Around The World

Arab guerrillas fire rockets into Israel; 1 killed, 8 injured

JERUSALEM - Arab guerrillas fired rockets from Lebanon into a coastal resort area in northern Israel today, killing a French cook and wounding eight other people.

The Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrilla group claimed responsibility, Israel radio said. The attack followed Israeli shelling in Lebanon yesterday that killed one villager.

The two barrages of Katyusha rockets struck western Galilee, a coastal area of resorts and holiday villages. The wounded were four tourists from France, one from Spain and three Israelis, including an 8-year-old boy.

Club Med in Paris said it evacuated its 500-bed resort in Galilee after a rocket struck between two of its buildings. Dozens of grim-faced tourists in shorts and bathing suits loaded luggage onto waiting buses today.

Israeli warplanes fired at suspected Hezbollah hideouts in southern Lebanon in retaliation for today's attacks, the army said.

Mexico arrests three priests for unnamed illegal activities

MEXICO CITY - Immigration officials have arrested three priests from the United States, Spain and Argentina, accusing them of participating in unspecified illegal activities in rebellious Chiapas state.

The Mexican government has accused the Roman Catholic Church of siding with the poor Indians in Chiapas, who rebelled 18 months ago. The church has taken an active role in mediating the conflict.

The Interior Ministry, which handles immigration, said the Rev. Loren Laroye Riebe of the United States, the Rev. Rodolfo Izal Elorz of Spain and the Rev. Jorge Alberto Baron Gutlein of Argentina, were arrested yesterday.

No hometown was given for the American, and it was not clear what the priests were doing in Chiapas.

In Chiapas, the Diocese of San Cristobal said the priests would probably be expelled from Mexico and called on the Interior Ministry to reverse its decision.

Diplomats say a secret deal got Serbs to free hostages

ZAGREB, Croatia - Bosnian Serbs would not have freed almost 400 U.N. hostages without a U.N. promise not to call in NATO airstrikes on Serb positions again, Western diplomats said today.

They could not confirm a New York Times report that the French U.N. commander struck a deal with the Serbs while the United Nations was publicly demanding an unconditional release of the hostages, but said he may well have done so.

The Times said Gen. Bernard Janvier, commander in chief of U.N. forces in the Balkans, met commander General Ratko Mladic twice during the hostage crisis to negotiate without the approval of the British U.N. commander in Bosnia.

Janvier's headquarters in Croatia refused to confirm he negotiated with Mladic, while France and others insisted no private deals would be made.

Almost 400 U.N. peacekeepers and military observers, many of them French, were taken captive in late May in retaliation for NATO air raids that destroyed a Serb ammunition dump.

Janvier reportedly secretly met Mladic on June 4 in Zvornik, on Bosnia's border with Serbia, and on June 17 in the Bosnian Serb headquarters in Pale, near Serb-besieged Sarajevo.

Philippine extremists free boy, 10, after four months

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines - Suspected Muslim extremists have freed a 10-year-old Chinese-Filipino boy after more than four months of captivity in the southern Philippines, the boy's relatives said today.

Eduard Tsang, a native of the town of Ipil, which was attacked by Muslim extremists in April, was released Tuesday and was taken by his mother to Manila for his safety, a relative said.

Kidnappers who have links to the radical Abu Sayyaf group seized Tsang last February, a few weeks before Muslim gunmen killed 53 unarmed civilians in his hometown.

The gunmen had originally demanded $2 million in ransom, then reduced it to $400,000. The family conducted its own negotiations with the kidnappers and refused to cooperate with police.

Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for a string of bomb attacks and kidnappings of Roman Catholic priests, nuns and rich Chinese-Filipinos in the area. The group opposes any peace agreement with the government in Manila and wants to establish an Islamic state in the Philippines' troubled southern islands.

After six years on job, British foreign secretary resigning

LONDON - Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd is resigning after six years in the post, his local party chairman said today.

Hurd, one of the most senior members of Prime Minister John Major's Cabinet, had indicated earlier this year that he intended to step down in the summer.

His reported decision came a day after Major surprised the party by resigning as leader to force an early leadership election. Hurd's departure would give Major an opportunity to reshuffle his Cabinet ahead of the leadership vote.