Probers fault Iraq reparations agency

Investigators probing the U.N. oil-for-food program have found evidence of "gross mismanagement" and possible corruption by the U.N. agency that oversaw compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq's deputy U.N. ambassador said yesterday.

Investigators with the Independent Inquiry Committee had been investigating $5 billion in questionable expenditures by the U.N. Compensation Commission for months. The U.N. panel had denied any wrongdoing.

But Fesial al-Istrabadi said the investigators believe some of the allegations were legitimate, particularly in how the commission handled currency exchange rates with the Iraqi dinar.

Helsinki, Finland

Aceh rebels won't seek independence

Separatist rebels from the Indonesian province of Aceh and the Indonesian government made progress on the last serious stumbling block in their peace talks, the issue of political representation, negotiators said yesterday.

The rebels have agreed to set aside their demand for independence but insist the government give them the right to form their own political party in Aceh, an oil- and gas-rich province at the tip of Sumatra island which has been wracked by a separatist conflict since 1976 and was ravaged by the Asian tsunami Dec. 26.

Although the details of the emerging agreement were not clear, Indonesian Communications Minister Sofyan Djalil said rebels "will have the right to participate in the political process and they will have the right to set up a political party as long as it fulfills the requirements of the law."

Nairobi, Kenya

Slain bishop had been targeted before

An Italian Roman Catholic bishop shot to death in an impoverished area of central Kenya had escaped previous attempts on his life, police said yesterday, adding that the case was being investigated as a possible botched robbery.

Two people were being questioned.

The bishop of the Isiolo pastoral center, Luigi Locati, 76, was gunned down Thursday evening while walking with a guard to his house from a dining hall for Catholic clergy.

The guard was struck on the forehead with a blunt object, deputy police Commissioner Lawrence Mwadime said. Locati ran, but the men caught him, hit him in the head and then shot him in the neck. The assailants then fled.

Moscow

Potential candidate faces investigation

A top prosecutor denied yesterday there was any political motivation to an investigation of former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov over ownership of a luxury villa that was once government property.

The investigation of Kasyanov, a potential candidate in presidential elections scheduled for 2008, has been widely seen as an effort to ensure that he does not enter the race. The inquiry was announced this week.

"There is no politics here," Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said at a news conference. "We regard all this as a scheme to acquire property."

Kolesnikov displayed documents that he said provided evidence of illegal actions by which Kasyanov acquired ownership of the valuable riverside property near Moscow while he was serving as prime minister.

Also

Deadly bus plunge: A passenger bus plunged down a ravine yesterday near the coast of south-central South Africa, killing at least 24 people, police said. The accident occurred along a winding road near Umtata, about 400 miles south of Johannesburg, police said. The brakes reportedly failed as the driver was negotiating a sharp bend.

Compiled from The Associated Press, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times.