World Digest
Rice denies claim that officials ignored warnings of abuse

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New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh, in a book released today, said senior military and national-security officials, including Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, received warnings from subordinates in 2002 and 2003 about such mistreatment.

"There were also early on ... some concerns about conditions of overcrowding," Rice said. "But nothing that suggested, to my recollection, that there were abuses ... going on at Guantánamo, and certainly nothing that would suggest the kind of thing that went on in Abu Ghraib."

Jerusalem

Thousands of settlers protest moving plan

Tens of thousands Jewish settlers and their backers demonstrated in Jerusalem yesterday against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate all settlers from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank enclaves.

The withdrawal plan has upset the Israeli political scene since it was announced last year, turning Sharon's pro-settlement backers into opponents and some liberal detractors into supporters. Skeptical Palestinians believe the plan is a trick to justify annexing large parts of the West Bank to Israel.

At a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Sharon complained of statements of "grave incitement" that were "directing toward a civil war."

Hong Kong

Opposition falls short in voting

Pro-democracy opposition figures gained more clout in Hong Kong's legislature with three new seats, but they fell short of expectations in yesterday's election.
 
The democracy supporters won 18 of the 30 council seats filled by direct elections, according to results announced today, but they won only seven of the other 30 seats filled by small constituencies of special interests, most of which favor candidates who support the Chinese government.

The results allowed advocates of greater democracy in the former British colony to expand their 22-member presence in the Legislative Council to 25 seats, but left them short of the majority needed to block government legislation.

Tehran, Iran

Two men admit killing 22 children

Two men, Iranian brick-makers, 24 and 30, have confessed to killing 22 children and three adults, raping the boys before murdering them, a legal official said yesterday

Police have unearthed the bodies of 17 victims in desert scrubland south of Tehran.

Culiacan, Mexico

Hit on drug boss ends with eight dead

Gunmen killed a boss of one of Mexico's major drug cartels and two other people in an ambush at a cinema complex, and five of the assailants were killed in shootouts with police soon after, prosecutors said yesterday

Police said hired gunmen shot and killed Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, 29, a chief of the Ciudad Juarez cartel, and his girlfriend.