World briefs

By Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 25, 2000

Norway: Bad data hampered sub effort

MOSCOW -- Norway almost called off its rescue efforts for the sunken submarine Kursk because of Russian officials' interference and misinformation, a Norwegian admiral was quoted Thursday as saying.

Rear Adm. Einar Skorgen said he told the Russians that his divers would not be able to continue their work unless the Russians became more cooperative.

"At times there were so many wrong details and disinformation from Russia that it was close to endangering the divers," Skorgen said. "We couldn't rely on the information we were getting."

Among other things, he said, Russian officials said wrongly that undersea currents were too strong for rescue work, that the escape hatch was too severely damaged to allow a rescue minisubmarine to attach to it and that the Kursk's hull was cracked.

All 118 crew members aboard the sub died.

American refused bail in Russian spy case

MOSCOW -- A Pennsylvania businessman accused of spying was refused bail Thursday, despite his lawyer's arguments that he may have cancer and needs specialized medical help.

Edmond Pope, a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer, was arrested in April on charges of purchasing secret design information about a high-tech torpedo. His lawyer said Thursday he is accused of buying the plans from a Russian science professor.

The lawyer, Pavel Astakhov, said Pope denied trying to purchase documents containing secret information.

At the hearing, judges ruled Pope, 54, will remain in Moscow's Lefortovo jail until a trial in October. Pope, from Grants Pass, Ore., suffers headaches and dizziness and thinks bone cancer he has been treated for has returned, Astakhov said.

Bodies of British airmen found in Iceland glacier

REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- The bodies of four World War II airmen from Britain, trapped in an Icelandic glacier for nearly 60 years, will be buried at a cemetery in Reykjavik.

A Royal Air Force search team was working Wednesday to retrieve the bodies for a funeral Sunday. The bodies were revealed last year by melting ice.

The plane carrying the four men took off from an airfield in Akureyri, Iceland, in fog on May 26, 1941, and crashed into a mountainside 30 miles away.

Wreckage was found two days later, and a week after the crash a small burial party held a service.

The RAF pulled out of Iceland two months later, and the precise location of the crash site was lost as it became entombed in ice.

American priest shot to death in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya -- An outspoken American priest who was critical of the Kenyan government's human rights record was found shot to death Thursday in western Kenya, police said.

The body of John Kaiser, a Minnesota native who has worked in Kenya for the past 36 years, was found beside a road near Naivasha, 50 miles northwest of Nairobi, police spokesman Peter Kimanthi said.

"The body had a bullet wound on the head. A shotgun was found at the scene near the body," Kimanthi said.

Fellow priests told the Italian-based missionary news service MISNA that the night before his death, Kaiser, 67, was "visibly upset and nervous and saying he feared for his life."

U.S. Embassy spokesman Tom Hart said Kenyan police had promised a full investigation.

Elsewhere . . .

HOSTAGES KILLED: Muslim rebels killed five truck drivers they abducted this week in the southern Philippines, and a sixth hostage remains missing, a military official said Thursday.

PARAGUAY ELECTION: An opposition leader was declared the winner Thursday in Paraguay's election for vice president, creating an unprecedented power-sharing arrangement with the president from the ruling party.

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