World Briefing

The five officers led an operation Friday to remove hundreds of mostly indigenous villagers who had occupied the entrance of the Chinkultic ruins in southern Mexico for nearly a month, the Chiapas Justice Department said. The officers were being investigated on possible homicide charges.

The villagers, most of them from the Maya Tzeltal and Tzotzil cultures, had been protesting excessive entrance fees and the failure to reinvest that revenue into the area's infrastructure and environment. They were demanding a role in the administration of the ruins.

KYRGYZSTAN

6.6 quake kills more than 50

A powerful earthquake struck the mountains near Kyrgyzstan's border with Tajikistan, killing 58 people, injuring 50 and destroying more than 100 buildings in Nura village in southern Kyrgyzstan, emergency officials said.

No damage or casualties elsewhere were reported.

The magnitude 6.6 quake's epicenter was in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Kyrgyzstan said the epicenter was in Tajikistan.

BRITAIN

Officer: We can't win Afghan war

Britain's commander in Afghanistan has said the war against the Taliban cannot be won, British newspapers reported.

It quoted Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith as saying that if the Taliban was willing to talk, then that might be "precisely the sort of progress" needed to end the insurgency.

"We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army," he said.

He said his forces had "taken the sting out of the Taliban for 2008" but that troops may well leave Afghanistan while a low level of insurgency remains.

ISRAEL

Livni to pursue peace talks

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in her first policy address since being nominated to form Israel's next government, voiced her commitment to press ahead with peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

"Let us not allow dates or political changes to stand in our way," she said in an address at a policy conference at the Foreign Ministry also attended by Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki.

"We are waiting to see who will be the next president, Obama versus McCain, and believe me there is a big difference between the two vis-a-vis . . . the Middle East peace process," Maliki said.

SRI LANKA

Advancing troops kill 29 rebels

Government forces neared the Tamil Tiger rebels' main town in fighting that left 29 guerrillas and five soldiers dead, the Sri Lankan military said.

The army says its soldiers are slightly more than a mile from the outer limits of the rebels' administrative capital, Kilinochchi.

Rebel officials could not be contacted for comment because most communication lines to guerrilla-dominated areas have been severed.

From Times Wire Reports