World Scene

VENEZUELA

Chavez backers march in support

CARACAS — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez rallied tens of thousands of supporters in Caracas yesterday.

In a sea of red banners and flags, state oil workers, students and public employees marked the anniversary of a 1992 coup Mr. Chavez led as a young soldier.

His opponents, meanwhile, marched yesterday to protest a leader they accuse of authoritarian rule.

Supporters hoisted placards praising Mr. Chavez’s social programs for the poor and bearing images of Argentine revolutionary figure Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Cuban President Fidel Castro as the rally snaked along a highway toward the center of the capital.

YEMEN

13 al Qaeda convicts escape from prison

SAN’A, Yemen — Thirteen al Qaeda militants convicted in the attacks on the U.S. warship Cole and the French supertanker Limburg in Yemen were among 23 men who broke out of prison in San’a, a state-run Web site said yesterday.

The September 26 site quoted unindentified sources saying the 13 convicts included top militants Jamal Badawi and Fawaz al-Rabe’ie, who managed to flee the central prison by digging a 70-yard-long tunnel.

Rabe’ie — the leader of the group convicted of bombing the Limburg in 2002 — was facing a death sentence. Badawi was serving 15 years for the bombing of the Cole in 2000 after his death sentence was commuted.

GAZA STRIP

Militants killed in missile attack

GAZA CITY — Three members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the militant armed offshoot of the Fatah movement, were killed in an Israeli helicopter attack in Gaza City last night, medical sources said.

The Israeli attack targeted a center in Gaza City belonging to the Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that was used as a base by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and the militants’ car nearby, witnesses said.

Eight other Palestinians were wounded, one of whom was in serious condition, doctors said.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the raid.

PAKISTAN

Last U.S. MASH unit donated for quake aid

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — The U.S. military is shutting down its last MASH unit, the mobile hospital made famous by the long-running TV show about martini-sipping, wisecracking Army doctors.

This month, the U.S. Army will donate the last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital to Pakistan, where it has been caring for survivors of the massive earthquake last year, Rear Adm. Michael LeFever said yesterday at an air base outside the capital, Islamabad.

“This is the last MASH unit in the United States Army,” Adm. LeFever said. “We are excited that this MASH will live on in Pakistan.”

The 84-bed, $4.5-million MASH unit includes a surgical suite with two operating tables, two intensive-care units, a pharmacy, laboratory, radiology units and a power-generation system, the military said.

CUBA

Oil executives shown the door

MEXICO CITY — A meeting between Cuban officials and U.S. energy executives was moved to another hotel after the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City, under pressure from the U.S. government, asked the Cubans to leave, the event’s organizer said yesterday.

Kirby Jones, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, said the U.S. government called Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and pressured the chain to ask the Cubans to leave, arguing that the U.S. company was violating a 45-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

From wire dispatches and staff reports