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World in brief

Baby saved by dog has offers of adoption

By wire services
Published May 11, 2005

NAIROBI, Kenya - Offers to adopt a newborn girl found among a litter of puppies after being abandoned are pouring in to the Kenyan hospital where she is being treated, and the stray dog credited with her rescue has a home and a name: Mkombozi or "Savior."

As police searched for the infant's mother, a government spokesman expressed some skepticism Tuesday about the story of the dog's role in saving the child, dubbed Angel by hospital workers, and said authorities were investigating. No specifics were given.

Mary Adhiambo, a resident of the compound where the dog lives, said Mkombozi apparently found the baby Friday wrapped in a plastic bag in the Ngong Forest.

The dog reportedly dragged the baby across a busy road and through some barbed wire to a shed in the poor Nairobi neighborhood where puppies from two stray dogs were sheltering.

Well-wishers from Kenya and as far as the United States have sent e-mails to the Associated Press and called the country's main hospital to inquire about adopting the child.

For Canada's Tories, another try, another balk

TORONTO - Prime Minister Paul Martin narrowly lost a vote Tuesday in Parliament over his party's mushrooming financial scandal, but the minority government refused to resign, provoking a political standoff and predictions of new elections before long.

Opposition parties said the vote requires Martin's government to call an election immediately, but the prime minister said the vote was not a legally binding vote of confidence and he would not dissolve the government.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Two U.S. soldiers detained and accused of attempting to sell ammunition to Colombian right-wing paramilitary groups have been flown to the United States, where they were placed in custody, officials said Tuesday. Warrant Officer Allan N. Tanquary and Sgt. Jesus Hernandez, who have diplomatic immunity within Colombia, were flown to the United States on Friday and placed in custody of the Defense Department, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said.

JERUSALEM - The Palestinian and Jordanian governments on Tuesday recommended withdrawing recognition of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Jerusalem, a victory for rebel clergy seeking to oust him over his role in a contentious land deal.

The decision of Jordan, which is still regarded as the custodian of Jerusalem holy sites, needs final approval from King Abdullah II but is expected to seal the fate of Patriarch Irineos I. The patriarch's supporters said he would accept the king's decision.

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will make no further apologies for dictator Josef Stalin's secret World War II pact with Hitler that led to the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states, declaring it "a closed issue."

Putin said Moscow was ready to reach border agreements with Estonia and Latvia if the two countries, which gained independence after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, approach talks in a "mature" fashion, without "foolish preconditions." The Red Army occupied and annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940 after Stalin signed an infamous nonaggression pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939.

[Last modified May 11, 2005, 12:08:50]