World in brief

India charges 4 in car blasts, suggests link to Muslims

NEW DELHI - Prosecutors in Bombay on Monday charged a married couple, their 18-year-old daughter and a man with carrying out the two car bombings in Bombay on Aug. 25 that killed 52 people, Indian news organizations reported.

Police officials said the blasts might have been the work of a group called the Gujarat Revenge Force, formed to avenge the deaths of at least 1,000 Muslims in Hindu-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat last year.

The four charged Monday under the country's strict antiterrorism laws were identified as Syed Muhammad Hanif Abdul Rahim, 45; his wife Fehmida Syed, 37; their daughter, Farheen Syed, 18; and Arshad Shafi Ahmed Ansari, 26.

Their suspected role in the bombings was unclear. Prosecutors said the four were arrested over the weekend based on an account given by a taxi driver. The bombs were planted in taxis.

BEIJING - The Chinese official who played host to six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program said Monday the United States was the "main problem" in reaching a diplomatic solution to the crisis, echoing the North's bitter assessment about why the talks had ended in acrimony.

Asked about the obstacles that had arisen during the talks in Beijing last week, Wang Yi, a vice foreign minister who was China's chief delegate at the negotiations, replied, "America's policy toward the DPRK - that is the main problem we are facing." North Korea's formal name is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Wang made the comment to reporters during a conference he was attending in Manila, and it was not immediately clear if he spoke for China's Foreign Ministry, which has sought to maintain a neutral position while urging both parties to continue negotiating.

But the remark might reflect frustration that the United States offered no concessions to North Korea during the talks, which were organized after extensive diplomacy by Chinese officials.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera launched an English-language Web site Monday, five months after hackers brought down a temporary site at the height of the Iraq war.

News coordinator Susi Sirri said the site aims "to fill a niche for English speakers who want to get the other side of the story, the Arab perspective."

A temporary version of English.aljazeera.net went online March 24 to cover the war but was soon brought down by hackers. The Arabic site also was unavailable for long periods during the war.

PARIS - France said Monday that Libya and the families of 170 people killed in the terrorist attack on a French airliner in 1989 had reached a tentative compensation agreement after a pledge by Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi to increase the payments.

"The basis of an agreement has been found," French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin told French RFI radio Monday.

De Villepin did not disclose details of the deal. His remarks followed a call Sunday by President Jacques Chirac to Gadhafi.

TOKYO - A paraplegic mountaineer headed up the lava-strewn slopes of Mount Fuji on Monday, pulling himself toward the summit in a bid to make the first such ascent of the 12,385-foot peak.

Keegan Reilly, 22, from Soldotna, Alaska, hopes to make the normally five-hour trip to the chilly summit in six days using a custom-made arm-powered, three-wheeled bicycle.

"For every four cranks, he goes 1 foot," said Gardner Robinson, editor of Outdoor Japan, one of the disabled climber's sponsors.

Reilly set off Monday morning from an elevation of 5,460 feet and scaled about 900 feet before camping on the rocky trail in a sleeping bag beneath a starry sky.

Accompanying him was an eight-member support team hauling 300 pounds of water and backpacks brimming with noodles and canned chicken.

TEHRAN, Iran - Tehran prosecutors on Monday rejected charges issued last month against two Intelligence Ministry agents in the slaying of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist.

An independent judge had charged the agents with complicity in Zahra Kazemi's "semi-premeditated murder." The photographer, 54, died July 10 after sustaining head injuries in custody.

In a statement Monday, Tehran's deputy prosecutor general, Jafar Reshadati, returned the indictments issued Aug. 25 against the agents and called for "further investigations" into the charges. The decision means no one is charged in Kazemi's death.

"DIRTY WAR' SUSPECTS: An Argentine judge ordered the release Monday of most of the 40 former military men being held on charges of murder and other crimes committed during the "Dirty War" of the 1970s and '80s, days after the Spanish government said it would not seek their extradition.

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