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World News Quick Take

■ Pakistan
Musharraf praises Vajpayee
President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that he believed India's prime minister was a "man of peace" and there were a number of solutions to the disputed territory of Kashmir. Musharraf, speaking to a breakfast meeting with reporters at the World Economic Forum, said, "we have taken a big step forward" in setting the stage for negotiations between the two nuclear rivals. He declined to give details about the solutions to the conflict that he had in mind, but was full of praise for his Indian counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee. "I find him to be a man of peace. I find him to be a very balanced leader. I give him credit for his boldness." He said that the two sides would have to show "flexibility" and "boldness."

■ Vietnam
Call for reconciliation
Former South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky, back in Vietnam after a 29-year exile in America, has dropped his vitriolic anti-communist rhetoric and is calling for peace and reconciliation. "I think it's the right time for all Vietnamese to talk about reconciliation, about healing," the 73-year-old Ky said Friday in an exclusive interview. Ky, one of the most high-profile figures from the Vietnam War, was making his first homecoming trip since the war ended in 1975. He arrived in Ho Chi Minh City last week with his wife and daughter, saying it was "the right moment to come." He traveled north to Hanoi on Friday.

■ Indonesia
Boat capsizes in storm
Rescuers are searching for 12 missing passengers after a boat carrying 35 people capsized during stormy weather in central Indonesian waters, leaving at least three people dead, a port official said yesterday. A pregnant woman was among those who died when the Cantika sank in high waves early this week only 50km west of Taliabu port in North Maluku province, said Abraham Lestusa, a port official in Ambon, the former provincial capital. He said the other 20 passengers have been rescued in the region about 2,500km northeast of Jakarta. Rescuers are still searching for 12 missing passengers, although they are feared dead, he said.

■ Australia
Police bust theft operation
Police celebrated their cleverness yesterday after arresting dozens of thieves in a sting operation that saw them lure criminals to a bogus pawn shop set up in the New South Wales town of Wollongong. Assistant Police Commissioner Terry Collins said that the scheme not only netted more than 3,000 stolen items but again proved the link between burglary and drug addiction. "There's little doubt that most people do break-and-enters and property theft to feed their drug habit, and we have to keep looking for innovative ways to intercede in that and break up the network, and this has been one example of how we've managed to do that," he told Australia's ABC Radio.

■ The Philippines
Eighth most-wanted arrested
Authorities early yesterday in the central Philippines arrested one of the suspected kidnappers who was on the government's 10 most-wanted list. Renaldo Cacho, who carried more than US$10,000 bounty on his head, was captured by agents of the anti-kidnapping task force in a village in western Samar, 630km south of Manila. The National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force said that Cacho ranked "eighth" in its list of the 10 most-wanted kidnap-for-ransom syndicates in the Philippines.

■ United States
`Fat' slur haunts Bloomberg
The widow of Dr. Robert Atkins went on national television Friday to demand that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologize for calling the late diet guru "fat." Veronica Atkins told the ABC television network that she was "sick and tired of my husband being always maligned and his life's work being trivialized." The mayor apparently thought he was off camera when he made the comment while eating pasta at a photo op at a firehouse earlier this week. Using an expletive to express doubts about the details of Atkins' death, he said Tuesday, "I mean, the guy was fat."

■ Libya
Nuclear evidence submitted
Libya has handed UN inspectors drawings of a nuclear weapon, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in the most concrete sign that the North African nation was serious about building such arms. "We have been shown nuclear weapons drawings that the Libyans have in their possession," Mark Gwozdecky, chief spokesman for the UN nuclear watchdog agency, said Friday in Vienna. "We have put those drawings under our seal, and they are secure." Asked about the significance of the drawings and the IAEA's announce-ment that it had them, a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "It's the first time anyone has acknowledged" that Libya entertained intentions of building such a weapon.

■ Brazil
Lula shuffles Cabinet
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva brought a key centrist party into his government on Friday in a Cabinet reshuffle which should boost his political power and strengthen social policies ahead of local elections. The changes in the one-year-old center-left government, which included the creation of two new ministerial posts and involved nearly a third of the Cabinet, should help Lula forge ahead with reforms. Lula told his new ministers he expected them to work 24 hours a day "so that we can make the changes that Brazil so badly needs."

■ Georgia
New leader takes oath
Georgia's president-elect planned to launch his inaugural weekend yesterday with a deeply symbolic exercise, taking a spiritual oath beside the grave of a king who ruled at a time of power and prosperity nearly 1,000 years ago. Mikhail Saakashvili, the young and energetic anti-corruption crusader who was elected this month after leading protests that brought down longtime president Eduard Shevardnadze in November, is to be sworn in today in the capital, Tbilisi, his hand on the constitution.

■ Iran
Terror suspects to be tried
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his government planned to try 12 al-Qaeda suspects now in detention in Iran. "It's in the process," he said in Davos, where he was attending the World Economic Forum. Asked when the trials would begin, he replied: "That's not in my hands." He said Friday that the identities of those to be tried "has not been announced." The US said the Iranian plan was not acceptable to Washington. "We have long made it clear that we believe that Iran should turn over all suspected al-Qaeda operatives to the United States or to countries of origin or third countries for further interrogation and trial," US State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said Friday.

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