Northern Ireland

IRA dissidents blamed in fatal bomb attack

Police and politicians blamed Irish Republican Army dissidents Thursday for killing a Protestant construction worker with a booby-trap bomb, the first fatal attack linked to them in four years.

David Caldwell, 51, died after opening a bomb-laden lunch box left at a canteen in the disused British army base where he was working in east Londonderry, the second-largest city in this British territory.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but police arrested two Catholic men and a woman with suspected dissident IRA links.

Caldwell became the seventh person killed in political-sectarian violence this year in Northern Ireland. Most of the other victims, including a Catholic teenager slain July 22 in Belfast, were victims of Protestant extremists.

Uruguay

Bank crisis continues; looters raid shops

Looters raided supermarkets and small shops in a poor district of Uruguay’s capital Thursday, as unions protested a government decision closing the country’s banks for most of the week.

About 100 people threw rocks and pried open metal gates on one supermarket and carted away food before police dispersed them, authorities and witnesses said. Authorities said 16 shops were vandalized and attacks on 14 other stores were thwarted.

There were reports that two other small supermarkets, along with a pizza shop and bakery, were also targeted, two days after President Jorge Batlle ordered banks closed in efforts to slow a run on deposits that was threatening Uruguay’s financial system.

Yemen

Coast guard unit to train in United States

Yemen will form a coast guard and plans to send its first 20 officers for training in the United States, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.

The creation of the coast guard comes after suicide bombers rammed a dinghy laden with explosives into the USS Cole in October 2000 when the destroyer stopped to refuel in the port of Aden. The attack killed 17 U.S. sailors.

Yemen committed itself to joining the war on terrorism after Sept. 11 and has been working with the United States to enhance security at Aden and elsewhere in the country.

Indonesia

Son of former dictator won’t appeal conviction

The youngest son of former dictator Suharto announced Thursday that he would not appeal his conviction and 15-year prison sentence for ordering the assassination of a judge, saying his family’s political opponents had made Indonesians hate him.

“Public opinion has formed to create hatred against me,” Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy, said at Jakarta’s Cipinang prison, where he was being held.

“It is the work of individuals or groups who want to destroy me and my family for political reasons,” he said.

Tommy was found guilty last Friday of ordering the murder of Supreme Court judge Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, illegal weapons possession and fleeing from justice.

Tommy’s attorneys initially said he would appeal.