World briefs 1/1/06

At least 900 detained in Sri Lanka in crackdown

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Police and soldiers cordoned off five districts in the Sri Lankan capital and detained more than 900 people during door-to-door searches Saturday to track down Tamil Tiger rebels, police said. The crackdown in the five predominantly Tamil districts of Colombo comes amid violence that has threatened to plunge the country back into civil war. Forty-five soldiers have died this month in violence blamed on the rebels, who are seeking a homeland for the country's 3.2 million ethnic Tamil minority.

London subway workers stage New Year's Eve strike

LONDON -- Subway workers walked out Saturday in a 24-hour strike timed to cripple the Underground during New Year's Eve celebrations. Guards and ticket office workers, upset over new staff assignments and schedules, began leaving their posts at noon, and the service was expected to slow down over the evening as others finished shifts and were not replaced. About 4,000 of the 6,000 subway station workers belong to the RMT union. Only 23 of the subway's 275 stations were closed by late afternoon, and authorities said all lines had good service.

Chinese president vows that country will open up

BEIJING -- China's president vowed Saturday that his country would continue to open up and reform in 2006, pursuing a goal of peaceful development as it plays a bigger role on the world stage. In his annual year-end speech, President Hu Jintao also touted China's strong economic progress and said his people's living standards have improved. Hu said the coming year will mark the beginning of a five-year economic plan, which calls for developing the poverty-stricken countryside in an effort to narrow the growing and politically sensitive gap between rich and poor.

Five German hostages have been freed in Yemen

SAN'A, Yemen -- Yemeni kidnappers released a former German diplomat and his four family members Saturday, the diplomat's wife said. "We are safe, thank God," Magda Chrobog said as she flew to the southern port of Aden from eastern Yemen with her husband, Juergen, and their three children. The family and three Yemeni assistants were kidnapped Wednesday when armed tribesmen stopped their two-car convoy on a remote mountain road in Shabwa province, east Yemen, where they were vacationing. There was no immediate word on the terms of the deal that led the kidnappers to release the Germans.

-- From wire reports