World Briefs

BRITAIN

Tough police tactics for Notting Hill Carnival

LONDON — British police flooded part of London with extra officers and authorized the use of tough search powers Monday at the Notting Hill Carnival, Europe’s largest street festival, in the wake of riots across England earlier this month.

London’s Metropolitan Police said it had invoked extensive search powers that allow officers to stop people and order them to remove hoods, masks or other disguises, if they suspect a possibility of serious violence in a specific neighborhood.

A total of 82 people were arrested on Sunday and 17 by midafternoon on Monday, police said. The two-day carnival, launched in 1964, celebrates Caribbean culture and attracts about 1 million people with its mix of flamboyant dancers, colorful costumes, rousing steel bands and booming outdoor sound systems.

Police said about 6,500 officers were out on the streets on Monday.

JAPAN

Next leader faces multiple challenges

TOKYO — Japan’s finance minister was voted ruling party leader Monday and soon will be the prime minister, taking on a mind-boggling mix of challenges: tsunami recovery, a nuclear crisis and bulging national debt, to name a few.

As finance minister, Yoshihiko Noda already has been battling economic malaise and the yen’s record surge, which hurts Japan’s exporters.

When he takes over from Naoto Kan, he will take on an even more unenviable role with a much broader set of problems, including a rapidly aging population, public dismay with government and the efforts to rebuild from the worst disaster to hit Japan since World War II.

Nearly six months after the quake-spawned tsunami devastated Japan’s northeastern coast, dozens of towns are still cleaning up and struggling to come up with reconstruction plans. The tsunami-damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima has displaced about 100,000 people who live in temporary housing or with relatives, unsure of when they will return.

NAMIBIA

Four charged in theft of radioactive material

WINDHOEK — A Namibian court has charged four men with possessing radioactive uranium ore stolen from a mine owned by French nuclear giant Areva.

Prosecutors said the defendants were arrested Friday with four drums of “yellowcake” uranium at Swakopmund, a coastal town 60 miles from Areva’s Trekkopje mine.

They were charged Monday with possession and dealing in uranium and ordered held in custody until a court appearance scheduled for Sept. 7.

Atomic Energy Board chief Axel Tibinyane said the uranium powder concentrate was radioactive but contained in four special 6.6-gallon drums.

Veston Malango, general manager of Namibia’s Chamber of Mines, said the Areva mine had not yet started commercial production.

NIGERIA

Islamist sect claims credit for U.N. bombing

MAIDUGURI — An Islamist sect is claiming responsibility for a bomb attack on the U.N. headquarters in Nigeria that killed 23 people and demanded the release of prisoners and an end to a security crackdown to prevent further bombings.

Book Haram, which has been behind almost daily shootings and attacks with homemade bombs in the remote northeast, was the prime suspect in Friday’s car bomb on the United Nations’ Abuja office in one of deadliest attacks on the world body in its history.

“We are responsible for the bomb attack carried out on the U.N. building in Abuja,” a Book Haram spokesman calling himself Abu Kakah told local journalists in a statement.

The bomb gutted a lower floor, smashed almost all of the building’s windows and wounded 76 people, U.N. officials said.

The driver was killed in what could be Nigeria’s first suicide bomb attack.