In the World

NAIROBI, Kenya - Foreign troops should prepare to intervene in Zimbabwe to end a worsening humanitarian crisis and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe should be investigated for crimes against humanity, the Kenyan prime minister said yesterday.

Raila Odinga urged the African Union to call an emergency meeting to authorize sending troops into Zimbabwe. "If no troops are available, then the AU must allow the U.N. to send its forces into Zimbabwe with immediate effect, to take over control of the country and ensure urgent humanitarian assistance to the people dying of cholera," he said.

More than 500 Zimbabweans have officially died of the disease since an outbreak in August, but health officials fear the toll may be much higher. They warn that deaths could spiral into the thousands due to the collapse of Zimbabwe's health system, the scarcity of food and the oncoming rainy season, which may help spread infections.

Odinga said Mugabe had reduced a once-prosperous country to a "basket case" and warned that "Mugabe's case deserves no less than investigations by the International Criminal Court at the Hague."

- AP

BEIJING - China protested strongly to France yesterday over President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the Dalai Lama, calling it a "rude intervention" into Chinese affairs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Sarkozy met the Tibetan spiritual leader on Saturday privately in Gdansk, Poland, during celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of former Polish President Lech Walesa's Nobel Peace Prize. The Dalai Lama has also received the prize.

China's relations with the French have been especially testy over the issue of Tibet since April, when pro-Tibetan activists protested en masse in Paris as the Olympic flame passed through the city. Some Chinese called for boycotts of French products afterward.

- AP

ATHENS, Greece - Hundreds of youths angered by the fatal police shooting of a teenager rampaged through Greece's two largest cities for a second day yesterday in some of the worst rioting the country has seen in years.

Gangs smashed stores, torched cars and erected burning barricades in the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki. Riot police clashed with groups of mostly self-styled anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks and bottles.

Rioting in several cities began within hours of the death Saturday night of a 15-year-old shot by police. Violence in the capital began to die down late yesterday. In Thessaloniki, a large fire could be seen burning at the city's university.

- AP

British Internet users

have been blocked from accessing an article on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia over child pornography concerns. Britain's Internet Watch Foundation added a Wikipedia article on a heavy metal music group to its list of banned Web sites because it contained a picture of a nude girl judged to be pornographic, foundation spokeswoman Sarah Robertson said yesterday.