■ Chechnya
Lawmaker wants peace
Liberal Russian lawmakers called Sunday for an end to abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya and for talks aimed at bringing peace to the region, where deadly violence has persisted despite the Kremlin's efforts to defeat rebels and enhance stability. Speaking during a weekly news show on TVS television, legislator Boris Nemtsov said Russian authorities should enter negotiations with armed separatists in Chechnya, an idea President Vladimir Putin has rejected. Pointing to two separate suicide attacks that killed a total of at least 78 people last week, he said Russia's policy of maintaining a massive military force in Chechnya has been ineffective.
■ Cuba
Lost men sail to Mexico
Five Cubans who built a boat in hopes of sailing to Florida got lost on the high seas and drifted for six days before landing on an island off Mexico's Caribbean coast. The men told Mexican immigration officials they packed three days worth of food and supplies and left the Bay of Pigs before dawn on May 12. But the currents changed, carrying the group west toward Mexico instead of north toward Cabo San Antonio and the US. Their food ran out on Thursday and the men followed a sea gull until Saturday morning when they spotted the lights of Isla Mujres, an island near the resort city of Cancun.
■ France
Crash survivors go home
Twenty six German tourists, still injured or in shock after their bus crashed in France killing 28 people, returned home Sunday amid reports that one of the companies that chartered the vehicle also organized a fatal trip to Hungary earlier this month. Another 20 people remained in a hospital in France, including five who were listed in a serious but stable condition. German regional authorities said 11 of the victims had been identified but French authorities said 18 of the dead had been identified. The accident happened when the bus veered off a motorway near Lyon in the early hours of Saturday, crashing down an embankment, rolling and crushing the sleeping victims. The double-decker bus appeared to have been travelling too fast while overtaking another vehicle.
■ Serbia
War crimes investigated
Posters of the Balkans' most-wanted war crimes suspect, former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, were posted late Sunday in downtown Belgrade, ahead of a visit by The Hague war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte. Posters with Karadzic's picture asking, "Is defence of your own people a crime?" were posted by an unidentified group. Del Ponte will visit Belgrade for a day of cooperation-related talks with high-ranking Serbia-Montenegro officials. Three of the most-wanted suspects are still at large.
Agencies
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