Briefly

Leader denies giving any expulsion orders

Jakarta, Indonesia President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Monday denied ordering the expulsion of the American head of a think tank that assessed Indonesia’s separatist conflicts.

Sidney Jones has said she may have to leave Indonesia by June 10 if authorities refuse to extend her visa because of the Belgian-based group’s critical reports of the government.

Jones said the national intelligence agency chief had complained that her International Crisis Group published false reports that had damaged the country’s image.

At a rare news conference, Megawati said: “I ever … expelled this person, Sidney Jones. I believe the case you are referring to is being carried out according to government procedures.”

The think tank opened its office in Jakarta in 2000 and has reported on the rising threat of Islamic militants in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, separatist conflicts in Aceh and Papua, sectarian violence in Central Sulawesi and the country’s struggle to reform its police and military.

Landslide in China leaves 8 people dead

Beijing A landslide triggered by torrential rains buried a village in China’s southwest, killing eight people, the government said Monday.

The landslide buried houses at about 3 a.m. on Sunday in Shuicheng County in Guizhou province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing rescue officials.

The area had been drenched by more than six inches of rain over the previous two days, the report said.

Three people were pulled alive from the rubble and eight bodies were found, Xinhua said.

Rio de Janeiro inmates halt deadly 3-day riot

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Prison inmates ended a three-day riot Monday that left at least one guard dead and nine people injured, releasing hostages and handing over their arms.

As the uprising subsided, ambulances streamed out of Benfica detention center in northern Rio.

The inmates gave up after police allowed the Rev. Marcos Pereira da Silva, an evangelical pastor that has helped resolve other prison rebellions, to take part in talks. He counts the relatives of several notorious drug dealers as members of his flock.

Earlier talks involving police, prisoners and Roman Catholic church representatives had failed.

Rebellions and jailbreaks are common in Brazilian prisons, which are often criticized by human rights groups for overcrowding and abuses.

The prison uprising started early Saturday, when detainees attempting to escape broke through the main gate of the detention center. When police intervened, prisoners attacked the officers, grabbed their guns and took 26 guards and prison staffers hostage.

Archbishop new leader of Canada’s Anglicans

St. Catharines, Ontario A Montreal archbishop was elected Monday as new leader of the Anglican Church of Canada, saying later he personally favors church blessings for same-sex couples but remains open regarding how he’ll vote on that issue.

Andrew Hutchison, regarded as a liberal in the dispute over homosexuality, was chosen as primate on the fourth ballot over Bishop Ronald Ferris of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a conservative on the divisive issue.

Church delegates face a Wednesday night showdown on whether to give dioceses the go-ahead to provide blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. The New Westminster (Vancouver area) Diocese approved such blessings two years ago, dividing Anglicans worldwide.

The blessing ritual is a church endorsement of a same-sex couple but is not a marriage.

World’s oldest person dies at 114 in San Juan

San Juan, Puerto Rico Ramona Trinidad Iglesias Jordan, who at age 114 was recognized as the world’s oldest person, has died after a bout with pneumonia, her family said Monday.

Iglesias died Saturday in a nursing home in San Juan, said Rene Matos, a great nephew who lives in El Paso, Texas. She was three months from turning 115.

“I was hoping she could make it to her 115th birthday, but it was impossible,” Matos said by telephone from Texas. “She was in the hospital about four or five days, and the day after she was released she died in the nursing home.”

Iglesias earned the distinction in April when Guinness World Records declared her the world’s oldest living woman after a check of documents.

Her death could make Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, 113, of the Netherlands the oldest living person, according to news reports. She was born in Smilde on June 29, 1890.

Matos, 64, said he thinks her longevity stemmed from her having “a very easy life – easy in the sense that she didn’t have too much to worry about.”

The lake’s maximum depth is about 7 feet.

Ousted Liberian leader not immune from trial

Freetown, Sierra Leone A U.N.-backed court for Sierra Leone ruled Monday that ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor is not immune from prosecution for war crimes.

Taylor, in exile in Nigeria, is the most prominent figure indicted by the war crimes court. He is accused him of backing Sierra Leone’s rebels in a brutal civil war while he was president of neighboring Liberia.

The court’s three judges, in a brief ruling, said that Taylor’s claim of immunity as a former head of state did not apply, because the U.N.-Sierra Leone court is international, not national.

New York-based Human Rights Watch welcomed the ruling, calling it a “victory for Taylor’s many victims.”

It “puts dictators in Africa and elsewhere on notice that if they commit similar crimes, they will not be shielded from international justice,” Reed Brody, a Human Rights Watch special counsel, said in a statement.

The organization urged Nigeria to turn over Taylor for trial.

The court is scheduled Thursday to begin trying indicted figures from Sierra Leone’s 10-year war, in which rebels waged an escalating terror campaign for control of the country’s diamond fields, frequently hacking off the limbs of men, women and children.

Armed intervention by neighboring Guinea, Britain and the United Nations finally broke the rebels, who signed a peace deal in 2002.

Taylor, a former warlord blamed for much of West Africa’s bloodshed, fled rebels in his own country in August. He entered exile in Nigeria, which has agreed not to extradite him to the U.N.-Sierra Leone court.

Student fatally stabbed by classmate in Japan

Tokyo A sixth-grade girl fatally stabbed a female classmate in the neck with a paperknife today in a shocking attack in an elementary school in southern Japan, police said.

The assault happened in a classroom in Sasebo, 650 miles southwest of Tokyo, an official with the Nagasaki Prefectural police said on condition of anonymity.

Police in Sasebo said the victim suffered wounds to the neck and arms. She was stabbed with a small knife used to cut paper, police said.

The victim was identified as Satomi Mitarai, 12, by the Mainichi newspaper, which said she was the daughter of the head of the paper’s bureau in Sasebo.

The name and age of the attacker were not released, though sixth graders in Japan are usually 11 or 12 years old. Police in Japan do not publicly identify juvenile crime suspects.

The attack came during lunchtime, which in Japan is taken in the classroom.

Kyodo News service reported the alleged attacker had been apprehended by school officials and police and was being questioned.

Increasing violence in Japan’s schools and juvenile crime have been a rising concern in recent years.

Last July, a 12-year-old boy was accused of kidnapping, molesting and murdering a four-year-old in the southern city of Nagasaki. In the same month, a 14-year-old boy was arrested for beating a 13-year-old classmate to death in Okinawa.