Athens  - Two people died after a tornado suddenly struck the western Peloponnese on Wednesday, causing extensive damage.

The two individuals were found dead after the car they were driving was thrown off a main road in Manolada, in the Hlia report after the tornado struck.

Reports said dozens of homes were damaged and electricity poles uprooted as the tornado struck a distance of more than 10 kilometers.

Baghdad  - A man belonging to the minority Yezidi religious sect was killed in northern Iraq, the Voices of Iraq agency reported Wednesday.

The body of the man was found in a field in the northern province of Nineveh, an area where in recent years numerous Christians and members of other religious minorities in Iraq had been killed by Islamic extremists.

Sana'a, Yemen  - At least nine African migrants drowned after they were forced at gunpoint by the traffickers transporting them to to jump from a boat off Yemen's southern coast on Tuesday, rescuers said.

The traffickers forced more than 90 passengers, mainly Ethiopians, to jump overboard as the boat neared the end of its trip off the southern Yemeni town of Ahwar on the Gulf of Aden, rescuers told German Press Agency dpa.

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San Francisco  - On March 24, 1989, a massive tanker captained by a man who had allegedly been drinking, sailed outside regular Alaskan shipping lanes and hit a reef, causing one of the worst environmental disasters in US history.

The Exxon Valdez, at the time one of the most advanced tankers in the world, split, spilling approximately 40 million litres of crude oil into the delicate and pristine Arctic environment of the remote Prince William Sound.