■ Mexico
Grenade blast sparks rescue
Authorities sped nine members of a Guatemalan family across the Mexican border for emergency surgery after a group of children accidentally detonated a live grenade, a hospital official said on Friday. Four children were playing with the explosive in their home in the mountain community of Las Palmas, 100km from the Mexican border in the Guatemalan province of Huehuetenango. The grenade eventually exploded, injuring the children and four adults in and around the house, said Bruno Ley, director of the general hospital in Comitan, near the Guatemalan border.
■ Germany
Stasi files to go public
Germany has decided, in agreement with the US, to make public former East German state police files once held by the CIA, the federal office supervising the Stasi archives said on Friday. The files were loaded onto CD-ROM discs by the CIA foreign intelligence agency at the beginning of the 1990s as part of operation "Rosewood." They reportedly contain the code names and real identities of 317,000 agents and details of some 77,000 Stasi operations. Head of the archives Marianne Birthler said the files would help explain more about the activities of former East German spies in the West.
■ Italy
Immigration laws adopted
Italy moved to douse a flaming row within its center-right coalition on Friday when the government adopted four decrees aimed at cracking down on clandestine immigrants. The question of illegal immigration has threatened to provoke a crisis within Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition, just as Italy prepares to take over the rotating EU presidency for the next six months starting on Tuesday. The Northern League, the coalition's most right-wing and xenophobic party, has demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, saying he failed to implement legislation aimed at stemming illegal immigration. The new decrees will permit implementation of the law, passed last year, which makes it possible to deport clandestine migrants before they set foot on Italian soil and restrict entry only to those with a work contract.
■ Russia
Moscow eyes Qatar deal
Moscow is hoping that Qatar will agree to extradite top radical Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev to Russia, a spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry said yesterday. "We hope that the government of Qatar will react in an appropriate manner to the UN Security Council resolution," which included the Chechen leader on a blacklist because of his alleged links to al-Qaeda and the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, said Alexander Yakovenkox. Yanderbiyev was placed on the UN list on Thursday.
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