WORLD IN BRIEF: Uranium found at site Israel bombed

Samples taken from a Syrian site that Israel bombed on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor contained traces of uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation, diplomats said Monday in Vienna, Austria. The diplomats said the uranium was processed and not in raw form, suggesting some kind of nuclear link.

Teams expect no survivors in rubble

Crews in Petionville, Haiti, no longer expect to find anyone alive in the wreckage of a collapsed school. Capt. Michael Istvan of Fairfax County, Va., the firefighter in charge of a U.S. rescue team, said Monday that sonar and search dogs had located a few more bodies. But he said it was unlikely that anyone else was still alive. At least 94 students and teachers were killed when the concrete building crumbled Friday.

Arrest in ‘94 killing sparks big protests

Thousands protested in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, Monday over Germany’s arrest Sunday of an official wanted in connection with a presidential assassination that preceded the African nation’s 1994 genocide. Rose Kabuye, chief of protocol for Rwandan President Paul Kagame, was arrested at an airport in Frankfurt because France wants to question her about a 1994 plane crash that killed President Juvenal Habyarimana. The assassination led to 100 days of genocide that killed more than a half-million Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Netanyahu: Talks would ‘go forward’

Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue negotiations with the Palestinians if he wins February elections, backing away from earlier signals that he would abandon U.S.-backed peace talks. But Netanyahu gave no indication Monday that he would make significant concessions. His statement that peace talks would “move forward” if he is elected prime minister appeared to be aimed at reassuring the Israeli electorate that he could get along with the rest of the world.

IRA factions boost attacks on police

Irish Republican Army splinter groups are launching more attacks in Northern Ireland than at any time in recent years, and are increasingly trying to kill police, the Independent Monitoring Commission, which includes former chiefs of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s Scotland Yard anti-terror unit, said Monday. The experts said IRA dissidents angry at the IRA’s conversion to peaceful politics are trying to undermine Northern Ireland’s peace process and are meting out “punishment” attacks against rivals in the Catholic community.

Hacker to pay U.S. agencies $238,000

A Romanian computer programmer who hacked into computers used by the U.S. Navy, the Department of Energy and NASA has been convicted on Romanian charges of breaking into an information system and changing, deleting and altering data. Victor Faur, 28, was given a 16-month suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay $238,000 to the three U.S. government departments.

Blast kills police, breaks cease-fire

An explosion in the village of Dvani, near the strategic city of Gori, killed two Georgian police officers Monday. EU monitors called the attack near the disputed region of South Ossetia a breach of cease-fire that ended the Georgia-Russia August war. The explosion was followed by a second blast when a group of police arrived to help, wounding three more officers, Georgia’s Interior Ministry said, blaming Ossetian paramilitaries.

Sub where 20 died to join Indian navy

India’s navy was supposed to lease the new Russian nuclear submarine on which an accident over the weekend killed 20 people. Russian media said the Nerpa was to be handed over to India’s navy next year under a 10-year, $650-million lease. Armed with cruise missiles capable of hitting targets 1,860 miles away, Akula-class subs are considered the quietest and deadliest of Russian attack subs. A sub of that class could dramatically bolster India’s naval capability as it jockeys with China for influence over energy supply routes in the Indian Ocean.