CANADA

 

Disabled submarine headed for Scotland

 

HALIFAX - As a disabled Canadian submarine was towed slowly to Scotland, preparations began Friday for the funeral of the first Canadian submariner to die on duty in a half-century. Weather permitting, the submarine was expected to reach the port of Faslane, Scotland, on Monday at the earliest. The diesel-power sub was rendered helpless in the North Atlantic on Tuesday after a major fire tore through electrical cables on two decks and left nine crewmen suffering from smoke inhalation. Three of the 57 sailors aboard were evacuated from the sub by helicopter Wednesday. One of them, Lt. Chris Saunders of Halifax, died, while the other two remain in an Irish hospital. RUSSIA

 

Trial begins for 3 in school hostage case

 

MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors opened a criminal negligence case against three top-ranking police officers in the southern region of Ingushetia in connection with the seizure last month of more than 1,000 hostages in a school in neighboring Beslan, police said Friday. The three Ingush officers were accused of negligence, North Ossetian Interior Ministry spokesman Alan Doyev said. A case had already been opened against two police officers in North Ossetia, where Beslan is located, Interfax quoted Deputy Russian Prosecutor Nikolai Shepel as saying. THAILAND

 

Five nations agree to cut caviar export

 

BANGKOK - The five Caspian Sea nations that produce about 90 percent of the world's caviar have agreed to cut their exports of the gourmet fish eggs in an effort to stabilize the industry and promote sustainable supplies. The agreement was announced Friday by the secretariat of the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. Representatives from the 166-member nations met in Bangkok to revise the rules on the trade of flora and fauna. "Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan have agreed to reduce their caviar export quotas significantly for this year," said a CITES news release. The trade in Caspian Sea caviar was halted for a period in 2001 due to high levels of poaching and illegal trade in the area. MEXICO

 

Agent arrested in '75 kidnap case

 

MEXICO CITY - Federal agents arrested a former government security agent Friday on charges of kidnapping a leftist rebel in 1975, the second former official to be arrested in the disappearance of Jesus Piedra. Juventino Romero Cisneros, a former agent of the Federal Security Directorate - an intelligence agency dissolved in the 1980s - was arrested on a warrant from a special prosecutor's office in the northern town of Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon. Romero Cisneros will be brought before a judge to face formal charges in the April 1975 kidnapping of Ibarra, a member of a leftist urban guerrilla group who was never seen after again after his abduction. FRANCE

 

Indonesia Embassy blast injures nine

 

PARIS - France tightened security around its embassies Friday after a bomb outside the Indonesian Embassy slightly injured nine people in a predawn explosion that shattered neighborhood windows and puzzled police. It was the first such bombing in nearly a decade in Paris and the first known attack since 1975 on Indonesian interests outside that country. French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said a "bomb of medium strength" exploded outside the embassy in Paris' exclusive 16th district, not far from the Eiffel Tower. Investigators were treating with deep skepticism an e-mailed claim of responsibility from unknown senders who called themselves the Armed French Islamic Front, judicial officials said. GUINEA-BISSAU

 

President to open talks with soldiers

 

BISSAU - The president of Guinea-Bissau, Henrique Rosa, said he was ready to negotiate with dissident soldiers who killed two army chiefs in a mutiny over pay after they pledged that the violence was over. "I appeal to the population to remain calm and confident because I have received guarantees from the mutineers that everything is over and that nothing more is going to happen in Guinea-Bissau," Rosa said in a statement late Thursday. The impoverished former Portuguese colony on West Africa's Atlantic coast has been unstable since a bloody army revolt in 1998. Wednesday's uprising was the fourth outbreak of violence in as many years. CUBA

 

Tibunal reviewing prisoners' cases

 

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE - A U.S. military review tribunal began hearing the cases Friday of six prisoners held as enemy combatants to determine whether they should be freed or continue to be detained under the same status. The tribunal reviewed five cases Thursday including that of a Saudi detainee accused of training at a terrorist camp to fight in Chechnya and Kashmir who rejected most of the allegations against him. The so-called Combat Status Review Tribunals are meant to determine whether some 550 men at Guantanamo should be freed or are held properly as enemy combatants, a distinction that affords fewer legal protections than prisoners of war. Only four of the suspects have been formally charged. Wire reports