WORLD BRIEFS

THE NETHERLANDS/Holloway extortion admitted

The Dutchman charged with killing a 21-year-old Peruvian woman and suspected in the disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway has acknowledged extorting money from Holloway's parents and says he did it to get back at them. In an interview published Monday, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf quoted Joran van der Sloot as confessing to taking money from the family of the American in return for revealing the location of her body. He was indicted in the United States in June for extortion after being caught in an FBI sting, though the place he indicated as her burial site turned out to be bogus. Holloway was last seen alive with him in Aruba in 2005, and he has publicly said he killed her and then retracted his confession several times. "I wanted to get back at Natalee's family - her parents have been making my life tough for five years," the paper quoted him as saying from prison in Peru. He has been charged with killing Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru, on May 30.

GUATEMALA/Deaths from mudslide rise to 45

Searchers pulled five more bodies Monday from a mud-covered highway where back-to-back landslides buried bus passengers and people trying to save them. The deaths raised the official toll from rain-fueled mudslides in Guatemala to 45. Authorities said 25 people are confirmed dead and at least 15 are believed to be still buried beneath the debris in the village of Nahuala, where a first mudslide buried a bus and other vehicles, then a second one turned would-be rescuers into victims. At least 20 others died elsewhere during the weekend as a tropical depression saturated the ground and set off more than a dozen landslides around the country, according to the national disaster agency.

EGYPT/ElBaradei calls for election boycott

Egypt's leading democracy advocate made a forceful call Monday for the nation to boycott November's parliamentary election, saying they were certain to be rigged and urging his young supporters to be patient and plan for a lengthy struggle. Nobel laureate Mohammed ElBaradei told about 200 activists gathered for a sunset Ramadan meal that participating in the vote would go against "the national will" to transform Egypt into a genuine democracy. Opposition groups are divided over the issue of a boycott and it is not clear how many would heed a call not to contest or vote in the election. The largest opposition force, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is unlikely to boycott, although it backs ElBaradei and his demands for change. ElBaradei served as the chief of the UN nuclear agency.