Beijing

WHO official says China travel ban may be lifted

Giving the clearest signal yet that the SARS epidemic is under control in the country where it began, the World Health Organization’s executive director for communicable diseases said Thursday that WHO officials would consider lifting travel warnings for China.

Dr. David Heymann refused to speculate on when the warnings might be canceled, and said the decision would be made by the WHO’s director general, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Heymann cautioned, however, that SARS remains mysterious and China and other countries must guard against reinfection. The threat could be especially grave later in the year, he said, if SARS proves to be a seasonal virus that wanes in the summer only to roar back in the winter.

Worldwide, the SARS virus has infected more than 8,000 people in 29 countries and caused 789 deaths.

United Nations

U.S. keeps exemption from U.N. tribunal

The United States won another yearlong exemption Thursday for American peacekeepers from prosecution by a new U.N. war crimes tribunal. But the European Union warned the immunity wouldn’t be permanent.

The Bush administration argues that the International Criminal Court — established last year and expecting to start operating later this year — could be used for frivolous or politically motivated prosecution of American troops. In addition to seeking the U.N. exemption, U.S. officials have signed bilateral agreements with 37 countries not to prosecute American officials and is seeking more.

Unlike last year, when an initial one-year exemption received unanimous U.N. Security Council backing after a bitter battle, the United States faced opposition Thursday from France, Germany, Syria and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Australia

U.S. families gather for crash memorial

A U.S. Army Air Force “Flying Fortress” B-17 aircraft crashed 60 years ago in Mackay, killing all but one of the 41 American airmen aboard. But for decades, the accident was a secret.

On Saturday, families of the dead will gather to remember the June 14, 1943, crash.

After the plane went down near the airfield at Mackay — 600 miles from the Queensland capital, Brisbane — wartime censorship restrictions suppressed news of the crash.

The cause of the crash was never discovered. The aircraft took off into fog and soon after made a turn at low altitude.

The victims’ remains were buried twice in Australia — first in Townsville north of Mackay and then at a U.S. military cemetery outside Brisbane. In 1947, the remains were flown out of Australia, with 13 buried in Hawaii and the others returned to the U.S. mainland.

Belgium

Americans may block some NATO spending

The United States threatened on Thursday to withhold money for a new NATO headquarters and ban Americans from attending alliance meetings unless Belgium changes a law under which Army commander Tommy Franks was charged with war crimes.

The strongly worded comments by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld overshadowed a meeting at which the NATO allies said they had taken historic steps to streamline the organization and equip it to handle new threats of the 21st century.

At a news conference, Rumsfeld criticized a decade-old Belgian law that claims a right to prosecute war crimes committed anywhere by anyone. Rumsfeld said the United States rejected the assertion that Belgium has such jurisdiction.

Americans sued so far include Franks, former Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell.