YANGON, MYANMAR — The United Nations said that a U.N. special envoy will meet Myanmar’s detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi today, the last day of the envoy’s frustrating mission to try to ease the country’s political crisis.
But hopes for a breakthrough by the envoy Ibrahim Gambari dimmed Wednesday after the government rejected proposed talks with Suu Kyi.
Gambari also has failed to meet the country’s most powerful figure, junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
The six-day visit is Gambari’s second to Myanmar since the military killed at least 10 protesters in September and arrested thousands. Diplomats and dissidents put the death toll much higher.
Additional world news briefs:
37 lands safely after engine falls off
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — A Boeing 737 carrying more than 100 people made an emergency landing in South Africa after an engine fell off during takeoff Wednesday from Cape Town, officials said. No injuries were reported. The Nationwide airline plane, bound for Johannesburg, touched down safely after the airport’s fire and rescue services rushed to clear debris from the runway.
South Korea says North still a threat
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Although North Korea has begun dismantling its nuclear facilities this week, it remains a threat to the region, South Korea’s defense minister said Wednesday.
At a news conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Jang-Soo said the North continues to develop nonnuclear weapons, including long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
Gates was visiting as part of the Security Consultative Meeting, an annual gathering of officials from the two nations.
“Dirty War” victims get a memorial
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA — Argentina’s president unveiled a memorial to victims of the so-called Dirty War that claimed about 13,000 lives during the country’s military dictatorship, using the occasion to urge judges to speed human-rights trials.
President Nestor Kirchner and hundreds of human-rights activists gathered Wednesday at the new Memorial Park, where the names of the victims of the country’s 1976-83 military junta have been etched on a wall alongside the Río de la Plata.
Interpol adds five Iranians to most-wanted list
MARRAKECH, MOROCCO — Interpol put a former Iranian intelligence chief, a former leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, three other Iranians and a Lebanese militant on its most-wanted list Wednesday for a 1994 bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish center in Argentina.
The international coordinating agency announced the move after delegates at its general assembly sided with Argentine prosecutors and turned back a lobbying blitz by Iranian envoys.
While Iranian envoys accused Israel and the U.S. of trying to use Interpol to taint Iran’s image, most delegates agreed the case was purely a police matter.
Dutch islands awash in bananas
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS — Thousands of bananas washed up on two Dutch North Sea islands on Wednesday after at least six containers fell off a cargo ship in a storm and one burst open.
“I think everybody on the island has a bunch now,” said Gossen Buren, a shipping official at the local lighthouse.
Ameland and Terschelling island residents are no strangers to stuff turning up on their beaches. A year ago, thousands of tennis shoes, aluminum briefcases and toys washed ashore.
