The Arizona Daily Star

Published: 01.19.2006

Around the World
IVORY COAST
4 killed in attack on peacekeepers
ABIDJAN — U.N. peacekeepers fought off armed attackers besieging their compound Wednesday in fighting that left at least four dead and 10 wounded in a third day of unrest in the divided West African nation.
Peacekeepers and staffers were evacuating the scene of the violence in the government-held south. They also were leaving a nearby town where they received threats of violence. In the main city of Abidjan, U.N. soldiers fired shots into the air and launched tear-gas grenades at demonstrators for a second day, keeping about 1,000 protesters at bay.
Rebels fighting President Laurent Gbagbo have accused his supporters of orchestrating the turmoil to undermine a new government that diminishes the president's power.
ECUADOR
57 hurt in rioting over transit fares
QUITO — Fifty-seven people were hurt and 23 arrested in Quito when police clashed Wednesday with hundreds of Ecuadorean high-school students protesting a planned rise in public transit fares, the Red Cross and police said.
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse students wielding sticks, rocks and homemade bombs in different parts of the Andean country's capital. The students were protesting a proposed 40 percent increase in fares sought by transit workers.
The Red Cross said it had treated 57 people, including two police officers, for minor injuries.
ARGENTINA, brazil
Nations will make own AIDS drugs
BUENOS AIRES — Argentina and Brazil will begin producing their own anti-AIDS drugs in a jointly owned factory to try to lower the cost of treatment, Argentina's Health Ministry said Wednesday.
Construction of a $10 million plant, possibly to be in Argentina, will begin within a few months, the ministry announced after a meeting in Brasilia between Health Minister Gines Gonzales and his Brazilian counterpart, Jose Saraiva Felipe.
Both countries provide free medication and treatment to all HIV-positive patients.
RUSSIA
Temperatures drop to minus-22 degrees
MOSCOW — Temperatures so frigid that even winter-hardened Russians complained gripped Moscow and much of the rest of the country for a third day Wednesday. At least two dozen people reportedly died of exposure nationwide and Russians used a record amount of electricity to keep warm.
Temperatures dropped to 22 degrees below zero overnight, Moscow's First Deputy Mayor Pyotr Aksyonov said in televised comments. By early today, the cold was expected to reach minus-30 or even lower.
CHINA
World pledges $1.9B to fight bird flu
BEIJING — After a year of unprecedented appeals for money to cope with the Asian tsunami and the South Asia earthquake, the world dug deeper Wednesday, pledging $1.9 billion to fight bird flu and prepare for a potential pandemic.
The United States alone came up with $334 million that will largely be used to help poor countries in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, where the H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic. The European Union pledged an additional $261 million.
WEST BANK
Abbas optimistic concerning Hamas
RAMALLAH — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday he'd rather resign than let extremists block his peace agenda, but he expressed hope the Islamic militant group Hamas would moderate its views if it shared power.
However, a Hamas leader ruled out talks with Israel and threatened to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
Abbas acknowledged he was worn out after a year in power, but he denied a report in Israel's Maariv daily Wednesday that he was depressed and losing control.
Polls show Abbas' Fatah Party steadily losing ground to Hamas. A poll last week gave Fatah 35 percent of the vote, compared with 31 percent for Hamas. That represents a 10-percentage point gain for the militants in a month.
MEXICO
Illegal-hunting case
MEXICO CITY — Mexican police arrested two men driving a truck carrying a dead puma and 175 pounds of illegal deer meat in Sonora, officials said Wednesday.
The Federal Preventive Police found the two bags of deer meat and a puma sliced up the middle in the back of the men's pickup during a routine stop along the Nogales-Mexico highway, officials said.
Driver Rafael Hoyos Murrieta and passenger Miguel Angel Higuera Pinuelas told authorities five Americans killed the animals on Murrieta's ranch, and then gave him the meat..
Officials said the men were handed over to federal investigators for further questioning and may face charges under Mexico's animal-protection laws.
Wire reports