Austria: Three leaders resign from far-right party

Austria’s vice chancellor and two other Freedom Party leaders resigned Sunday amid a rift in their far-right party, leading to possible early elections.

Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer, Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser and the party’s parliamentary speaker, Peter Westenthaler, said in Vienna that they were resigning from their posts following a conflict with former party leader Joerg Haider, a controversial figure known for past comments defending the Hitler era.

The resignations were a clear victory for Haider, who has opposed the work of the ruling coalition of which the Freedom Party is a member. They also were expected to lead to early elections.

Chile: Coup anniversary march erupts in violence

Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators Sunday after violence erupted during a march marking the 29th anniversary of the military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

While most of the 1,500 demonstrators peacefully marched more than 25 blocks from downtown Santiago to the city’s main cemetery, small groups of masked youth started throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at stores, bank offices and at police.

As the march went past the presidential palace, which was destroyed by air force jets during the coup, the demonstrators burned a U.S. flag. It was widely believed that the U.S. government and CIA supported the coup.

Among the stores attacked by the demonstrators was a McDonald’s restaurant, which was set on fire and had its windows smashed.

The 1973-90 coup toppled Marxist President Salvador Allende.

Guatemala: Scientists find remains of civil war victims

Anthropologists digging under a school in Guatemala’s northern highlands have unearthed the remains of 47 people killed during the country’s 36-year civil war, local media reported Sunday.

Human rights activists came to Rabinal, 120 miles north of Guatemala City, after years of testimony from residents who said the bodies of men, woman and children were secretly buried under schools, government buildings and a soccer stadium.

In five days of searching, scientists digging up patios and a playground area around Rabinal’s grammar school found 12 cemeteries containing skeletons and bones believed to have belonged to 47 people, Juan Carlos Gatica of the Forensic Anthropologic Foundation of Guatemala told the Prensa Libre newspaper.

Gatica, who could not be reached for comment, told the newspaper that forensic scientists plan to continue searching under and around the school and other Rabinal buildings for at least the rest of the month.

Nepal: Rebel attack kills 49 policemen

Hundreds of leftist rebels attacked a police station in a mountain village Sunday, killing at least 49 policemen and wounding 21 others, a government minister said.

Home Minister Devendra Raj Kadel said authorities had found the bodies of two rebels, but that the number of rebels killed during the attack in Bhiman village could be much higher.

“We have eyewitnesses saying that the rebels were seen fleeing the scene with dozens of bodies,” Kadel said.

There were 70 policemen stationed at the post when the rebels attacked after midnight, starting a battle that lasted for hours, Kadel said after a visit to the site.

Several had been thought to be hiding in the nearby jungle, but later turned out to be dead or injured.