In Brief

-- Associated Press

India-to-Israel Migration

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Dozens of people who profess Jewish ancestry were headed from India to Israel on Monday, the first such group to migrate after rabbinical leaders accepted them as descendants of one of the "lost tribes" of Israel.

The emigrants are members of the Bnei Menashe community in India's remote northeastern states of Mizoram and Manipur, and they trace their lineage to one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel exiled by an Assyrian empire 27 centuries ago.

Last year, rabbinical leaders converted them to Judaism and agreed to bring them to Israel. There are about 800 Menashe in Israel, most in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and 7,000 more in Mizoram and Manipur hoping to join them.

"Altogether, 218 people are coming. The first group is leaving on Monday," said Yarban Vatikay, spokesman for the Jewish Agency, an Israel-based group coordinating the migration. "The remaining will be brought in batches."

-- Reuters

Iranian Targets Azeri Writer

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An Iranian cleric has offered his house as a reward to anyone who kills an Azeri writer he says insulted the prophet Muhammad, the Fars News Agency in Tehran reported.

Last week, an Azeri court jailed journalist Rafika Tagi, who wrote an article in Azerbaijan's Senet newspaper illustrated by cartoons of Muhammad. The cartoons were originally published in Denmark and caused an outcry in the Muslim world earlier this year.

Tagi and the paper's editor were each jailed for two months.

"Whoever kills this Azeri writer who insulted the prophet Muhammad, I will give him my house as a reward," Ayatollah Morteza Bani Fazl was quoted as saying.

Ethnic Azeris make up about 25 percent of Iran's population of 70 million. On Sunday, 50 people gathered in front of the Azeri Embassy in Tehran, chanting slogans against the author, witnesses said. Police cordoned off the area.

-- Reuters