Colombia

Leftist rebels attack town hall meeting

Suspected leftist guerrillas carrying assault rifles swept into a southern Colombia town Tuesday and attacked government offices, killing six town councilors and five others, authorities said.

The guerrillas, believed to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, opened fire at a local council meeting in the town of Puerto Rico, 200 miles south of Bogota, said Oscar Galvis, an official with Colombia’s secret police DAS.

Oscar Andres Nunez, director of the National Federation of Town Councils said several trucks full of FARC guerrillas arrived to the town’s main square, where the town hall is located, and began shooting. He said the guerrillas also fired on and threw grenades at a police station located in the town center.

Police identified the victims as six town council members, four police officers and a town official.

The attack on Puerto Rico comes three days after the U.S. ambassador to Colombia visited the region to inaugurate a library and school that the United States helped fund.

BEIJING

Sniping between China, Japan escalates

China on Tuesday blamed Japanese comments about a war shrine for its decision to cut short a visit to Tokyo by one of Beijing’s top officials, setting off a new round of sniping between the Asian powers as Japan demanded an apology for the apparent snub.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi abruptly canceled a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and left Tokyo on Monday in a move that appears to have shaken a tenuous truce between the two rivals, which are trying to dissipate ill will unleashed during anti-Japanese protests in China last month.

Kong Quan, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said Beijing was upset about remarks Japanese leaders made during Wu’s eight-day trip concerning visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which critics say glorifies Tokyo’s militaristic past.

But Japanese officials condemned the sudden departure as a breach of political etiquette.

Beijing has long objected to Koizumi’s annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead – including convicted war criminals who ordered Tokyo’s brutal invasion of other Asian countries in the first half of the 20th century.

Iran

Reformers allowed to run for president

Under pressure from Iran’s supreme leader, the country’s hard-line watchdog reversed itself Tuesday and said two reformist candidates can run in next month’s presidential race – defusing a brewing crisis that had sparked fears of a boycott.

The move by the Guardian Council came as Iran’s clerical rulers seek a high turnout to boost their credibility at a time when the country remains under intense international pressure over its nuclear program.

Low turnout in the June 17 election could undermine the ruling Islamic establishment at home and weaken its position in crucial negotiations with Europeans over the controversial nuclear program.

But the council’s decision is unlikely to appease reformists, who have called its vetting policies illegal. About 48 million Iranians are eligible to vote, and according to some private surveys, only half of them will go to the ballot box.

Congo

Militiamen kidnap 50, kill 18 in attack

Militiamen in eastern Congo killed at least 18 people and kidnapped at least 50 others in a late-night attack on a village, hacking their victims to death as they ran for safety, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday.

Militiamen calling themselves Rastas attacked the village of Ninja late Monday with machetes, said U.N. spokesman Leocadio Salmeron.

Residents then reported seeing rebels severing the hands of their corpses.

The Rastas also wounded 11 people and kidnapped 50, disappearing into the lush, forest-covered mountains, according to Salmeron.

He said most residents who escaped fled to nearby Walungu, where a unit of U.N. peacekeepers are stationed.

No further details on the attack were immediately available.

Germany

Prosecutors attack 9-11 suspect’s statements

Prosecutors on Tuesday attacked the credibility of a key Sept. 11 suspect’s statement that a Moroccan being retried here on charges of participating in the plot was not part of an al-Qaida cell in Germany.

The prosecutor said Ramzi Binalshibh had mastered the “trade of deception.”

Binalshibh, a Yemeni believed to have been al-Qaida’s link with the Sept. 11 plotters, told U.S. interrogators he and three suicide pilots alone formed the cell in the city of Hamburg, according to a summary of his questioning.

Lawyers for Mounir el Motassadeq seized on the assertion as evidence their client was not guilty of providing logistical support for suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah as they plotted the attacks in New York and Washington.