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World News Quick Take

■ Malaysia
Group protests Iraq war
A small group of protesters gathered outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur yesterday to mark the Iraq war's fourth anniversary. About 200 people massed outside the embassy, reading out anti-war speeches and holding up posters and banners denouncing Washington's decision to invade Iraq. The government opposes the war, and has urged Washington to seek a peaceful resolution to conflicts in the Middle East.

■ Afghanistan
Journalist reportedly freed
Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo has been freed after two weeks in captivity, the Italian news agency ANSA reported yesterday. ANSA reported from Kabul that Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi gave the news by telephone that the veteran 52-year-old journalist for La Repubblica had been freed. A La Repubblica employee earlier said that the paper had "learned that the journalist has been freed," but deputy editor Mauro Bene later said it did not have confirmation. The Italian Foreign Ministry also could not confirm the report, spokesman Pasquale Ferrara saying: "We'll consider him free when he's safely in Italian hands." Ahmadi said that tonight was the deadline for the Taliban's demands to be met, including a date for the withdrawal of Italian troops and the release of two Taliban spokesmen being held by authorities.

■ Sri Lanka
Navy sinks unflagged ship
The navy sank a ship believed to be ferrying arms and ammunition to separatist Tamil Tiger rebels off the east coast, the military said on Sunday. Patrolling naval vessels spotted a ship off Arugam Bay, 322km east of Colombo early yesterday, an official at the Defense Ministry's media center said on condition of anonymity, citing policy. He said the ship was not flying a flag and when contacted by the navy gave false details about the ship and refused permission for a search. The navy destroyed the ship after it fired at naval vessels, the official said.

■ New Zealand
Mud flow hits North Island
A potentially lethal mix of mud, acidic water and rocks tore down the slope of Mount Ruapehu yesterday, emergency officials said, but there was no immediate threat to life. The mud flow -- also known as a lahar -- broke through a rubble wall atop the mountain's crater lake at 10:47am yesterday, triggering an alarm, the Horizon Regional Council said. Dave Wakelin, a senior officer with the Conservation Department, said that a "moderate lahar" was flowing down the mountainside, on the North Island. There are no settlements in the path of the flow. Police and civil defense workers immediately closed roads round the southern base of the mountain.

■ Japan
Tokyo presents Pasmo card
Tokyo introduced yesterday a computer chip-embedded travel card that lets residents use more than 100 train and bus lines with a single swipe. Until yesterday, travelers in the metropolis had to juggle multiple cards and tickets to navigate a network run by a collection of operators. But the new Pasmo card lets users ride most buses and trains in the metropolis, regardless of operator, by touching the cards on an IC chip reader.

■ France
Anti-nuclear protests held
Thousands of people filled the streets of five cities on Saturday to protest plans to build the next generation of nuclear reactors -- fuel-efficient but seen by anti-nuclear activists as a relaunching the country's nuclear energy program. Organizers put the number of protesters in Rennes at 30,000 to 40,000 -- a figure that could not be officially confirmed. The collective Get out of Nuclear put the number in Lyon and Toulouse at 10,000 and claimed another 5,000 protesters in Lille, in the north, as well as in the eastern city of Strasbourg.

■ Serbia
Police raid terror camp
Police said on Saturday they discovered the training camp of an alleged Muslim terrorist group in a tense southern region, and arrested four Serbian Muslims. In a statement, the police said they found several tents and a cave that allegedly served as a training ground for the Wahhabis -- an austere brand of Sunni Islam promoted by al-Qaeda organization. The camp was located on a mountain near Novi Pazar, in the center of the predominantly Muslim region of Sandzak along the border with Bosnia and Montenegro, police added.

■ Poland
Teachers protest
Some 10,000 teachers marched in downtown Warsaw on Saturday, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Roman Giertych, whom they accuse of failing to keep promises of raises and of harming the education system. The protesters, organized by the left-wing Union of Polish Teachers, chanted slogans and blew whistles as they marched by the Education Ministry, parliament and the office of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. They carried banners that read "Zero Tolerance for Giertych" and chanted "Giertych is stupid." Giertych is also deputy prime minister and leader of the conservative League of Polish Families.

■ Nigeria
Military conducts raids
Troops raided several villages in the outskirts of the country's main oil industry center of Port Harcourt in search of gunmen said to be responsible for a spate of hostage-takings targeting foreign oil workers, a military spokesman said. Several arrests were made and illegal weapons recovered during the raids on Saturday on the Okrika and Ogbakiri districts just outside Port Harcourt, said Major Sagir Musa, spokesman for the military task force charged with security in the troubled oil region. "These areas are notorious for kidnapping of oil workers, so we're basically trying to flush out the militants and recover illegal arms," Musa said.

■ Spain
Pamplona demonstrates
Some 75,000 people demonstrated on Saturday in Pamplona, capital of the northern region of Navarra, against what the right-wing opposition Popular Party claims is a move by the Socialist government to unify the Basque and Navarra regions. The Popular Party rally was the latest group to protest alleged secret negotiations to reach a peace deal with the armed Basque group ETA, whose political wing recently made the proposal. The Socialist government in Madrid denies the accusations and says Navarra's position as one of 17 semiautonomous regions is guaranteed by the Constitution. ETA has killed more than 800 people in its campaign for Basque independence.

■ United States
Woman keeps rats as pets
Marylou Morin of Bangor Township, Michigan, has no use for mice, but she thinks their bigger cousins make great pets. That's right, domesticated rats. And her dog likes them, too. Morin, known as the "rat lady," has babied rats for about eight years, ever since her daughter brought home a lab rat named "Wicket" from Western Michigan University. The 450g white male rat with pink eyes would fall asleep in her lap while she watched television. The preschool teacher lets them crawl all over her.

■ United States
Bodies recovered from ship
Authorities in Key Largo, Florida, on Saturday recovered the bodies of two divers from a sunken US military ship off the Florida Keys. The bodies of Jonathan Walsweer, 38, and Scott Stanley, whose age was not known, had been trapped in the USS Spiegel Grove, authorities said. The body of a third diver, Kevin Coughlin, 51, was recovered on Friday. The men, all from New Jersey, were exploring the wreck on Friday and attempting to venture inside, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said. The USS Spiegel Grove serves as an artificial reef, and is one of the most popular diving spots off the Florida Keys.

■ United States
Target lets Muslims choose
Muslim cashiers at some local Target stores who object to ringing up products that contain pork are being shifted to other positions, the national retailer said on Saturday. Some Muslim cashiers had declined to scan products such as bacon because doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs. They would ask other cashiers to ring up such purchases, or some customers scanned the items themselves. Minneapolis-based Target Corp has offered the cashiers the option of wearing gloves, shifting to other positions or transferring to other stores.

■ United States
Police face shooting charges
Two police officers in New York City face manslaughter charges, and another faces a misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge for their roles in the 50-bullet barrage that killed an unarmed black man on his wedding day, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The officers were indicted on Friday. Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora, who fired 31 and 11 shots respectively, were facing felony manslaughter charges, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the indictment is sealed. The grand jurors were instructed to consider several possible charges against five officers involved in the death of Sean Bell, who was shot while leaving a bachelor party at a nightclub.

■ Mexico
Police arrest commanders
Hundreds of federal police and soldiers surrounded the headquarters of Tabasco's state police and arrested top current and former commanders in a raid apparently linked to an assassination attempt against the state's public safety secretary. The federal officers disarmed police at the state public safety headquarters at Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco located 655km east of Mexico City, and arrested three top state police commanders there, in addition to two other former commanders detained elsewhere. The Saturday raid -- in which 350 federal police and about 150 soldiers disarmed state police -- followed a March 6 shooting attack in which retired General Francisco Fernandez Solis was wounded and his driver killed.

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