WORLD IN BRIEF

U.N. council takes aim at lawless land

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to impose new sanctions aimed at reducing the arms flowing into Somalia to stem the lawlessness and piracy flourishing there. A council panel will recommend people and entities whose financial assets would be frozen. Meanwhile, the African Union urged the U.N. to quickly send peacekeepers to the country, and the anti-piracy International Maritime Bureau advocated more aggressive action by international warships against the pirates.

Health Ministry officials protected

Japan has placed Health Ministry officials under heavy security after two stabbings targeted former elite bureaucrats and their wives, attacks that many are linking to public outrage over a scandal that has left millions without pensions. The precautions, ordered Wednesday, cover both former and current senior officials of the ministry.

Peacekeeping troops to increase

The U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed Thursday to send 3,100 more peacekeeping troops to Congo, while rebels said they remained committed to a pullback from the front lines despite an army attack. Countries have not worked out yet who will contribute the additional troops and police.

EU recognizes Welsh language

The Welsh language, which dates back to the 6th century, got a major boost Thursday when the 27-nation European Union formally recognized it as a minority tongue. Welsh, a Celtic language, is related to Breton, Cornish, Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic. Census data show it is slowly gaining ground: 21 percent of the 3 million Welsh nationals can speak Welsh, up from 18.7 percent in 1991. It became an official tongue in Wales in 1993 —- 450 years after British rulers gave it the boot in favor of English.

Police checkpoint attack disputed

Georgian officials said Russian and separatist forces attacked a Georgian police checkpoint Thursday near the breakaway province of Abkhazia. But Abkhaz separatists said they had simply responded to Georgian fire and no Russian troops were involved. Neither side reported casualties.

King warns against military action

Israeli leaders who made a secret journey to neighboring Jordan this week were urged by King Abdullah II to avert a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip, where two weeks of cross-border violence have threatened a 5-month-old cease-fire. The king warned such military action would threaten regional stability. Meanwhile, Jewish settlers on Thursday spray-painted graffiti on a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron slurring the Prophet Muhammad and defaced a Muslim cemetery, threatening to worsen tensions in that volatile city.

No casualties in attack by militants

U.S. troops traveling in a Philippine army convoy came under fire this week from suspected al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants on southern Jolo island, but there were no casualties, the U.S. Embassy said Thursday. Several dozen U.S. troops are stationed on Jolo to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians and counterterrorism support to Filipino forces, and intelligence reports have indicated Abu Sayyaf may be planning attacks on the Americans.

Prosecutor: Arrest three rebel leaders

The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, called Thursday for the arrest of three rebel commanders in Sudan’s western Darfur region for an attack last year in which 12 African Union peacekeepers were killed and eight wounded. Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the commanders planned the attack by about 1,000 heavily armed rebels on a camp in northern Darfur. The suspects’ names were not released. Meanwhile, Darfur rebels clashed with Sudanese government forces in northern Darfur on Thursday, leaving at least five rebels and one soldier dead.

Heart attack kills terrified student

A 19-year-old Haitian schoolgirl in Port-au-Prince died of a heart attack when students panicked in fear their school was collapsing. Civil protection officials on Thursday said a dozen stampeding students were injured Wednesday when vibrations from wind or a passing truck frightened them into thinking their school would fall. It was at least the third panic to have caused injuries since a school collapse Nov. 7 killed nearly 100 students and adults.

COMING UP

> Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and other members of The Elders, an international group of senior leaders, said they will press ahead with a humanitarian mission to Zimbabwe starting Saturday, even though the state newspaper in the troubled southern African country signaled Thursday they are unwelcome.

—- From news services

Copernicus’ remains identified

Researchers in Warsaw, Poland, said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus, putting an end to centuries of speculation about the exact resting spot of the priest-astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe. Polish archaeologist Jerzy Gassowski said forensic facial reconstruction of a skull found in 2005 buried in a Roman Catholic cathedral in Frombork, Poland, shows a broken nose and cut mark above the left eye that resemble a self-portrait of Copernicus. Moreover, the skull belonged to a man aged around 70 —- Copernicus’ age when he died in 1543. In addition, Swedish genetics expert Marie Allen found that DNA from a tooth and femur bone matched that taken from two hairs retrieved from a book that the 16th-century Polish astronomer owned.

—- Associated Press