■ UNITED STATES
Navajos win royalties suit
A federal appeals court handed the country's largest Indian reservation a victory in a long legal battle over claims that the government and a coal company conspired to cheat the Navajo Nation out of millions of dollars in royalties. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Thursday that the federal government failed to uphold its trust duties to the Navajos. "After 14 years of litigation, it's extremely gratifying that a distinguished court of appeals has embraced the position that the Navajo Nation has taken and has ensured that trust responsibility is not simply a catch phrase, but it has some real meaning," said Paul Frye, an Albuquerque, New Mexico, lawyer who represented the tribe in the case.
■ CANADA
Bomb suspect arrested
Authorities have arrested a fourth suspect in connection with an online threat against Austria and Germany, officials said on Thursday. The arrest was made in the Mauricie region of Quebec on Wednesday, Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia said. Royal Canadian Police Corporal Sylvain L'Heureux said Said Namouh, 35, was charged with "conspiring for the purpose of delivering, placing, discharging or detonating an explosive in a place outside Canada." L'Heureux said police didn't know where Nomouh and the other suspects planned on detonating the explosive, but said there was no direct threat and that no explosives were found.
■ SUDAN
Government backs ceasefire
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said yesterday his government was willing to observe a ceasefire in Darfur from the start of peace talks next month. "We have given our government's willingness for a ceasefire from the start of the peace talks," he said, speaking through a translator at a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Peace talks are due to start on Oct. 27 in Libya between Khartoum and rebel groups to end more than four years of violence in Darfur.
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