1 Men From Hutterite Colony Are Being Tried For Sex Abuse

DRUMHELLER, Alberta - Men from a deeply religious Hutterite colony appeared in a Canadian court yesterday, charged with sexually assaulting their daughters and sisters.

Ten Hutterite men ranging in age from 17 to 62 face a total of 34 charges. Canadian Mounties in late May charged the men with sexual assault, sexual touching and incest against female family members over 10 years.

Yesterday, a judge set a trial date of June 26 for nine of the accused.

Elders appointed a non-Hutterite lawyer, Hugh Sommerville, to advise the colony, located 47 miles east of Calgary, and to speak to the media on their behalf.

Like the Mennonite and Amish people, Hutterites are Anabaptist Christians of European descent, known for an austere lifestyle, traditional clothing and rejection of violence. About 20,000 Hutterites, or about two-thirds of the world's total, live on 300 farming colonies in western Canada.

Sommerville said the accused men have been ostracized by the community.

Turkish military fires 167 suspected of links to radicals

ANKARA, Turkey - The Turkish military fired 167 people today, including 100 officers it accused of having ties to radical Islamic groups, a television station reported.

The military, which considers itself the guarantor of secular but predominantly Muslim Turkey, has dismissed more than 300 officers over the past two years because of ties to Islamic groups.

The military, which has staged three coups since the 1960s, last year forced Turkey's first Islamic-led government to resign. The military was upset over efforts to change work hours to fit fasting times during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and other moves toward orthodoxy.

Caribbean isle's ruling party slips at polls on banana issue

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent - The governing New Democratic Party has won parliamentary elections by just one seat, losing its near-absolute power to voters disillusioned by a troubled banana industry and 45 percent unemployment.

If it were not for the system of proportional representation inherited from British colonizers, Prime Minister James Mitchell would have lost to the United Labor Party, which won 27,506 votes to the New Democratic Party's 23,219.

Vincent Beache's United Labor Party saw its best opportunity in years to wrest back the power it enjoyed after the eastern Caribbean islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines became independent in 1979.

Both parties promised to boost tourism and help the banana industry weather a 1997 World Trade Organization order to end preferential treatment from the European Union for Caribbean producers.

China warns against meddling by proposed new world court

ROME - China warned today against enabling a proposed world criminal court to meddle in countries' internal politics, instead making a case for what would be a weaker tribunal.

Long stung by international criticism over its human-rights record, China told a United Nations gathering that any international criminal court should have jurisdiction only when the targeted countries give their consent. Experts say that would have made war-crimes prosecutions in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia impossible.

"The court should not become a tool of political struggles or a means of interfering in other countries' internal affairs," said Wang Guangya, head of the Chinese delegation.

Relief agency says thousands missing after Indian storm

KANDLA, India - There were no salt workers left today in the western port of Kandla, which produces tons of the tabletop staple. Hundreds of laborers were killed by a cyclone, others fled to nearby villages and thousands remain missing a week after the storm struck.

"The numbers are mind-boggling," said Oxfam relief worker Rajni Khanna. "At least 10,000 and up to 14,000 (people) have disappeared without a trace."