Official vows crackdown on hooligans after riots
BOBIGNY -- France's interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, yesterday promised heightened security in rough neighborhoods following four nights of rioting that injured at least 22 people in a Paris suburb. Riot police will be assigned to troubled neighborhoods, while plainclothes agents will seek gang leaders and drug traffickers, Sarkozy said. said. The deaths of two teenagers Thursday triggered clashes between police and angry youths in the northeastern Paris suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois. The boys, ages 15 and 17, were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police in a power substation. A third youth suffered serious burns. On the fourth night of rioting Sunday, six police officers were hurt, 11 people were detained, and cars and garbage bins were set on fire. Fifteen officers and a journalist were injured in the disturbances Friday night and Saturday morning. (AP)
Congo
Army, US peacekeepers take on Rwandan rebels
VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK -- Hundreds of government troops backed by UN peacekeepers began flushing heavily armed Rwandan rebels from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday, destroying insurgent camps and sending smoke rising above the restive region. The operation in North Kivu province involving 2,000 Congolese troops and 500 peacekeepers was the first time Congo's government has used force against the Hutu rebels since a deadline for the departure of all foreign armed groups expired a month ago. At least a dozen rebels were captured. Residents in eastern Congo lauded the mission, saying the foreign fighters had stolen from locals and harassed them. (AP)
Brazil
Drug kingpin slain after 2-day reign, locals say
RIO DE JANEIRO -- A Rio de Janeiro gangster who said the throne of a drug kingpin killed Saturday was himself slain after only a two-day reign, shanty town residents said yesterday. Police were looking for corpses of the gangster Orlando Rodrigues, known as Soul, and four henchmen after being tipped off the killings were the result of a power struggle for control of the drugs trade in Rio's biggest slum, Rocinha. ''All the information comes from the residents of the slum. So far no bodies have been found and we cannot confirm the deaths, but search will continue," a police spokesman said. Slum residents are often the primary source of information. (Reuters)
Britain
British warship seizes cocaine in Caribbean
LONDON -- A British warship seized two tons of cocaine worth an estimated $355 million after chasing a gang of smugglers in a speedboat in the Caribbean, the British government said yesterday. Snipers aboard a Royal Navy helicopter fired shots to stop the boat's engines about 100 miles off the Nicaraguan coast after it tried to outrun them. The chase began when the British frigate Cumberland intercepted the speedboat during a routine antismuggling patrol, the Ministry of Defense in London said. (Reuters)
ANTIGUA
Senate president was raped, police say
ST. JOHN'S -- The president of the Antigua and Barbuda senate was raped during an assault in her home last week, police said yesterday. Hazelyn Francis, 66, was briefly hospitalized after an assailant broke into her home in St. John's on Friday and attacked her. A police spokesman, McClean Hunte, said Francis, who lived alone, told authorities she was raped and that a medical examination confirmed the claim. Hunte said police have yet to make any arrests but were ''working on some leads." Police haven't confirmed reports that Francis was also robbed during the attack, but have said she was the victim of an attempted robbery near her home in April. Pat Edwards-Southwell, the president of the Professional Organization of Women in Antigua, urged police to seek foreign assistance. ''The police need to use the latest technology and if we don't have it, then we have to go outside," she said. (AP)
