World in brief

100 die, dozens missing as Dominican storm spawns flooding

JIMANI, Dominican Republic - Floods unleashed by torrential rains swept through a Dominican Republic farming town, killing about 100 people and leaving dozens missing, officials said Monday.

Bodies caked with mud were piled in a hospital's makeshift morgue in the western town of Jimani near the Haitian border. A reporter for the Associated Press estimated there were about 100 bodies.

Officials said about 150 were missing since a river flooded a town neighborhood early Monday. Only mud with hunks of lumber sticking out and a trail of clothes remain where dozens of houses once stood.

WASHINGTON - U.S. specialists have recovered from North Korean soil 19 sets of remains believed to have been American soldiers killed in the war in 1950, the Pentagon said Monday.

The remains will be repatriated Thursday to U.S. officials in Seoul, South Korea, driven across the Demilitarized Zone that has separated North and South Korea since the Korean War. Later they will be flown to the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for positive identification.

Twelve of the 19 sets of remains were recovered near the Chosin Reservoir and are believed to have been soldiers from the Army's 7th Infantry Division, which fought Chinese forces in November and December 1950.

A second team of U.S. specialists recovered seven sets of remains in Unsan County, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. This was the site of battles involving the Army's 1st Cavalry and 25th Infantry divisions in November 1950.

HAVANA - Stores selling everything from cigarettes to refrigerators for dollars reopened Monday, two weeks after Cuba's communist government abruptly shut them down to raise prices because of U.S. measures squeezing the island's economy.

The government imposed price increases of up to 25 percent for alcohol, 22 percent for gas and 15 percent for electrical goods in the island's 5,000 dollar-only stores. The opening of the stores and the price increases were announced in a front-page article in the Communist Party daily Granma.

WASHINGTON - The United States is committing an additional $60-million in aid to Haiti, bringing the total for the year to $160-million, the State Department said Monday.

The additional money will be used to send advisers to Haiti's government ministries, train the Haitian national police and help cover a budget gap that Haiti's interim government inherited. The funding will also support electricity generation, jobs programs, humanitarian assistance and economic development.

BRUSSELS - France said Monday it could not accept references to God and Christianity in a European Union constitution.

France and Belgium have been most opposed to religious references in the charter, while Italy and Poland, backed by Pope John Paul II, want the charter to acknowledge Christianity's role.

"I think the text as is, is a balanced one," said French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said. "The text already includes a mention to heritage."

The 25 EU foreign ministers set down for a new session of negotiations, one week after talks failed to narrow deep differences over a constitutional draft, which should be finalized by a June 17-18 summit.

An American civilian employee of the U.S. European Command was found dead Monday, apparently a homicide victim, in a Liberian hotel room, the military said.

Lt. Col. Derek Kaufman, a European Command spokesman, said the death in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, was being investigated. "Authorities initially suspect the individual was the victim of a homicide," Kaufman said in Stuttgart, Germany.

The individual belonged to a team that was in Monrovia to assess the progress of reconstruction of Liberia's security system. The team was dispatched under the peace accord that followed the resignation last August of warlord President Charles Taylor and ended Liberia's 14-year civil war.

MALAWI: Former President Bakili Muluzi's hand-picked successor, Bingu wa Mutharika, was sworn in Monday, as opposition supporters waged running street battles with police.

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