Haiti

Five killed in gunbattle

Haitian police backed by U.N. peacekeepers encircled a seaside slum controlled by heavily armed gangs on Friday, killing at least five gunmen in a firefight as the U.N. Security Council discussed efforts to pacify the nation ahead of fall elections.

Between five and 10 armed civilians died in the hourlong gunbattle between Haitian police and suspects described as members of street gangs, said Lt. Col. Elouafi Boulbars, a U.N. military spokesman. He said two Haitian police also were injured in the clash in Cite Soleil, where a day earlier a Filipino peacekeeper was shot and killed.

The clash came as some diplomats and politicians said Haiti had made little progress in preparing for November elections and needed more funding to lay the groundwork for the vote.

The U.N. Security Council met with leaders of political groups, and participants said Haitian politicians expressed frustration with U.N. efforts to assure safe and free elections more than a year after the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Russia

Insurgents fight back in Chechen capital

Russian and Chechen regional forces battled fighters holed up in an apartment building Friday in the Chechen capital of Grozny, killing at least five militants and leaving up to six federal troops dead, officials and news reports said.

The daytime gunbattle came hours after Russian forces staged a predawn raid, killing four fighters and seizing two portable anti-aircraft missile systems from rebels near the main air base.

The fighting in and around the Chechen capital was some of the fiercest in months.

Russian television showed helicopters circling over a nine-story apartment building in Grozny as heavily armed soldiers fired repeatedly. Smoke later could be seen billowing out of the building, which, like many in the Chechen capital, is already ruined from nearly a decade of war and violence in the southern Russian region.

Geneva

WHO says two virus shipments still missing

Health experts have destroyed two-thirds of the specimens of a killer influenza virus sent as part of routine test kits around the world, but still were trying to trace two shipments that were supposed to go to Mexico and Lebanon, U.N. officials said Friday.

The World Health Organization has been urging thousands of labs in 18 countries that received vials of the nearly 50-year-old H2N2 virus to destroy the samples amid fears of a global pandemic should the virus be released.

WHO influenza chief Klaus Stohr said 10 of the countries that received samples confirmed their labs had destroyed the virus. Labs in Lebanon and Mexico, however, “never received the specimen even though they were on the distribution list,” Stohr said.

Bangladesh

Rescue efforts stop; 111 workers missing

Rescuers all but gave up hope of finding 111 missing workers in a collapsed garment factory in Bangladesh, as the confirmed death toll climbed to 54 after a total of 10 bodies were pulled from the rubble Friday.

A boiler blast Monday brought the nine-story building down on top of nearly 300 workers at Spectrum Garments Factory Ltd. near Savar, a town 20 miles northwest of the capital, Dhaka.

Rescuers found 10 bodies Friday and “it’ll be a miracle if we find any survivors,” a police official said.

The corpses were recovered after cranes removed huge concrete slabs, he said, adding it could take another week to clear the tons of rubble.

Bangladesh has about 2,500 garment factories employing about 1.8 million workers, about 90 percent of them women. The South Asian nation exports more than $5 billion of textiles each year.

Beijing

China warns against anti-Japan protests

China warned its people against participating in planned anti-Japanese protests this weekend, apparently worried they might spin out of control amid suggestions Beijing was trying to use the unrest to block Tokyo’s bid for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat.

Despite the warning, a crowd of about 5,000 people launched an anti-Japanese march today in central Shanghai, heading in the direction of Japan’s consulate as several hundred police watched.

As Japan’s foreign minister prepared to fly to Beijing for talks aimed at defusing the tensions, activists posted messages on Web sites calling for a third weekend of protests over Tokyo’s wartime history and the Security Council bid.