World in brief

North Korea makes conciliatory gesture

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Saturday that it was "quite possible" to settle the international standoff over its nuclear weapons program if the United States allows for the existence of the communist regime.

The statement from Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry marked North Korea's first official comment on the prospects of six-nation nuclear talks since President Bush was re-elected.

"If the U.S. drops its hostile policy aimed at "bringing down the system' in the (North) and opts for co-existing with the latter, in practice, it will be quite possible to settle the issue," a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the North's official news agency, KCNA.

The two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have held three rounds of six-nation talks on the nuclear dispute.

A fourth round was slated for September but Pyongyang refused to attend.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - Frightened Westerners - many of them longtime residents of this former African economic success story - piled into buses, boats and planes Saturday as a French-run evacuation built, despite government promises to protect the expatriates from a surge of anti-foreigner violence.

As calm returned to the war-divided country, leaders redoubled efforts to resolve the crisis. But in a potentially ominous sign, President Laurent Gbagbo on Saturday appointed a hard-liner as new army chief of staff, replacing a popular, moderate general.

The new chief of staff, Col. Maj. Phillipe Mangou, was the field commander responsible for last week's air campaign in which Ivory Coast warplanes bombed a French military post, killing nine French peacekeepers and an American civilian, and plunging the West African nation into its current crisis.

France, the former colonial ruler, and other countries have flown out nearly 4,000 foreigners since Wednesday, embassy officials said, in what they expect will be one of the largest evacuations from Africa in post-independence times.

Most of those leaving are French, but they also include hundreds of Americans, Britons, Dutch, Spaniards and Lebanese. Private companies have evacuated another 470 of their employees.

Gbagbo's office issued a statement late Friday urging foreigners to stay, saying it was taking steps to assure their safety. But many Westerners were skeptical of the assurances.

"I can still hear the crowd screaming," said Monique Philippe. "Many houses were looted and burned."

MAKHACHKALA, Russia - A suspect in a 1999 apartment-building bombing that killed 64 people and helped trigger Moscow's renewed military campaign in Chechnya was brought to Russia on Saturday after being arrested in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, authorities said.

Magomed Salikhov is suspected of helping organize the attack in the Dagestani city of Buinaksk, one of four apartment-house blasts that Russian authorities cited as a reason to renew their military campaign in Chechnya.

Salikhov was detained in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, on Friday, Dagestani police spokeswoman Anzhela Martirosova said. A date for his trial had not been set.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - More than 100 journalists have been killed since January, making 2004 the most deadly year for journalists in a decade, an international media rights group said.

The slayings of three journalists in recent days in Ivory Coast, Nicaragua and the Philippines pushed this year's total to 101, the International Federation of Journalists said.

The organization recorded 83 killings of media staff in 2003 and 70 in 2002. The most deadly year since the organization began compiling annual reports in 1988 was 1994, when 115 were killed.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A mosque in southeastern Netherlands was destroyed by fire Saturday in what appeared to be the latest suspected attack against an Islamic site since the killing of a Dutch filmmaker critical of Islamic fundamentalism.

Theo van Gogh was killed by a suspected Muslim extremist Nov. 2 in Amsterdam. There have been more than 20 fires or incidents of vandalism at Muslim buildings and a handful of retaliatory attacks on Christian churches since then.

There were no injuries when flames engulfed the Helden Islamic Mosque Foundation in the southern province of Limburg, police spokesman Peter Raaij said. Investigators suspect arson.

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