Rebels said to attack navy boats off coast

SRI LANKA

COLOMBO -- Rebels attacked two Sri Lankan Navy boats off the northwestern coast yesterday and destroyed a vessel, officials said, in an escalation of violence that is threatening to return the island nation to civil war after a nearly four-year truce. The navy said one sailor was wounded and three others were missing and presumed captured. It said seven rebels were captured. There was no confirmation from the Tamil Tiger movement of the navy's report. Meanwhile, suspected rebels hurled grenades at a military roadblock in the northern city of Jaffna, wounding a police sergeant and two women civilians. (AP)

CHINA

42 killed in explosion at construction site
BEIJING -- A gas blast at a road construction site in China's southwestern province of Sichuan has killed at least 42 people, state media said today. Eleven were injured in the explosion yesterday in a highway tunnel under construction between the cities of Dujiangyan and Wenchuan. Most of the victims were construction workers, the report said. (Reuters)

PERU

Emergency is declared as rebels kill 8 officers
LIMA -- President Alejandro Toledo yesterday declared a state of emergency in Peru's central jungle after Shining Path guerrillas killed eight policemen amid an upsurge in violence from the Maoist group. The emergency decree bans public gatherings and gives police and military the right to search houses and make arrests without warrants. The rebels killed eight policemen in an ambush on a police vehicle out on routine patrol in the remote Huanuco region Tuesday, some 220 miles northeast of Lima. (Reuters)

MEXICO

Jail terms for brothers in drug case slashed
MEXICO CITY -- A Mexican tribunal has slashed the sentences of two brothers convicted in 2004 of heading a drug cartel that smuggled tons of methamphetamines into the United States, the Federal Attorney General's Office said yesterday. Jose de Jesus Amezcua, dubbed ''the amphetamine king," had his sentence reduced to 28 years from 53 years nine months on appeal, the office said. His brother Adan Amezcua had his sentence reduced to nine years and six months from 22 years. (AP)

CAMBODIA

Opposition chief found guilty of defamation
PHNOM PENH -- A Cambodian court convicted opposition leader Sam Rainsy in absentia yesterday of defaming Prime Minister Hun Sen, a ruling denounced by the United States and rights activists as an attack on free speech. Sam Rainsy, who has been living in self-imposed exile in France since his parliamentary immunity was revoked in February, was sentenced to nine months for accusing Hun Sen of trying to blow him up in a 1997 grenade attack that killed 16 people. Sam Rainsy received an additional nine-month sentence for defaming royalist opposition leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whom he had accused of accepting bribes to become Hun Sen's junior coalition partner. (Reuters)

BRAZIL

Soccer star Maradona detained in airport row
SAO PAULO -- Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona was detained at Rio de Janeiro airport yesterday after he tried to force his way onto a flight that he was late for, police and a Brazilian airline said. Police held Maradona, 45, for several hours in the morning before releasing him. He boarded a flight to Buenos Aires yesterday afternoon. Maradona had played a benefit game organized by former Brazilian star and current Japan coach Zico in Rio de Janeiro Wednesday. He arrived late at Tom Jobim International Airport for a flight back to Argentina and began arguing with the staff of Brazilian airline TAM, police said. (Reuters)