Italy

Ex-Nazi prison guard extradited to Rome

ROME — An 83-year-old former SS prison guard who was sentenced to life in jail in Italy for Nazi war crimes was extradited by Canada to Rome on Friday, officials said.

Canadian authorities handed Michael Seifert over to Italian police in Toronto and a special military flight departed late Friday afternoon, said Alain Charette, a spokesman for Canada's Department of Justice.

When Seifert arrives today, he will be transferred to a military prison near Naples to begin serving his sentence, said Bartolomeo Costantini, the military prosecutor who pursued the case.

Seifert, known as the "Beast of Bolzano," was convicted in absentia in 2000 by a military tribunal in Verona on nine counts of murder, committed while he was an SS guard at a prison transit camp in Bolzano, northern Italy.

Mexico

Cartels suspected in fatal bombing

MEXICO CITY — Two explosions Friday near police headquarters killed a bystander, damaged cars and raised suspicions that drug cartels may have shifted to urban terrorism tactics after police raids on cartel cells in the capital, officials and analysts said.

"The force of the blast left me deaf," said apartment manager Guillermo Ruiz, who was about 100 yards away. "A young guy ran by and said a man was on the ground and maybe he was dead and that a woman was bleeding badly."

Police Chief Joel Ortega said the two blasts were caused by a homemade bomb that was placed in the street near Mexico City's massive police headquarters building in the touristy Zona Rosa area of downtown.

The area is popular with Americans and home to several U.S. fast-food restaurants, and it was packed at the time of the early afternoon blast. It is just blocks from the Angel of Independence Monument and a Sheraton Hotel.

At least seven buildings had broken windows, and five cars were badly damaged. About 500 police flooded the area, which is just across a thoroughfare from the 12-story police headquarters building.

Czech Republic

President Klaus wins second term in office

PRAGUE — Czech President Vaclav Klaus won a second five-year term Friday when lawmakers chose him over a University of Michigan economics professor.

Klaus, a dominant figure in Czech politics for nearly two decades, was supported by 141 legislators in the third round of voting by the Klaus Parliament, said Miloslav Vlcek, speaker for the parliament's lower chamber. He needed 140 votes to win.

"I will be the President of all Czech citizens," Klaus said.

Jan Svejnar, the University of Michigan professor, drew 111 votes. A third candidate, Jana Bobosikova, who had been nominated by the Communist Party, dropped out shortly before the voting began.

Gaza Strip

Conditions in Gaza grim,' official says

GAZA CITY — The eight-month closure of Gaza has created "grim and miserable" conditions that deprive Palestinians of their basic dignity, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief said Friday.

Later Friday, a powerful blast went off in the house of a senior Islamic Jihad activist, killing him, his wife and daughter, and three neighbors, medics and an Islamic Jihad spokesman said. Islamic Jihad said an Israeli airstrike targeted the house, but Israel denies it.

John Holmes, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, visited Gaza during the day and urged that the territory's borders be reopened to relieve the suffering.

Israel and Egypt severely restricted access to Gaza after the Islamic militant group Hamas seized the territory by force in June.

Since then, only a few dozen trucks carrying food, medicine and other staples have been permitted into Gaza every day, while most exports are banned.

The closure has driven up poverty and unemployment, and the U.N. says about 80 percent of Gaza's 1.4 million people now get some food aid.

"All this makes for a grim human and humanitarian situation here in Gaza, which means that people are not able to live with the basic dignity to which they are entitled," Holmes told reporters in Gaza.

—From wire reports