World briefs 5/14/02

Weeklong heat wave kills 50 in India

HYDERABAD, India -- A weeklong heat wave that has pushed the temperature in southeastern India to 120 degrees has killed more than 50 people, government officials and news reports said Monday.

The deaths in southern Andhra Pradesh state were caused from dehydration, state Relief Commissioner D.C. Roshaiah said.

"Most of the victims of the sunstroke are from the poor families," Roshaiah said.

Officials expect the death toll to increase because the heat wave likely will continue for a few more days.

The largest number of deaths -- 10 -- was reported in Vijaywada, where the temperature reached a record high of 120 degrees on Friday, Roshaiah said. Vijaywada city is 170 miles southeast of Hyderabad, the state capital.

Britain will keep divorce documents

LONDON -- More than four centuries later, King Henry VIII's divorce is still causing problems. The government is fighting to stop a unique document from the much-married monarch's first and most celebrated divorce from being sold overseas.

Arts Minister Baroness Blackstone on Monday barred the foreign sale of a treatise that is credited with helping to bolster arguments by Henry that he was entitled to ditch Catherine of Aragon in favor of Anne Boleyn, the second of his six wives.

"This treatise is of immense historical importance to the nation," Blackstone said in a statement.

"The argument set out in its pages was part of the process that led to a critical moment in English history -- the break with Rome and the establishment of the Church of England," she said.

Protesters block entrance to tunnel

CHAMONIX, France -- Up to 600 people protested Monday's reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel to trucks, preventing vehicles from entering the Alpine passage where a 1999 fire killed 39 trapped travelers.

All trucks and most cars were rerouted south to the Frejus tunnel. However, some cars with tourists were able to pass through after a long wait as police cleared away the protesters that had blocked the road leading to the Mont Blanc tunnel, a vital economic link between Italy and France.

The activists oppose letting heavy trucks use the tunnel.

--From wire reports