World digest 09/21/02

Hurricane Isidore hits western tip of Cuba

PINAR DEL RIO Cuba -- Hurricane Isidore pounded Cuba's sparsely populated western end with heavy rains and winds of more than 100 miles per hour Friday, making its way into the Gulf of Mexico.

Isidore was moving west-northwest and was expected to stay on that track as it headed into the Gulf of Mexico.

"It doesn't look like it'll affect Florida this weekend," said Eric Blake, a meteorologist at the Miami center.

However, offshore petroleum companies in New Orleans started evacuating their rigs Friday.

Genocide suspect with cancer will be released

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A Bosnian Serb general on trial for genocide will be released because he has incurable cancer, the Yugoslav tribunal said Friday.

Gen. Momir Talic will be allowed to return to Belgrade, but was denied permission to travel home to Banja Luka, or any other place in Bosnia covered by his indictment.

He will be confined to his residence in Belgrade and the Military Medical Academy, the only facility in the capital able to provide him with cancer treatment, according to conditions ordered by the U.N. court.

Talic went on trial in January, facing 12 counts of war crimes, including genocide, and pleaded innocent. Prosecutors say that during the 1992-1995 Balkan war, Talic played a leading role in a purge that left hundreds dead and 100,000 expelled from their homes.

Floods cause boom in deadly mushrooms

VIENNA, Austria -- Austria's worst flooding in centuries has left behind a deadly legacy: a bumper crop of mushrooms that's luring amateur pickers to damp forests -- and sending some to the hospital.

At least two people have died after picking and eating poisonous mushrooms, and scores have sought treatment, said Dr. Helmut Schiel of Austria's poison control center.

Heavy rains last month left fields and forests sodden, creating perfect conditions for the growth of mushrooms and other fungi.

Of the roughly 3,000 different kinds of mushrooms that thrive in Austria, only a couple of hundred varieties are considered edible.

The most common culprit in serious poisoning cases is the amanita. Its common English name is the death cap. Eating even the tiniest morsel could be fatal.

Militants take over seven oil facilities in Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Militants captured seven foreign-owned oil facilities and threatened to invade dozens more in a bid to force Nigeria's government to change election boundaries they say favor a rival tribe.

Hundreds of young men and women from the Ijaw tribe on Thursday invaded six oil pipeline stations belonging to Royal-Dutch Shell and another one run by ChevronTexaco, Alhaji Dokubo-Asari, president of the Ijaw Youth Council, told The Associated Press Friday.

The takeovers forced a stop in the production and export of 350,000 barrels of oil a day, Dokubo-Asari said. That accounts for a sixth of Nigeria's total daily production. Nigeria is the the fifth-largest supplier of U.S. oil imports.

-- From wire reports