World briefs 6/30/03

Syria quietly seeks return of wounded soldiers

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Syria's foreign minister said Sunday that Damascus wants to avoid tensions with Washington and is quietly seeking the return of five Syrian border guards wounded and taken by U.S. forces during a battle on the Iraqi border.

The foreign minister also said the U.S.-backed "road map" for Mideast peace should be given a chance despite Syrian reservations, and he called for unity among Palestinian factions.

Syria in the past has criticized the road map, saying it only deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and doesn't include a settlement on the Golan Heights, territory it lost to Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.

The June 18 border clash, during which U.S. forces attacked what they suspected were fleeing officials of Saddam Hussein's deposed regime, threatened to stoke already strained relations between Washington and Damascus.

Pakistani men sentenced to death for acid attack

MULTAN, Pakistan -- A Pakistani court sentenced two men to hang after they were found guilty of killing a woman by throwing acid at her, police said Sunday.

One of the two men was the 34-year-old victim's ex-husband, Ghulam Mohiuddin, said Saifullah Gujjar, a police officer in Multan, eastern Pakistan, where the sentence was handed down.

He said Mohiuddin and a second man threw acid at Azra Bono in 2001 after she demanded and received a divorce. The men have appealed the sentence.

Violence against women is common in Pakistan's deeply conservative rural areas. Acid attacks are often carried out by men who have been rejected, or by brothers and fathers punishing women suspected of having sex outside of marriage.

Many women are left seriously disfigured.

The Progressive Women's Association, a private women's rights group in Pakistan, has recorded 1,500 incidents of acid attacks in the country since 1994.

Schroeder trying tax cuts to boost German economy

BERLIN -- Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Sunday announced a plan to bring forward tax cuts worth about $20.6 billion, a move that could inject new life into Europe's largest economy.

Germany's economy is in its third year of near-zero growth, and actually shrank 0.2 percent in the first quarter, helping to push unemployment to over 10 percent.

The income tax reduction was supposed to be the last part of a 2001-2005 tax relief plan. With a $8 billion cut already slated for 2004, Schroeder has said the last two steps could be combined if plans to shake up the job market and trim the welfare state also are implemented.

Army steps in to quell riots in Malawi

BLANTYRE, Malawi -- Malawi's army has been deployed to quell violent riots after demonstrators attacked an American children's charity and several churches to protest the removal of five Muslim foreign nationals suspected of working for al-Qaida.

Speaking at a consecration ceremony Saturday, President Bakili Muluzi said he would not allow violence to threaten peace in the southern African country.

"You know that I am a Muslim, I don't hide that, but I am a peaceful Muslim," he said. "I will not allow anyone to start violence in the name of religion."

He ordered Army Commander Joseph Chimbayo and Inspector General of Police Joseph Aironi to arrest anyone threatening the peace.

Saturday was the second day of protests after the CIA whisked the five men out of the country Monday.

Eleven people have since been arrested after angry mobs in the predominantly Muslim district of Mangochi, east of Blantyre, vandalized and looted the offices of Save the Children USA and at least seven churches over the weekend, police said.

-- From wire reports