■ Germany
Avian flu sparks slaughter
German officials ordered the slaughter on Friday of 12,000 more chickens on farms close to the Dutch border in fear that H7, the avian flu that can infect humans, had spread. Nine birds on two farms in the Cleves district appeared sick, prompting an immediate kill order from the agriculture ministry of North Rhine Westphalia state. But laboratory tests of tissue from the nine birds showed later on Friday they had not been infected. Veterinary chiefs are jittery because the virus is highly infectious and inexplicably spreads over large distances. Nearly 100,000 head of poultry have been gassed and burned in the German state since the virus crossed the border from the Netherlands.
■ Kosovo
War-crimes charge dropped
UN authorities in Kosovo corrected themselves Friday, saying a person they arrested a day earlier was not being charged for war crimes as they had said initially, but for a double murder and attempted murder. "We want to emphasise he is not charged or investigated, as previously said, for war crimes," Andrea Angeli, spokesperson for the UN mission in Kosovo said. Angeli explained that Driton Kukaj was now being accused of participating in an ambush, in which a bodyguard to the mayor of the town Istog was killed along with a family member, and a third person escaped unharmed.
■ Zambia
President refuses executions
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has refused to sign execution orders for prisoners condemned to death because he is a Christian, a government spokesman said Friday. Home Affairs Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha said Mwanawasa informed him in writing that convicts on death row were now serving life sentences. They include over 50 soldiers involved in the October 1997 failed coup attempt. This is the first time a Zambian head of state has refused to sign execution orders. N'gande Mwanajiti, executive director of Inter African Network for Human Rights welcomed Mwanawasa's decision and called for the abolition of the death penalty in the country.
■ United States
Bungled raid kills woman
A 57-year-old woman died of an apparent heart attack after police detonated a flash grenade and handcuffed her during a raid on the wrong apartment. Alberta Spruill, a longtime city employee, was pronounced dead on Friday about an hour after a dozen heavily armed officers broke into her home at dawn. "We're deeply saddened," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "It's a tragedy. This should not have happened." An informant said that Spruill's sixth-floor Harlem apartment was being used by an armed drug dealer to stash cocaine and heroin, police officials said.
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