WESTERN EUROPE

BIRD FLU KILLS QUARANTINED PARROT IN BRITAIN

LONDON – The British government said yesterday that a strain of bird flu that killed a parrot in quarantine is the deadly H5N1 strain that has plagued Asia and recently spread to Europe. Scientists determined that the parrot, imported from South America, died of the strain of avian flu that has devastated poultry stocks and killed 61 people in Asia the past two years.

– Associated Press

EASTERN EUROPE

KACZYNSKI CLAIMS VICTORY IN POLISH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

WARSAW, Poland – Warsaw’s mayor, Lech Kaczynski, claimed victory in Poland’s presidential runoff vote yesterday after exit polls showed he had the lead following a campaign in which he stressed traditional Catholic values and the need for welfare protection. Pro-market legislator Donald Tusk conceded defeat. Full results were expected sometime today.

– Associated Press

PERSIAN GULF

SUICIDE CAR BOMB, INSURGENT ATTACKS KILL 20 IRAQIS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – An insurgent blew up his car in Baghdad yesterday, killing four people. More than 20 Iraqis died in a swell of violence, including a bomb that killed a police colonel and four children. Roadside bombs hit three American convoys in Baghdad yesterday, wounding five soldiers, U.S. Sergeant 1st Class David Abrams said.

Also yesterday, investigative judges took testimony from the first witness in the mass murder trial of Saddam Hussein and seven members of his former Baathist regime over the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail. The judges took the deposition from Wadah Ismail al-Sheik, a cancer patient who was director of the investigation department at Saddam’s Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time of the Dujail massacre.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

U.S., BRITAIN CALL FOR ACTION AGAINST SYRIA ON HARIRI CASE

BEIRUT, Lebanon – America and Britain called yesterday for an international stand against Syria in the wake of a U.N. report that implicated Syrian officials in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Syria countered by discounting the report as an American plot and began a diplomatic drive to explain its position. The American-British call for action, in a joint BBC interview by Secretary of State Rice and Britain’s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, underlined the growing pressure on Syria as it faces possible action by the U.N. Security Council later this week.

– Associated Press

WEST AFRICA

NIGERIAN CRASH LEAVES NO SURVIVORS

LAGOS, Nigeria – A Nigerian passenger plane carrying 117 people crashed Saturday night shortly after takeoff from Lagos and Red Cross and government officials said yesterday that all aboard were feared dead. The State Department said one American was on the flight.

President Obasanjo, grieving for his wife who died in Spain within hours of the crash, asked “all Nigerians to pray for all those aboard the plane and their families.”

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

BURMA IGNORES 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF SUU KYI’S INCARCERATION

BANGKOK, Thailand – For Aung San Suu Kyi, today marks a decade in detention. She is being held under house arrest at her home in Rangoon, Burma. Ms. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in 1990 but the military junta never allowed it to take power. A report commissioned by a former Czech president, Vaclav Havel, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu has urged the U.N. Security Council to take action against Burma, but it has yet to consider the issue. No commemorations are likely in Burma, where the regime ignores Ms. Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

– The Daily Telegraph