Main news of April 8

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

* Seven people were killed and 21 wounded after unknown assailants opened fire on a bus with pilgrims at a checkpoint on the border between Lebanon and Syria, Lebanese newspaper Daily Star reported on Sunday.

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left again for Cuba on Saturday night to continue radiation therapy treatment.

* North Korea is preparing for a third underground nuclear test, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Sunday, referring to intelligence officials.

* Leonid Tibilov, the former head of South Ossetia’s KGB, led the runoff presidential vote in the republic on Sunday with 54 percent of the ballots, his campaign staff said.

RUSSIA

* Communists in the Volga city of Ulyanovsk went on an indefinite hunger strike to protest against plans to establish a NATO transit base in Ulyanovsk airport, the regional branch of Russia’s Communist Party said on Sunday.

* Moscow police allowed dozens of opposition activists to hold an improvised rally on the Red Square on Sunday, but detained protesters who tried to pitch a tent by the Kremlin walls.

SPORTS

* FC Tomsk are a step closer to relegation after Otar Martsvaladze came off the FC Krasnodar bench to score one goal and set up a second in a 3-1 defeat for the Siberians on Sunday.

* The United States has reached its first Davis Cup semifinal since 2008 after overcoming a France team led by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gilles Simon in Sunday’s quarterfinal tie.