World Briefs

PARIS – French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the prospects of finding any survivors from an Air France jet that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean carrying 228 people are "very small."

Sarkozy says "no hypothesis is excluded" in the search for causes of the disappearance of the Rio to Paris flight. Sarkozy met Monday at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport with some of families of those aboard the plane, including "a mother who lost her son, a fiance who lost her future husband."

Sarkozy said, "I told them the truth. The prospects of finding survivors are very small."

He said finding the plane "will be very difficult" because the search zone "is immense." He said France has asked for help from U.S. satellite equipment to locate the plane.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – A journalist from a party of former Marxist guerrillas became El Salvador's first leftist president Monday, promising to remain friendly with the United States while restoring ties with Cuba.

Mauricio Funes brought to power the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front that fought for 12 years to overthrow U.S.-backed governments until laying down their arms in 1992.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A Puerto Rico judge sentenced the son of a convicted killer to 105 years in prison Monday for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a pregnant Georgia tourist who made a desperate phone call to her fiance from the trunk of her assailant's car.

The judge imposed the sentence on Eliezer Marquez Navedo in a courtroom in Fajardo, the eastern coastal city where he ambushed Sara Kuszak in February.

WASHINGTON – North Korea appears to have transported a long-range missile to a base in the west of the country in preparation for a possible launch, US defense officials said on Monday.

The presumed ballistic missile was moved to a newly built base in Dongchang-ri on the northwestern coast, two defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Hundreds of Pakistani students were kidnapped by Taliban militants Monday as they travelled from a restive tribal area near the Afghan border, police and government officials said. The students from a cadet college in the tribal North Waziristan region were going to the northwestern town of Bannu in about 30 buses after the college closed for its summer vacation, said Bannu town police chief Iqbal Marwat."Only two buses carrying some 25 students reached Bannu," Marwat said,