World briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 5, 2001

Attacks on Buddha statues reported

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taleban soldiers blasted two towering ancient statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft weapons, the first witness account from the area said on Sunday.

Other statues throughout the country were being demolished with rockets, tanks and explosives, ridding the nation of reminders of its pre-Islamic past.

A resident of central Bamiyan said Taleban soldiers began attacking the relics at least three days earlier. The area is where the two ancient statues of Buddha were hewn from a cliff face in the third and fifth centuries.

Ethnic Albanian revolt spreads in Macedonia

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- An ethnic Albanian rebellion in Macedonia intensified Sunday, with police saying government troops were battling hundreds of guerrillas in two border villages and on rugged mountain slopes.

Three Macedonian army soldiers were killed, including two whose vehicle hit a land mine near the village of Tanusevci, a stronghold of the insurgents 20 miles north of the capital, Skopje. The third died nearby, hit by sniper fire.

Australian plans 25-mile sky dive next year

SYDNEY, Australia -- A former Australian army commando plans to jump from the edge of outer space and plummet almost 25 miles to Earth in the highest sky dive ever.

Rodd Millner, 37, will make the 40,000-meter jump in March 2002 by riding in a hot air balloon to the edge of space, the Australian Associated Press reported Sunday. He will wear an astronaut's suit to protect his body from extreme pressures, it said.

The plan calls for Millner to fall at up to 1,100 mph during a seven-minute fall before opening a parachute.

Millner hopes to turn his plunge into a virtual computer game using film from cameras that will be fitted to his suit and the balloon.

Mexican Indians discuss their national goals

NURIO, Mexico -- Indians from across Mexico on Sunday debated everything from the often ignored rights of women to the role Zapatista rebels should play in their movement.

Ski-masked rebel commanders, who are leading a bus caravan across the country, sat quietly as Indians at this open-air National Indigenous Congress talked about how to create their first truly national movement.

In politics . . .

JAPAN: Opposition parties submitted a motion of no-confidence against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori early today, a parliamentary spokesman said. Lawmakers were to vote on the motion in an afternoon plenary session of the powerful 480-member lower house.

IRAN: Two leading reformers who are key allies of Iran's president, including the official responsible for overseeing elections scheduled for June, were convicted Sunday of rigging last year's parliamentary campaign and sentenced to prison.

The convictions of Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, who oversaw the February 2000 parliamentary elections that reformers won by a landslide, and Tehran Gov. Ayatollahi Azarmi were the latest blow in an increasingly bitter battle between reformers pushing for political and social liberalization and those who believe the country should continue as a strict Islamic theocracy.

Elsewhere Sunday . . .

PORTUGUESE BUS PLUNGE: A bridge over the Douro River near Penafiel, Portugal, about 180 miles north of the capital Lisbon, collapsed, and a bus carrying 67 people plunged into a deep, fast-flowing river, news reports said. Rescue officials said there was little chance of finding survivors.

THAI EXPLOSION: The blast that gutted a Thai Airways airplane minutes before Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was to board Friday came from beneath his assigned seat, his security adviser said. Thaksin said it could have been an inside attempt to assassinate him. Investigators have not revealed the explosion's cause.

POPE'S VISIT TO GREECE: The leader of Greece's Orthodox Church said he would be willing to meet Pope John Paul II in Athens, despite strong reservations within the church to a papal visit.

SWISS SAY NO TO EUROPE: Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected calls for immediate membership talks with the European Union, underlining the Alpine nation's tenacious independence at the heart of the continent. In a national referendum, an unexpectedly high 77 percent voted against the "Yes to Europe" proposal.

COLOMBIAN VIOLENCE: Leftist guerrillas killed six people and kidnapped several others while bomb attacks in two major Colombian cities leveled a bank in a nationwide wave of violence over the weekend, authorities said. In Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, three bombs injured three people and damaged buildings.

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