France

Plane hijacking ends peacefully

A man who hijacked a French jet in 1999 struck again Wednesday, threatening to blow up a flight over Switzerland with 57 passengers aboard, police said. He surrendered after the plane landed in southern France, and no one was hurt.

The man, identified by French police as Stefano Savorani, a former Italian policeman with a history of mental illness, claimed to be a member of the al-Qaida terrorist network and brandished a TV remote control he said was connected to a bomb, authorities said.

The Alitalia flight landed safely after Savorani, 29, demanded it be diverted to Lyon, France’s second-largest city.

Authorities said the hijacker released the passengers in two waves from the MD-80 jet, which had been flying from Bologna, Italy, to in Paris. Savorani surrendered to a French SWAT team, and no explosives were found on board.

Nigeria

Archbishop urges Christians to fight back

A Catholic archbishop said Wednesday that Christians were “tired of turning the other cheek” to Muslim attacks and blamed the government for deadly sectarian riots after a newspaper article about the Miss World beauty pageant.

The Rev. John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, archbishop in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, spoke at a conference called by the Council of Nigerian Churches. He accused President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government of failing to protect Christians during the riots.

The archbishop said Christians shouldn’t hesitate to defend themselves from further attacks. “It is a Christian duty to protect yourselves,” he said.

Senior clergy from the Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran and other churches also criticized the government for failing to intervene.

Colombia

Extradition approved for drug kingpin

President Alvaro Uribe approved the extradition of a Colombian drug kingpin to the United States on Wednesday, officials said.

Victor Patino Fomeque, who is being detained by Colombian authorities, is accused of laundering money and trafficking drugs to Florida. He has 15 days to appeal the extradition.

Patino, once a leading member of the former Cali drug cartel, served seven years in a Colombian prison for drug trafficking. In April, just two months after being released, he was arrested on a US. warrant by during searches of homes and businesses in downtown Bogota after a string of bombs hit the capital.

China

Scientist claims gains toward panda cloning

China has cleared two technological hurdles and faces just one more before it can begin cloning the endangered giant panda, the scientist heading the project told colleagues.

Chen Dayuan said the last challenge was figuring out how to keep a panda fetus alive in a surrogate mother’s womb until it was mature enough for birth. He spoke at a ceremony Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of a panda research center in the southeastern city of Fuzhou, which has assisted in the cloning effort.

The project, based in a Beijing lab operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been widely criticized by Chinese scientists. They call it too expensive and say protecting China’s mountain forests is a better way to save the 1,000 pandas left in the wild.

Yugoslavia

Former bodyguard to Milosevic killed

Slobodan Milosevic’s former bodyguard and another man were killed in a drive-by shooting in the Yugoslav capital, police said Wednesday.

Assailants fired more than 30 shots from a passing car, killing Nenad Batocanin, who was also a top officer in the federal police. He was the eighth senior officer gunned down in the past six years.

Police said another man with him, identified as Zeljko Skrba, also died in the attack Tuesday. The two were in a vehicle outside Belgrade’s Red Star soccer stadium when they were attacked.

Batocanin was the second-ranking bodyguard in Milosevic’s entourage. After Milosevic’s ouster as Yugoslav president in 2000, Batocanin briefly served as the bodyguard of Zoran Zizic while Zizic was prime minister. He was also in charge of security for foreign diplomats and visiting statesmen.

Berlin

Pole sets record for pole-sitting

A young Pole set a new pole-sitting world record Wednesday, coming down from his perch in a German fun park after 196 days and nights.

Daniel Baraniuk, an out-of-work 27-year-old from Gdansk, collected nearly $23,000 for winning the World Pole-Sitting Championship. Organizers said he also secured a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Ten competitors mounted their 8-foot 21/2-inch poles at Heidepark in the northern town of Soltau on May 15. They were allowed to leave their 24- by 16-inch seats, every two hours for 10 minutes.

Baraniuk, whose closest rival fell off his pole in October, said he gave up because of boredom as the number of visitors to the park dropped with the seasonal temperatures.