Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Headline Article Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 15:13:22 EST Message-ID: \SE A;TOP OF THE NEWS;WORLD \BY FROM WIRE DISPATCHES AND STAFF REPORTS S=NEW STORY Atrocity reports emerge from Caucasus MOSCOW - More than 36,000 refugees have fled ethnic warfare in southern Russia and reports have surfaced of widespread atrocities, including children who lost their ears and a 4-year-old girl whose tongue was cut out. President Boris Yeltsin yesterday relieved a deputy prime minister as head of the provisional government in North Ossetia, where at least 200 people have died in fighting in the past week. Georgy Khizha was replaced by Sergei Shakhrai, a former Yeltsin adviser. Mr. Khizha, who remains a deputy prime minister, said at a news conference that Russian troops now control North Ossetia, the Caucasus region where a territorial dispute has escalated into violence. The fighting between Ingush and Ossetia militants has been the worst ethnic outbreak on Russian soil since the Soviet Union collapsed. Several thousand Russian soldiers moved in last week to separate the warring sides. S=NEW STORY Brazil seeks release of reservation hostages RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's justice minister flew to an Indian reserve yesterday to try to negotiate the release of 81 hostages held by 2,000 Indians demanding the removal of settlers from their land. Mauricio Correa flew to Maranhao state in the northern Amazon, where the hostages are being held on a jungle highway. The Guajajara tribe demanded the meeting after rejecting promises made Sunday by National Indian Foundation officials to evacuate some 6,000 settlers from the 350,000-acre Canabrava reservation. S=NEW STORY Thai panel upholds amnesty for generals BANGKOK - A special Thai constitutional panel yesterday upheld an amnesty for generals who ordered the bloody army crackdown on democracy activists in May, but the decision is unlikely to end calls for punishment. "Those ordering the killing are still free," said Supat Hasuwannakit, secretary-general of the Student Federation of Thailand. At least 180 people are still listed as missing from the May violence. The panel said the new government of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai has no authority to order trials of those involved in the crackdown. The 10-member panel was convened after the House of Representatives unanimously rejected last month the amnesty granted by Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon before he resigned as unelected prime minister. S=NEW STORY Hong Kong business opposes democracy HONG KONG - A group of powerful local businessmen spoke out yesterday against Gov. Chris Patten's plan to increase democracy in Hong Kong, saying it won't help smooth the British colony's reversion to China in 1997. "To run the risk of developing a political structure which will be dismantled in 4 1/2 years' time is just not acceptable," said Vincent Lo, chairman of the Business and Professionals Federation. Mr. Patten last month unveiled a sweeping constitutional reform package to increase voter participation for the colony's 1995 elections. Opinion polls show most of Hong Kong's residents and lawmakers support the plan. S=NEW STORY New Japanese mayor will appeal to Clinton TOKYO - Mitsuyo Sawa strongly opposes construction of U.S. military housing in a nature reserve in her city. On Sunday, she won a hard-fought six-way election, becoming Japan's second female mayor. Mrs. Sawa, 51, got 40 percent of the votes in Zushi, a seaside community south of Tokyo. In her acceptance speech, she promised to visit Washington and appeal to President-elect Bill Clinton to help save the Ikego Hills nature reserve from development as a housing area for U.S. personnel at Yokosuka naval base. S=NEW STORY 2 Canadians seized for proselyting Turks ISTANBUL - Turkish police detained two Canadians who handed out Christian pamphlets in front of a mosque in Istanbul's crowded Lale district Saturday. The two were identified as Wilfred Gray, 48, of Picton, Ontario, and Rohm Bromley Robert, 39, of Niagara Falls, Ontario. They were taken into custody because of concern they would provoke a disturbance from Muslims. They will appear before the public prosecutor. S=NEW STORY Bikini islanders seek international checks MAJURO, Marshall Islands - A delegation of eight Pacific islanders left for Vienna yesterday to seek international help in cleaning up nuclear debris left over 23 American nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958. The delegation plans to ask the International Atomic Energy Agency to set up a laboratory on Bikini staffed by scientists independent of the U.S. government to monitor the health of islanders preparing to return home. In August, 14 years after the Bikini group was declared too radioactive for human habitation for at least 50 more years, U.S. scientists declared one islet in the chain safe. A similar announcement in the 1970s led to the return of about 100 islanders who found themselves exposed to high levels of radiation and had to leave again. S=NEW STORY Ex-mayor gunned down in Sicilian town square PALERMO, Sicily - The former mayor of the small agricultural town of Belmonte Mezzagno, 12 miles from Palermo, died in a hail of bullets in a central square yesterday in a Mafia-style killing. Salvatore La Rosa and his bodyguard were riddled with so many bullets that identification was difficult, police said. Mr. La Rosa, 44, was removed from office in 1983 on orders of the national anti-Mafia commissioner for suspected links with gang bosses. S=NEW STORY 6-week-old Swede assigned army tasks STOCKHOLM - Sandra is only 6 weeks old, but the army has already notified her that she will be assigned to drive an armored personnel carrier in case of war. She got the job last week, a few days after regional authorities sent her a reminder to renew her driver's license. "Someone obviously fed the wrong person number into the computer," an official said on Swedish radio. Sandra, whose last name was not given in the radio report, lives in the northern city of Boden, home to several military garrisons. Although they were a mistake, the notices illustrate the speed with which the Swedish system can match a new resident of a military town with a public task to perform in an emergency. S=NEW STORY Bluebeard wronged, say legal experts PARIS - More than 550 years after he was hanged and burned for the sexual abuse and murder of 150 children, the Frenchman who served as model for the legendary Bluebeard got another day in court yesterday and was cleared. A self-styled Court of Arbitration, including real magistrates and a former justice minister, found that Gilles de Rais, a top battlefield companion of Joan of Arc and one of the most powerful men of his time, was wrongly sentenced. The unrecognized court, meeting in the French Senate building, decided to appeal to President Francois Mitterrand to clear the name of Gilles, who was also sentenced for witchcraft, heresy and sodomy and executed in 1440 after a two-week trial. Yesterday's verdict said Gilles was sentenced on flimsy evidence, that torture was used to obtain confessions and that some of the judges who sentenced him gained financially from his downfall. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. 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