Israelis make arrests in plot against Bush

Jerusalem

Israeli investigators have arrested six men suspected of trying to set up an al-Qaida-linked terror network, including one who wanted to shoot down President Bush's helicopter, the Shin Bet security service said Friday.

Two of the men are Arab citizens of Israel, both of them students at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, according to the statement. The other four are Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem. The men are all in their early 20s.

Taipei, Taiwan

Questions over storm preparedness

Tropical storm Kalmaegi churned along the Chinese coast Saturday, after leaving 13 dead in heavily populated Taiwan and its president scrambling to explain the island's apparent lack of preparedness in the face of the devastation.

President Ma Ying-jeou, faced with the first major natural disaster since his May 20 inauguration, blamed the lack of preparedness for the storm on the Central Weather Bureau, which he said provided inadequate warning to the island's residents.

The bureau said some parts of the south had recorded up to 39 inches of rain, much higher than its original prediction of up to 14 inches.

Kalmaegi, which is the Korean word for "sea gull," has also caused agricultural damage estimated at $10.2 million, Taiwanese authorities said.

Moscow

Russia to explore world's deepest lake

Russia is preparing to send two manned submarines more than one mile to the bottom of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, in an attempt to learn more about its unique ecosystem, the expedition's organizer said Friday.

Lake Baikal, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, many of them found nowhere else in the world.

The two small submersible vehicles, Mir-1 and Mir-2, completed a voyage below the North Pole last August, when Russian participants planted their country's flag in a titanium capsule on the Arctic Ocean floor to symbolically claim the seabed.

Havana

Cuba OKs more private farming

President Raul Castro continued his rollout of changes in Cuba on Friday with the start of a plan to boost the island's sluggish food production by granting private farmers access to up to 99 acres of unused government land.

Cuba seized land from most large-scale farmers after the 1959 revolution; under the new system, private farmers, who have continued to exist under Cuba's socialist system, would have access to the plots for up to a decade, with leases renewable if conditions were met and taxes paid. Cooperatives and state farms would also qualify for more land, for up to 25 years. But the fields would stay in the hands of the government, which controls an estimated 90 percent of the island's economy.

The new plan, mentioned several months ago but formally announced Friday, is designed to jump-start food production at a time when Cuba is feeling the effects of the global rise in food prices. Last year, Cuba spent nearly $1.5 billion for food imports, much of that from producers in the United States that were granted a special exemption from the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.

Also

Japan quake: Japan's Meteorological Agency said a 6.6-magnitude earthquake hit off the eastern coast of Japan and a tsunami warning had been issued for the country's eastern coast. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Pop-art theft: Officials say one or more thieves broke into the Abergs Museum near Stockholm early Friday and stole work done by American pop icons Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Pacific storms: Tropical Storm Fausto became a hurricane Friday far off Mexico's Pacific Coast, while Bertha strengthened back into a hurricane in the open Atlantic. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said neither storm is expected to threaten land. Tropical Storm Elida, far off Mexico's Pacific Coast, was also expected to stay in the open sea.

Seattle Times news services