World digest 06/17/02

Bodies of three crash victims leave Afghanistan

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- With a fierce wind blowing dust across the airfield, the bodies of three Americans killed in a military plane crash in Afghanistan were escorted onto a cargo jet Sunday to be returned to the United States.

Two British buglers played taps as pallbearers -- including Green Berets from the unit of one of the casualties -- loaded the flag-draped coffins into the back of the C-17 transport plane.

The three were killed when their Air Force MC-130H crashed and caught fire after taking off from an airstrip in southeast Afghanistan Thursday.

Air Force investigators still are investigating the crash scene.

Ship sets sail to aid Antarctic rescue mission

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- A South African ship carrying helicopters left Sunday for Antarctica to help rescue 107 people aboard a German ship trapped by an ice drift.

It will take the South African ship, the Agulhas, nine days to reach the edge of the ice, where it will meet up with the Argentinian icebreaker Almirante Irizar to try to free the trapped vessel.

The Magdalena Oldendorff, the trapped German ship, was carrying 79 Russian scientists and 28 crew members to Cape Town from the Novolazarevskaya station in Antarctica when it came across the ice drift, according to officials from Antarctic Logistics Center International.

If the South African and Argentinian ships cannot reach the ship, the helicopters will remove the scientists and nonessential crew members and leave the vessel behind with a skeleton staff and supplies for the winter, Hagemann said.

Zimbabwe police fire tear gas at demonstrators

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwean police invoked sweeping new security laws Sunday, firing tear gas to disperse several hundred opposition supporters gathering to commemorate the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa.

In another sign the government's campaign against dissent was heating up, a state-run newspaper reported new fees would be imposed on journalists reporting from Zimbabwe.

After firing tear gas, police charged the crowd with clubs at the gathering Sunday held at a public garden in Harare to commemorate the role youth have played in the fight for democracy in southern Africa.

Last week state-run media reported that President Robert Mugabe put security forces on high alert to crush any mass demonstrations that might call for a re-run of presidential elections held in March. Observer groups said the vote was marred by rigging.

Anti-government strike shuts down Bangladesh

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- A general strike ordered by Bangladesh's main opposition party to protest new taxes shut down schools and shops and brought traffic to a halt across the country Sunday.

The authorities deployed 5,000 police and paramilitary troops to prevent violence in the capital Dhaka, a city of 9 million people.

There were no immediate reports of trouble, but Saber Hoosain Chowdhury, a spokesman for the main opposition party, the Awami League, said dozens of protesters were arrested in Dhaka.

The main opposition group, the Awami League, called the strike to protest the government's proposed 2002-2003 budget, which it says would benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

Twenty farm workers killed in Egyptian crash

CAIRO, Egypt -- Two trucks, one carrying farm workers, collided Sunday, killing 20 people and injuring 50, police said.

A truck carrying 73 workers on their way from the northern Delta province of Bahariya collided with another truck on the Cairo-Alexandria road that is notorious for fatal accidents.

The workers were heading to pick apricots on a farm 46 miles north of Cairo, police said. Police said excess speed was the cause of the accident but did not say who was responsible.

The farm workers all came from and Bahariya provinces and were men aged 14 to 20.

-- From wire reports