Indonesia

800,000 will need food assistance

Nearly 800,000 people will need some form of food assistance in Indonesia’s Aceh province as it recovers from the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami, the head of the U.N.’s food aid agency in the region said Monday.

Claude Jibidar, the World Food Program head in Aceh, said that the organization was so far feeding some 340,000 people in Aceh, but that this figure was expected to rise as isolated villages are reached and the economic effects of the tsunami are felt.

“We are talking around 790,000 people” who will be in need of food assistance, he told The Associated Press.

He said this figure included those who might experience food shortages in the future, since they were not able to sell cash crops because of disruption in trade networks, or because their food stocks had been shared with refugees.

The World Food Program is running the biggest aid operation in Aceh since the tsunami.

Tajikistan

Explosives-filled car blows up in capital

A car loaded with explosives blew up outside a government ministry in the Tajik capital early Monday, killing the driver and wounding three people, authorities said.

The three injured were all officers of the Emergencies Ministry, said the minister, Mirzo Ziyoyev. Earlier, the deputy minister had said about a dozen people were wounded.

Five cars in the area were set ablaze by the blast, which shattered windows in the ministry and nearby buildings.

There was no immediate indication of who was responsible, and Interior Minister Humdin Sharipov launched an investigation.

Two hours later, a fire broke out at a building housing a dining hall and a meeting hall in a yard of the Security Ministry. The Interior Ministry’s fire department said no one was hurt in the blaze.

The U.S. Embassy urged all American citizens in Tajikistan to exercise caution and observe heightened security precautions.

Netherlands

War crimes judges sentence general

U.N. war crimes judges sentenced an ailing, 71-year-old Yugoslav general to eight years in prison Monday for failing to punish subordinates who carried out the deadly 1991 shelling of the Croatian town of Dubrovnik.

But Gen. Pavle Strugar was acquitted of the more serious allegations of murder and ordering the shelling during the 1991-95 war in Croatia. The Dec. 6, 1991, attack killed two civilians and destroyed much of medieval Dubrovnik’s protected Old City, a UNESCO world heritage site since 1979.

Strugar was convicted of attacking civilians and the intentional destruction of protected cultural monuments, but he was acquitted of all charges of personal involvement in the attack.

Parker said the court took into account Strugar’s deteriorating health, age and other personal matters in sentencing him.

Strugar’s defense team said it would appeal the decision.