World Scene

CHINA

U.S. Embassy warns of terror threats

BEIJING -- The U.S. government yesterday warned of possible terrorist threats to American interests and places where Americans gather in China, particularly in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The notice, posted on the Web site of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and transmitted by e-mail to American citizens, said the warning was based on unconfirmed information. An embassy spokeswoman said Americans were not being urged to alter their travel plans or normal business.

Although China has battled sporadic violence from separatist Muslims in its northwestern province bordering Central Asia, the country has largely escaped terrorism by international groups.

CHINA

28 Christians held in raid on service

SHANGHAI -- Chinese authorities detained 28 Christians in a raid on an unauthorized church service at a private home, an overseas monitoring group said yesterday.

Three members of the nondenominational Protestant congregation, including the host and the presiding minister, still were being held, the Texas-based China Aid Association said. Some of the other Christians were released after paying $200 fines, the group said.

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Russia returns war-crimes suspect

SARAJEVO -- Russia has handed over to Bosnia Dragan Zelenovic, a Bosnian Serb wanted by the United Nations war-crimes tribunal for rape and torture, the Balkan country's war-crimes court said yesterday.

Russia transferred Mr. Zelenovic to the Bosnian authorities on Thursday after the U.N. war-crimes tribunal's Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte accused Moscow of dragging its feet over the case.

The Bosnian war-crimes court later said it would deliver Mr. Zelenovic to the U.N. war-crimes tribunal in The Hague within 36 hours.

BURMA

Democracy leader ill, hospitalized

NEW YORK -- Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been hospitalized with severe diarrhea, activists with contacts in the country said yesterday.

Mrs. Suu Kyi, 60, was taken to the hospital Thursday afternoon after calling her physician to say she had diarrhea and felt weak said Thaung Htun, the New York-based U.N. representative for the Burmese government in exile.

In Washington, the State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged the Burmese government to provide Mrs. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has spent much of the past 16 years under house arrest, with expeditious medical assistance.

AFGHANISTAN

13 Taliban fighters killed in ambush

KABUL -- Afghan troops surrounded and killed 13 Taliban fighters after their convoy was ambushed by the guerrillas, an army commander said yesterday.

The ambush took place on Thursday evening in Uruzgan, one of the southern provinces where the Taliban has elicited sympathy from ethnic Pashtun villagers in the rural areas.

UZBEKISTAN

2 more U.S. groups ordered shut

TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan has moved to shut down two more U.S.-based aid groups, accusing them of breaching their charters and carrying out illegal religious missionary activity, press reports said yesterday.

The Uzbek Justice Ministry petitioned a Tashkent court to liquidate the Central Asian Free Exchange, according to an Internet news site that is close to the government.

Four foreign members of the organization were earlier fined $400 each for missionary activity, according to the report, which came a day after an Uzbek court ordered the closure of another U.S. aid group, Global Involvement Through Education, on the same charges.

From wire dispatches and staff reports