World Briefing

EUROPE

Bin Laden urges troop withdrawal

In a new audiotape, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden demanded that European nations withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, saying they were sacrificing lives and money in an unjust U.S.-led war.

“We are not demanding anything unjust. It is just for you to end injustice and withdraw your soldiers,” he said in the recording, released on the Internet with a background picture of Bin Laden and with subtitles in German and English.

“One of the greatest injustices is to kill people unjustly, and this is exactly what your governments and soldiers are committing under the cover of the NATO alliance in Afghanistan,” Bin Laden said in the recording, titled “A Message to the People of Europe.”

“An intelligent person does not waste his children and wealth for the sake of a gang in Washington,” he said. The four-minute recording was produced by Al Qaeda’s media arm, As Sahab.

ISRAEL

Olmert asserts his innocence

Ehud Olmert became the first current or past Israeli prime minister to go on trial, insisting in a Jerusalem courtroom that he is innocent of corruption allegations that drove him from office.

The allegations that haunted Olmert’s term, which ended this year, gravely damaged Israelis’ faith in their leaders and hurt Olmert’s chances of reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Entering the court, Olmert told reporters that he had been subjected to an “ordeal of slanders and investigations.”

Olmert, 63, left politics when rival Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister in March. Olmert has largely been out of the public eye since then.

COLOMBIA

Human remains found at ranch

The chief prosecutor’s office said it had unearthed the remains of 17 peasants who were tortured and killed at a ranch that belonged to the late militia leader Carlos Castano in Colombia’s northwest.

The peasants were believed slain 10 to 12 years ago by men under the command of Jesus Ignacio Roldan, alias Monoleche, a Castano lieutenant who later participated in the 2004 killing of the far-right militia leader, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

All the bodies found at the ranch -- known as La 35, in the Uraba banana-growing region -- had been “dismembered and showed signs of torture,” the statement said.

In the south, a rebel mass grave was found Thursday near La Uribe, a traditional stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said the armed forces chief, Gen. Freddy Padilla. He said the FARC fighters were believed killed during fighting in July.

AUSTRALIA

Man sentenced for terror book

An Australian court sentenced a former Qantas Airways baggage handler wanted on terrorism-related charges in Lebanon to 12 years in prison for publishing a do-it-yourself jihad book on the Internet.

A New South Wales state Supreme Court jury found Belal Khazaal, 39, guilty of making a document that could assist terrorism. The book is not linked with a known attack.

The Lebanese-born resident of Sydney denied the charge and said the book was not intended to incite terrorist acts.

The 110-page book published in September 2003 contained instructions for acts such as detonating bombs, shooting down planes from the ground, and assassinating senior U.S. and Australian government officials, including President Bush.

INDONESIA

Whopping big bouncing baby

Indonesia’s heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds to a hospital where the boy, named Akbar -- meaning “the great” in Arabic -- came into the world at a record 19.2 pounds.

Akbar Risuddin was born to a diabetic mother in a 40-minute cesarean delivery, Dr. Binsar Sitanggang said.

The father, Muhammad Hasanuddin, said: “I hope I can afford to feed the baby enough, because he needs more milk than other babies.”

The baby’s size was the result of excessive glucose from his mother during pregnancy, Sitanggang said.

SERBIA

Ban sought for 2 far-right groups

Serbia’s public prosecutor has asked that two far-right groups be banned after their threats led to the cancellation of a gay pride parade in Belgrade, an official said.

Serbian authorities withdrew approval for gay activists to hold a rally last weekend in the capital after the extremist groups Obraz and Association 1398 threatened to attack the parade.

Serbia’s Ministry of Human and Minority Rights asked prosecutors to seek the ban from the constitutional court after five foreigners were beaten, one severely, in central Belgrade last week.

-- times wire reports