WEST AFRICA

DOZENS ARRESTED AFTER DISARMAMENT PROGRAM

MONROVIA, Liberia – Armed U.N. troops arrested dozens of men yesterday in a sometimes bloody conclusion to a countrywide disarmament program, days after a fresh burst of violent in the war-battered West African nation.

In one neighborhood, about 80 men and boys lay on the ground surrounded by U.N. Ghanaian and Nigerian peacekeepers after one of several U.N. raids. Their ragged clothes were bloodstained and their wounds bleeding from what they said was the violence of their arrests. U.N. forces said the men had been firing weapons and intimidating residents. Gunfire blasted across the area, at least some of them warning shots from U.N. peacekeepers sweeping sites for arms.

Bangladeshi U.N. troops searched vehicles for weapons at checkpoints across the capital, Monrovia, while Nigerian U.N. forces patrolled in vehicles with mounted machine guns. Yesterday stood as the deadline for civilians to surrender weapons under a U.N.-supported disarmament program, launched in December 2003 after the end of the latest of nearly 1 1 /2 decades of civil wars here.

– Associated Press

EASTERN EUROPE

CHECHEN WARLORD WARNS OF MORE CIVILIAN TARGETS

MOSCOW – Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for last month’s Beslan school hostage-taking, warned yesterday that he was ready to fight Russia for a decade and insisted civilians remained a fair target.

But Mr. Basayev also said the rebels would observe “international law” if Russia also made such a commitment. The Chechens have accused the Russians of human rights violations and war crimes. “If Putin doesn’t want peace, we’ll wait until he leaves or if we can we’ll send him directly to hell,” Mr. Basayev said in an interview published onChechenpress.com, a Chechen Web site. “Five years of war have gone quickly, another five or ten years will go just as fast.” Mr. Basayev has claimed responsibility for some of the most audacious terror attacks inside Russia, including the September 1-3 hostage-taking in North Ossetia, which left more than 330 people dead, half of them children. The Federal Security Service has offered a reward of $10.3 million for information that could help “neutralize” him.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

MUSEUM REBUILDS SEGMENT OF BERLIN WALL

BERLIN – Fifteen years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, a museum in the German capital unveiled a rebuilt segment of the Cold War barrier yesterday, defying criticism that the structure uses a painful piece of German history to create a tourist trap.

The rebuilt concrete barrier stands at the former Checkpoint Charlie border crossing, next to a field of 1,065 crosses that represent those killed as they tried to escape the former East Germany between 1961 and 1989.

Sergei Khrushchev, the son of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who spoke at a short ceremony, said the reconstruction was done on “a very appropriate place.” Last month, the House at Checkpoint Charlie Museum announced it would rebuild the concrete barrier using 120 slabs of the original wall collected from various sites by the museum’s late founder, Rainer Hildebrandt. The announcement brought criticism from some city leaders, who said there are already two city monuments to the wall.

– Associated Press

SOUTH AMERICA

VAZQUEZ WINS URUGUAYAN ELECTION

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Leftist candidate Tabare Vazquez declared victory in Uruguay’s presidential election yesterday after exit polls showed him surging past two rivals with a majority of the votes, apparently aligning this small South American country with a region wide political shift leftward.

Victory for the 64-year-old Vazquez, who would become the first leftist president in Uruguayan history, would add the nation to Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela as countries where leftist or center-left leaders came to power on public disenchantment with financial turmoil and with American-backed free-market economic policies. Mr. Vazquez has promised moderate policies, with an emphasis on helping the country’s poor.

“Uruguayans, let’s celebrate!” Mr. Vazquez, an oncologist and former mayor of Montevideo, shouted from a balcony last night, addressing thousands of chanting, cheering supporters in the capital. Both the CIFRA and Factum polling groups gave nearly identical figures of 51% for Mr. Vazquez of the Broad Front leftist coalition and 34% for runner-up Jorge Larranaga of the National Party. The exit polls did not give a margin of error.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

RESIDENTS SAY MARTIAL LAW IMPOSED ON CHINESE TOWN

BEIJING – Martial law has been imposed on a town in central China after rioting killed at least four people and injured an unknown number, local residents said today.

The violence erupted Friday in Langchenggang, a town in Henan province, according to residents contacted by phone. They said large groups of rioters fought with sticks and burned several houses. One resident said at least four people were killed. Residents could not confirm a report by the New York Times on its Web site that as many as 148 people had been killed and that the violence involved clashes between members of China’s ethnic Han majority and the Hui Muslim minority. “A lot of people were carrying clubs to fight. They set fire to several houses,” said a Langchenggang resident who would give only his surname, Liu. “Right now, there are lots of police.”

– Associated Press