Officer gets 25 years for role in genocide

Arusha, Tanzania

A U.N. tribunal Tuesday convicted a former Rwandan military commander of crimes against humanity for his role in the 1994 genocide and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

Lt. Col. Tharcisse Muvunyi's troops were behind the "systematic killing" of at least 140 students and Red Cross workers, Judge Asoka de Silva told the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Some 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the genocide.

Muvunyi, whose six years in detention while awaiting trial will be counted against his sentence, showed no emotion as the sentence was read. His lawyer said he would appeal.

Diyarbakir, Turkey

Bomb kills 10 in area of Kurd separatists

A bomb struck a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday, killing 10 people and wounding 17, the local governor's office said.

Authorities said the bomb in Diyarbakir was set off by a cellphone timer. Although nobody claimed responsibility, the blast occurred in a region where Kurdish separatist rebels are known to be active.

News stations said seven of those killed were children.

Beirut, Lebanon

French tanks join peacekeeping force

Thirteen French tanks, the most powerful armor deployed by a U.N. peacekeeping force, rolled ashore Tuesday to beef up a mission aimed at helping cement an uneasy cease-fire in Lebanon.

Some European officials are concerned peacekeepers will be at best ineffective and at worst humiliated if hostilities flare between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops.

Scores of blue-helmeted French troops transferred the Leclerc tanks, AUF-1 artillery cannons, two high-tech Cobra radar trucks and dozens of armored vehicles and transport trucks from a cargo ship in Beirut's port. The port reopened Friday after a nearly two-month Israeli blockade.

Guatemalans held as drug-ring hit men

Officials said Tuesday they have arrested three Guatemalan nationals who were allegedly working as hit men for a drug cartel engaged in a gruesome turf war in the southern Mexican state of Michoacan.

Mexican officials said they are investigating whether the three arrested Monday are former members of the Guatemalan army's special-forces unit, the Kaibiles. They are suspected of involvement in an armed raid last week on a dance club in the city of Uruapan, in which the severed heads of five suspected drug dealers were tossed onto a dance floor.

Earlier this year, Mexico's top organized-crime investigator, José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said he believed there were as many as 100 Kaibiles working for Mexico's drug cartels.

Also

Stingrays killed: At least 10 stingrays have been killed in Australia since "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was fatally injured by one of the fish, an official said Tuesday, prompting a spokesman for the late TV star's animal charity to urge people not to take revenge on the animals. Irwin died last week after a stingray barb pierced his chest as he was recording a show off the Great Barrier Reef.

Andes rail plan: Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet unveiled a plan Tuesday to revive a defunct trans-Andean railroad, evidence that bilateral projects are on track despite squabbles. The railway across the Andes mountain chain closed in 1984 after 74 years. Its renewal, expected by 2010, is seen as vital to the $5 billion in yearly trade between the two countries.

Boom blamed on meteor: Hundreds of people in Christchurch, New Zealand, called emergency services to report a sonic boom Tuesday that scientists said was probably caused by a small meteor. An astronomer told National Radio the sonic boom indicated the meteor was traveling "very low" and was probably between the size of a baseball and a basketball.

Compiled from The Associated Press, Reuters and Los Angeles Times