World briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 13, 2000

U.S. jets collide off coast of Japan

TOKYO -- Two U.S. military jets collided over waters off northern Japan early today and the two pilots were missing, the Japanese Coast Guard said.

The jets were probably F-16s and collided off Oshima Island, 410 miles north of Tokyo, said Toshifumi Nishikawa, spokesman for the coast guard based in Otaru, on nearby Hokkaido Island.

Two helicopters, four vessels and one aircraft from the Japanese coast guard were searching for survivors, Nishikawa said. Each jet was carrying just one pilot, he said.

U.S. military officials declined to comment on the report, but said they were preparing a statement to be released later in the day.

Nishikawa said officials were unsure where the jets were based, but the crash occurred near a U.S. air base in Misawa, in northern Japan.

Elections . . .

SARAJEVO: Prospects for closer integration between Bosnia's three major ethnic groups appeared to dim Sunday as hard-line Serbs and Croats claimed they won key races in the parts of the deeply divided country that they control. Official results from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which supervised Saturday's nationwide election in the former Yugoslav province, were not expected before today. The final count could take weeks.

PRAGUE: Voters in the Czech Republic chose among 7,000 candidates for assemblies in newly formed regions Sunday, the first such elections since the country parted with Slovakia in 1993. A total of 7,889 candidates were competing for 675 posts. Also at stake Sunday were one-third of the 81 seats in the upper house of Parliament. Preliminary results were not expected before today.

GUADALAJARA: Mexico's ruling party fought to win back powerful Jalisco state on Sunday, but an exit poll indicated that the conservative party of President-elect Vicente Fox had held on for another six years. Jalisco's elections were an important test for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has been struggling since July when it lost its first presidential race in seven decades.

'Cole' suspect says Arab man was mastermind

ADEN, Yemen -- Last month's deadly attack on the USS Cole was masterminded by an Arab man who telephoned the bombers from the United Arab Emirates, the Associated Press reported Sunday.

A suspect now in detention in Yemen said the attackers received their instructions and finances from the Arab man, a veteran of the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviets, said a source close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity. He did not give the man's nationality.

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