Guatemala City: Mob kills police officer after deadly shooting

A police officer who had shot a woman was seized and burned to death by an angry mob, Guatemala’s police chief said Saturday.

Miguel Angel Orozco, 33, “was surrounded by a mob. They beat him, doused him with gasoline and set him on fire,” National Police Director Luis Arturo Paniagua told reporters.

Paniagua said that “for unknown reasons,” Paniagua had shot and killed a woman who was accompanying her 8-year-old daughter near her home on Friday night in the town of Coatepeque, about 95 miles west of the capital.

Radio stations quoted witnesses as saying Orozco had been drunk at the time. The slain woman’s neighbors burned Orozco, Paniagua said.

Colombia: Alleged drug smuggler captured by authorities

Colombian police and U.S. drug agents captured a suspected drug smuggler wanted in the United States on trafficking charges, authorities said Saturday.

Mauricio Espinosa Ramirez was arrested Friday in Bogota by police and agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Authorities weren’t able to confirm his identity until Saturday, said Col. Daniel Castiblanco, acting director of Colombia’s judicial police.

Espinosa, 32, is believed to have helped organize a shipment of nearly 10 tons of cocaine bound for the United States that was seized in Mexico in December 2001, said Castiblanco.

He said a federal district court in Florida had requested Espinosa’s extradition.

Espinosa is believed to have been smuggling cocaine to the United States and Europe for at least five years, police said.

South Korea: Plans to reconnect roads, rail proceed

Ending marathon negotiations, officials with the South and North Korean militaries agreed early today on technical plans to reconnect road and rail links across the mine-infested no-man’s land that separates the nations.

The agreement, announced by South Korea, removed a major obstacle to the historic projects and marked a significant step forward in revived reconciliation talks for the divided Korean peninsula, the world’s last Cold War frontier.

The railway and the road would be the first direct land transportation links between the two nations since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Beijing: Deaths reported after food poisonings

A bout of food poisoning Saturday in eastern China left several people dead and more than 200 sick, authorities said.

Middle school students and migrant workers in the port city of Nanjing in Jiangsu province suffered from “serious cases” of food poisoning after eating fried dough sticks, sesame cakes and rice, according to a Web site run by the official People’s Daily newspaper.

The site said “many people” had died but did not specify the number.

An official at the Nanjing city government referred questions to the information office, where calls were unanswered, as were calls to the Nanjing city first aid center.

India: Suicide attacks feared in Kashmir elections

Kashmir’s police chief warned Saturday of possible suicide attacks by rebels in state elections next week and Indian authorities played a tape of alleged Pakistan-based militants threatening violence.

Islamic militants fighting Indian rule in the divided Himalayan province are determined to scare voters and candidates from taking part in the legislative elections, which start on Monday. India hopes the vote will help weaken separatist forces in the region.

“I can’t ensure a 100 percent violence-free election. Incidents will happen,” A.K. Suri, the state director-general of police, told a news conference in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir.

“A large number are fidayeen (suicide attackers) willing to die. It is possible they might make such efforts,” he said, without providing details of what form the suicide attacks would take.

Dominican Republic: Blackouts spur violent protests

Demonstrators threw homemade firebombs at police who retaliated with tear gas Saturday during a fourth day of violent protests over electricity blackouts.

The protesters also torched piles of garbage and tires, leaving heaps of smoldering rubble lining the streets in Capotillo, one of Santo Domingo’s poorest neighborhoods.

“We have to continue protesting until we topple the government,” said 20-year-old resident Jose Valdez.

Four days of protests in this Caribbean nation have left two people dead and more than 50 others injured, police said. Private power companies say they lack the funds to run enough power generators to meet demand, prompting the power cuts. The electricity outages, which affect water pumps, have also led to water cuts.

Rome: Thousands rally against prime minister

About 200,000 people rallied in one of Rome’s biggest squares Saturday to blast Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for what the protesters view as his rewriting of Italian laws to save himself from criminal punishment on corruption charges.

Demonstrators also charged that Berlusconi, the country’s richest man, had used his dominance of Italian television to mislead the public and escape political damage from his legal machinations.

The billionaire politician is on trial in the northern Italian city of Milan for allegedly bribing judges in the 1980s. He owns almost all major nationwide private television in Italy and, as head of government, can influence the state-owned networks.

Colombia: Soldiers free teen from guerrilla captors

Colombian soldiers freed a 14-year-old boy from his leftist rebel captors Saturday after a gunbattle that left two rebels dead.

Members of the National Liberation Army kidnapped Kevin Rojas and five other children from a school bus on Thursday. The rebels let the others go, but kept Rojas.

Responding to tip-offs from local residents, soldiers attacked the rebel unit holding Rojas Saturday in San Calixto, 254 miles northeast of Bogota, said Gen. Martin Carreno, commander of the army’s 2nd Division. Two rebels were killed and two others captured, he said.

During the first seven months of this year, 228 children were kidnapped in Colombia, according to the Free Colombia Foundation.

Lithuania: More remains unearthed from Napoleon’s army

The skeletal remains of 100 more soldiers from Napoleon’s ill-fated army that invaded Russia in 1812 have been uncovered at a site in Lithuania, archaeologists said.

The latest bodies were found about 100 yards from the mass grave accidentally discovered a year ago by road construction crews at a new housing development in central Vilnius, the capital of this former Soviet Baltic republic.

Arunas Barkus, a Lithuanian archaeologist, said bones and skulls were poking through the sand.

Shards of French soldiers’ uniforms and buttons also were found at the site.

At least 3,000 other skeletons could be in the new grave about the size of a large swimming pool which was found as scientists resumed searching the area last week.