World The Prince George Citizen - Monday, February 12,1996 - 17 Bomb blast injures four MANAMA (AP) — A bomb exploded in the lobby of a luxury seafront hotel in Bahiain on Sunday, injuring at least four people. The blast followed weeks of antigovernment unrest in the Persian Gulf island state, a financial hub in the region and host to a key U.S. navy base. A government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a bomb exploded at 9 p.m. local time at the 15-storey downtown Diplomat Hotel, which overlooks the Gulf. Two security sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said at least four people were injured and the bomb was placed in the lobby, between the reception desk and the elevators. Witnesses said several employees of the hotel were rushed to hospitals in ambulances. A man claiming to speak for the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, the most militant of several groups representing the country’s poor Shiite-Muslim majority, claimed responsibility for the blast in a telephone call to The Associated Press. “We put a bomb in the Diplomat Hotel 20 minutes ago,” the man said, speaking in Arabic-accented English. “Tell the government, which has arrested 2,000 people, that after the feast, we will destroy every place.” He was referring to the three-day feast ending the current Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. The feast begins Feb. 19 or Feb. 20, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon. BBC World Service radio later quoted an unidentified spokesman in London for the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain denying the the organization was involved. Guests at the Diplomat said they heard a deafening blast, then were showered with glass and ceiling tiles as the lobby filled with smoke. An 42-year-old Indian businessman who was in the hotel restaurant, just off the lobby, said the explosion was close to where he had been sitting. “If I hadn’t moved to the salad bar, I’d have had it,” he said. He declined to give his name. Guests streamed out of the hotel, crying and hugging each other. Police have arrested hundreds of people in the current wave of unrest in Bahrain. Bosnian peace could be saved The crushed front section of a bus is seen through pieces of rocks in the Toyohama tunnel as rescuers reached the point of a rockslide accident late Saturday night. A huge boulder, about the size of a 20-story building, peeled off a mountain in an avalanche and crushed the 1,086-meter (1,190-yard) tunnel, trapping the bus carrying about 20 people. Rescuers hopes fade as boulder blast fails FURUBIRA, Japan (AP) — Rescuers blasted the side of a mountain with dynamite Sunday in an attempt to reach about 20 people trapped in a collapsed highway tunnel, but the explosion failed to dislodge the boulder, about the size of a 20-storey office building. Hopes were fading late Sunday, more than 36 hours after the accident, that anyone would be found alive. Residents of this small northern Japanese fishing village could only wait as rescuers prepared for a second blast attempt. The giant slab of rock peeled off the mountain and crashed through the tunnel roof early Saturday, apparently crushing a bus carrying 19 people, including teenagers on their way to nearby Sapporo for an annual snow festival. The attempt to topple the boulder into the sea with a blast of 250 kilograms of dynamite only crumbled the lower portion of the rock into dust, leaving the rest of the rock intact and upright. Rescuers were planning another blast today that they hope will allow them to dig through the rubble. Military specialists got far enough into the tunnel to spot the bus’s mangled bumper and a battered licence plate piled over with rock. They found the driver’s cap and gloves, but did not hear any voices or get any other indications anyone was alive. Officials believe a car carrying one person also was trapped in the collapse. The boulder is about 65 metres tall and 35 metres wide, and officials believe it weighs about 50,000 tonnes. The rock appeared to be directly on top of the bus. More than half of those aboard the bus were from this village, about 880 kilometres north of Tokyo on the northern island of Hokkaido. With a population of less than 5,000, most most residents here know one another. Takako Watanabe gradually has lost hope there will be any survivors. Her lifelong friend, Nobuko Hattori was on the bus accompanying her grandmother. SARAJEVO (Reuter) — U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, seeking to salvage the Bosnia peace accord he engineered, said late Sunday he won commitments from the presidents of Serbia and Bosnia to abide by the agreement. “We have all agreed today, President (Alija) Izetbegovic in Sarajevo, President (Slobodan) Milosevic here in Belgrade, that the Dayton process must continue, it must not slow down,” he said in Belgrade. “Both presidents reaffirm their full commitment to Dayton. “There has been no change,” said Holbrooke, who is due to go back to Sarajevo today for more talks with Izetbegovic. The U.S. assistant state secretary returned to the Balkans on an emergency mission to put the faltering peace efforts back on track after the Dayton agreement, designed to end 43 months of war in Bosnia, showed signs of unravelling. Bosnian-Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, angry over the Bosnian government’s detention of top Bosnian-Serb officials as suspected war criminals, ordered his troops last week to break off contacts with NATO peace forces. “We consider this as the first serious challenge to the Dayton agreement,” Holbrooke said. “All three parties are still saying they will comply but they are arguing over what compliance means. We are here to help them straighten it out.” Milosevic said after meeting Holbrooke isolated events should not be allowed to disrupt implementation of the Dayton accord, Yugoslavia’s Tanjug news agency reported. “President Milosevic said that individual incidents should not be allowed to disturb the global implementation of the peace plan. CANADA'S BEST SELLING FULL-SIZE PICKUP.... F-150 XLS WITH PEP 802A ' PickuP on * Ii’recondWortn°nfg . The safety of a the planet! , , AM/FM .tprpn/ra„pttp y • • Comes armed with a 5.0L 200 h.p. 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