Government sets curfew in six Bangladesh cities

Dhaka, Bangladesh

The military-backed government imposed an indefinite curfew in six major cities Wednesday, clearing the streets and temporarily shutting down cellphones in a bid to quell three days of unrest by students demanding an end to emergency rule.

An official at the country's largest mobile operator, GrameenPhone, said the government ordered all cellphone service temporarily shut down.

The emergency was imposed in January when President Iajuddin Ahmed canceled scheduled elections, outlawed demonstrations, and curtailed press freedoms.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Pirates release Danish cargo ship

Somali pirates released the crew of a hijacked Danish cargo ship after receiving a ransom payment, Denmark's government said Wednesday.

The pirates, who seized the Danica White in June, turned it over Wednesday to a French warship. The ship had been on its way to the Kenyan port of Mombasa from Dubai when it was seized June 1.

Yangon, Myanmar

Police break up fuel-price protest

Defiant pro-democracy activists took to the streets today for the third time this week to protest the military junta's fuel price hikes despite the earlier arrest of at least 13 democracy activists.

But police and a pro-junta mob broke up the march after a brief stand off, dragging about a dozen of the protesters into trucks and other vehicles.

Myanmar's ruling junta, which has received widespread international criticism for violating human rights, tolerates little public dissent.

About 300 people marched Wednesday. The march was broken up when a gang of government supporters assaulted some protesters and seized eight who were accused of being agitators, witnesses and participants said. The eight were later freed unharmed.

Tokyo

Chinese jet makes emergency landing

Four days after a China Airlines jet exploded in flames at Okinawa Airport after its 165 passengers and crew escaped, another one of the airline's planes made an emergency landing Wednesday in western Japan.

The Airbus A330 with 163 people aboard was en route from Taipei to Chubu in central Japan when that airport's runway was closed for about 30 minutes because of a minor incident involving another plane.

The China Airlines plane requested a landing at Kansai airport, about 125 miles away, saying it did not have enough fuel to wait for Chubu to reopen, an airport official said.

Kampala, Uganda

Congolese refugees stream into Uganda

As many as 10,000 Congolese refugees have crossed the border into Uganda in the past two days, fleeing violence in their villages, local government officials said Wednesday.

The mineral-rich eastern part of Congo, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, remains the most unstable area of the country. Fighting among rival militias regularly breaks out and often results in civilian casualties.

Also

Japan executions: Japan today hanged three inmates convicted of murder, a Justice Ministry official said. Japan is one of the few industrialized nations that retains the death penalty. It is believed that 104 inmates are on death row.

Italy fires: Wind-whipped fires that have been ravaging parts of Sicily reached a hotel near the port of Messina on Wednesday, killing three people and leaving two others missing, authorities said.

Seattle Times news services