World in brief: Gunmen seize oil workers
Gunmen on Friday seized a boatload of foreign oil workers, including three Americans, four Britons and a South African, in the latest violence to hit Nigeria’s southern petroleum-producing region, officials said.
Nearly 200 foreign workers have been kidnapped in 18 months of attacks on oil companies and security forces in the Niger Delta, where all the crude is pumped in Africa’s biggest producer.
The latest seizures came when gunmen stormed a boat owned by a Nigerian oil-services company as it carried the foreigners in the vast region of mangrove swamps and creeks, security force officials said.
TRIPOLI, Lebanon
U.S., Arabs bring military aid
The United States and Arab allies rushed military aid to Lebanon on Friday, boosting its strength ahead of a possible army assault to crush al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants barricaded in a Palestinian refugee camp.
The U.S. aid is sensitive in a nation deeply divided between supporters of a pro-Western government and an opposition backed by America’s Mideast foes, Iran and Syria. The opposition, led by the Shiite Hezbollah, accuses the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora of being too closely allied to Washington.
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned that Lebanon was being dragged into a U.S. war against al-Qaida that would destabilize the country. He warned the military against assaulting the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, calling instead for a negotiated solution.
The military was gearing up for a fight, rolling more troops into place around the camp in northern Lebanon. Fatah Islam has claimed to have over 500 fighters, armed with automatic weapons, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
KIEV, Ukraine
Control of troops raises tensions
Ukraine’s president said he took command of 32,000 Interior Ministry troops on Friday, and a ministry official rejected the order – deepening the country’s political crisis as police guarded the office of the fired prosecutor general.
The former Soviet republic edged closer toward potential violence as lawmakers and officials allied with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych called President Viktor Yushchenko’s order a “putsch,” and hundreds of supporters of each of the rival politicians staged competing rallies in Kiev.
Yanukovych and Yushchenko met late Friday for the first time since the president fired the prosecutor general a day earlier.
Tensions between the pair have been building for weeks.
LONDON
Four test positive for mild bird flu
Four people have tested positive for a mild strain of bird flu, British authorities said Friday.
The cases – which are not the feared H5N1 strain, but the less dangerous H7N2 subtype – were reported after poultry died at a small farm in north Wales. Tests were performed on nine people associated with the farm, and the Health Protection Agency said in a news release that four people had tested positive for the H7N2 strain of the virus.
Three of the nine were hospitalized, but have since been discharged, the agency said.
The Welsh health authorities said that in all but one of the four human cases the virus had spread from poultry. The other case may have been transmitted from person to person.