World Scene

PAKISTAN

54 dead, hundreds missing as dam bursts

NANO VILLAGE — Troops and rescue workers raced to a coastal town devastated when heavy rains burst a large dam, sending water surging through the streets and sweeping people into the Arabian Sea. At least 54 were dead and hundreds missing, officials said yesterday.

Coast guard units combed the area with fishing nets, pulling bodies out of the flood waters in the worst of several disasters caused by extreme winter weather in Pakistan over the past week.

The 485-foot-long Shakidor Dam burst late Thursday near the remote Pasni village in Baluchistan province, about 1,180 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad. The torrent of water from the ruined dam swept trucks out to sea and destroyed telephone lines, roads and eight bridges, according to officials and witnesses.

VATICAN CITY

Pope asks the sick to pray for him

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II, convalescing after 10 days in hospital, asked the world’s sick yesterday to pray for him at a special Mass for the ill.

The 84-year-old pontiff did not attend the service in person, as Vatican officials sought to safeguard his fragile health following a recent breathing crisis that forced his urgent hospitalization on Feb. 1.

Instead a senior cardinal read his address for him, saying the suffering of the sick could inspire faith in others.

ARGENTINA

Prison revolt ends with eight dead

BUENOS AIRES — A violent prison revolt in Argentina ended yesterday, with convicts freeing dozens of hostages following a riot that left eight persons dead.

Police earlier said five inmates, two prison guards and one police officer had been killed in the rioting in Cordoba city’s maximum-security prison of San Martin, 435 miles northwest of the capital.

More than 1,000 police officers and army troops, joined by inmates’ relatives, surrounded the facility after the uprising began Thursday.

LIBYA

U.S. lifts travel curbs on diplomats

Libyan diplomats can travel freely in the United States, the State Department said yesterday, the latest sign of thawing relations between the countries.

Libya simultaneously lifted its sanctions on travel of U.S. diplomats, said department spokesman Richard Boucher.

“These steps will ease our ability to conduct normal diplomatic functions in Libya and Libya’s ability to do the same here,” he said. The two countries still have no official diplomatic relations.

ZIMBABWE

Mugabe lashes out at Rice, Blair

HARARE — President Robert Mugabe yesterday unleashed a fierce attack on U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, branding her a “slave” to white masters for describing Zimbabwe as an outpost of tyranny.

Launching the election campaign of his ruling party, Mr. Mugabe, who turns 81 later this month, also called British Prime Minister Tony Blair a “bliar” for “telling lies to the rest of Europe” about repression in Zimbabwe.

Analysts say the March 31 elections are almost certain to return the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party to power.

NORTH KOREA

70 defectors executed in public

SEOUL — As many as 70 North Korean defectors were executed in public last month after being forced back home from China, a South Korean human rights group said yesterday.

The executions were aimed at preventing North Korean citizens from fleeing the impoverished Stalinist state, the Seoul-based Commission to Help North Korean Refugees said. The group’s claims could not be independently confirmed.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying 15 North Korean defectors, including those who had unsuccessfully broken into foreign missions in China for asylum, were put to death.

From wire dispatches and staff reports