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Airplane crashes in Congo, killing 22

KINSHASA, Congo - A Soviet-made plane crashed Saturday in central Congo, killing all 22 people aboard, a Congo government spokesman said.

The Antonov 26 went down just after takeoff at the city of Boende, some 550 miles northeast of the capital, Kinshasa, government spokesman Vital Kamerhe said in Kinshasa.

Kamerhe and other government officials said they did not know whether the aircraft was carrying members of the military or civilians. The aircraft is used for passengers and cargo, according to the Aviation Safety Network Web site.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Northern Ireland's British governor said Saturday it was still possible to revive a Catholic-Protestant administration, despite the electoral triumph of a Protestant party opposed to the peace pact that proposed power-sharing.

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy, who was one of the key negotiators behind the landmark Good Friday accord of 1998, said the rise of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party would make the effort much more difficult - but not impossible.

"The agreement is not dead, because most people in Northern Ireland want it to work. I am not underestimating the difficulties, but I am not unhopeful that we can make progress," Murphy said.

Results from Wednesday's election to the Northern Ireland Assembly gave the Democratic Unionists 30 seats, up 10 from the last election in 1998. The Ulster Unionists - traditionally the major Protestant party - took 27 seats, down one.

Changes were almost as dramatic on the Irish Catholic side. Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party reviled by many Protestants, stormed ahead of its moderate rivals from the Social Democratic and Labor Party. Sinn Fein won 24 seats, up six, while the SDLP retained 18, down six.

Murphy said he planned to serve as an intermediary between Sinn Fein and Protestant leaders.