CARIBBEAN

STREET GANGS ATTACK AID CONVOYS IN GONAIVES

GONAIVES, Haiti – They mob aid convoys, break into homes to steal food, and shoot anyone who gets in their way. Street gangsters have put aid workers squarely in their sights and are subjecting weary storm survivors to life-threatening delays in getting food and water.The failure of Haiti’s American-backed government to disarm gangs, including the Cannibal Army that started the revolution that ousted President Aristide, has created a climate of insecurity that jeopardizes lives after the calamity visited on Gonaives by Tropical Storm Jeanne.

“Things are very bad here. People are insecure, and we have to fight for everything,” said Rony Coq, 30, a member of a gang called the Bottle Army because its members fling bottles at enemies.

Mr. Coq’s gang operates in Cassolet, a maze of concrete slum homes that was mired in up to 5 feet of mud yesterday – 10 days after Jeanne. Officials say more than 1,500 people died in the storm and some 900 are missing, many of whom are presumed dead.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

LEBANON: SYRIA HAS PULLED BACK 3,000 TROOPS

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Some 3,000 Syrian soldiers have withdrawn from Lebanon in recent days, a senior Lebanese army official said yesterday, in a redeployment of troops ahead of a U.N. Security Council review of Syria’s military presence in its smaller neighbor.

Syrian troops began vacating positions September 21. Military convoys headed from areas near the coast toward the Syrian border in the Bekaa Valley. Witnesses confirmed statements by Lebanese officials that troops had crossed into Syria and not just redeployed inside Lebanon.

A senior Lebanese military official said yesterday that “some 3,000 Syrian soldiers have returned to Syria in the past few days.” That would leave an estimated 15,000 Syrian soldiers deployed in Lebanon, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

DIPLOMATS: NO SIGNS OF NUCLEAR ACTIVITY AT IRAN SITE

VIENNA, Austria – Initial tests of soil samples have disclosed no signs of nuclear activities at a site in northern Iran that America says Tehran could have used to run secret uranium enrichment programs, diplomats said yesterday.

However, the diplomats, on condition of anonymity, warned that the investigation of the Lavizan Shiyan site was not complete.

“We have still not looked at all results” of environmental sampling, one diplomat said.

The State Department earlier this year said Mr. Lavizan had undergone a complete dismantling and razing as part of an attempted nuclear cover-up.

American officials cited commercial satellite photography as showing major dismantling of buildings and said top soil had been removed from the site as part of attempts to hide nuclear experiments meant to make weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity by Iran. Tehran maintains its program is meant to generate electricity, but America claims it is a weapons program.

– Associated Press

OFFICIALS DOWNPLAY FLU FEARS AFTER DEATH IN THAILAND

GENEVA – The World Health Organization downplayed fears yesterday over the spread of bird flu from one human to another, suggesting it was likely a “dead-end” transmission that scientists have seen before. WHO’s comments followed reports from Thailand that officials had confirmed that a woman who died of the virus probably got it from her daughter.

Still, countries must remain vigilant because lab tests could show that the deadly H5N1 virus has mutated, said Klaus Stohr, head of WHO’s global influenza program. A mutated version – basically a combination of bird and human flu viruses – might spread easily from person to person, raising the specter of a global outbreak.

“In the past the H5N1 virus has always been transmitted from poultry to humans,” Mr. Stohr told reporters. “What is less well known is that in the past there has also been some inefficient, unsustained, dead-end-street transmission between humans,” he said. In those cases, the virus jumped from one person to another but was defeated by the second person’s immune system before it spread any further.

– Associated Press

NORTH AFRICA

SUDAN WARNS OF TRIBAL WAR IF MILITIA PURSUED

KHARTOUM, Sudan – A top Sudanese official yesterday defended an accused ringleader of Arab militia attacks on African villagers as a legitimate tribal leader and warned any attempt to go after such men could ignite warfare that would tear the country apart.

Separately, the U.N. refugee chief said Khartoum has agreed to a stepped-up U.N. civilian role and possible expansion of an African Union monitoring team in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where 19 months of conflict have left more than 50,000 dead and uprooted 1.4 million. The American State Department has named Sheik Musa Hilal and six other Sudanese as suspected coordinators of the government-allied Janjaweed, the Arab militia largely blamed for the violence in Darfur.

But Sudan’s state minister for foreign affairs defended Mr. Hilal as a prominent tribal chief. Mr. Hilal “has nothing to do with the Janjaweed. He is a tribal leader, of a very big, very significant tribe,” Minister Najeib el-Kheir Abdelwahab said in an interview.

– Associated Press

WEST AFRICA

FIGHTERS THREATEN ARMED STRUGGLE IN OIL REGION

LAGOS, Nigeria – Rebel fighters trying to wrest control of the oil-rich Niger Delta threatened yesterday to launch a “full-scale armed struggle” on petroleum-pumping operations in Africa’s largest crude oil producing nation, urging foreign oil workers to leave the region. A military spokesman, however, called the threats “empty.” Major oil companies played the warnings down, saying they won’t seriously affect exports and issuing no orders to staff to pull out. The threats, nevertheless, helped push world oil prices to historic highs of $50 per barrel yesterday.

“Any part of Nigeria, wherever we have the opportunity to strike any target, we will strike,” said rebel leader Moujahid Dokubo-Asari, who heads the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force.

– Associated Press