In the World

HAVANA - Hundreds of thousands of Cubans flocked to sprawling Revolution Plaza yesterday for an open-air "peace concert" headlined by Colombian rocker Juanes, an event criticized by some Cuban Americans who say the performers were lending support to the island's communist government simply by showing up.

Some estimates of the crowd were put at more than one million for the five-hour concert, but it was impossible to verify that. However, Juanes' visit to Cuba was clearly the biggest by an outsider since Pope John Paul II's 1998 tour.

Hundreds of public buses ferried young and old to the concert site. Most concertgoers wore white - to symbolize peace - and some held up signs reading "Peace on Earth" and "We Love You Juanes." - AP

LONDON - Oil-trading company Trafigura said yesterday that it had agreed to a settlement with people who claim they fell ill after a tanker dumped hundreds of tons of waste around the Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan.

A spokeswoman for Trafigura Beheer BV said the company would pay $1,546 per person, but it denied that the toxic waste had caused serious harm. She spoke anonymously, in line with company policy.

Trafigura would not comment on how many people it would pay, but British law firm Leigh Day, which brought the lawsuit, has said the case involved 30,000 people.

In a report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council last week, an expert on toxic waste, Okechukwu Ibeanu, said 15 people had died and 69 were hospitalized after the waste was off-loaded in Abidjan in August 2006. - AP

LA PAZ, Bolivia - The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia said yesterday that it was closing some democracy-promotion programs at the request of the Bolivian government.

Embassy officials said yesterday that the local government asked it in August to close some programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development. They said they were doing so.

One of the programs that has been told to close trains local leaders, some of whom oppose Bolivia's leftist government. The government has suggested in the past that some money is diverted to financing the opposition. U.S. officials deny that. - AP

A doctor leading a group-therapy session gave participants drugs and other substances that killed two and left 10 hospitalized, Berlin police said. One person was left comatose and in critical condition. The doctor who led the session has acknowledged giving the participants various substances and drugs during the meeting, said Martin Steltner, a spokesman for the Berlin prosecutor's office. It was not clear whether illegal drugs were given and whether the substances were injected or taken orally. The name of the doctor was not released.

Sixty pandas relocated last year from a famous Chinese nature reserve after their breeding center was severely damaged by a massive earthquake will return home after repairs in 2012. The panda breeding center in Sichuan province is undergoing a $55 million reconstruction expected to be done by 2011.

A gunman who opened fire in a crowded Mexico City subway station faces homicide charges, police said. Luis Felipe Hernandez began shooting and killed one commuter and injured eight others.

German airline Lufthansa said one of its New York-bound flights returned to Germany on Saturday amid reports it was leaking oil from one of its engines. The plane landed without a problem.