WORLD BRIEFS

VATICAN CITY: Probing the church's bank

Italian authorities seized euro23 million ($30 million) from a Vatican bank account Tuesday and said they are investigating top officials of the Vatican bank in connection with money-laundering. The Vatican said it was "perplexed and surprised." Financial police seized the money as a precaution and prosecutors placed the bank's chairman and director general under investigation for alleged mistakes linked to violations of Italy's anti-laundering laws, news reports said. The bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion, was involved in a major scandal in the 1980s that resulted in a banker, dubbed "God's Banker," being found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London. Tuesday the Vatican expressed full trust in chairman Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and director-genera Paolo Cipriani.

POLAND: Inquiry into CIA 'black site'

A human rights organization and lawyers for a Saudi man accused in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole demanded Tuesday that Polish prosecutors investigate the suspect's detention and treatment at a CIA prison once housed in Poland. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is the first detainee subjected to the CIA's detention and interrogation program who has taken legal action in Poland, said Amrit Singh of the Open Society Justice Initiative. The legal move in Warsaw could spawn similar efforts in Romania and Lithuania, identified by former U.S. intelligence officials and critics as nations that hosted some of the CIA's so-called black sites.

CHILE: Hopes rise for early rescue

Rescuers are growing increasingly optimistic about pulling 33 trapped miners out far sooner than originally estimated, and with drilling quickly advancing on three narrow escape chutes, they raced Tuesday to decide on a design for the capsule to lift the men to safety. President Sebastian Piñera promised the men after they were found to be alive Aug. 22 that they would be home by Christmas. The engineer in charge of the rescue effort, Andre Sougarret, said Tuesday "We're sticking with the first days of November as the final date of the rescue."