World Digest
Morning-after pill will be easier to buy in Canada

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Health Minister Pierre Pettigrew said the change would give timely access to emergency contraceptives for women and help prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The move comes weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided to keep the pill on its list of prescription drugs.

Anti-abortion activists have denounced Canada's decision, which won't become law for several months while the health department reviews the issue and gathers input from interested parties.

If taken within 72 hours of intercourse, the pill blocks pregnancy. But it won't work if the user is already pregnant.

The pill is already available without prescription in Saskatchewan, Quebec and British Columbia.

The federal decision wouldn't require the remaining provinces to make the pill available, but would make it easier for them to do so, officials said.

Typhoon batters Philippines, begins heading toward Japan

MANILA, Philippines — A powerful typhoon triggered landslides and capsized a ferry in the Philippines, killing at least 13 people and leaving hundreds homeless, officials said today.

Typhoon Nida, packing winds of 90 mph and gusts of 115 mph, moved away from the northern Philippines after pounding several eastern provinces and rolled toward Japan.

Nigerian president takes control of troubled state
 

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria's president declared a state of emergency in troubled central Plateau state yesterday, in a bid to halt religious and ethnic bloodletting amid reports of new violence by suspected Muslim militants against four predominantly Christian villages.

President Olusegun Obasanjo fired Gov. Joshua Dariye and dissolved the legislature, saying elected officials had "wittingly and unwittingly encouraged acts that have subverted peace."

It was Obasanjo's first emergency declaration — giving him the ability to govern by decree — since his 1999 election ended 15 years of repressive military rule. Since then, intertwined ethnic, political and religious violence has left more than 10,000 dead across Africa's most-populous nation.

Court frees man convicted of role in '81 Sadat killing

CAIRO, Egypt — A court yesterday ordered the release of one of the assassins of President Anwar Sadat, saying he had completed his sentence, according to his attorney and a court official.

Tarek el-Zomor, 45, was convicted in 1984 of plotting the 1981 assassination and belonging to the outlawed Islamic Jihad group. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the maximum term under Egyptian law. But the Interior Ministry has the discretion to hold a prisoner for up to five years more on security grounds. The authorities have kept el-Zomor in prison until now.

Soldiers who shot Sadat as he presided over a military parade in Cairo were executed.

In the late 1990s, Islamic Jihad merged with the al-Qaida group, led by Osama bin Laden, which is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Haitian police break up peaceful pro-Aristide march

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Police used tear gas and fired assault rifles in the air yesterday to break up a peaceful march by about 10,000 supporters of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, driven into exile on Feb. 29 by an armed revolt and U.S. pressure to quit.

As the march approached the National Palace, where the U.S.-backed interim government was holding a Flag Day ceremony, riot police supported by U.S. Marines began to lob tear-gas canisters and to fire dozens of rifle rounds in the air to scatter the crowd.

The United States, leading a 3,600-strong peace force in Haiti, had repeatedly criticized the Aristide government for not tolerating dissent, instead sending police and street thugs to break up anti-Aristide rallies when he was still in power.

Also...

Russian admiral Gennady Suchkov, former commander of the Northern Fleet but suspended shortly after the Aug. 30 sinking of K-159, was convicted yesterday of responsibility for the deaths of nine crew members of the submarine that sank in stormy Arctic seas. ... A small bomb exploded yesterday at a bakery that was moonlighting as a brothel in southern Turkey, but no one was hurt, police said.... A suspected member of an outlawed anti-Catholic gang was shot dead yesterday in Belfast, Northern Ireland, sparking fears of renewed feuding among paramilitary criminals. ... China has contained its latest SARS outbreak, which was linked to a Beijing research laboratory, the World Health Organization said today, urging continued vigilance in labs around the globe where workers handle the virus.