Pakistanis arrested on terror charges

MADRID - Spanish police and the FBI arrested two Pakistani nationals in Madrid and Barcelona on suspicion of being involved in financing international terrorism, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. The men, Anar Muhammad Shan and Preces Mehmood Sandhu, were also held on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization. (AP)

BEIRUT - Rival Lebanese leaders yesterday discussed ways to defuse the rising tension a day after the assassination of Antoine Ghanem, an anti-Syrian lawmaker, threatened to derail efforts to elect a new president. But political sources said a Parliament session planned for next week to pick pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud's successor would not gain a quorum and the election would be postponed. (Reuters)

MOSCOW - Preliminary tests on soil samples gathered by a Russian scientific expedition indicate that a vast mountain range under the Arctic Ocean is part of Russia's continental shelf, a government ministry said yesterday. Russia is one of several nations rushing to lay claim to the area, where a US study suggests up to 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden. (AP)

BERLIN - German police in Frankfurt have arrested a former Rwandan minister wanted by the International Tribunal on genocide charges related to the 1994 conflict in the African republic, the Federal Crime Office said yesterday. Augustin Ngirabatware is accused of having presided over the Rwandan genocide and inciting the mass murder of the Tutsi minority, a spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda confirmed. (AP)