World briefs 15A

Chernobyl victims protest unpaid compensation

KIEV, Ukraine -- Thousands of Chernobyl survivors marched Saturday in downtown Kiev to demand the government increase social benefits and pay overdue compensation to victims of the world's worst nuclear accident 17 years ago.

The Ukrainian Chernobyl Union, an advocacy group representing victims of the disaster, organized the march to protest planned budget cuts and to demand the government pay long-overdue social and medical benefits to thousands of people still suffering from the disaster.

Ukraine's cash-strapped government has been unable to maintain the generous Soviet-era social benefits given to the 3.3 million people, including 1.5 million children, affected by the April 1986 accident.

Six killed at Nigeria polling station

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Nigerian soldiers opened fire on young men at a polling station Saturday, killing six people, and a gang stuffed ballot boxes into the trunk of a car during presidential elections in this oil-rich, yet desperately poor nation.

Despite those and several other incidents, observers said the vote for president and 36 state governors in Africa's most populous nation went smoothly.

Nigeria has never had a peaceful transition from one civilian government to another, and though tensions remained high after polling stations closed, the violence did not appear to be widespread.

Israeli forces move into Gaza refugee camp

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli forces using dozens of tanks and attack helicopters pushed into Rafah refugee camp on Saturday, one of the largest military incursions into the Gaza Strip in 30 months of fighting, Palestinians said.

Two people were killed and at least 16 were injured, witnesses and doctors said.

Israeli military officials confirmed an operation was under way in the Rafah area but declined to give details.

The incursion appeared to have targeted the Yibna neighborhood, one of two known militant strongholds in the camp.

The densely populated area, which is home to about 60,000 Palestinians.

4,000-year-old necropolis unearthed in Egypt

CAIRO, Egypt -- French archaeologists unearthed a necropolis filled with rock-hewn tombs that are more than 4,000 years old, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said Saturday.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said the necropolis near the pyramids of Saqqara, about 15 miles south of Cairo, contained tombs from ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom, which lasted from 2400 B.C. to 2100 B.C.

The writings on one tomb identified it as belonging to Hau-Nefer, a priest who served in the mortuary temple of King Pepi I, Hosni said.

Egypt's chief of antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said Hau-Nefer's tomb was decorated with colored scenes featuring the tomb's owner in different poses with preferred deities and family. One well-preserved, color limestone relief showed the priest with his wife, Khuti, and their 13 children, he said.

-- From wire reports

Tourist ship sinks in Brazil, at least 11 dead

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- A tourist schooner carrying 58 people on a day trip sank Saturday morning in a canal east of Rio de Janeiro, killing at least 11 people, local authorities said.

Police and fire brigade teams were searching for survivors inside and around the sunken vessel, Col. Rogerio Ornelas, head of the Cabo Frio port authority in Rio de Janeiro state, told the CBN radio station.

The bodies of 10 adults and one child that drowned in Itajuru canal were taken to the local medical institute while the injured were taken to hospitals in Cabo Frio, he said.

The schooner Tuna Galo was carrying passengers, mainly Brazilians, on a day trip to Parrot Island when it sank about 500 yards off the Cabo Frio coastline, 60 miles east of Rio de Janeiro.

-- From wire reports