WORLD IN BRIEF

Friday, February 29, 2008

CAMEROON

Negotiations Sought After Deadly Riots

Authorities in the central African country of Cameroon appealed Thursday for negotiations to defuse the worst anti-government riots in more than a decade, but an opposition leader said President Paul Biya was out of touch after 25 years in power.

Officials estimated that as many as 20 people had been killed in nearly a week of protests in several cities, including the main port of Douala and the capital, Yaounde, over high fuel and food prices and an effort by Biya to prolong his tenure in office.

Douala and Yaounde, which were paralyzed by rioting and looting Wednesday, were tense but relatively calm Thursday. Police and soldiers patrolled the streets, but most businesses were closed and public transport was not operating.

AFGHANISTAN

Poppy Eradication Team Ambushed

A newly freed hostage said Thursday that leftist rebels confiscated letters written by three U.S. military contractors

Insurgents ambushed an opium poppy eradication force in southern Afghanistan, sparking clashes that left 25 Taliban fighters and a policeman dead, police said Thursday. Four other guerrillas died in a separate incident when a bomb exploded.

The ambush took place Wednesday in the Marja district of Helmand province, killing one police officer and wounding two, said Gen. Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, the provincial police chief. Police attacked the guerrillas afterward, killing 25 Taliban fighters, including a senior regional militant commander, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Helmand is the world's largest opium-producing region. Officials estimate that up to 40 percent of the proceeds from Afghanistan's drug trade is used to fund the insurgency.

Ministry Disputes U.S. Official's Contention

Afghanistan's Defense Ministry on Thursday denied an assertion by the top U.S. intelligence official that less than a third of the country is under the control of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told a Senate committee in Washington on Wednesday that Afghanistan's central government controls just 30 percent of the country. He said the Taliban controls about 10 percent and local tribes control the rest.

"This is far from the facts, and we completely deny it," the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement. The ministry has previously said that several districts in the southern province of Helmand are not controlled by the government.

COLOMBIA

Captive Americans Tried to Send Letters

A newly freed hostage said Thursday that leftist rebels confiscated letters written by three U.S. military contractors asking for help from President Bush and other leading American politicians.

Former senator Luis Eladio P¿rez also said the three Americans, with whom he shared his last six months of jungle captivity, still suffer from injuries suffered in the plane crash five years ago that landed them in guerrilla hands. The three were captured when their surveillance plane went down in rebel territory in southern Colombia on Feb. 13, 2003.

Before P¿rez parted ways on Feb. 4 with the Americans -- Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell -- they gave him letters they had written to Bush, key Democrats in Congress and the front-runners in the presidential race.

But rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, took the letters away in a search before freeing P¿rez and three other Colombian politicians Wednesday.

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USS Cole Dispatched to Coast of Lebanon

The Bush administration has sent the warship USS Cole to operate off the coast of Lebanon in a show of support during the country's political crisis, U.S. officials said. The administration blames political deadlock in Lebanon on Syrian meddling. In October 2000, the Cole was bombed in Yemen in an attack linked to al-Qaeda, and 17 U.S. sailors were killed.

From News Services