World briefs 100602

U.S. soldier wounded when helicopter shot

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- Shots were fired at a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan, wounding a crewman in the foot, the military said Saturday. The helicopter returned fire, killing one enemy fighter and wounding another.

The wounded American was taken to the U.S. base in Kandahar and was in stable condition after Friday night's shooting, said Col. Roger King, a U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan.

The special operations helicopter was hit by small-arms fire northwest of Kandahar, King said. The aircraft was damaged lightly but able to return to Kandahar.

King would not detail the helicopter's mission.

Putin revokes special status of Radio Liberty

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has revoked an 11-year-old decree that allowed U.S.-funded Radio Liberty to open a bureau in Moscow, the Kremlin press service said.

It was not immediately clear what effect Friday's decision would have on the station, but the Kremlin said it was aimed simply at putting Radio Liberty on equal footing with other media operating in Russia.

The original decree permitted Radio Liberty to open a Moscow bureau.

The Interfax news agency quoted the Kremlin information office as saying the 1991 decree put Radio Liberty "in a privileged position compared to other foreign media working in Russia" and was out of date.

Pilgrims flock to Rome for Escriva canonization

ROME -- Boatloads of pilgrims from Spain arrived in Rome Saturday for the canonization of the founder of the Catholic organization Opus Dei in a ceremony led by Pope John Paul II.

More than 200,000 Opus Dei members are expected outside the Vatican for Sunday's ceremony. Among the thousands of faithful who arrived was Manuel Nevado Rey.

Rey's recovery from a debilitating skin disease was judged by the Vatican to be a miracle achieved through the intercession of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the Spanish priest who founded the group in Madrid in 1928 and died in 1975.

A panel of medical experts consulted by the Vatican declared that there was no scientific explanation for the recovery, and John Paul last year declared Nevado's recovery a miracle.

Latvians vote for party to take them to NATO, EU

RIGA, Latvia -- Latvians voted in parliamentary elections Saturday for a party to lead this ex-Soviet republic into the European Union and NATO, and exit polls indicating a strong showing from the pro-business New Era party.

The party was projected to receive 22.4 of the vote in an exit poll conducted by state-owned Latvian television, LTV. New Era has pledged to clean up the civil service and reduce corruption.

The center-right People's Party, part of the governing coalition, was second with 15.3 percent.

Election officials estimated that at least 70 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.

-- From wire reports

Germany investigates Islamic extremist group

BERLIN -- German authorities searched properties in three towns Saturday in an investigation of a group of suspected Islamic militants believed to be planning attacks in Germany, the federal prosecutor's office said.

Prosecutors said five people, most of them in the eastern city of Cottbus, were believed to have formed a group "with the aim of committing attacks to defend and spread Islamic values."

They gave no information on the identity and background of the people involved, who are suspected of membership in a terrorist organization, saying only that the group was based in Cottbus. Prosecutors refused to say whether anyone had been detained.

Eleven properties were searched on Saturday afternoon, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement. They were located in and around Cottbus; in Gross-Gerau, near Frankfurt; and in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, near the southwestern city of Stuttgart.

-- From wire reports

Turkey pipeline key to U.S. strategic oil policy

CEYHAN, Turkey -- This small southern Turkish port would hardly seem to be at the heart of America's strategic oil policy.

Except for two inactive oil-loading docks extending deep into the Mediterranean Sea, there's little beyond forest and rocky cliffs.

But Washington hopes that within three years, there will be a third protruding dock, the tail end of a 1,091-mile pipeline bringing Caspian crude to the West and reducing U.S. reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

Government officials and international oil companies recently broke ground on the pipeline during ceremonies in Azerbaijan and Turkey and hope it will be pumping oil by 2005. BP Amoco holds the largest stake in the project.

But experts caution the pipeline project could be undermined if Iraqi crude comes back on the world market -- a distinct possibility if there's a regime change in the neighboring country.