World Briefs

GUATEMALA CITY – Guatemalan authorities confiscated nearly 10 million pseudoephedrine pills worth $33 million on Tuesday — the country's biggest seizure of the methamphetamine precursor, police said.

The 9.9 million pills were seized from a shipping container at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala's main port on the Pacific coast, said police spokesman Donald Gonzalez.

The container bore a shipping manifest listing the contents as a different kind of medication, said Leonel Ruiz, the country's top anti-drug prosecutor. Gonzalez said the shipping documents also listed a nonexistent company and address as the intended recipients of the shipment.

The Attorney General's Office says information from the U.S. DEA led to the seizure.

LIMA, Peru – Peru's Cabinet chief Yehude Simon said Tuesday that he plans to step down after settling a dispute with Amazon Indians that turned bloody earlier this month.

Simon led negotiations with Indians protesting decrees they say make it easier for foreign oil and gas companies to exploit them

The protests turned violent June 5 when police opened fire on activists at a roadblock. Twenty-four police were killed and Indian leaders say at least 30 civilians died. Opposition leaders called for Simon to resign, saying he failed to prevent the bloodshed.

Simon told a Lima radio network on Tuesday that he will resign when the situation has calmed.

Simon refused to discuss the decrees with Indians, but on Monday acceded to their demands.

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somali government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Mogadishu on Wednesday, triggering battles that killed at least 17 people, including the capital's police chief, witnesses and officials said.

Police spokesman Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise said Mogadishu police chief Col. Ali Said died in the fighting but was unable to provide details about how that had happened. Said had led the capital's police force for about two years.

MOSCOW – Russia and China expressed serious concern Wednesday about tension on the Korean peninsula and, in the face of North Korea's rhetoric, joined international pressure for it to return to nuclear talks.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russia's Dmitry Medvedev tried to nudge North Korea back in line while taking care to avoid angering it further.

Only hours earlier, North Korea warned the United States and its allies of a "thousand-fold" military retaliation if provoked.