WORLD briefs

Tamil separatists

CIUDAD JUAREZ Mexican soldiers arrested a suspected drug gang leader linked to a 2006 border incursion by armed traffickers into Texas and the killing of an anti-crime activist in July, the army said late Saturday. The army said in a statement that soldiers acting on a tip about armed men detained Jose Rodolfo Escajeda in Nuevo Casas Grandes, in northern Chihuahua state. Escajeda and three other suspects detained with him Friday allegedly worked for the Juarez cartel, named after the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. The suspects were riding in bullet-resistant vehicles. The army said Escajeda, who is wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the other suspects were turned over to Mexican prosecutors. It did not say whether he would be extradited to face charges in the United States.

Colombo. The Sri Lankan government said on Sunday it had ordered a senior United Nations official to leave the country over comments he made about the recently ended war against Tamil Tiger separatist rebels. James Elder, spokes man for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), appeared regularly on foreign television news channels and in print media discussing the bloody ethnic conflict and its effects on young people. The Controller of Immigration and Emigration said that the government took the decision some months ago based on "adverse remarks mad e to the media", but declined to give further details.

Amsterdam. The mother of a 13-year-old Dutch girl planning to sail solo around the world has come out against the expedition. Laura Dekker had intended to begin the two-year voyage on September 1 but a court blocked her departure and placed her under supervision. "If it was up to me, I would not let Laura go," her mother Babs Muller told Dutch daily De Volkskrant this weekend. Until now she had not criticized her daughter's plan out of fear of losing contact, she said, but added: "I would rather have a daughter I never see again than a dead daughter." Muller, 48, has lived apart from Laura and her father since Laura was six.