World briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2001

El Salvador survivors need food, shelter

TEPETITAN, El Salvador -- Their adobe houses in ruins, residents of this village sought drinking water and food Thursday and prayed the ground would stop trembling.

Many went to nearby rivers to wash clothes or draw water for cooking. A lucky few got a ration of drinking water from the Salvadoran Red Cross.

"We're out of everything, water, milk for my son," said Silvina Hernandez, who was carrying 1-year-old Miguel on her arm.

She was among 3,000 town residents in San Vicente province who suffered losses from Tuesday's 6.6-magnitude earthquake that left at least 276 dead. Government officials say they fear another 39 were buried by landslides.

The small Central American nation was struck by a magnitude-7.6 earthquake on Jan. 13 that killed at least 844 people.

Foreign aid has begun pouring into El Salvador, but international agencies say they need more help.

In San Vicente Thursday, a 65-member delegation from the Mexican army, including several doctors, set up a field hospital.

Cuban diplomat killed in Mexico City robbery

MEXICO CITY -- A Cuban government official was shot to death in Mexico City on Thursday, apparently after resisting a robbery attempt, the Mexico City prosecutor's office said.

The victim -- identified as Boris Valdez Lopez, 36, by the Cuban government news agency Prensa Latina -- was shot to death shortly after leaving the Cuban Embassy in the Polanco neighborhood about 1 a.m., Mexican officials said.

The prosecutor's office said he was an embassy employee. Prensa Latina identified him as a diplomat who arrived in Mexico Feb. 10.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry offered condolences to the Cuban government and Valdes Lopez's family, and it said it would help return the body to Cuba.

Polar explorers will not continue ice-shelf trek

MINNEAPOLIS -- Hampered by lack of wind, two polar explorers who crossed the Antarctic land mass on skis decided Thursday not to try to continue the trek across the rest of the Ross Ice Shelf.

For safety reasons, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen plan to have a plane pick them up instead of skiing and parasailing across 470 miles of the ice shelf to McMurdo Station. Too much wind elsewhere, however, was keeping their plane from leaving the Chilean side of Antarctica, said Charlie Hartwell, president of yourexpedition.com, the Minneapolis company supporting the trip.

Bancroft, 45, of Scandia, Minn., and Arnesen, 47, of Oslo, Norway, on Sunday became the first women to cross the Antarctic land mass by skis when they reached the frozen ocean of the Ross Ice Shelf. The 2,300-mile journey began Nov. 13.

Former German terrorist sentenced for 1975 attack

FRANKFURT, Germany -- A former terrorist who knew Germany's foreign minister during his youthful antiestablishment days was sentenced to nine years in prison Thursday for killing three people in a 1975 attack on an OPEC meeting.

The case has forced Germans to address the social unrest that rocked their country 30 years ago -- and in particular Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who has been on the defensive over his well-known past as a left-wing activist who wrangled with police.

Hans-Joachim Klein, who renounced terrorism after the OPEC attack, sat with his head bowed and his arms crossed as Judge Heinrich Gehrke read his sentence of nine years on three counts each of murder and attempted murder and hostage taking.

"Whoever thinks this is too light must think of everyone who was involved," Gehrke said. "He alone has been sentenced, although he played the smallest role and was the only one who distanced himself from terrorism."

Klein, 53, had admitted the court that he took part in the attack on the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, but denied killing anyone.

Russian defense officials deny U.S. charges

MOSCOW -- Top Russian defense officials Thursday fiercely rejected U.S. charges that Russia is spreading missile technologies to Iran and North Korea and warned that the allegation could deeply mar relations.

At least four senior Russian officials slammed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who made the charges. They alleged that he is beholden to U.S. defense contractors who would stand to benefit from the development of a new national defense system.

The comments followed an interview with Rumsfeld Wednesday on PBS' NewsHour With Jim Lehrer in which he called Moscow "part of the problem."

"They are selling and assisting countries like Iran, North Korea and India and other countries with these technologies, which are threatening other people, including the United States, Western Europe and countries in the Middle East," Rumsfeld said.

Maj. Gen. Vladimir Belous, head of Russia's Center for International and Strategic Studies, said Rumsfeld's remarks were reminiscent of Cold War times.

Elsewhere . . .

CHECHEN REFUGEES: About 401,700 people -- 40 percent of Chechnya's population -- have been made refugees by the war in the breakaway republic, Russian officials said Thursday.

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