World briefs 7/23/07

Captured South Koreans given 24-hour extension

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A purported Taliban spokesman said Sunday that the hard-line militia had extended by 24 hours the deadline for the Afghan government to trade captured militants for 23 South Korean hostages. Afghan elders leading the hostage negotiations met with the kidnappers and reported that the Koreans were healthy, said Khwaja Mohammad Sidiqi, the police chief of Qarabagh district in Ghazni district, where the Koreans were kidnapped Thursday. He said the delegation made progress in their talks, but the Afghan military said Afghan and U.S. troops had "surrounded" the region in case the government decides the military should move in.

Israeli mob wars kill gangsters, civilians alike

JERUSALEM ­-- When an explosion goes off on a busy Israeli street these days, it seems as likely to be a mob hit as a Palestinian attack. Rival underworld gangs are waging bloody battles for control of gambling and protection rackets, targeting each other with bullets, bombs and anti-tank missiles. Organized crime, long overshadowed by the Arab-Israeli conflict, has become such a part of everyday life that Israel has its own "Sopranos"-style TV series, "The Arbitrator," in which even synagogues are no refuge from hit men. The mob wars have killed dozens of gangsters and at least eight bystanders in the last three years, and exposed law enforcement officers in scandalous complicity.

Security forces, militants continue fight in Pakistan

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan -- Islamic militants detonated bombs close to military convoys and attacked government positions in Pakistan's restive northwestern tribal region, sparking gunfights that left 19 insurgents dead, government officials said Sunday. The fighting was the latest in North Waziristan since militants announced the termination of a peace agreement with the government last week following a deadly military raid on a radical mosque in the Pakistani capital. The tensions have raised concerns over the threat posed by Islamic militants to the military-led government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Since the July 10 raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque, suicide attacks and shootings have killed at least 289 people.

Global AIDS conference kicks off in Australia

SYDNEY, Australia -- The world will not be able to celebrate advances in HIV diagnosis and treatment until the United Nations' goal of universal access to drugs is reached, leading international AIDS researchers said at a conference Sunday. "We are dealing with a treatable disease and more than 3 million people are dying every year," said Pedro Cahn, the president of the International AIDS Society. More than 5,000 delegates from 133 countries have converged on Sydney, for the Fourth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment, which runs through Wednesday. Researchers from across the globe will present their findings on the benefits of circumcision for cutting HIV rates through to the latest developments in anti-retroviral drugs.

Shaky, soggy Amsterdam is getting a new subway

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Seventeenth-century masons built Amsterdam on a foundation of wooden poles planted in soggy, sandy ground, leaving behind a beautiful architectural museum -- but one with walls prone to sinking or crumbling without warning. So how do you dig a subway under it? Very carefully. Construction of a new "North-South" line for this city of canals and rivers began in 2003, and is presenting Dutch engineers, famed for their ingenuity in keeping this waterlogged nation dry, with devilish challenges. To avoid damaging the city, 7,000 mirrors were hung in clusters of three on buildings along the 2.4 miles of the route that's underground. Measuring devices shine infrared beams onto each mirror once an hour, measure the reflection, and feed data into a central computer. After triangulating, the computer raises the alarm if any building shifts more than 0.5 millimeters in any direction. A millimeter is the thickness of a paper clip.

­-- From wire reports