Mexico

Authorities recover most of stolen cyanide

Mexico’s defense department announced that 70 drums of sodium cyanide were found Wednesday near a dirt road in central Mexico apparently part of a stolen shipment of the highly poisonous chemical that officials have been seeking for 18 days.

A policeman discovered the drums in the early morning hours outside the city of Honey, Puebla, 80 miles north of Mexico City, said the city’s secretary, Juvencio Miranda.

Mexican and U.S. officials were alarmed by the May 10 hijacking of a truck carrying 96 such drums of cyanide roughly 10 tons. Twenty of the drums were found abandoned with the truck on May 16.

Moscow

EU confers trade status

The European Union announced Wednesday that it will grant Russia status as a full market economy a decade after the fall of communism, opening the way to greater trade and delivering an economic prize the Kremlin did not receive from President Bush last weekend.

The decision formally acknowledged Russia’s progress in rebuilding itself after seven decades of a command economy, and provided President Vladimir Putin a welcome boost for his drive to push through long-stalled reforms and anchor his country to the West.

“As Russia’s principal trading partner, it is right and proper that we be the first to recognize and reward the considerable efforts undertaken by this country in recent years by treating her as a fully fledged market economy,” Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, announced during a meeting with Putin at the Kremlin.

Libya

Pan Am settlement proposal denied

Libya denied Wednesday it had agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of Pan Am Flight 103 victims, casting doubt on the future of a deal announced Tuesday by lawyers negotiating on behalf of the families.

In a statement issued by its U.N. Mission, the Libyan government declared it “has no relationship” to the settlement deal, which the lawyers said they had reached with three senior Libyan representatives in Paris.

New York lawyers for Pan Am 103 relatives announced Tuesday that Libya had agreed to pay $10 million for each of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. They said the money would be paid out as various U.S. and U.N. sanctions against Libya were lifted.

Australia

Explorer thinks JFK’s PT 109 has been found

The explorer who found the Titanic reported “promising” but “inconclusive” findings Wednesday in the search for the sunken PT 109, the vessel commanded by John F. Kennedy during World War II.

Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corp. radio reported that Robert Ballard found the remains of the wooden patrol boat lying on the seabed in the Blackett Strait near Gizo in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

Kennedy’s boat went down after being attacked by a Japanese destroyer. Two men died, but Kennedy saved an injured crewman by towing him through the sea for hours.

In a statement, Ballard said, “While promising, the expedition findings are inconclusive at this time. We will review the results with naval experts over the next several weeks.”