World in brief

N. Korea links arms, U.S. pullout

SEOUL, South Korea - Deepening its nuclear standoff with the United States, North Korea said today that it may insist on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea as part of a nuclear disarmament deal.

North Korea said it would push the new demands if the United States refused to drop its own demand that Pyongyang "completely, verifiably and irreversibly" dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.

North Korea frequently demands that the United States remove its troops from South Korea, but attaching them to the nuclear issue would also be a new move. The United States keep 37,000 soldiers in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

U.S. forces in Afghanistan use excessive force during arrests, mistreat prisoners in detention and commit other human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch charged in a report to be released today.

"In doing so, the United States is endangering the lives of Afghan civilians, undermining efforts to restore the rule of law in Afghanistan, and calling into question its commitment to upholding basic rights," the New York human rights group said in its report.

The group also said the Defense Department has not adequately explained at least three deaths of prisoners in U.S. custody, two of which were declared homicides by U.S. military doctors.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said U.S. forces are acting properly. He said the procedures used in the main U.S. detention facility at Bagram Air Base just north of Kabul had been changed.

ATHENS, Greece - Greeks on Sunday dumped the Socialist party that has ruled them for most of the last quarter-century, voting to bring in a new, conservative government just five months before the nation hosts the Summer Olympics.

Preliminary results from Sunday's vote in national parliamentary elections gave a comfortable lead to the right-wing New Democracy party of Costas Karamanlis. Late Sunday, the head of the governing Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement, George Papandreou, conceded defeat as his opponents flooded the streets of Athens waving flags and blaring their car horns. Karamanlis, a U.S.-educated lawyer, pledged to make a successful Olympics a priority.

The party of the Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider won regional assembly elections in his home province of Carinthia on Sunday, a result likely to give Haider renewed influence in Austrian politics.

Haider's Freedom Party took 42.4 percent of the vote, compared with just over 38 percent for the Socialist Party, according to final results. If Haider, known for anti-Jewish slurs and friendship with Saddam Hussein, can form a coalition with another party, he will become governor of the province.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday vowed to freeze oil exports to the United States and wage a "100-year war" if Washington ever tried to invade Venezuela.

The United States has repeatedly denied ever trying to overthrow Chavez, but the leftist leader accuses Washington of being behind a failed 2002 coup and of funding opposition groups seeking a recall referendum on his presidency.

Chavez accused the United States of ousting former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and warned Washington not to "even think about trying something similar in Venezuela."

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