■ Costa Rica
Cocaine submarine seized
US Coast Guards have seized a submarine carrying 3.5 tonnes of cocaine in the Pacific Ocean off Costa Rica and arrested three Colombians on board, the Costa Rican Coast Guard said on Sunday. The submarine appeared to be a makeshift vessel unlike military submarines or those used by oceanographers. It could only submerge 2m under water, Costa Rican Coast Guard spokesman Jose Antonio Fallas said. The 14m long vessel was found last Wednesday near the remote Coco Island, southwest of the Central American mainland.
■ United Kingdom
Goldsmith favors limits
The attorney general said yesterday that he was not convinced of the need to hold terrorist suspects for up to 90 days without charge -- a key goal of his close ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair. Lord Goldsmith was asked by reporters at a briefing whether there was evidence to support increasing the limit to 90 days. "Well, I haven't seen it yet," he said. "The recent investigations demonstrate that it was right to extend the period to 28 days, but on extending it any further we need evidence to demonstrate that that is needed."
■ United Kingdom
Kissinger down on Iraq war
Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said in an interview on the BBC's Sunday AM program. Kissinger said that the US government must enter dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors, including Iran, if any progress is to be made in the region. "If you mean, by `military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," Kissinger said. But he warned that a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops could destabilize Iraq's neighbors and cause a long-lasting conflict.
■ Germany
Gunman wounds eight
A masked man stormed a high school in the northwest yesterday and opened fire with a handgun, injuring eight people. Police said the incident ended with the death of the assailant. It was not immediately clear how the man died, but police spokesman Klaus Laackmann said the school had been cleared and the students taken to safety. N-tv television reported the assailant was an 18-year-old former student of the Geschwister Scholl school in Emsdetten. Police spokesman Josef Brinker said the man entered the school at about 9:30am and fired several shots. Several students, a female teacher and the head caretaker were injured, he said.
RSS