In the World

HARARE, Zimbabwe - A former ruling-party loyalist who clashed with President Robert Mugabe over economic policy said yesterday he would run against Mugabe as an independent in next month's presidential election, hoping to galvanize others disillusioned with the party.

Victory in the March 29 vote has been seen as a foregone conclusion for Mugabe, 83, and the ruling ZANU-PF party against a weak and fractured opposition. So the challenge by former Finance Minister Simba Makoni, 57, gave the election a new dimension.

"I share the agony and anguish of all citizens over the extreme hardships we have all endured for nearly 10 years," Makoni said. Opponents blame Mugabe for an economic meltdown that has left Zimbabwe with acute shortages of gasoline, hard currency, food, and most basic goods.

- AP

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department said yesterday it was imposing financial sanctions against family members of more officials in Myanmar's military-run government and individuals it identified as key members of the financial empire of Tay Za, an influential businessman.

Adam Szubin, the director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said the new order would tighten sanctions against associates of Tay Za, described by Szubin as "an arms dealer and financial henchmen of Burma's repressive regime." Earlier, the administration had imposed sanctions on 30 individuals and seven entities connected with the ruling junta.

The sanctions freeze assets that the individuals and companies may have in U.S. financial institutions and prohibit transactions between U.S. individuals and firms and those named in the order.

- AP

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The last army chief from Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship and five other retired officers went on trial yesterday for their alleged roles in the illegal detention and torture of dissidents during military rule.

Cristino Nicolaides, an 80-year-old former general and the head of the army when de facto military rule ended in 1983, was the lead defendant in the trial in northeastern Corrientes province.

At least 13,000 people are listed officially as dead or missing from the military era. Human-rights groups put the number at close to 30,000. A three-judge panel is trying the officers for their alleged roles in the abduction of five political prisoners who disappeared during the dictatorship.

- AP

Boris Kuznetsov,

a lawyer who challenged Russian security services' wiretapping of his client, is seeking political asylum in the United States, his Moscow attorney said. Kuznetsov fled Russia in July after authorities accused him of divulging state secrets in providing evidence of the wiretapping to a court.

A South African court

sentenced a Swiss engineer, Daniel Geiges, 69, for his part in the international nuclear smuggling ring run by disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, the South African Press Association reported.