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India, Pakistan hope to resolve disputes

NEW DELHI, India - Taking a hopeful step toward ending a standoff between their nuclear-armed militaries, India and Pakistan agreed Friday to hold talks on settling a half century of disputes that have drawn them into three wars.

The opening comes ahead of a visit to the region by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and both sides indicated the trip helped bring them together.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is 78 and ailing, suggested he wanted to cap his career with a peace agreement.

"This round of talks will be decisive, and at least for my life, these will be the last," he told India's Parliament.

In a first step, Vajpayee announced he was sending an envoy to Pakistan and was ready to resume air links.

Pakistan also said it wanted to hold talks and restore ambassador-level relations severed in late 2001, but it did not respond immediately to the offer to again allow landing and overflight rights for civilian airliners.

"Things are moving very fast," Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, said in Islamabad. "Soon both prime ministers are going to see each other."

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the renewed contacts "very, very promising."

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials said Friday they had thwarted an al-Qaida plot to use an explosives-laden small plane to attack an American consulate in Pakistan, but said the group remains interested in launching similar strikes in the United States.

One U.S. official said the plot in Karachi was in its late stages and, if successful, would have been devastating.

Authorities also said they had credible intelligence indicating that al-Qaida was trying to attack U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces working with governments in the Horn of Africa have captured al-Qaida members, Marine Corps. Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong, the deputy commander of Central Command in Tampa, said Friday.

It was the first public disclosure that the antiterror hunt in that region - including Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Yemen - had yielded results.

DeLong did not reveal any names but said the people captured were not among the terror network's most senior.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair's governing Labor Party suffered a blow and the embattled opposition got a boost in Britain's biggest test of voter opinion since a national election two years ago.

Results announced Friday from voting for more than 10,000 local council seats saw Labor lose more than 800 seats, while the opposition Conservative Party gained more than 500 and took 34 percent of the vote, according to the British Broadcasting Corp.

The third-party Liberal Democrats gained some 200 seats, taking 30 percent of the vote, the same as Labor.

Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said the Tory gains were a "spectacular victory."

"More and more people are recognizing that Conservatives provide better services and still manage to charge lower taxes - a fair deal for everyone," he said.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - Striking Nigerian oil workers Friday released the first of hundreds of people they have held for days on oil rigs - part of an agreement to free all the captives.

The release of the first hostage came after the Houston-based Transocean Inc. struck an accord with the strikers, who have demanded the reinstatement of fired workers and that they be transported to the rigs by helicopters, not boats.

More than 250 hostages - including 35 Britons, 17 Americans and two Canadians - have been held by since April 19 aboard four oil installations.

Paul Baker, of Britain, was the first foreigner flown to safety in Port Harcourt. He said he was selected to go first because his wife is pregnant.

"Everybody is fine onboard, they all just want to go home," Baker said.

Baker said he believed the rest of the hostages would be airlifted out during the next three days.

ROME - If all goes as planned this morning, Pope John Paul II will do something that was once a hallmark of his pontificate, but has been absent from his activities for more than eight months.

He will board a plane, bound for a foreign land.

He will not go far: Spain is his destination. He is scheduled to stay there for less than 31 hours. To accomplish only that much, he is expected to use, for the first time on a foreign trip, a hydraulic chair that a few Vatican officials refer to as the "electric throne," which raises and lowers him and spares him the effort of standing.

TWIN SURGERY: Guatemalan surgeons inserted a valve Friday to relieve pressure in the brain of a conjoined twin who was separated from her sister last year in a U.S. operation. Doctors said the operation on Maria de Teresa Quiej was successful. The valve replaces one removed April 15 because it had become infected.

PRISONERS RELEASED: Myanmar's military government said Friday it has released three prominent political prisoners who spent 14 years in prison. Tin Myint, Htay Thein and Zaw Min were freed in the past week.