World briefs 6/7

U.S. food trade fair gets clearance from Cuba

HAVANA -- Now that U.S. food shipments are arriving regularly in Cuba, the communist government has agreed to let an American company arrange an exposition next fall that could whet appetites for more U.S. fruits, grains and other foods.

PWN Exhibicon International LLC of Westport, Conn., has announced it had Cuba's final approval to organize the U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition in Havana.

The company said the U.S. Treasury Department hasgranted it a license to organize the trade fair in Cuba -- a necessary legal step because the island remains under a four-decade-old U.S. trade embargo. Cuba's approval followed.

Last witness testifies in slain reporter's trial

HYDERABAD, Pakistan -- After more than a month in court, prosecutors said Thursday they plan to wrap up their case next week against four men charged in the kidnapping and slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

The chief prosecutor said he intends to make his closing statement next week.

"I need one day to present my argument," he said.

The prosecution's final witness, police officer Hamid Ullah Memon, testified Thursday that he had recorded the criminal complaint filed by Pearl's widow, Mariane. The trial, which began April 22, is adjourned until Monday.

Over the last two weeks, the prosecution decided to drop 14 of its 39 witnesses, including Mariane Pearl, in an effort to speed up the case, which has dragged on nearly 1 1/2 months.

Smuggled tortoises returned to Greece

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Hungarian customs officials sent 320 rare tortoises back to Greece on Thursday, nearly a year after rescuing them from smugglers who intended to sell them as pets.

The tortoises were confiscated last June from Macedonian smugglers at Hungary's border with Yugoslavia.

The reptiles, which were taken from their natural habitat near the Greek border with Macedonia, can be sold for as much as $130 each in Hungary -- or more in Western Europe.

Customs officers said the Macedonian smugglers were fined about $3,900 and banned from Hungary for three years.

DNA tests seem to solve murders of three girls

LONDON -- Nearly 30 years after three teen-age girls were raped and killed in Wales, police have exhumed the body of a man and conducted DNA tests that show he probably was the murderer.

The DNA samples, taken last month from the remains of Joe Kappen, a nightclub bouncer who died of cancer in 1990 at age 49, match those taken in Wales from the bodies of three 16-year-old victims, police said.

The girls, killed in 1973, were thought to have known Kappen.

In December, police obtained new DNA evidence that linked the three crimes for the first time, prompting them to reopen the investigation and reconsider Kappen, who had given them an alibi at the time of the killings.

-- From wire reports