World in brief

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2001

Nuclear waste arrives at German site

DANNENBERG, Germany -- Police cleared protesters with water cannon Wednesday as a train carrying 60 tons of nuclear waste arrived here a day late after being blocked by demonstrators who chained themselves to the tracks.

With seven helicopters hovering over it, the train entered Dannenberg in northern Germany at 7:30 p.m. Six containers of nuclear waste were to be tested for radioactivity before being loaded onto flatbed trucks for the last leg of a 375-mile trip from a French reprocessing plant.

Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the resulting waste.

The protesters object to what they say is highly dangerous radioactive waste being transported through Germany.

Chirac refuses summons in corruption case

PARIS -- Pursued by allegations of corruption during his time as Paris mayor, French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday refused to testify before a judge investigating the accusations.

Chirac, called as a witness, said the summons violated the constitutional separation of powers. He denies any wrongdoing.

It was the first time in France's Fifth Republic, born in 1958, that an investigating magistrate has summoned a president.

Macedonian forces launch new attack on guerrillas

KUCKOVO, Macedonia -- Macedonian forces launched a second offensive against ethnic Albanian rebels Wednesday, using artillery and helicopter gunships to bombard what the government calls the guerrillas' last stronghold, an area a few miles north of the capital, Skopje.

"This is our final operation to ... establish control of this stretch of land," said government spokesman Antonio Milososki. "We want to create conditions for continuation of political dialogue."

Fighting continued Wednesday evening, with shells lighting fires on forested hillsides. Unlike in the Tetovo hills west of here, where the guerrillas abandoned their positions under fire earlier this week, the rebels north of the capital vowed to make a stand.

Wreckage of second F-15 found in Highlands

LONDON -- Rescuers working in blinding snow found wreckage of a second missing American F-15 fighter jet on Wednesday in the Scottish Highlands, the U.S. Air Force said.

The search for the pilot was suspended as darkness and the weather closed in, and the operation was to resume at dawn.

The plane's tailpiece was found near Ben Macdhui in the Cairngorm mountains, where the first of the missing single-seat planes and the body of Lt. Col. Kenneth J. Hyvonen Jr., 40, of Michigan, were found Tuesday.

Searchers on Wednesday found the tailpiece of the second plane about 400 yards from the first wreckage site. The missing pilot was identified as Capt. Kirk Jones. The Air Force did not release his home state, but the Arizona Republic said he graduated from Arizona State University.

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