World in brief

Controversial choice for EU post steps aside

ROME - Italy's choice for a European Commission post, who sparked an uproar with his comments on homosexuality and women, said Saturday he will step aside.

Rocco Buttiglione said he wanted to give a free hand to incoming commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in forming a new executive. He made the announcement at a news conference a few hours after Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi indicated he was withdrawing Buttiglione as Italy's nominee for the justice commissioner post.

A committee in the European Parliament this month objected to Buttiglione's nomination for the EU justice post because of his conservative views.

Buttiglione, a Catholic who is confidant of Pope John Paul II, drew outrage when he told his confirmation hearing at the European Parliament that homosexuality is a sin and women are better off married and at home.

The new commission was to have taken office Monday. The executive arm of the EU runs the day-to-day business of the European Union and serves five-year terms.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban-linked militants threatened Saturday to execute three foreign U.N. workers kidnapped in Kabul unless British troops withdraw from Afghanistan and Afghan prisoners are freed from U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Armed men kidnapped the three - Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland, Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan and Shqipe Habibi of Kosovo - in Kabul on Thursday, stirring fears that Afghan militants were copying the bloody tactics of their Iraqi counterparts.

A spokesman for the Taliban splinter group Jaish-al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, said video of the hostages, all of whom were working on Afghanistan's landmark presidential vote, would be sent to an Arab television channel "in two or three days."

"If these countries don't agree to our demands, we will do the same thing as the mujahedeen are doing in Iraq," Ishaq Manzoor told the Associated Press by satellite telephone.

BANGKOK, Thailand - More than 1,100 Muslims detained after a riot were freed Saturday, as the government tried to ease anger in Thailand's restive south over the deaths of dozens of accused rioters - including 78 who perished in military custody.

The 78 Muslim detainees suffocated or were crushed to death when security forces piled them into military trucks along with more than 1,200 others.

At least seven others died during the riot, apparently shot by security forces.

In a nationally televised address Friday night, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra promised an independent investigation into the deaths.

In a bid to address growing anger over the deaths, the military said it freed 1,178 people Saturday.

However, 113 were kept in custody to be prosecuted, including those thought to be the ringleaders of the riot.

Violence continued Saturday in the troubled region. Two men riding to work in Narathiwat were fatally shot by motorcycle gunmen, and a former village headman in Yala province also was killed.

BUS ACCIDENT KILLS 28: A passenger bus plunged more than 650 feet off an isolated mountain highway in the Andes, killing at least 28 people and injuring 28 others, officials said Saturday.

The accident occurred just after dusk Friday near the town of Chuquibambilla, Peru, about 300 miles south of Lima, Dr. Jose Altamirano Rojas, a health official from the town of Abancay, told Radioprogramas radio.

Capt. Javier Bacayquipa, of Abancay's Fire Department, told the Associated Press that the number of fatalities had reached 28.

Twenty-eight others who suffered serious injuries were being treated in Abancay, about 34 miles south of the accident site.

Police said heavy fog may have contributed to the crash, which was still under investigation. Authorities said no foreign tourists were on the vehicle.

Bus crashes are common in Peru, where drivers frequently speed and pass vehicles along blind mountain curves.

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