In the World

DUBLIN - Acting against binge drinking, Ireland is curbing alcoholic-beverage sales in convenience stores and gas stations. Stores can sell alcohol only from 10:30 a.m., not the current 7:30 a.m., and must close by 10 p.m., Justice Minister Brian Lenihan said yesterday. Food stores must display alcohol away from other goods.

About a third of Irish citizens have five or more drinks when they consume alcohol, almost double the European Union average, a survey shows.

"This is a response to a very significant problem of alcohol abuse, which is leading to public disorder," Lenihan said. Almost half of those who committed murder or manslaughter were drunk at the time, according to a study by Ireland's Health Services Executive published this week.

- Bloomberg News

BERLIN - German police staged a series of raids yesterday in an investigation of nine German citizens suspected of trying to win over converts to their radical version of Islam, prosecutors said.

Munich prosecutors said police searched 16 properties in various parts of the country, including the apartments of the suspects, looking for incriminating evidence.

Prosecutors said the nine suspects, aged 25 to 47, had been active since September 2005. Most of them are of immigrant origin, prosecutors said, but they did not name them. The prosecutors said the suspects' aim was "to Islamicize and radicalize Muslims and non-Muslims - particularly Germans who have converted to Islam."

- AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's genocide tribunal abruptly adjourned a pretrial hearing for a Khmer Rouge leader after his French attorney erupted at judges because thousands of pages of documents had not been translated into French.

The judges later said they would issue a warning to lawyer Jacques Verges for his courtroom conduct. Verges, who is representing Khieu Samphan, 76, in his appeal against pretrial detention, has earned notoriety with a client list that includes Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie and former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The tribunal has charged Khieu Samphan with crimes against humanity committed when the communist Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79. As a result of the group's policies, 1.7 million people died from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

- AP

Hopes of finding

a Roman Catholic priest who disappeared after soaring into the air with hundreds of colorful helium balloons are growing slim, rescue officials in Brazil said. The Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli has been missing since Sunday, when he lifted off from the port city of Paranagua in a fund-raising effort.