night when a county corrections officer – also out trick-or-treating with her child – spotted the familiar jumpsuit, Tolchin said.
“She confronted him, and he ran and drove off,” Tolchin said.
The officer took down the man’s license plate and called authorities.
The jail went into lockdown until a prisoner count established that no one was missing.
Tolchin said prisoners are not permitted to take their jumpsuits home when they are released. Aponte was jailed from May to September for violating probation on a drunken-driving charge.
