China will increase military spending by 12.6 percent this year, pressing ahead with efforts to modernize its army by reducing its ranks while buying modern weapons systems such as quiet submarines and command-and-control aircraft.

The boost in spending to $29.9 billion, announced yesterday, is the fourth double-digit annual increase in five years for the 2.5 million-member army, the world's biggest fighting force.

"They are clearly not only trying to do the traditional types of things, such as buying more fighter planes," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "They aren't close to being a Western military yet, but they're catching up."

London

Mayor calls Sharon war criminal

The mayor of London called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a war criminal and said in a newspaper article published yesterday that Israel is guilty of ethnic cleansing.

Ken Livingstone was already mired in controversy after comparing a Jewish journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the mayor's comments "aren't even worthy of an Israeli response."

In an opinion piece published by The Guardian daily, Livingstone said: "Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office." He then referred to Sharon's involvement in the 1982 massacres in Lebanon's Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps.

"Israel's own expansion has included ethnic cleansing," he added. "Ethnic cleansing, discrimination and terror are immoral."

Bern, Switzerland

5 arrested as Islamic extremists

Five Islamic extremists suspected of using the Internet to show the killing of hostages — which reportedly included the beheading of an American — and to give bomb-making instructions have been arrested, Swiss authorities said yesterday.

An official said the locations of the killings had not been determined.

All the suspects were "of the Islamic faith, with extremist leanings," the office said. It did not identify them but said they came from Tunisia and Belgium and were legal residents of Switzerland.

Mayerthorpe, Alberta

Clues sought in Mounties' deaths

Police scoured a western Canadian farm yesterday for clues into how four Mounties were shot to death, an incident that shocked a country where such violent crime is rare.

The officers, all junior members of the storied Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were gunned down Thursday during a raid at an illicit marijuana-growing operation 90 miles from Edmonton.

The suspect, identified as Jim Roszko, 46, is believed to have died when he turned what police said was a "rapid-fire, high-powered rifle" on himself. The Mounties carried only sidearms.

Relatives said Roszko, who was involved in numerous violent offenses, often used guns to frighten people from his property. "He is not my son. He is a wicked devil," Roszko's father, Bill, told CanWest news.

Killed were Constables Peter Schiemann, 25; Lionide Nicholas Johnston, 32; Brock Myrol, 29; and Anthony Gordon, 28.

Police said the officers had been staking out Roszko's farm late Wednesday as part of a stolen property case. "We had every reason to believe he was not there," RCMP Cpl. Wayne Oakes said.

Berlin

Court orders restitution for family

The Wertheim family, owners of one of Germany's largest department-store chains before World War II, is entitled to restitution for Berlin property it was forced to sell under the Nazis, a court ruled yesterday.

In one of the largest Jewish Holocaust claims that remains unsettled, the family is believed to be seeking a total of about $192 million in damages from German retailer KarstadtQuelle, which now owns part of the disputed real estate.

The Berlin court was ruling only on a small portion of that property and will not result in Karstadt making a direct payment to the Wertheim family heirs, but the decision could open the door for the family to recover significant sums from the retailer.

The flagship Wertheim store on Berlin's Potzdamer Platz was once among the world's grandest and the centerpiece of the family's extensive holdings, which included property that was later the site of the bunker where Adolf Hitler committed suicide in 1945. In 1938, the family was forced to sell all its shares to a non-Jewish consortium, and in 1939 family members fled Germany.

Katima Mulilo, Namibia

Elephant herds seen as threat

Botswana's growing elephant population is increasingly thundering across the border into neighboring Namibia and causing havoc, an environmental development group says.

A crackdown on poaching to boost tourism and years without culling and disease have allowed Botswana's elephant population to swell to more than 100,000.

"It's an enormous problem. They're damaging the environment and it's a social problem because they trample crops and people are scared of them," said conservationist Richard Diggle from the Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation program.

He said herds of up to 50 elephants roam through Caprivi, a small strip of Namibian territory between Botswana, Zambia and Angola. They destroy crops, stop children going to school and even trample some, Diggle said.