World in brief

Britain issues its 1st stem cell cloning license

LONDON - British regulators issued on Wednesday the country's first license to use cloning techniques to create human stem cells.

The one-year license was granted to researchers at the Newcastle Center for Life, in northern England, who hope to develop tissues that will treat diabetes, Alzheimer's and other diseases.

The license allows them to insert cell nuclei obtained from a patient's skin into human eggs from which the nuclei have been removed, a process known as therapeutic cloning. Stem cells created as the embryo grows can be converted to cells of the tissue type that the donor needs repaired.

Stem-cell research is controversial because the embryo must be destroyed to harvest the cells. A 2001 Bush administration decision limits researchers using federal funds to existing stem-cell lines. In July, the French Parliament banned human cloning for any purpose.

Three years ago, Britain became the first country to allow therapeutic cloning; Newcastle has won the first license. In February, South Korean scientists became the first to create a human embryo for therapeutic research.

TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya on Wednesday rejected a call from the United States for compensation for U.S. victims of a 1986 Berlin hotel bombing, a day after Tripoli signed a settlement for non-American victims.

German and Libyan officials signed a $35-million agreement Tuesday for 170 non-U.S. victims of the April 5, 1986, bombing in western Berlin. The attack killed three, including two U.S. soldiers, and injured more than 200.

Wounded Germans and the family of a slain Turkish woman were covered by the deal. Lawyers are seeking separate compensation in U.S. courts for American victims.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Suspected rebel gunmen lined up and killed nine coca pickers Wednesday on a remote ranch in northeast Colombia, an official and a witness said.

The attack was carried out by Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, said Emilio Jimenez, a town council member from Pecheli, about 200 miles northeast of Bogota.

"They let some go and ordered the others to the floor and gunned them down," he told the Associated Press. He said rebels likely suspected the peasants of working for right-wing paramilitary fighters.

The FARC is locked in a struggle with paramilitary militias for control of the production of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine, in the Norte de Santander province. Both groups traffic drugs to fund their outlawed organizations. The FARC was blamed for killing 34 coca pickers at a ranch in June.

NAGUA, Dominican Republic - Migrants who survived on a small wooden boat for nearly two weeks described on Wednesday how passengers died from dehydration on a journey that left 55 dead.

"A lot of people just jumped off," said Faustina Santana, one of 39 migrants who survived the journey. Eight of the 55 victims died shortly after their rescue.

The migrants' 30-foot boat was found by fishermen on Tuesday only about 30 miles from where it departed the village of El Limon on July 29. The Dominicans had set out for wealthier Puerto Rico in search of work or a better life.

Doctors were treating the 31 survivors Wednesday.

TURKEY TRAIN CRASH: A passenger train in northwest Turkey ignored a stop signal and rammed into an oncoming train Wednesday, killing six people and injuring 85, officials said. It was the nation's third deadly rail accident in three weeks. Rescue workers searched the wreckage near the village of Tavsancil in Kocaeli province, 50 miles east of Istanbul.

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