In the World

UNITED NATIONS - An international criminal prosecutor accused Sudan yesterday of violating a March 2005 U.N. Security Council resolution requiring it to cooperate with his investigation into war crimes in Darfur.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court and a former Argentine prosecutor, said Sudan has repeatedly ignored requests to arrest or surrender two prominent officials charged by the Hague-based court with orchestrating the mass killing of civilians in Darfur between 2003 and 2004: Ahmad Harun, minister of state for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Kushyab, the leader of a government-sponsored militia.

Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, accused Ocampo of "fabrications."

- AP

PARIS - Police yesterday arrested two armed suspects in connection with a weekend shooting that left two Spanish officers dead - the first killings in France involving Basque separatists in three decades. The Basque region overlaps France and Spain.

Two Spanish Civil Guard officers were on a routine antiterrorist surveillance operation with French counterparts when they stopped at a cafe in the French resort town of Capbreton and found themselves a few tables from three suspected members of the Basque rebel group ETA. The rebels then allegedly shot the two Spanish officers.

The shootings were the first killings in France blamed on ETA since 1976. ETA, which has fought for decades for an independent nation incorporating Basque regions in France and Spain, has been blamed for 800 killings since 1968.

- AP

VIENNA, Austria - Victims of cluster bombs, many missing limbs, urged participants of an international conference yesterday to ban the deadly and debilitating weapons.

Cluster bombs are canisters that open in flight and typically scatter hundreds of small bomblets across a wide area. Some fail to explode immediately and can lie dormant for years until they are disturbed, often by children, causing serious injuries or death.

"My message is simple - ban cluster bombs, clear them and help survivors and their families," said Umarbek Pulodov, 21, of Tajikistan, who lost an eye when his village was bombed in 1992. He considers himself lucky - his older brother and uncle were among the dead.

- AP

A Peruvian judge

is scheduled to hand down a verdict next week in an abuse-of-authority case against Alberto Fujimori, the first and least serious of the charges that might keep Peru's former president in prison for life.

A female guerrilla

deserted Colombia's largest rebel army and carried a 4-year-old hostage on a 24-hour jungle trek back to the boy's family, authorities said. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had demanded a $250,000 ransom for the child's release.