US probes contract on Iran gas supplies

BERN - The United States has demanded to see a Swiss contract for natural gas supplies from Iran to determine whether it violates an American sanctions law against Tehran, the US Embassy in Switzerland said yesterday. A posting on the embassy website questions whether neutral Switzerland's position as representative of American interests in Iran and Cuba could be affected. The Swiss Foreign Ministry declined to comment. (AP)

LIMA - Police seized about 2 tons of cocaine and arrested four alleged members of an international drug-trafficking gang in coordinated raids, Peruvian officials said yesterday. Authorities confiscated 1.7 tons of cocaine from a house in a Lima suburb and another half-ton from a building in the neighboring port of Callao late Saturday, said Colonel Demetrio Perez Vargas, chief of information for Peru's national police. The cocaine, found hidden in king-size mattresses, was apparently destined for Europe, police said in a statement. A Venezuelan and three Peruvians were arrested. (AP)

NIKOLSKOE - Russian authorities urged 28 members of a doomsday cult yesterday to leave the mud bunker in which they are awaiting the end of the world. The doomsday cult members have been barricaded in an underground shelter dug out of a muddy hillside gully in the Penza region of central Russia since October. Russian authorities say they fear spring rains could cause the bunker to collapse. Cult members have been refusing to come out until the end of the world, which they predict will happen in late April or May. (Reuters)

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said yesterday. "For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook. He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population - a stable percentage - while Muslims were at 19.2 percent. Formenti said the data refer to 2006. When considering all Christians, the religion constitutes 33 percent of the world population, Formenti said. (AP)

PARIS - France said yesterday it was ready to evacuate French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt in the event of a deal between Colombia and rebels holding her. A spokesman for President Nicolas Sarkozy said a plane with medical facilities would be on standby in France and ready to intervene. Colombia said on Saturday France would be willing to take in former guerrilla fighters as part of a possible deal to free scores of hostages, including Betancourt. The proposal is part of a package President Alvaro Uribe has offered to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in an effort to free kidnap victims held for as long as 10 years in secret jungle camps. Betancourt, a former candidate for president, is reportedly gravely ill. (Reuters)