Army attacks hide-outs

Army attacks hide-outs
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Pakistan army attacked hide-outs of foreign militants in a remote tribal region near Afghanistan today, the third day of clashes that have killed 50 people, the military said.
The skirmishes started Wednesday when Al-Qaida-linked militants fired rockets on army checkpoints near Wana, the main city in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region, sparking an exchange of fire between the troops and rebels.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said, "Today, we appropriately responded to the latest unprovoked attacks by the terrorists."
The Pakistan army later said in a statement that 35 militants and 15 security soldiers had been killed in South Waziristan since Wednesday. It said the foreign militants had taken the local population hostage, forcing the army to take action to flush them out.
About today's assault, it said the army was targeting "known and confirmed hide-outs of miscreants."
Government and security officials said the army was pounding the hide-outs with artillery, mortars and other weapons, while helicopters also were seen flying in the area.
Coup attempt fails
KINSHASA, Congo -- Congolese troops put down a coup attempt by a small band of dissidents within the presidential guard today, the government said, after heavy gunfire and tank shelling echoed across the central African nation's capital for several hours.
The clashes had centered around a military base, state media stations and the presidential mansion. President Joseph Kabila later went on television and said his power-sharing government, assembled after a devastating 1998-2002 war, was in control.
"Stay calm, prepare yourself to resist -- because I will allow nobody to try a coup d' & eacute;tat or to throw off course our peace process," Kabila said. "As for me, I'm fine."
The crisis was only the latest to shake Kabila's transition government, formed in 2003 from loyalists, ex-rebels and opposition figures.
Israel to offer advancesto settlers willing to leave
JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government could begin offering compensation as soon as next month to Jewish settlers who voluntarily leave their West Bank and Gaza Strip homes, a government official said today.
A committee has already begun working out the criteria for the payout -- including the size of the property and the home and the number of years the family has lived in the enclave. Israeli media reported the average compensation package will be about $300,000 per family.
The government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Cabinet is expected to approve a compensation bill "around July or maybe a little later."
That is expected to clear the way for the government to begin paying cash advances immediately, before the full parliament approves the bill, he said.
Sharon's plan calls for a withdrawal from all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four West Bank enclaves by September 2005.
Eager to push ahead with the plan well before that deadline, he has instructed the government to offer financial incentives, including the cash advances, to settlers who leave voluntarily.
The Haaretz newspaper reported today that evacuating Gaza -- including compensating the 7,500 settlers there and removing military installations -- could cost up to $1.9 billion. Removing the West Bank enclaves will cost more than $110 million, it said.
Spacecraft nears Saturn
LOS ANGELES -- A hulking, 5,384-pound spacecraft is nearing the end of a seven-year voyage to Saturn, where it will begin an intensive study of the solar system's second-largest planet, its rings and the stable of moons that orbit it.
The $3.3 billion Cassini is on schedule to enter orbit around Saturn on June 30, shortly after it makes a dash through a gap in the shimmering rings that encircle a planet second to Jupiter in size.
It was to have its first encounter in the Saturn system today, hurtling within 1,240 miles of the outermost moon, Phoebe, at 4:56 p.m. EDT. The tiny moon is just 137 miles across. Saturn, in contrast, is nearly 75,000 miles in diameter.
The joint U.S.-European spacecraft, which also carries a probe to explore the moon Titan, was launched in October 1997. NASA built the plutonium-powered spacecraft; the European Space Agency contributed the Huygens (pronounced Hoy'-genz) probe.
Once at Saturn, Cassini should spend at least four years orbiting the planet, 76 times in all. Cassini's two cameras could take as many as 500,000 pictures.
Scientists hope study of the Saturn system will provide insight to the solar system's evolution.
Associated Press