In the World

MEXICO CITY - Mexico has replaced all 700 of its customs inspectors with agents newly trained to detect contraband, from guns and drugs to TVs and other big-ticket appliances smuggled to avoid import duties.

The shake-up - part of a broader effort to root out corruption and improve vigilance at Mexican ports with new technology - doubled the size of Mexico's customs inspection force.

The inspectors were replaced with 1,400 agents who have undergone background checks and months of training, Tax Administration Service spokesman Pedro Canabal said yesterday. He said the previous inspectors were not rehired when their contracts expired.

The main focus of the overhaul is to combat tax evasion, although Mexico is also trying to seize more guns smuggled in from the United States and elsewhere that end up in the hands of ruthless drug gangs. - AP

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il held talks with the head of South Korea's Hyundai Group, the North's state media reported yesterday, in a rare meeting that could warm prospects for a resumption of stalled cross-border projects.

Kim and Hyun Jeong Eun, Hyundai's chairwoman, had a "cordial talk," the Korean Central News Agency reported in a brief dispatch from Pyongyang, though it provided few details.

Just days earlier, the North freed a Hyundai worker whom it had detained for months. Pyongyang accused the worker of denouncing North Korea's government.

Hyundai is a key participant in the cross-border projects that have been stalled since July last year when a North Korean soldier shot a South Korean tourist at a mountain resort in the North. Hyundai Asan, the group's North Korean business arm, said Hyun did not release any information about her meeting with Kim. - AP

MOSCOW - Two Russian air force jets rehearsing aerobatic maneuvers collided yesterday near Moscow, killing one stunt pilot and sending one fighter crashing into nearby vacation homes, a military official said.

The Su-27 fighters were part of the elite Russian Knights flying group preparing to perform at the MAKS-2009 air show, the largest showcase for Russia's aerospace industry. The jets collided near Zhukovsky airfield, east of Moscow, where the air show opens tomorrow.

An air force spokesman, Lt. Col. Vladimir Drik, said all three pilots involved ejected but one was killed. - AP

The first shipments of foreign aid, from the United States and Australia, arrived yesterday as Taiwan struggled to reach 1,000 people still stranded a week after its deadliest typhoon in half a century.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, a 23-year-old prisoner being taken to jail to face car-theft charges allegedly shot one police officer to death and gravely wounded a second, then escaped in their squad car, authorities said.