World Scene

RUSSIA

Missing ship found near Cape Verde

MOSCOW | A Russian-manned cargo ship that vanished last month in the Atlantic was found Friday near Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa, according to French and Russian officials. There was no immediate information about the condition of the crew or whether there was anyone else on board.

The vessel Arctic Sea - carrying a load of timber and 15 Russian sailors - disappeared after passing through the English Channel on July 28. The Maltese-flagged freighter sent radio messages as it sailed along the coasts of France and Portugal, but then all contact was lost.

“Cape Verde coast guards said they have located the boat” about 520 miles off Cape Verde, said French Defense Ministry spokesman Capt. Jerome Baroe. France was involved in search efforts together with several other countries.

Two military officials in Brussels separately confirmed the ship had been tracked and located off West Africa.

CANADA

Court orders return of Gitmo detainee

TORONTO | Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal upheld Friday a lower court ruling ordering the Canadian government to seek the return of the last Western detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has steadfastly refused to get involved in Omar Khadr’s case, saying the United States’ legal process has to play itself out.

Mr. Khadr, a Toronto native, is one of the youngest people ever charged with war crimes. He was 15 when he was accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade during a 2002 battle in Afghanistan.

A judge ruled in April that Canada must ask the U.S. to return Mr. Khadr home.

BRITAIN

Lockerbie bomber drops appeal

EDINBURGH | The man serving a life sentence for the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, is dropping his appeal against conviction, his lawyers said Friday - removing a possible obstacle to his transfer to Libya.

British broadcasters this week said without citing sources that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi would be released early from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds. He is terminally ill with cancer.

The Scottish government said it has yet to decide on his motion for early release.

LIBYA

U.S. senators meet Gadhafi

TRIPOLI | A delegation of U.S. senators led by Arizona Republican John McCain met with Libya’s leader Moammar Gadhafi on Friday to discuss the possible delivery of nonlethal defense equipment.

The visit and Washington’s offer of military equipment was another sign of the improving ties between the former longtime adversaries.

“We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of nonlethal defense equipment to the government of Libya,” Mr. McCain said at a press conference. He gave no details on the kind of military equipment Washington is offering.

Mr. McCain said the U.S. remained concerned about Libya’s record on human rights and political reform.

The delegation also included Sens. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent; Susan Collins, Maine Republican; and Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican.

TURKS AND CAICOS

Britain imposes direct rule

LONDON | Britain on Friday imposed direct rule on its former colony of Turks and Caicos following corruption claims against the territory’s authorities.

The British government said it had suspended the government and legislature and put the London-appointed governor in direct charge of the islands about 500 miles southeast of Florida.

The islands’ prime minister blasted the move as a “coup” that put Britain “on the wrong side of history.”

CAPE VERDE

Clinton winds up African tour

SANTA MARIA | Winding up an 11-day African tour, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she’s optimistic about the continent’s future and voiced no regrets about “tough love” messages she gave to government leaders there.

“I love coming to Africa,” Mrs. Clinton said at a joint press conference in Cape Verde with Prime Minister Jose Maria Pereira Neves as she prepared to head back to Washington.

“I have been overwhelmed,” the secretary said of her visits to Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Liberia, as well as Cape Verde. “I have been filled with hope and I have seen despair. But I come away with an even greater level of commitment than I had before,” Mrs. Clinton said.

She used the tour to reinforce a message that President Obama brought to Africa earlier this year, a call for leaders to fight corruption, promote democracy and combat civil strife, disease, violence and squalor wherever it exists.

IRAN

Reformists seek probe of ayatollah

TEHRAN | A group of former reformist lawmakers appealed to a powerful clerical body in Iran to investigate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s qualification to rule in an unprecedented challenge to the country’s most powerful man over the postelection crackdown.

The call came as controversy heated up Friday over allegations that protesters detained during the crackdown were tortured. Hard-line clerics across the country demanded that a senior reform leader be prosecuted for claiming that some detainees were raped by their jailers.

The former lawmakers’ appeal was to the Assembly of Experts, a body of clerics that under Iranian law has the power to name the supreme leader and, in theory, to remove him - though such a move has never been attempted.

CHINA

Lead poisoning sickens 600 children

BEIJING | More than 600 children have been sickened with lead poisoning in a northern Chinese province where authorities shut a smelter earlier this week thought to have caused the contamination, state media reported.

More than 80 percent of the 731 children living in the two villages near the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co. in Shaanxi province have tested positive for lead poisoning, nearly double the number reported earlier this week, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Thursday.

It said lead levels in children were as high as 506 milligrams per liter of blood - more than 10 times the level considered safe by China.

From wire dispatches and staff reports.