World Scene

COLOMBIA

14 rebel leaders extradited to U.S.

BOGOTA — Colombia extradited 14 former paramilitary leaders to the United States yesterday to face drug-trafficking and other charges after authorities said the warlords violated terms of a peace deal with the government.

The extradition was ordered as U.S. ally President Alvaro Uribe faces pressure over a growing scandal tying some of his lawmaker allies to the outlawed militias and U.S. Democrats resist a Colombia trade deal because of human rights concerns.

The 14 were escorted in handcuffs and body armor aboard a plane after early-morning raids on their jail cells. Among them were some of the most-feared militia bosses accused of killing thousands in the bloodier days of a four-decade conflict.

“This is a warning,” Mr. Uribe said in a national television address flanked by top military and law-enforcement officials after the extradition. “This is notice that the law must be respected and terrorism defeated.”

Hours later, local television showed U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents escorting handcuffed men off the twin-engine aircraft at Opa-locka Airport in Miami. The militia bosses face a list of drug and money-laundering charges in Florida, New York and Texas.

Mr. Uribe said U.S. officials agreed that extradition would not impede investigations into crimes or payments to victims. But victims’ families worried the mass extradition meant the warlords would never see real justice in Colombia.

INDIA

7 bombs hit ancient city

JAIPUR — Seven bombs ripped through the crowded streets of the ancient city of Jaipur in western India yesterday evening, killing about 60 people and wounding another 150 in markets and outside Hindu temples.

The bombs, many strapped to bicycles, exploded within minutes of one another in Jaipur’s pink-walled city, a magnet for foreign tourists. It was the deadliest bomb attack in India in nearly two years.

Police officers said no group had taken responsibility for the blasts. Television channels quoted government and intelligence officials as blaming Pakistani or Bangladeshi Islamist militant groups.

ZIMBABWE

Police confront Western envoys

HARARE — Police confronted U.S. Ambassador James McGee and other Western diplomats seeking to investigate allegations of torture yesterday, halting their convoy at a checkpoint on the edge of the capital. One officer threatened to hit Mr. McGee with his car.

Mr. McGee was not hurt. Police eventually allowed the convoy to pass, and a patrol car escorted the diplomats back to the U.S. Embassy before disappearing.

Tensions have been escalating in Zimbabwe since the March 29 parliamentary and presidential elections, in which opposition groups claim they defeated long-ruling President Robert Mugabe.

VATICAN

Chief astronomer: UFO belief OK

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s chief astronomer has ruled that belief in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said the vastness of the universe means there could be other forms of life, even intelligent ones, outside Earth.

In an interview published yesterday by Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Father Funes said that such a notion “doesn’t contradict our faith” because aliens would still be God’s creatures.

From wire dispatches and staff reports