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WORLD NEWS BRIEFS



-- North Korea: The government on Friday threatened to
     "square accounts" with the United States for the alleged
     mass-killing of civilian refugees by U.S. soldiers during the
     Korean War. American veterans and South Korean villagers
     said they saw U.S. soldiers kill up to 400 civilians at No Gun Ri,
     South Korea, early in the war. North Korea considers the United
     States a sworn enemy and regularly churns out belligerent
     anti-American statements. Experts say most of the rhetoric is
     mere propaganda. 
         
        -- Indonesia: An Indonesian court today found Thursday the
     youngest son of former President Suharto innocent of corruption
     charges involving a multimillion dollar land deal. Hutomo
     "Tommy" Mandala Putra, 37, had been the first member of
     Indonesia's former first family to face trial for graft. A
three-judge
     panel found Tommy had not broken any Indonesian criminal
     laws. 
         
        -- Israel: A Palestinian talk show host who discussed sensitive
     political topics on air has been released from detention without
     charges. Maher Dasouki was released without charges Oct. 4
     after three weeks in a Palestinian jail. His show, based in
     Ramallah, is aired twice a week on the private Al-Nasr TV
     station. Palestinian police arrested Dasouki one week after the
     mother of a detainee held by the Palestinian police appeared on
     the show, speaking out against the Palestinian Authority and its
     leader, Yasser Arafat. 
         
        -- Turkey: The official death toll in Turkey's devastating
August
     quake passed 17,000 on Thursday as more families registered
     relatives they had hastily buried without notifying authorities.
The
     government count reached 17,118 after authorities in
     Adapazari, one of the worst-hit areas in the Aug. 17 quake,
     were notified of about 1,200 previously unreported deaths. The
     toll could rise further as similar registrations are conducted in
     other areas, said Halis Coskun. 
         
        -- Tibet: A Tibetan carpenter who lowered China's flag in
     Tibet's capital in protest against Chinese rule has died in the
     hospital after police beat him during his arrest, a human rights
     group reported Wednesday. Tashi Tsering died during the first
     week of October, having never left the hospital in the more than
     five weeks since his protest and arrest in Lhasa, the Tibetan
     Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. 
         
        -- China: An engineer at a Chinese government-run aircraft
     maker has been imprisoned for posting information about one
     of China's newest fighter planes on the Internet, a human rights
     group said Wednesday. Police arrested Guo Jian of the
     Chengdu Aircraft Co. in July, the Hong Kong-based Information
     Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China
     said. 
         
        -- Thailand: Two more elephants have stepped on land mines
     along Thailand's border with Myanmar, fast becoming one of the
     world's most dangerous areas for the beasts. Animal authorities
     reported the injuries nearly seven weeks after veterinarians
     amputated the left front foot of logging elephant Motola after it
     had been shredded in a mine blast. Though Thailand has
     outlawed anti-personnel land mines and begun detonating those
     that exist, some of its border areas with Myanmar and
     Cambodia are still strewn with mines. 
         
        -- Afghanistan: The United Nations Security Council on Friday
     gave Afghanistan's Taliban Islamic movement one more month
     to deliver Osama bin Laden for trial in the twin U.S. embassy
     bombings in Africa or face sanctions. 
         
         Jennifer Skordas, a former reporter for an English-language
     newspaper in Tokyo, is on vacation.