FLORENCE, Italy -- Two soldiers and two civilian defense arms experts were injured Thursday in an explosion at an army artillery ammunition storage area near Florence, police said.
The regional military command said the explosion occurred at an artillery storage at Carraia, nine miles north of Florence, around 11 a.m., local time when the civilian bomb experts were destroying artillery shells that were no longer available to use.
The command said the explosion was limited because the shells were a type used in firing practice and contained only small amounts of explosive.
None of the four men was seriously injured. The two soldiers and one of the civilians were discharged after treatment for cuts and abrasions and the other civilian was detained in hospital with burns on the hands and shock. ---
JORLUNDE, Denmark (UPI) -- A global group of socialists Thursday chastized he the United States for ordering the mining of Nicaraguan ports in violation of international law.
'To mine another nation's territorial water in peacetime is an act of aggression and thereby a grave crime against the rules of international law and against the charter of the United Nations,' the Socialist International said.
'There are no special rules for great powers,' it said. 'Instead it could be said that these nations have a particular responsibility to respect and to uphold the system of international norms'.
The critique was part of a resolution adopted by 150 leading Socialists and Social Democrats from 44 countries at the end of a two-day meeting in Jorlunde just north of Copenhagen.
Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista party, a non-member of the SI, sent observers to the bureau meeting of 80 socialist parties worldwide.
The resolution said a U.S. decision to withdraw for two years from the jurisdiction in Central American issues of the international court at The Hague, currently probing Nicaraguan charges, 'gives cause for great concern.'
'This indicates that the country has decided to enact a policy towards Latin American nations that can result in actions that violate international law,' the resolution warned. ---
JAKARTA, Indonesia (UPI) -- The government will kill thousands of dogs in the capital if their owners refuse to pay taxes on the animals, a city official said Thursday.
A team of veterinarians at Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo this week put to sleep seven dogs by strychnine injection after their owners were found guilty of evading the dog tax, which ranges from 50 cents annually for a mongrel to $20 for a pedigree animal.
Officials said that many owners disputed the classification of their dogs as pedigree animals and apparently were further angered by a recent raise in the tax.
Authorities say they have seized at least 20 other dogs and will put them to sleep if their owners fail to pay the tax within a week.
The thousands of other privately owned dogs in the capital will meet the same fate if owners don't pay their taxes, officials said. ---
MOSCOW (UPI) -- A Soviet court has sentenced a woman restaurant manager known as 'Iron Bella' to be executed for cheating customers and bribing officials, a Soviet newspaper said Thursday.
Bella Borodkina, a former head of the restaurants and canteens department in the northern Caucusus town of Gelenszhik, was involved in criminal activity as far back as 1972, Sovetskaya Rossia (Soviet Russia) said.
From 1972 to 1982, Miss Borodkina illegally received $758,500, the newspaper said. During that time, she paid $58,575 in bribes to other officials, it said.
'Borodkina, who was an official and held a high position, repeatedly accepted bribes given by her subordinates who, in turn, were engaged in criminal activities -- cheating in weighing, overcharging customers and other tricks,' the newspaper said.
'Taking into account the existence of aggravating circumstances, the court sentenced B. Borodkina to the capital penalty, ' it said. Her property was ordered confiscated.
The Soviet government initiated aharsh crackdown on bribery and corruption when former KGB chief and late President Yuri Andropov came to power in November 1982.
