World datelines

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 7, 2003 by Compiled

Australia

CANBERRA -- Australia has sent another 150 troops to the Persian Gulf, but no government decision has been made to commit to war with Iraq, officials said today.

CANBERRA -- Australia's first cloned sheep has died unexpectedly of unknown causes, scientists said today. Matilda died last weekend at a research center near the southern city of Adelaide. An independent autopsy could not identify the cause of death, said Rob Lewis, who heads the South Australian Research Institute. The institute cloned the sheep.

Denmark

COPENHAGEN -- An aging tanker owned by ChevronTexaco and carrying 38,500 tons of diesel fuel ran aground near a Danish island this morning, but there were no reports of leaks. The Bahamian-registered Acushnet was sailing from Ventspils, Latvia, to the United States when it ran aground just east of Samsoe Island in the Kattegat Sea off southern Sweden.

England

LONDON -- Two men were arrested Thursday on suspicion of being part of an international group that police blamed for damaging computer systems worldwide through a virus-like Internet worm. A 19- year-old electrician was held in Darlington, and a 21-year-old unemployed man was in custody in nearby Durham in an operation involving the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI, the Department of Justice and Britain's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit. Authorities say the two men are part of an international gang of Internet hackers who call themselves the "THr34t-Krew."

Greece

ATHENS -- The suspected leader of a far-left terrorist group blamed for more than 100 bombings was jailed Thursday on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization. Christos Tsigaridas, 64, who has admitted he was a member of the Revolutionary Popular Struggle, or ELA, was locked up in Athens' Korydallos maximum security prison pending trial.

Jamaica

KINGSTON -- With reggae thumping over loudspeakers, hundreds of Jamaicans paid tribute Thursday to late reggae legend Bob Marley on his 58th birthday. Radio stations dedicated blocks of airtime to play Marley's songs, and newspapers published ads to honor the dread- locked singer, who died of cancer in 1981 at age 36.

Japan

TOKYO -- Shigeo Sasaki, whose daughter was an atomic bomb victim and became famous for the paper cranes she folded, has died of brain tumor, his family said Friday. He was 87. A barber from Hiroshima, Sasaki was diagnosed with a brain tumor a year ago and had been hospitalized since. He died Tuesday. He devoted his life to campaigning for peace after his 12-year-old daughter Sadako died in 1955 of radiation-related leukemia that she developed after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima 10 years earlier. He retold her story to school children around the nation.

Netherlands

THE HAGUE -- U.N. prosecutors introduced a key piece of evidence at Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial Thursday -- a letter that implied he had power over rebel Serb troops responsible for atrocities in Croatia. If authentic, the document contradicts one of Milosevic's defense assertions that as president of Serbia during the 1991-1995 Croatian war, he had no real control over the Serb- dominated Federal Yugoslav army, or Serb forces outside his territory.

Pakistan

PESHAWAR -- A Pakistani court ordered authorities to reveal the whereabouts of five foreign men arrested last year on suspicion of links to al-Qaida, officials said today. The Peshawar High Court in northwestern Pakistan gave authorities until Feb. 28 to say where they are holding the men. The four Sudanese and one Jordanian were arrested in Peshawar in June as part of an operation involving the FBI and Pakistani police.

Sri Lanka

COLOMBO -- Three Tamil Tiger rebels blew up their boat, killing themselves, after they were found trying to smuggle an anti-aircraft gun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition into Sri Lanka today, defense officials said. Two European peace monitors who had boarded the boat to inspect it were unharmed. They left the vessel before the rebels blew it up.

Venezuela

CARACAS -- Huge lines reappeared at service stations today in this capital city while thousands of workers continued their strike in the nation's huge oil industry.