Report that jail riot is over is disputed

BEIRUT - Syrian authorities said yesterday they had restored order at a military jail near Damascus after a riot, but dissidents said the protest was not over and that dozens of prisoners had been killed. The riot broke out Saturday at Sidnaya prison, a huge complex 19 miles northwest of the capital, Damascus, that houses thousands of criminals, political prisoners, and soldiers convicted of violating military rules. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London organization, said security forces had killed dozens of prisoners during the riot. (Reuters)

TBILISI - Georgian officials said six explosions struck on both sides of a de facto border between Georgia and its breakaway Abkhazia region yesterday, killing one person. Moscow and Tbilisi accuse each other of stirring tensions in Abkhazia, which broke away along with the region of South Ossetia from Georgian rule during wars in the 1990s. Russia provides financial support and has peacekeepers in both. (Reuters)

PIEDRAS NEGRAS - A plane carrying a load of auto parts crashed yesterday as it was trying to land in northern Mexico, killing the pilot and severely injuring the copilot. The plane crashed before dawn a half-mile from the runway in Ramos Arizpe, 200 miles south of the US-Mexico border, said Segismundo Doguin, the deputy civil defense chief for Coahuila State. The copilot had second- and third-degree burns and was in critical condition, Doguin said. The DC-9-15 freighter was operated by USA Jet Airlines, based in Ypsilanti, Mich. (AP)

JERUSALEM - Israel TV showed tractors working at a cemetery yesterday where Lebanese and Palestinian fighters are buried, part of a prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah. Israeli military officials said the exhumation of bodies would begin today, and identification of the remains would take several days. The officials said the cemetery in Israel's north has been declared a closed military zone so there will be no coverage of the process. (AP)

MIAMI - A lawyer for a defendant in the Argentine "suitcase scandal" said a US government witness has sworn that President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela was personally involved in the affair, according to a US court filing. The government witness, Carlos Kauffmann, pleaded guilty in March to US charges arising from the seizure of $800,000 in a suitcase in Buenos Aires and agreed to testify against a former associate in exchange for lighter punishment. US prosecutors have indicated that they had been told the $800,000 was intended for the election campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the former first lady who won Argentina's presidential election in October. The case set off a torrent of corruption allegations in Argentina and raised diplomatic tensions between Washington, Caracas, and Buenos Aires. (Reuters)