World Digest
Haiti chief appears with rebel leaders

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About 3,000 people cheered and clapped for Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who held his first rally in his hometown of Gonaives, where Haiti's independence was declared 200 years ago and its recent rebellion started.

"I ask you for a moment of silence for all the people who fell fighting against the dictatorship, and especially for Amiot Metayer," Latortue said as the crowd went wild.

Metayer was the leader of the Cannibal Army street gang, and anger over his death last year helped spark the rebellion.

Rebel leaders who still run Haiti's fourth-largest city sat on a platform alongside Latortue, Organization of American States representative David Lee, recently installed interim Cabinet ministers Bernard Gousse and retired Gen. Herard Abraham, and new Haitian Police Chief Leon Charles.

Five Palestinians killed in shootout with troops

JERUSALEM — Israeli troops killed five Palestinians today in a shootout with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, local doctors said.

The army said it killed one man, an alleged member of the militant Islamic group Hamas, as he tried to evade arrest. The military said troops fired at the fleeing man and he exploded, indicating he was carrying a bomb or wearing an explosive belt of the type used by suicide bombers.

Palestinian doctors disputed the Israeli account, saying the dead man suffered extensive bullet wounds but showed no signs of having been in an explosion.

They said another four people died as Palestinians engaged in a fierce gunfight with the Israeli squad.

Pope says it's immoral to remove feeding tubes
 
VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II said yesterday that the removal of feeding tubes from people in vegetative states was immoral and that no judgment on their quality of life could justify such "euthanasia by omission."

John Paul made the comments to participants at a Vatican conference on the ethical dilemmas of dealing with incapacitated patients.

The pope said even the medical terminology used to describe people in so-called "persistent vegetative states" was degrading to them.

He said no matter how sick a person was, "he is and will always be a man, never becoming a 'vegetable' or 'animal.' "

Providing food and water to such patients should be considered natural, ordinary and proportional care — not artificial medical intervention, the pope said, adding, "as such, it is morally obligatory" to continue such care.

Russians report recovering about 800 severed bear paws

MOSCOW — Russian customs seized a truck heading for China after agents uncovered a load of animal parts, including nearly 800 severed bear paws prized for exotic dishes, Russian media reported yesterday.

NTV television said the illicit cargo, concealed beneath piles of used car batteries and boxes of food, also included assorted antlers, pelts of fur-bearing animals and dried sea cucumbers.

Poaching is rampant in many parts of Russia, particularly in poorer Siberian and far eastern regions.

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