Brazil

Settlers accompany slain nun’s coffin

Thousands of settlers in bare feet and on motorcycles crowded the Trans-Amazon highway Monday to accompany the coffin of Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old American nun slain over the weekend in the environmentally fragile region she defended for 20 years.

Stang was gunned down Saturday at the Boa Esperanca settlement where she worked to organize some 400 poor families near Anapu, a rural town about 1,300 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. She also fought to protect the large areas of pristine jungle nearby.

Her body had been flown to the state capital, Belem, some 370 miles to the west, for an autopsy and was returned here for burial today.

Witnesses said Stang read passages from the Bible to her killers before they shot her. One witness said Stang pulled the Bible from her bag when she was confronted and started reading. Her killers listened, took a few steps back and fired.

Arrest warrants have been issued for four suspects — two purported gunmen, a man who allegedly hired them and a rancher accused of ordering the slaying, officials said. No arrests have been made.

Germany

Soldier described as ‘ever-reliable’ at trial

The former commander of a British soldier accused of mistreating Iraqi captives testified Monday that the defendant was an “ever-reliable” person whom he would not associate with the abuse.

Cpl. Daniel Kenyon, 33, is the most senior of three soldiers court-martialed in the May 2003 incidents at a British-occupied aid warehouse outside Basra. He has said he was not involved and has pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting the abuse of detained looters and failing to report it.

Maj. Adrian Grinonneau, his commander on a previous posting, testified that Kenyon “was not the sort who would just go charging in — he was just more thoughtful than others and had more awareness of his actions.”

Kenyon has been accused by Lance Cpl. Gary Bartlam, whose testimony and photos underpinned the British military’s case against them and two other soldiers. The photos of the alleged abuse, including two captives simulating sex acts and one being dangled from a forklift, have caused dismay in Britain.

Spain

Rescue operation launched for cruise ship

A fierce storm in the Mediterranean knocked out the engines of a Spanish cruise ship Monday, prompting Spanish and French authorities to launch a rescue operation that proved unnecessary when the crew got the vessel going again within hours.

The Voyager, with more than 700 people aboard, was battered by waves up to 26 feet and high winds for more than two hours, according to the French maritime prefect in Toulon, Adm. Jean-Marie Van Huffel.

Several people were injured on the ship, including one who suffered a broken leg, he said.

Because the ship’s crew restarted one engine, however, it was not considered necessary to evacuate the passengers or crew.

The Voyager, moving under its own power, was diverted from its route — from Tunisia to Barcelona — toward the Italian island of Sardinia, the nearest acceptable port.