World Scene

FRANCE

Coal mine closure signals end of an era

CREUTZWALD — France closed its last coal mine yesterday, saying goodbye to a trade that endured for nearly three centuries and underpinned the Industrial Revolution.

Coal — reportedly first discovered in France in 1720 — has been a money-losing business since the industry was brought under the state’s control nearly 50 years ago. Mines have been closed step by step in France as they have been across Europe.

IRELAND

Heavy security set for European fete

DUBLIN — Ireland will deploy more than 2,500 troops to protect about 30 heads of state and political leaders from any attacks during the European Union’s enlargement celebrations in Dublin on May 1, the government said yesterday.

Naval vessels will patrol Dublin Bay; air force helicopters will support police on the ground; and experts in chemical, biological and nuclear attacks will be on standby.

SOUTH AFRICA

Mbeki, ruling party solidify power

CAPE TOWN — South Africa swore in a new parliament yesterday, with the ruling African National Congress wielding an overwhelming majority to steer the country through its second decade of democracy.

The ANC emerged with a two-thirds majority from the third post-apartheid election on April 14, but has dismissed opposition fears that it might use that power to change the constitution.

Re-elected President Thabo Mbeki wants to use his second five-year term to bring the largely impoverished black majority into the mainstream of Africa’s largest economy.

LATVIA

Russian envoy expelled in espionage war

RIGA — Latvia said yesterday that it will expel a Russian diplomat for trying to gain secrets about NATO, becoming the third Baltic state this year to throw out Russians suspected of spying on the trans-Atlantic defense alliance.

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded angrily to its sixth diplomat being ordered out of the Baltics in three months, calling the expulsion a “provocative” act that reflected an “anti-Russian policy” among Latvian leaders.

COLOMBIA

Rightist rebel warns peace talks in trouble

SANTA FE DE RALITO — The head of Colombia’s paramilitary groups warned that peace talks are in jeopardy because the government is not offering amnesty to his right-wing fighters, linked to some of the worst atrocities in the country’s civil war.

Salvatore Mancuso also said that he did not know what had happened to paramilitary movement co-founder Carlos Castano, who disappeared a week ago after a gunfight at a ranch. But Mr. Mancuso thinks the co-founder is alive.

RUSSIA

Jailed oil baron is given deadline

MOSCOW — A Moscow court gave oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky until May 15 to prepare his defense before a trial on charges of tax evasion and fraud, Russian news agencies reported yesterday.

Mr. Khodorkovsky, main owner of the Yukos oil company, has been in jail since October. The charges against the politically ambitious businessman are widely viewed as a Kremlin plot to neutralize him as a potential rival to President Vladimir Putin.