London: Fire forces evacuation of Buckingham Palace

A fire broke out Sunday at Buckingham Palace, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people and marring the high-spirited, four-day celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s 50 years on the throne.

The London Fire Brigade said no members of the royal family were in the palace at the time of the fire, which police said was not intentionally set. The cause, however, had yet to be determined.

The evacuation disrupted preparations for a star-studded pop music concert planned for tonight on the palace grounds. News reports said it was the first time the palace had been evacuated since World War II.

Ozzy Osbourne had just finished rehearsing his 30-minute set when the blaze began, and the British Broadcasting Corp. reported that those evacuated from the area around the palace included the musicians Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Queen guitarist Brian May.

Geneva: Swiss voters support easing abortion laws

Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelmingly supported legislation making it easier for a woman to get an abortion within the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy.

In the national referendum, 72 percent of voters endorsed a proposal passed by Swiss lawmakers last year decriminalizing some abortions by easing the legal requirements on women seeking them and doctors performing them.

However, abortion remains a crime if it is performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy without following those requirements or if it is performed after the 12th week of pregnancy without meeting other conditions.

The vote was 1,399,711 in favor and 540,111 against.

Switzerland’s abortion law is one of the strictest in Europe, yet it is rarely enforced.

Venezuela: President plans to file for divorce

President Hugo Chavez and his wife, Marisabel, are getting a divorce, she said in an interview published Sunday.

Marisabel de Chavez said the president would be filing divorce papers shortly. She cited a “contrast of personalities” as the main reason for the divorce.

Mrs. Chavez said she and her children a 4-year-old daughter with Chavez and a son from a previous marriage have had to flee the presidential mansion three times during political turmoil.

“That’s no life for anyone,” she said.

Mexico: Army, police arrest 16 in sawmill massacre

Army troops and police arrested 16 people in remote southern Mexico after 26 sawmill workers were massacred in a land dispute, state officials said Sunday.

Three mass burials clogged the little graveyard in Santiago Xochiltepec, a village of 640 people, on Sunday as Evangelical church members, Jehovah’s Witnesses and then Catholics lowered their dead into graves, some dug extra wide in the red clay so that relatives could be buried side by side.

The army and more than 200 state police helped in the arrests after Friday night’s shooting about 215 miles southeast of Mexico City, the Oaxaca state attorney general’s office said.

Most conflicts in the impoverished region are related in some way to land. Competing Indian cultures have battled over farm and forest land since before the Spanish conquest 500 years ago.

Afghanistan: Former king postpones trip through country

Afghanistan’s former king on Sunday postponed a trip to two major cities at a critical moment in the country’s reconstruction. A spokesman said the king was sick.

Mohammad Zaher Shah, 87, returned in April to Afghanistan after three decades in exile. He had been planning to visit the southern city of Kandahar and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Zaher Shah is “a little sick. As soon as he is OK, we will go to Kandahar,” said his secretary, Amid Saddiq. He declined to elaborate.

There was no indication whether the king’s illness would prevent him from attending the loya jirga, which runs June 10-15.

Thailand: Hundreds of refugees flee Myanmar troops

Myanmar soldiers have killed at least five people and set fire to ethnic Karen villages in new raids on separatist rebels along the border with Thailand, refugees said Sunday.

Thai officials said more than 700 Karen have fled to Thailand from 22 villages in the Kyar Inn Seik Kyee township of Myanmar, about 25 miles from the border. Hundreds more are believed to be making their way through the jungle to Thai territory.

The refugees began arriving in small groups Friday in Thailand’s Umphang district, about 120 miles northwest of Bangkok, the border officials said on condition of anonymity.

Myanmar soldiers often raid Karen villages, accusing residents of giving sanctuary to the Karen National Union, which has been fighting for greater autonomy since Myanmar, also known as Burma, achieved independence from Britain in 1948.

Some 120,000 people displaced by the conflict live in camps along the border, most of them Karen.

Zimbabwe: White farmer killed on appropriated land

A white Zimbabwean farm manager was shot to death Sunday, neighbors said, on a farm earmarked for confiscation and eventual lease to a high ranking civil servant.

It was not immediately clear if there was a link between the killing and the government’s controversial land distribution program.

President Robert Mugabe’s “fast track land reform” was created to redistribute 5,000 farms to 264,000 black families by Aug. 31.

Despite promises to redistribute the land to poor blacks, many of the farms have been given to loyal lawmakers and confidantes of Mugabe.

Charles Anderson, 40, was shot in the head by four assailants who had broken into his home on the farm in Glendale, 50 miles north of Harare, a neighbor said on condition of anonymity.