Beijing: News bureau seized

A man who claimed to have a bomb entered the Beijing offices of the Reuters news agency this morning and took several correspondents hostage, the news agency said in a dispatch.

All of the agency’s employees were later released, a company spokeswoman in Singapore said.

The man, who remained in the bureau with police and a sharpshooter outside, said he was protesting corruption in the Chinese government, Reuters reported. “I want the whole world to know how black China is, how corrupt it is,” the agency quoted him as saying.

China’s legislature is meeting to elevate new top leaders this week.

Washington, D.C.: DNA crime funding sought

The Bush administration wants $1 billion over the next five years to increase the DNA analysis that has helped solve crimes but faces huge backlogs, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said Tuesday.

President Bush’s goal is to eliminate all state and federal DNA analysis backlogs within five years, Ashcroft said at a news conference. There are now some 350,000 DNA samples pending nationwide from crime scenes and victims; up to 300,000 samples from convicted criminals need to be processed.

London: Meeting with Libya ends

U.S. and British diplomats made progress Tuesday in talks with Libyan officials over responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, officials said.

Britain’s Foreign Office said the three-way session in London had been useful, but played down reports that Libya had accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing over the Scottish town of Lockerbie and that a compensation deal had been struck for families of the victims.

Assistant Secretary of State William Burns will discuss the meeting with victims’ relatives today.

Pan Am flight 103 was bombed on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 270 aboard and 11 more on the ground. Britain and the United States are pressuring Libya to comply with U.N. Security Council requirements to accept responsibility for the bombing and provide compensation.