WORLD NEWS BRIEFS

NORTH KOREA / Fed: Carter to help free American

A senior U.S. official says former President Jimmy Carter plans to travel to North Korea to bring back an American citizen now detained in the communist nation. The official said Carter was to depart Tuesday on a "purely humanitarian mission" to free Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who was sentenced in April to 8 years of hard labor for entering North Korea illegally and for an unspecified "hostile act." The U.S. official said North Korea had agreed to free Gomes if Carter came to bring him home. Foreign Policy magazine first reported the Carter trip Monday.

SPAIN / Kidnapped aid workers are home

Two Spanish aid workers kidnapped almost nine months ago by an al-Qaida affiliate arrived Tuesday in Barcelona after a multi-million-dollar ransom was reportedly paid for their freedom. Aid workers Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta were abducted in November when their convoy of four-by-four vehicles was attacked by gunmen on a stretch of road in Mauritania. They were whisked away to Mali, whose northern half is now one of the many stretches of remote desert where al-Qaida of Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has stretched its tentacles.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO / Mass rape near UN base

Rwandan and Congolese rebels gang-raped nearly 200 women and some baby boys over four days within miles of a UN peacekeepers' base in an eastern Congo mining district, an American aid worker and a Congolese doctor said Monday. Will F. Cragin of the International Medical Corps said aid and UN workers knew rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages in eastern Congo the day after the attack began July 30. More than three weeks later, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo has issued no statement about the atrocities and said Monday it still is investigating. Cragin said rebels withdrew of their own accord Aug. 4. UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said Monday a human rights team verified at least 154 women were raped by two rebel groups. Civil society leader Charles Masudi Kisa said there were only about 25 UN peacekeepers and that they did what they could against some 200 to 400 rebels.

IRAQ / 5 killed in payroll robbery

Gunmen ambushed a car carrying five oil refinery workers transporting the company payroll near Tikrit Monday, killing them and fleeing with $300,000 in cash, officials said. Three accountants, an engineer and a driver were killed, a refinery official said.