Around the world
DETAINED: A U.S. businessman has been detained by police in Shanghai, China, for allegedly importing contraband into China and for evading customs checks. Public Security officials detained William Ping Chen on Monday, the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai said. The consulate was seeking a meeting with Chen and asking police for clarification about his case, including the identity of his employer and the nature of the contraband he is suspected of bringing into China.AMBUSHED: The international Red Cross said Wednesday it was suspending operations in Burundi because unidentified gunmen killed three Swiss workers. The men were ambushed Tuesday as they were returning to Bujumbura after distributing water and medical supplies in northwestern Burundi. Gunmen sprayed machine-gun fire on their four-wheel-drive vehicle, marked with the Red Cross emblem. Burundi's Tutsi-dominated military blamed Hutu extremists for the shootings.
TUTU'S SHOES: A former anti-apartheid activist who spent three years in jail was elected Wednesday to replace Desmond Tutu as Anglican archbishop for southern Africa. Tutu, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to apartheid, plans to retire at the end of June, four months before he reaches the retirement age of 65. The Rev. Njongonkulu Ndungane was chosen by about 500 clerics and church members from South Africa and neighboring countries meeting in Cape Town. Ndun-gane, 55, is bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman in South Africa's Northern Cape province.
MAD COW: The European Commission, granting Britain its first concession in the nine-week crisis over mad cow disease, Wednesday relaxed the ban on British beef exports by exempting three cattle products. The 20-member commission, the European Union's executive agency, decided at its weekly meeting to allow Britain to resume exporting bull semen, beef fat and beef-based gelatin. The exports can resume Monday.
Across the nation
STRIKE: Shortly after union leaders stormed out of talks, 6,700 McDonnell Douglas machinists went on strike Wednesday in St. Louis and immediately began picketing to protest the aerospace company's growing use of non-union workers. "We're ready. We'll be here for however long it takes to get a contract that we can live with," Barry Betz, an 11-year worker, said as he marched outside the plant in the predawn darkness.
In other news
FIGHTING BETWEEN Sudanese refugees armed with spears and clubs killed six people and injured more than 100 in a camp in northwestern Kenya, U.N. officials said Wednesday . . . AT LEAST 50 PEOPLE were feared killed after a bus fell into a gorge in northern India, a news report said Wednesday . . . SUSPECTED COMMUNIST rebels killed a Canadian geologist inspecting a mining project from a helicopter in the northern Philippines, police said Wednesday.