World briefs 13A

Paris vows crackdown on violence in Corsica

PARIS -- Corsican separatists are targeting courthouses, police stations and prisons for bombings almost daily and increasingly in broad daylight -- a brazen shift that has alarmed France and prompted warnings of a swift crackdown.

On Monday Justice Minister Dominique Perben will fly to Corsica in a hastily planned mission to tighten security on the island.

His visit was announced Thursday, the same day a Corsican courthouse was peppered with gunfire after lunch and police defused three bombs at an airport police station.

The surge in violence started last month, after a Paris court convicted eight separatists in connection with the 1998 killing of the top French official in Corsica, Claude Erignac.

These recent incidents are among 199 bombings or attempted attacks in Corsica since the beginning of the year, police said.

Five die in sulfuric acid truck accident in Mexico

TOLUCA, Mexico -- A truck carrying sulfuric acid collided head-on with a sport utility vehicle Friday on a mountain road in central Mexico, killing five people and forcing dozens of people to hospitals after they inhaled the fumes, authorities said.

The collision occurred when the truck lost control on a two-lane highway near San Juan de Las Huertas, 15 miles southwest of the Mexico state capital of Toluca, said Arturo Vilchis, director of the state's civil protection department.

The truck had been carrying 525 gallons of sulfuric acid. More than 70 people from 14 homes near the wreck were evacuated to a shelter and more than 40 people were taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for inhaling fumes.

Five out of nine people traveling in the sport utility vehicle were killed in the collision, state officials said. The truck also struck a house, where two people were injured.

Firefighters and state emergency personnel worked Friday night to dilute the corrosive acid that spilled from the truck, closing the highway between Toluca and Temascaltepec for more than three hours.

Philippine defense secretary resigns

MANILA, Philippines -- Philippine Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes has resigned, becoming the second government casualty of last month's military mutiny. He said he hoped his action would give the president a free hand to deal with alleged coup plotters.

The resignation on Friday was the latest blow to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who the day before accused "disgruntled and disenfranchised politicians" of trying to destabilize her government.

The mutineers, who ended their July 27 rebellion peacefully after 19 hours, had accused Reyes of corruption and masterminding a deadly bombing in the southern Philippines early this year to get U.S. anti-terrorism funding.

He strongly denied the allegations but was resigning "to give President Arroyo a free hand in dealing with this situation."

Rain floods Haitian city, at least eight drowned

ST. MARC, Haiti -- Torrential rains burst river banks, sweeping away at least eight people and destroying dozens of flimsy riverside shacks in Haiti's west-coast city of St. Marc, officials said Saturday.

About 200 people of the city's 60,000 residents fled their homes and took refuge in government offices and a high school, said Gerald Joseph with Haiti's civil defense.

Junie Louis-Pierre, 33, said she watched as her husband, 35-year-old Norius Dezimar, was sucked away by strong currents after he was able to get her and their three children to safety on the roof of their home. He was missing but presumed dead, Louis-Pierre said.

Most damage occurred along a 1.25-mile stretch of the Grande Riviere, which flows through the city, when the river burst its banks during a five-hour storm Friday afternoon. The raging waters tore away flimsy tin-roofed shacks and in some places, the water level rose 2-3 feet.

-- From wire reports