Jamaica

Tropical storm Isidore nears resort city

Heavy rains fell Wednesday in Montego Bay as Tropical Storm Isidore inched its way toward Jamaica and emergency workers braced for flash floods.

The storm’s center was expected to reach the western tip of Jamaica later Wednesday, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Isidore was expected to head to Cuba early today.

“We’re expecting it to move toward western Cuba in the coming days and (it) should follow that track, keeping the core of the storm away from Florida,” forecaster Jack Beven said.

Belgium

Amnesty International: Turkey still using torture

Turkey’s police still torture suspects, including women and children, despite recent reforms meant to enhance its candidacy for European Union membership, the human rights group Amnesty International told the European Union in Brussels on Wednesday.

The EU is expected to decide in December whether to open negotiations with Turkey over the country’s joining the union.

Amnesty said people taken in for questioning routinely were blindfolded and could face a barrage of torture methods, including electric shocks, hanging by the arms and severe beatings.

Turkish Foreign Minister Sukru Sina Gurel said continued delays by the EU would have serious political ramifications in Turkey, where elections are scheduled for Nov. 3.

Sicily

12 more bodies pulled from site of sunken boat

Italian police divers and coast guard ships pulled 12 bodies from the sea Wednesday, bringing to 27 the number of illegal immigrants who died when their boat sank off Sicily last weekend.

Fishermen alerted authorities after spotting the bodies, believed to have been Liberians, floating about 500 feet from where the boat went down Sunday, coast guard Cmdr. Giuseppe Rando said. The search was to resume early today.

Rescuers saved 92 people after the rickety boat sank in stormy waters off the southern Sicilian city of Agrigento.

The rugged Sicilian coast is a common destination for would-be migrants hoping to make it to Europe.

India

Kashmir violence claims 13 lives during voting

Days before a second round of voting in disputed Kashmir, suspected Islamic rebels gunned down political workers and clashed with security forces in a surge of violence that left 13 people dead, police said Wednesday.

Gunmen fatally shot Ali Mohammad Dar, an activist of the ruling National Conference, at close range Wednesday in Koker Bazar, a busy business district in the state capital, Srinagar.

Police blamed separatist rebels who have threatened to kill voters, politicians and election workers who participate in the state assembly elections.

There wasn’t much violence during Monday’s polling, but voters and political workers fear reprisals from the rebels.

Nigeria

Minister raises alarm about voter card sales

Nigeria’s government acknowledged Wednesday that election officials were hoarding voter registration cards with the aim of selling them to politicians.

Information Minister Jerry Gana said “serious malpractices” have plagued a 10-day campaign aiming to register half of Nigeria’s 120 million people by Saturday for the 2003 vote, which will be the first civilian-run election since the end of military rule three years ago.

Opposition parties have already charged that the sign-up problems meant the nation risked failing its young democracy.