INDIA IMPOSES DIRECT RULE ON BIHAR STATE
NEW DELHI - India's federal coalition yesterday dismissed an opposition-led government in the crime-wracked eastern state of Bihar and imposed direct rule from New Delhi. A recent spate of caste violence in the poverty-ridden state has claimed dozens of lives.
"President's rule has been imposed in Bihar," Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan announced.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which heads the ruling federal coalition, has bitterly criticized Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, an unschooled housewife who took over after her husband, Laloo Prasad Yadav, resigned to face trial in a corruption scandal.
"Killings are occurring in other states, including Jammu and Kashmir and northeastern states," said Rabri Devi. "Why has Bihar been singled out for such an unconstitutional and undemocratic action?"
India's constitution allows the federal government to dismiss provincial governments and take them over if it sees its constitutional machinery breaking down.
Peru army's No. 2 officer arrested in narcotics probe
LIMA, Peru - The army's second-in-command, Gen. Tomas Marky, has been arrested in a narcotics probe in this drug-smuggling nation, a lawyer and military sources said yesterday.
Marky was arrested early this month after accusations by an army lieutenant - in prison on drug-trafficking charges - that the general failed in 1995 to inform authorities he had confiscated
traffickers' suitcases believed to hold $1 million. Marky has denied the allegations.
All previous arrests involving the military - including a 1996 case when drugs were found aboard a presidential plane - have been of middle-ranking or junior officers.
Catholic leaders still oppose women priests, gay marriage
MENLO PARK, Calif. - A meeting of high-ranking Roman Catholic officials ended yesterday with a pronouncement that while feminism has benefited the church in some ways, women still cannot become priests.
The four-day meeting of Vatican officials and church representatives from the United States, Canada, Australia and other Pacific Rim nations also concluded with little apparent change in the church's position on homosexuality.
Church officials concluded that Jesus Christ's decision to surround himself with male disciples set a precedent that could not be changed to accommodate women priests.
The church also maintained that based on the Bible and "sound moral reasoning," homosexual acts were wrong - so it was impossible for the church to bless same-sex couples' unions, though it condemned violence against homosexuals.
The meeting included Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's top theologian, who was making his first visit to the United States since 1991. "Homosexual acts . . . cannot contribute to the real human good," Ratzinger said.
Digging machines in action to save Pisa's leaning tower
PISA, Italy - Digging machines started removing soil from underneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa yesterday in an effort to keep the monument from toppling over.
Experts hope the tower will settle better into the ground to reduce its lean by about half a degree. The 12th-century tower now leans 6 degrees - 13 feet off the perpendicular.
The project is expected to take at least five months.
