The world in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The government must stop first and then discuss a cessation of hostilities with the other side.We are appealing to the stronger party to make a gesture of good faith. ...The deadline is now.”

Ahmad Fawzi,

spokesman for United Nations envoy Kofi Annan, on the situation in Syria Article, 7A

Russia mansion yields silver, jewelry

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Workers restoring a 19thcentury mansion in St. Petersburg have discovered a vast trove of silver and jewelry in a secret compartment.

The Intarsia construction company said Friday that more than 1,000 valuable pieces including silver dinner sets and porcelain were found this week in a previously undetected space between floors of the mansion.

Many of the items were wrapped in newspapers bearing dates from a few months before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

The mansion belonged to the Naryshkin family, part of the Russian nobility. It was not immediately clear whether the treasure was hidden in the wake of the revolution, when resentment against the nobility was high.

The company said the items would be given to a city museum.

Libyan reports conflict on tribal war

TRIPOLI, Libya - A senior Libyan government official said Friday that warring tribes in the south have brokered a cease-fire after five days of deadly clashes, but residents said the fighting continues and is inching toward another city.

The conflicting reports from the oasis of Sabha some 400 miles south of Tripoli show the isolation of Libya’s desert communities, where tribes with a history of rivalry often live side by side.

As of Thursday, five days of fighting in Sabha left more than 50 dead, according to the United Nations Support Mission in Libya.

Deputy chairman of the governing National Transitional Council, Abdel-Majid Seif al-Nasr, a Sabha native, said a cease-fire was signed Thursday and that the city was now quiet.

Mohammed Lino, a spokesman for fighters of the African Tabu tribe, said his tribe was under pressure from attacks and retreating south to its stronghold in the city of Morziq.

Airstrike in Yemen kills 4 in al-Qaida

SANA, Yemen - An airstrike killed four al-Qaida militants Friday in a southern district of Yemen that has been under the group’s control for about a year, officials said.

They said a gas pipeline in the same region was attacked later in the day in an operation likely carried out by militants.

The military officials from Shabwa province said that an unmanned U.S. drone launched the strike on a vehicle carrying seven militants in the district of Azan. The officials said four were killed, while three were critically wounded and under treatment in a nearby al-Qaida-run clinic in Shabwa.

A security official said the attack may have killed leading figures in the group, who were attending Friday prayers and left together. He had no further details.

A second airstrike Friday, just a few miles from the first strike, hit a building believed to be used by al-Qaida near a main market in the town of Azan. Four residents were wounded, said medical officials.

Suu Kyi doubts fairness of election

RANGOON, Burma - Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Friday that Burma’s landmark weekend elections will be neither free nor fair because of widespread irregularities but vowed to continue her candidacy for the sake of the long-repressed nation.

Suu Kyi said opposition candidates had been targeted in stone-throwings, campaign posters vandalized and members of her party intimidated during the run-up to Sunday’s closely watched parliamentary by-elections.

During a news conference on the lawn of her crumbling lakeside residence in Rangoon, the 66-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate said government officials were involved in some of the irregularities and that they go “beyond what is acceptable for democratic elections.”

“Still,” she said, “we are determined to go forward because we think this is what our people want.”

The vote to fill several dozen vacant legislative seats comes after months of changes carried out by Burma’s nominally civilian, post-junta government. Western nations have held out the possibility of lifting some sanctions if all goes smoothly.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 03/31/2012

Upcoming Events