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World in brief

Gunfire disrupts peace speech

By wire services
Published June 23, 2005

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank - Gunmen in a refugee camp opened fire Wednesday, disrupting a lecture from the Palestinian prime minister about the need to end violence. The brazen shooting highlighted the difficulty of his task.

"This country needs order, needs quiet," Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia shouted, repeating a theme he has pressed for weeks. But even as he spoke, gunfire rang out, startling Qureia and putting his bodyguards on high alert.

Associated Press Television News footage showed militants angrily waving their weapons as Qureia's security guards - their rifles trained on the gunmen - stood at the windows of the building where the prime minister was speaking in the Balata camp next to the city of Nablus. "Don't listen to them. Don't be scared, don't let these gunmen run the show," Qureia implored his audience.

After the speech, gunmen opened fire again and set off an explosion about 300 yards from his convoy. No one was injured. Qureia was whisked away.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities said Wednesday that they had detained and were questioning a British citizen allegedly linked to extremist groups involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Amer Haykel was detained this week in Todos Los Santos, near the tip of Baja California, following an investigation and an exchange of information with the U.S. government, the Mexican federal attorney general's office said in a statement.

The statement, issued late Tuesday, said that U.S. authorities had linked Haykel to groups tied to the 9/11 attacks, but it did not say whether he was facing criminal charges. It also did not say whether authorities believed he was involved personally in the Sept. 11 attacks or in other suspected terrorist activities.

On Wednesday, Mexico's attorney general's office said officials were trying to determine Haykel's legal status. He was being held in Mexico City by immigration authorities.

TEHRAN, Iran - In a last stand of street rallies, Iran's proreform groups roared back into the presidential race Wednesday with their most potent weapon: warnings that victory for an Islamic ultraconservative will erase years of social and economic gains.

The messages were driven home in demonstrations on the last day of campaigning as activists sought to turn out every vote. "Religious fascism is coming!" they shouted.

"We should not be frozen in the past," read a huge banner for Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, a self-styled progressive who has become a rallying point for liberals in Friday's runoff election.

The alliance forming behind the 70-year-old Rafsanjani is not so much about his policies or personal appeal. It stems more from fear of his opponent: Tehran's hard-line mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the momentum of his surprise No. 2 finish in last week's first round of polling.

MOSCOW - An attempt to launch the world's first solar sail spacecraft fizzled when a booster rocket failed less than two minutes after liftoff, showering debris over the Arctic Ocean, the Russian space agency said Wednesday.

The Cosmos 1 vehicle, a joint Russian-American project, was intended to show that a so-called solar sail can make a controlled flight. Solar sails are envisioned as a potential means for achieving interstellar flight, allowing spacecraft to gradually build up great velocity and cover large distances.

But the Volna booster rocket failed 83 seconds after its Tuesday launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, the space agency said.

[Last modified June 23, 2005, 00:47:00]