World in brief

Chileans to deploy in rebel-held area of Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Chilean troops are preparing to take up posts in central Haiti, extending the peacekeeping presence where as many as 400 rebels still hold sway, a military spokesman said Monday.

Haiti's interim leaders, meanwhile, met with former members of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government to form a council that will organize 2005 elections.

Some 3,600 peacekeepers from the United States, France, Canada and Chile are trying to help Haiti's meager police force, after hundreds of officers fled amid a three-week popular rebellion that ousted Aristide on Feb. 29.

To extend the peacekeepers' reach into areas of rebel control, Chilean troops will deploy next week to Hinche, a central town of 100,000 that straddles a strategic crossroads, said Chilean military spokesman Lt. Col. Renato Rondanelli.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The top American general in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, said Monday that Pakistan had successfully disrupted al-Qaida's network in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and significantly affected its ability to support the Taliban insurgency across the border.

In an interview in the Afghan capital, Barno commended the Pakistani military for its "bold moves" against foreign fighters in the Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan in March and said it had so far prevented an anticipated spring offensive by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

MANCHESTER, England - Ten people were arrested on suspicion of terrorism in police raids in this northern British city and other parts of the country Monday as authorities also searched a number of buildings and businesses.

Greater Manchester police said the 10 were taken into custody "on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism."

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Whatton said the suspects were of North African and Iraqi Kurdish origin. Seven were arrested in Manchester and three elsewhere in central and northern England.

The scale of the operation reflected apprehension, voiced by senior security officials in recent weeks, that Britain faces the threat of a terrorist attack on the scale of the railroad bombings in Madrid on March 11. Britain is the single biggest non-American contributor of forces to the United States-led campaign in Iraq and has been closely identified with the war on terrorism.

EU REFERENDUM: Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce today that he will submit any European Union constitution that emerges this year to the British electorate in a referendum, a reversal that surprised political allies and rivals.

BEIJING - The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, and President Hu Jintao of China discussed the international crisis over North Korea's nuclear program over lunch here on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. It was the beginning of an unannounced four-day visit by the reclusive North Korean leader.

The meeting, in China's main government compound in central Beijing, came less than a week after Vice President Dick Cheney made the North Korean crisis a central focus of his visit to Beijing. Cheney told Hu that the United States remained committed to a series of six-nation talks sponsored by China but that the process must begin to show "real results."

The visit has been shrouded in the sort of secrecy that Kim has made a trademark. China's Foreign Ministry would not confirm that Kim was in Beijing, and the official Chinese news organizations made no mention of the meetings. Kim entered China on Sunday by train and arrived in Beijing on Monday morning.

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