Hong Kong

After making the symbolic gesture of offering Taiwan two pandas, the Chinese government turned aside the idea of opening an official dialogue with the island yesterday, the day Taiwanese Nationalist party leader Lien Chan ended a historic mainland visit.

As Taiwan opposition chief Lien returned to Taipei, China said it wanted to give the giant pandas to Taiwan as a show of goodwill and announced it would lift a ban on tourism to Taiwan.

But Wang Zaixi, a spokesman for the Communist Party's Taiwan Work Office, said at a news conference that China's government would have no official exchanges with the political party of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian until that party made several significant, and therefore highly unlikely, concessions to China.

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since 1949, although China has never relinquished its claim on the island and has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares independence.

Lima, Peru

Amazon tribe kills 4 medical workers

Four government doctors and nurses found with their throats slit in Peru's remote northern jungle were killed by members of a native Amazon tribe, police said yesterday.

Police said the team, part of a program to provide health care to remote corners of Peru, had been working in the Condorcanqui province near the border with Ecuador.

"It seems they [the workers] arrived in the middle of a traditional festival, and the natives didn't like it," said a police spokesman in Lima.

Families of the victims blamed the Aguarunas tribe, which has aggressively defended its land from ranching and oil exploration in the past.

Monterrey, Mexico

2 U.S. Border Patrol agents held in jail

Two U.S. Border Patrol agents are in a Mexican jail, facing charges they illegally imported about 1,300 bullets during an off-duty trip south of the border, Mexican and U.S. authorities said yesterday.

Mexican customs officials arrested the agents, David Allen Navarro and German Verdugo, late Friday, as they crossed into Mexicali, Baja California, from Calexico, Calif.

Mexico prohibits the importation and possession of ammunition, police said.

The two officers, who serve in the Border Patrol's El Centro sector in Southern California, are in jail in Mexicali as prosecutors consider charges, police said.

Hagen, Germany

Robbery trial starts for "Grandpa Gang"

Three elderly men who have been dubbed the "Grandpa Gang" went on trial yesterday, accused of robbing 14 German banks of more than $1.3 million over 16 years.

As the trial opened in the western city of Hagen, Rudolf Richter, 74, and Wilfried Ackermann, 73, admitted to participating in the robberies. The third defendant, Lothar Ackermann, 64, no relation to Wilfried, remained silent.

The two older men met while in prison on separate bank-robbery charges and, after their release, began meeting with their 64-year-old acquaintance annually to discuss robbery plans, Wilfried Ackermann testified.

He said he was afraid of going to a rest home and hoped to save up enough money to buy himself a home in Bielefeld.

Also

Pakistan blast toll: A gas explosion that caused an apartment building to collapse in eastern Pakistan killed at least 25 people and injured 20 others as they slept yesterday, police and rescue officials said.