Boat of Kurdish immigrants runs aground in Greece

ATHENS, Greece - A boat trying to smuggle 447 Iraqi Kurds to Italy ran aground on an island near Athens in rough seas on Sunday after being pursued by the Greek coast guard, authorities said.

The fishing boat, which departed from Turkey, grounded on the southern tip of the island of Evia, 57 miles east of Athens.

About 50 of the would-be illegal immigrants were being taken to a hospital for observation, while the rest were heading to sports and municipal facilities on the island, where they would be held, police said. Among the passengers of the Medine were 39 women and 40 children.

Three Turkish crew members were arrested, police and the merchant marine said. The suspects were identified as Girit Zekeriya, 51, Cansin Barut, 25, and Aras Ahmed, 44, all of Istanbul.


Rwanda starts weeklong commemoration of genocide

KIGALI, Rwanda - Rwanda on Sunday began a weeklong commemoration of the 1994 genocide that killed at least 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

Flags flew at half-staff as authorities organized countrywide conferences to discuss how Rwandans can remember what led to the killing and work together rebuild their country.

Radio and television stations began broadcasting programs reminding the public of the horrors of the 90-day killing spree organized by the extremist Hutu government and executed with the help of the Interahamwe militia.

The genocide ended July 4, 1994, when President Paul Kagame's Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front captured the capital, Kigali, and formed a government comprising both Hutu and Tutsi.


As ranks of elderly gamblers grow, so do experts' concerns

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Twenty years ago, Atlantic City and Las Vegas were America's two gambling meccas, but casinos have now spread across the nation. A federal study found that the percentage of 65-and-over Americans who recently gambled jumped from 20 percent in 1974 to 50 percent in 1998, a surge unmatched by any other age group.

Experts on compulsive gambling are alarmed. They worry that senior gamblers, many of them on fixed incomes, are more vulnerable to financial devastation than younger gamblers, and less willing to seek timely help for addiction.
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