World Scene

FRANCE

Le Monde newspaper to cut 130 jobs

PARIS — The new management team at France’s establishment newspaper, Le Monde, has proposed shedding 130 staff, including a quarter of its journalists, in an effort to stem heavy losses.

Eric Fottorino, who was recently appointed chief executive of the Le Monde group, told staff Friday the tough restructuring plan was needed to keep the paper afloat.

Unions said the proposed cuts were unacceptable.

The group’s journalists hold a blocking stake in Le Monde and could veto the plan.

IRAQ

Contractor charged under new law

BAGHDAD — A civilian contractor working for the U.S. military in Iraq was charged with aggravated assault under military law, the first such prosecution since the Vietnam War, the U.S. command said yesterday.

Alaa “Alex” Mohammad Ali, who holds dual Iraqi-Canadian citizenship, is the first person to face criminal charges since Congress in 2006 gave the military authority to prosecute crimes committed by civilians working for the armed forces.

Mr. Ali, a U.S. Army translator, is accused of stabbing another contractor during a fight Feb. 23 at a base near Hit, a town 85 miles west of Baghdad in Anbar province.

KENYA

Bickering delays new Cabinet

NAIROBI — The announcement of Kenya’s new coalition Cabinet, expected today, has been delayed indefinitely over disagreements on its composition, both sides said yesterday.

Bickering over the Cabinet started almost immediately after the announcement Thursday that President Mwai Kibaki’s allied parties and opposition leader Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement would split 40 ministries evenly.

Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga, who will become the prime minister under a peace deal brokered in February by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, were under international pressure to break a monthlong deadlock on the Cabinet.

WEST BANK

12 fugitives urged to return to jail

NABLUS — A senior Palestinian official urged a dozen fugitive Palestinian gunmen yesterday to return to a local prison, where they had been serving time as part of an amnesty deal with Israel.

The 12 members of the members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade fled the Palestinian-run Jneid Prison in the West Bank city of Nablus on Friday, complaining that guards had pummeled them with clubs following a fight among the detainees.

The governor of the Nablus district, Jamal Muhaisen, appealed to the fugitives over a local radio station yesterday to return to prison voluntarily, expressing fears they could be killed by Israeli troops.

JAPAN

Oldest person dies at age 113

TOKYO — Japan’s oldest person has died in central Japan, officials said yesterday. She was 113.

Kaku Yamanaka died at a hospital where she was taken early yesterday after falling ill at a nursing home in Yatomi City in Aichi prefecture (state), an official at her nursing home said.

Born on Dec. 11, 1894, Mrs. Yamanaka became Japan’s oldest person when Tsuneyo Toyonaga, 113, died in February.

Japan has one of the world’s longest average life spans. The number of Japanese living beyond 100 has almost quadrupled over the past 10 years. There were 32,295 centenarians in 2007, according to the Health Ministry.

From wire dispatches and staff reports