World briefs 9a 4/6

Envoy warns: Extradite war crimes suspects

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Warning that patience is running out, the American envoy monitoring war crimes in the Balkans urged Yugoslav leaders on Friday to hand over suspects to a U.N. tribunal or face sanctions that could ruin the country's economy.

Yugoslavia could lose tens of millions of dollars in badly needed U.S. aid and American support for relations with international monetary organizations, such as the World Bank. But Yugoslav authorities have been reluctant to extradite allies of former President Slobodan Milosevic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Congress gave Yugoslav authorities until March 31 to cooperate with the tribunal or else lose $120 million in U.S. assistance. Because the deadline has passed, no U.S. aid checks can be written for economically struggling Yugoslavia until Secretary of State Colin Powell certifies its compliance.

North Korea reported ready to start U.S. talks

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea has decided to reopen dialogue with the United States, a South Korean envoy said Saturday upon returning from the communist North.

"Leader Kim Jong-Il has expressed willingness to open dialogue with the United States, and will accept a U.S. envoy's visit to the North," the envoy, Lim Dong-Won, said at a news conference in Seoul.

During his four-day stay in the North, Lim held talks with Kim Jong-Il and other top North Korean officials on stalled inter-Korean dialogue and icy relations between Washington and North Korea.

Kim Jong-Il said he would accept a proposed visit to North Korea by a special U.S. envoy and would expand civilian exchanges with the United States, Lim said.

State Department officials were unavailable for comment Friday night but have said for months the administration has been willing to meet with Pyongyang officials at any time, any place.

Pageantry, procession honor Queen Mom

LONDON -- With resplendent royal pageantry -- watched by a large crowd in dark suits and summery shorts, uniforms and baseball caps -- the coffin of the Queen Mother Elizabeth was carried through the streets of London on Friday to lie in state at Westminster Hall.

As military bands played funeral marches, and mobile phones thrummed gently in the crowd, the royal matriarch's casket was pulled on a gun carriage from St. James's Palace through the heart of London to Parliament.

The Queen Mother, who died last Saturday at age 101, will lie in state until her funeral Tuesday so people can pay their last respects. By Friday evening, the line of mourners stretched for more than a mile from Parliament, over Lambeth Bridge and along the south bank of the River Thames.

Molotov cocktails thrown at Paris area synagogue

PARIS -- Three people confessed to trying to throw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in southern France and five suspects were detained in a similar attack outside Paris, officials said Friday.

Meanwhile, a suspected homemade bomb was found at a Jewish cemetery in the eastern city of Strasbourg that was the target of an arson attempt earlier in the week, police said.

Bomb experts were called to the Strasbourg-Cronenbourg cemetery after receiving reports Friday that a fire extinguisher filled with powder was found on the grounds, police said. It was safely removed.

Villagers free American, oil workers in Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Villagers freed 10 international and Nigerian oil workers who were held hostage two days after being captured while servicing an offshore drilling rig, Shell Oil said Friday.

The workers were freed late Thursday after talks between government representatives and captors in the village of Amatu, in the swampy coastal Bayelsa state where the men were held, Shell International spokeswoman Kate Hill said in London.

-- From wire reports