World Briefs

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Police arrested four men in connection with last month's suicide attack on a hotel that killed 54 people, authorities said Friday.

The four are suspected of "indirect involvement" in the blast at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, police chief Ahmad Latif said. They are the first known arrests in the Sept. 20 attack. The attack was a reminder of the gathering threat posed by Islamist militants in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Latif said the men were arrested in different parts of Punjab province. They were brought before an anti-terrorism court where a judge gave police permission to hold them for questioning for one week.

Militants in Pakistan have launched more than 90 suicide attacks on civilian, military and Western targets since July 2007.

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico – The U.S. is suspending a trade deal with Bolivia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday. She called it unfortunate but necessary because Bolivian President Evo Morales has failed to improve anti-drug efforts.

Rice made the announcement just as Bolivian envoys arrived at the U.S. Trade Representative's office in Washington to lobby for continued participation in the Andean trade pact, which lowers U.S. tariffs in exchange for cooperation with the U.S. war on drugs.

Bush last week signed a six-month extension of the pact, and it wasn't clear when Bolivia would begin losing out.

The suspension will raise U.S. tariffs on imports of Bolivian jewelry, textiles, wood and other products. Bolivia estimates that 30,000 workers would lose their jobs and US$300 million in exports would be priced out of the U.S. market.

TOKYO – Japan's Nissin Food Products Co. said Friday it was recalling half a million cups of instant noodles over fears of insecticide contamination in the latest food safety scare to rock the country.

A 67-year-old woman vomited and felt numbness on her tongue after eating Nissin's Cup Noodle this week in the Tokyo suburb of Fujisawa, the city's health office said late Thursday.

The product was made at a Nissin factory in Japan. A series of previous scares have involved food imported from China.

The health office said on inspecting the Cup Noodle they had discovered paradichlorobenzene, the key chemical in bug repellent, but no puncture or other abnormality in the cup.

Nissin was voluntarily recalling around 500,000 cups made on the same factory line the same day, a company spokesman said. They were sold at supermarkets in Tokyo and neighboring areas with most of them already gone from store shelves.