Car bomb hits officials in deep South:

Suspected insurgents, blending in with some 300 village headmen and officials, set off a car bomb near the venue of a monthly meeting in Sukhirin district yesterday.

Seventy people were hurt in an attack police said was meant to inflict maximum damage.

At least 12 of the victims were in critical condition. A woman had been reported as dying from the explosion, but authorities said she was still fighting for her life at Sukhirin Hospital.

The homemade explosive was packed inside a fire extinguisher weighing about 50 kilograms and placed inside a....