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Plans for protests against Saudi royals flop

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Hundreds of security forces made a show of force in two Saudi cities Thursday to ward off any protests against the royal family, chasing a few would-be demonstrators in the streets and arresting several others, after a dissident called for a day of marches.

The London-based dissident Saad al-Fagih, head of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, had predicted "tens of thousands" of demonstrators would turn out in the capital, Riyadh, and the port city of Jiddah.

Such numbers did not show up, but the threats of defiance of the kingdom's ban on protests caused the government to deploy security forces,

In Jiddah, at least six people were seen being arrested and dozens in small groups were seen running from police. At one point, a volley of gunshots could be heard in an area where protesters were trying to gather. It was not immediately clear what happened.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - With hundreds of U.N. troops and Haitian police at the ready, government negotiators met Thursday with ex-soldiers who have seized the abandoned estate of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to demand the reinstatement of the army Aristide had disbanded.

Haiti's interim government has warned the rebels must leave the compound in Tabarre, on the outskirts of the capital Port-au-Prince, because it belongs to the state. But the men refuse to go.

PARIS - Col. Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan leader, takes credit for President Bush's re-election in an interview to be broadcast Friday on Italian television.

In what is being billed as Gadhafi's first televised interview since U.N. sanctions were lifted last year, the iconoclastic head of North Africa's richest nation told Giovanni Minoli of Italian state television's investigative news program We Are History that he was still waiting for the United States to reward him for giving up prohibited weapons.

He said that the move was responsible for Bush's election victory and that he now wanted the United States and other Western nations to provide Libya with nuclear technology for nonmilitary purposes. He said Iran and North Korea might follow his lead if they saw that Libya was compensated for its actions.

HAVANA - Cuban President Fidel Castro is back on his feet less than two months after breaking his left kneecap and right arm in a fall.

During a visit by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this week, Castro vigorously shook hands - with his right arm - and stood unassisted for several minutes at a time.