Mexican port authorities and a U.S. boater rescued 18 Cubans from a rickety homemade boat off Mexico’s Caribbean coast Monday. The boat, made of doors, planks and other materials, was first spotted by the American sailing off Isla Mujeres in a sailboat. He alerted Mexican officials by radio, and port personnel from Isla Mujeres were sent to take charge of the Cubans. The Cubans, including a baby just a few months old, were taken to medical facilities for evaluation and showed signs of dehydration, but all appeared to be in good shape.
Indonesia: Flood death toll hits 57
Rescuers searching through mud and debris left by flash floods in central Indonesia found more 23 bodies today, bringing to 57 the number of people killed in the disaster. Several villages were inundated when heavy weekend rains triggered a landslide on a hill in Panti, a subdistrict of East Java province about 540 miles east of Jakarta, and forced a river to break its banks early Monday. Officials were searching for more victims.
Fiji: Powerful earthquake strikes
A powerful earthquake struck deep under the South Pacific near Fiji today, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it did not expect the 7.1-magnitude quake, which struck 360 miles below the earth’s surface, to trigger a tsunami.
France: Emergency state to lift
Six weeks earlier than originally planned, President Jacques Chirac plans to lift the state of emergency imposed in autumn to halt a frenzy of rioting and car burning, his office said Monday. The three weeks of unrest, which erupted in late October, was concentrated in poor suburbs where many North and West African immigrants live with their French-born children. In the rioting, rampaging youths set fire to about 9,000 vehicles around the country in France’s worst civil unrest since 1968.
Lebanon: U.N. pressures Syria
A U.N. commission said Monday it had asked a second time to question Syria’s president about the assassination of a former Lebanese leader, turning up the pressure on Damascus after a former top government official said President Bashar Assad had issued a threat before the killing. The commission’s spokeswoman, Nasra Hassan, said it also wants to interview former Syrian Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam “as soon as possible.” Khaddam, a one-time stalwart of Syria’s ruling party, said last week that Assad had threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri several months before Hariri’s Feb. 14 truck-bomb assassination in Beirut.
From Herald news services
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