World Scene

PAKISTAN

Nuclear rivals set Kashmir settlement

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has reportedly finalized a plan with India for resolving the 56-year-old dispute over the Himalayan state of Kashmir that has resulted in two wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said yesterday he expects significant progress in resolving the dispute when he meets his Indian counterpart for bilateral talks in July and August. He declined to give details of the plan.

Both India and Pakistan have claimed Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the unrest on the Indian side of Kashmir in recent years.

CHINA

WHO team to probe latest SARS outbreak

BEIJING — An international team of experts will examine a sealed-off SARS research lab in Beijing where two workers became sick, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said yesterday.

In what could be the world’s first death from the SARS virus this year, the mother of one of the workers died last week. Several hundred lab employees and people with whom the ill people came into contact were reported in quarantine.

The WHO team, assembled at the request of the Chinese ministry, also may travel to eastern Anhui province, the home province of one of the lab workers and her mother, the WHO said.

NIGERIA

Two Americans die in pirate raid

LAGOS — Heavily armed militants killed two U.S. oil workers and at least four Nigerians in a botched robbery attempt on their speedboat in Nigeria’s southern delta, authorities said yesterday.

The attack occurred Friday evening when the boat, carrying contractors of U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco and their military escorts, was returning from work reopening oil wells closed by a bloody ethnic uprising last year.

A ChevronTexaco employee and a Nigerian soldier were wounded and received medical care, but one Nigerian was missing. The names of the dead U.S. citizens were not released.

SINGAPORE

Prime minister say she will quit office

SINGAPORE — Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong confirmed yesterday that he will step down this year, although the city-state has recorded strong economic performance so far this year. But he said he would put off setting a date for the transfer of power after 14 years in office.

Mr. Goh also said he would reshuffle the cabinet before he steps down to make way for Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lee Hsien Loong, whom he identified publicly last August as his successor.

Mr. Goh took over the premiership from Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew, who ran the city-state for 31 years.

IRAN

’Complete story’ told on nuclear program

TEHRAN — Iran said yesterday it has offered the “complete story” to the U.N. nuclear watchdog about its nuclear programs that have provoked a confrontation with the Bush administration over Iran’s military ambitions.

Mohammad Saeedi, a top Iranian nuclear official, said the information was submitted to five prominent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors who visited Iran for two weeks.

The inspectors, who arrived in Iran on April 12, left Tehran Friday without comment. The agency’s board will meet on Iran’s disputed program in June.