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Chirac endorses rival to succeed him

By TIMES WIRES
Published March 22, 2007

PARIS 

After holding out for months, President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday endorsed fellow conservative Nicolas Sarkozy's bid to succeed him, despite long and sharp personal and political differences between them.

Chirac also said Sarkozy would quit as interior minister on Monday to devote himself fully to the close race in which he is the front-runner.

Chirac kept praise for his former protege and later rival to a terse, two-minute televised declaration that spoke more of reason than of warmth. He cited Sarkozy's "qualities" without elaborating, adding: "Therefore, I naturally will give him my vote and my support."

France votes on April 22, with a runoff on May 6 between the top two vote-getters. Chirac, 74, only announced this month that he would not seek re-election.

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

2 sailors killed in blast on British submarine

An explosion aboard a nuclear-powered Royal Navy submarine under an Arctic ice cap killed two British sailors and injured a crew member, officials said Wednesday. The forward compartment of the HMS Tireless was damaged in the explosion at 8:20 p.m. local time Tuesday, but the British Ministry of Defense said its nuclear reactor was not affected. The attack submarine, which does not carry nuclear missiles, was conducting a joint exercise with U.S. forces when its air purification system malfunctioned while the vessel was submerged about 170 miles north of Deadhorse, in northern Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. According to the U.S. Navy, a self-contained oxygen generation candle exploded.

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

Grant independence for Kosovo, envoy says

Martti Ahtisaari, the U.N. envoy to talks on the future of Kosovo, has recommended that the region be granted "independence" from Serbia. It is "the only option for a politically stable and economically viable Kosovo," Ahtisaari wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. Ahtisaari, the U.N. chief negotiator for Kosovo for 13 months, had already recommended that the region be given the main symbols and assets of a sovereign state - a flag, an army and the right to seek membership in international institutions. But in the past he studiously avoided the word "independence," which U.N. officials considered too inflammatory for Serbia and its allies to be raised in the negotiation process. Russia is opposed to the Ahtisaari plan.

TOKYO

Japan suspends use of Tamiflu by teens

Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has issued an emergency instruction to suspend the use of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu in treating teenagers. The decision was made after two new cases were found in which teenage boys behaved abnormally after taking the drug. Although the ministry had insisted there was no safety problem related to Tamiflu, it decided to take the measure Tuesday upon receiving new reports of abnormal behavior. The ministry instructed Tamiflu's import-distributor, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., to add a warning that the drug should not, in principle, be administered to teenage patients.

NOVOKUZNETSK, RUSSIA

Families reel over mine blast toll

Emergency workers struggled with flooded caverns and flammable gas as they searched Wednesday for three miners missing after a methane blast in a Siberian coal mine that killed at least 107 people, and relatives filed grimly into a morgue to identify sons and husbands among those killed in Russia's worst mine disaster in a decade. Officials said water, gas and structural damage in the Ulyanovskaya mine was slowing the search for the missing men, while forensic pathologists said identification was difficult because bodies were badly burned, Russian news agencies reported.

DUSHANBE, TAJIKISTAN

Leader wants to drop Russian form of name

Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov says he wants to change his name to drop the Russian-style ending that was attached to last names of people from ethnic groups across the Soviet Union. "In Soviet times, our names were documented according to the rules of the Russian language," Rakhmonov said Tuesday at a meeting with Tajik intellectuals on the eve of a traditional celebration of the vernal equinox. "I want to return to traditions and change my name to Emomalii Rakhmon." After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, many Tajiks dropped the Slavic "-ov" and "-ev" endings that were added to their last names during the forced Russification of the Communist era.

JAKARTA, INDONESIA

Militants found guilty in girls' beheadings

Three Islamic militants were found guilty Wednesday of decapitating three Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia and dumping their bloodied heads in nearby villages, judges said. They were sentenced to between 14 and 20 years. The alleged members of the al Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network left a handwritten note close to the bodies of the teenagers, vowing more killings to avenge the deaths of Muslims in earlier sectarian violence on Sulawesi island. "Wanted - 100 more heads. ... Blood must be paid with blood, lives with lives, heads with heads," said Judge Lilik Mulyadi, reciting the letter's text.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

5 Taliban traded for journalist's release

Italy's deputy foreign affairs minister, Ugo Intini, confirmed Wednesday that the Afghan government released five Taliban prisoners to win the freedom of a reporter who had been kidnapped in lawless Helmand province. Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who writes for Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, was freed Monday after two weeks in captivity. His Afghan driver, who was also seized, was beheaded, and the fate of his translator is not known. "When we create situations where you can buy the freedom of Taliban fighters when you catch a journalist, in short term there will be no journalists anymore," the Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, said during a visit to Kabul on Wednesday.

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN

110 dead as militants, tribesmen clash

Fighting between Central Asian militants and local tribespeople in northern Pakistan intensified Wednesday, raising the toll to 110 people killed since Monday, government and security officials said. The fighting was taking place in the tribal area of South Waziristan, where Uzbek and Arab militants along with elements from the Taliban and al-Qaida have strengthened their grip over the last year. The outside militants, allies of the Taliban, took refuge in the region after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and have used it as a staging ground to fight U.S. and NATO forces across the border.

[Last modified March 22, 2007, 02:15:09]