Austria: Trafficking via Internet a growing global threat

Worldwide, drug traffickers increasingly are taking advantage of encrypted e-mail and other Internet technology to sell their stashes, launder money and trade tips and techniques, the U.N. International Narcotics Control Board warned today in a report.

Among the Vienna-based agency’s causes for concern:

 In the United States, Internet swapping of techniques for manufacturing amphetamines in underground laboratories has become so widespread, the drugs are now being made by people who are not college-educated chemists  often resulting in injury-causing explosions and fires.

 In the Czech Republic, authorities are reporting a spike in drug sales and purchases arranged online at Internet cafes or via text messages transmitted between cellular telephones. “Because illicit drug deals are arranged instantaneously and over short distances, interception by law enforcement authorities is much more difficult,” it said.

 In Australia, traffickers are using Web-based package tracking services offered by international courier companies to keep tabs on the progress of their shipments. Any undue delay could signal that authorities have intercepted the drugs, giving the dealers time to cover their tracks.

Washington, D.C.: U.S. confirms efforts to infiltrate Iraq

Trying to unsettle President Saddam Hussein, small groups of American diplomats and intelligence analysts infiltrate northern Iraq periodically to confer with Kurds and other opponents of the Baghdad government, U.S. officials confirmed Tuesday.

With the area protected by U.S. and British overflights and beyond the reach of Saddam’s air force, the American forays are part of an unabashed, mostly psychological campaign to rattle him.

The Defense Department on Tuesday denied rumors that any U.S. ground troops were inside Iraq. Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said the rumors had apparently originated with a Fox News Channel report of U.S. covert activity inside Iraq.

The rumors helped send stocks down in early trading.

Vatican City: Pope sets travel plans

The Vatican announced extensive summer travel plans for Pope John Paul II that will take the frail pontiff from Canada to Mexico and on to Guatemala on a saint-making mission.

The announcement Tuesday came as John Paul, the greatest saint-maker in history, set the dates for nine canonizations, two to be carried out on his trip to North and Central America.

John Paul, who turns 82 in May, had long planned to visit Toronto in July to mark the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day.

Last month, the Vatican added a stop in Mexico so the pope could raise to sainthood Juan Diego, an Indian who is said to have had a vision of an olive-skinned Virgin Mary on Dec. 12, 1531, while standing on the site of an Aztec shrine.

The trip has now been extended to Guatemala for the canonization of Pedro de Betancur, a 17th-century missionary known as the “St. Francis of the Americas.”

Egypt: Building collapse kills five brides-to-be

Multicolored party lights were still hanging Tuesday from Heba Maamoun Orabi’s balcony Tuesday, strung out for what was meant to have been a wedding celebration. Instead, they were a macabre backdrop for a funeral.

Orabi was one of 22 people killed Monday in the collapse of an aging, Nile-front building in Damietta that housed, among other things, a hair salon that was popular with brides. At least five women preparing for their weddings died in the four-story building.

All but one of the 22 dead were women; 25 other people were injured.