A roundup of today's other world stories in brief:
Spain arrests suspected Eta members
MADRID- Spanish police have arrested two suspected members of Basque armed separatist group Eta, according government officials, adding to earlier Eta-linked arrests in the region this week.
The arrests yesterday follow the seizure of explosives in a series of raids in the Basque country and the neighbouring region of Navarra over the weekend.
Basque police are on the alert following the arrest of eight suspected Eta members on Wednesday and the discovery of explosives and other bomb- making equipment.
Eta has waged a campaign for independence for the Basque country over 40 years, killing about 800 people.
- (Reuters)
Olmert asks Arab leaders to summit
JERUSALEM- Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has invited Saudi King Abdullah and other Arab leaders to meet him following an Arab summit's revival of a land-for-peace plan.
"I invite for a meeting all the heads of Arab states, including, of course, the king of Saudi Arabia - who I see as a very important leader - to hold talks with us," Mr Olmert said at a news conference with German chancellor Angela Merkel.
"I do not intend to dictate to them what they should say, but I am certain they understand that we also will have something to say . . . and it will not necessarily be the same thing."
- (Reuters)
Monitors allege police intimidation
ABUJA- Nigerian election monitors have been facing intimidation from the secret police and the electoral body ahead of this month's landmark polls, the head of an umbrella body of observers said.
Nigerians are due to elect their state governors and legislators on April 14th and their president and National Assembly members on April 21st. The polls would mark the first fully democratic transition in Africa's most populous country. The last elections in 2003 were marred by widespread political violence and vote- rigging.
Mabel Adinya Ade, national co-ordinator of the Transition Monitoring Group, said she feared her organisation was being harassed by authorities because it was speaking out about poor preparations for the elections.
- (Reuters)
Jewish tombs damaged in Lille
PARIS- More than 50 Jewish tombs have been damaged in a cemetery in the northern French city of Lille.
"Fifty-one tombstones were damaged, of which two were broken. The vertical part was separated from the horizontal part or broken," a spokeswoman for the local prefecture said. None of the tombs was broken into.
Police have opened an inquiry and are calling on any witnesses to the incident, which occurred in the Jewish section of the Lille-South cemetery, to come forward.
- (Reuters)
'Secret wife' under house arrest
NAIROBI- Authorities in Uganda have put a woman who says she is the secret wife of vice-president Gilbert Bukenya under house arrest, according to state media, adding fuel to a sex scandal that has engulfed the east African state.
A married former medical professor with three children, Mr Bukenya (58) is seen by supporters as a leading candidate to succeed President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the country for more than 20 years.
The vice-president was pushed into the limelight this week when a state house secretary, Jamilah Nakku, said she was his second wife.
Mr Bukenya refused calls to resign and, through his lawyers, vowed to defeat "blackmailers" behind what he branded a "malicious character-assassination campaign".
"I urge the press to help me in the fight against poverty instead of wasting space reporting on my alleged relationships," he said. "Who doesn't have relationships?"
- (Reuters)