WESTERN EUROPE

ROUGH WEATHER HAMPERS RESCUE OF SUBMARINE LONDON – British ships battled through rough weather yesterday to reach a Canadian navy submarine with 57 crewmembers on board that was drifting in the Atlantic after an electrical fire that officials said was more severe than originally thought.

A British frigate pulled alongside the HMCS Chicoutimi and dropped off medical staff to help treat crewmen who suffered from smoke inhalation.

“This was a major fire,” said Commodore Tyrone Pile, commander of the Canadian Atlantic Fleet, adding the fire damaged the commanding officer’s cabin and an electrical equipment room on a separate deck. The vessel – one of four secondhand subs that Canada recently purchased from Britain – was drifting in heavy seas toward Ireland and it was unlikely its engines could be used to steer the boat to shore, Commodore Pile said.

The diesel-powered submarine, which was on its maiden voyage as a Canadian vessel, sent out a distress call Tuesday after an electrical fire broke out on board. Britain’s Royal Air Force sent a search-and-rescue helicopter to the sub, some 115 miles northwest of Ireland. Nine of the 57 crewmembers suffered minor smoke inhalation, Canadian officials said. They did not need to be evacuated, and the vessel surfaced safely, although its engines were shut down as a precaution.

– Associated Press

NORTH AFRICA

SUDAN AMBASSADOR CHALLENGES U.S. TO SEND TROOPS TO DARFUR Sudan’s U.N. ambassador challenged America to send troops to the Darfur region if it really believes a genocide is taking place as the American Congress and President Bush’s administration have determined.

Elfatih Mohamed Erwa was asked Tuesday about the effect of the American “genocide” designations when both Mr. Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry ruled out sending American troops to end the 19-month conflict in their debate Thursday.

“If it is really a genocide they should be committed to send troops,” the Sudanese ambassador said. “This is why I don’t think they’re genuine about its being genocide.”

Would American troops really be welcome?

“I won’t say that I welcome them because I don’t have the authority to say that, but if they want to do that, let them talk to us,” Mr. Erwa said.

American Ambassador John Danforth, when told that Mr. Erwa raised the possibility of discussing the deployment of American troops, said: “I’ve never heard of such a thing before. It’s certainly an attention grabber.”

“It’s a curious idea, but I don’t think it has a future,” he said.

– Associated Press

CARIBBEAN

ARMED MEN THREATEN TO BEHEAD FOREIGNERS IN HAITI Enraged supporters of ousted President Aristide armed themselves with machetes, guns, rocks, and bottles and roamed a downtown slum, threatening to behead foreigners after U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police arrested dozens of people yesterday.

As gunfire crackled and two helicopters roared overhead, peacekeepers in armored personnel carriers moved into Bel Air, trying to put down a campaign by Mr. Aristide’s loyalists who have carried out gory beheadings in imitation of Iraqi insurgents. Yesterday morning, the headless body of a man lay in the street in La Salines, a seaside slum. Last week, three police officers were decapitated when Mr. Aristide supporters stepped up protests demanding his return from exile in South Africa, launching what they called “Operation Baghdad.”

One angry man in Bel Air thrust a gun into the face of an Associated Press reporter yesterday, yelled expletives against President Bush and U.N. peacekeepers, then screamed: “We are going to kidnap some Americans and cut off their heads.”

At least 19 people have been killed in Port-au-Prince. Relief workers say the violence could paralyze attempts to feed tens of thousands of people in the northwest port city of Gonaives, which was devastated by Tropical Storm Jeanne last month.

– Associated Press

WEST AFRICA

SOLDIERS REVOLT IN GUINEA-BISSAU BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau – Soldiers recently back from a U.N. peacekeeping mission and angry over unpaid wages staged a revolt in this tiny, impoverished West African nation yesterday, killing the armed forces chief of staff and another senior officer, officials said.

Most troops returned to their barracks after nightfall, and the country was reportedly mostly calm throughout the day. Talks among the renegades, the government, and lawmakers broke up after several hours yesterday but were due to resume later, Portuguese state radio’s African service RDP-Africa reported.

The rebellious troops killed the armed forces chief of staff, Verissimo Seabra, and the army spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Domingos Barros, said Antonio Carneiro Jacinto, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Portugal, Guinea-Bissau’s former colonial ruler. He could provide no further details of the killings.

Seabra won international notoriety for briefly declaring himself president after a bloodless coup he led in September 2003 that overthrew then-President Yala. Soldiers have repeatedly risen up against civilian authorities in recent years. Consecutive presidents were ousted in a 1998-99 civil war and last year’s coup, while an attempted military coup was put down by loyalist troops in 2001.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

CAMBODIA’S KING ANNOUNCES ABDICATION PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – The king of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, has announced his abdication, the head of the National Assembly said today.

The king, who is currently in Beijing, made the announcement in a letter that was read to the National Assembly early today by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, head of the assembly and the king’s son. The news “was shocking and very regretful,” Prince Ranariddh said. The announcement leaves Cambodia without a king, but the acting head of state is Chea Sim, president of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

In Cambodia, the successor will have to be chosen by a nine-member throne council, which has yet to be created. The monarch is not selected according to heredity, but the candidate must have a royal bloodline.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL AFRICA

CONGO’S MYSTERY KILLER COULD BE A NEW TYPE OF APE An elusive new species of great ape, known to locals as the “lion killer,” may have been discovered in remote forests of the Congo.

The creatures are far larger and more aggressive than normal chimpanzees and have provoked much debate among experts. Some believe that the lion killers are a previously unknown species and should join the other great apes: the chimp, bonobo, gorilla, and orangutan. But others say they are unusually aggressive chimps with odd gorilla-like characteristics. Legends of lost apes of the Congo basin go back more than a century and inspired the 1980 novel Congo by Michael Crichton. In the 1990s, Karl Ammann, a Swiss photographer, traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to track them. Locals told him about giant apes with a reputation for killing lions, New Scientist magazine reports today. Their ridged skulls were typical of gorillas but they behaved like chimps, and unlike either they made permanent nests.

– The Daily Telegraph