World Digest
Earthquake in Iran kills at least 36

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Tehran television reported yesterday that 32 people had been killed in Mazandaran province, and earlier reports said four were killed in Qazvin.

Several aftershocks throughout the night Saturday shook Marzanabad, a town hit hard by Friday's magnitude-6.2 quake in northern and central Iran. A powerful aftershock also was felt in the neighboring town of Kelardasht early yesterday.

President Mohammad Khatami expressed condolences for the dead, including Masoud Emami, the governor of Qazvin province, who died with three of his aides, a television reporter and three crew members when their helicopter crashed in mountains north of Qazvin as the team was returning from one quake site.

Friday's quake was felt in eight provinces in central and northern Iran, damaging more than 80 villages but not causing the devastation of past quakes in a country sitting along a major fault line.

Former right-wing leader shot to death by assassins

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Gunmen in a coastal Colombian city killed a former right-wing paramilitary leader who objected to the militia's involvement in drug trafficking, police said yesterday.

Carlos Mauricio Garcia, also known as "Rodrigo" or "Double Zero," was shot in the head five times by assassins as he left a Santa Marta supermarket Friday night, police Col. Oscar Gamboa said. No arrests have been made.

Garcia's killing comes one month after the disappearance of Carlos Castano, the former top commander of the paramilitaries' umbrella group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC.

Castano, who is presumed dead by many observers, is wanted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges, but during the past year he publicly condemned militia members who continued to traffic in drugs.

Guerrillas allegedly set off bus bomb that wounded 22
 
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Maoist guerrillas set off a powerful bomb in a bus in Kathmandu yesterday, wounding 22 people in the latest strike by rebels fighting to topple the impoverished nation's constitutional monarchy.

The guerrillas also ordered school students out of a bus in west Nepal and set fire to it. Nobody was injured.

The attacks came ahead of a three-day nationwide transport strike that guerrillas have called for tomorrow to press for their demand for a communist republic in the world's only Hindu kingdom.

Student charged in stabbing of well-known literary agent

LONDON — Authorities have charged a student in the slaying of prominent British literary agent Rod Hall, whose clients included writers of films such as "Calendar Girls," "The Full Monty" and "Billy Elliot," police said yesterday.

Hall, 53, was found dead of multiple stab wounds in his southeast London home May 23.

Usman Durrani, 20, from east London, was charged late Saturday with his murder and is scheduled to appear in court today, police said. They did not disclose a motive.

Also ...

Senior South African diplomat Nicky Scholtz, last seen May 24 at a Kuala Lumpur hotel, has been found and is safe, Malaysian police said yesterday without further explanation. ... Namibia's ruling Swapo party nominated Lands Minister Hifikepunye Pohamba yesterday to run for president in November elections, virtually installing him as successor to Sam Nujoma, who will retire after his third and final five-year term. ... A passenger train left the Chechen capital of Grozny en route to Moscow yesterday for the first time since a war began in the separatist province five years ago.