World briefs 4/30/07

Released hostage returns to France

PARIS -- A French aid worker who was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan returned home to France on Sunday, diplomatic officials said. The woman, identified as Celine Cordelier by the French Embassy in Kabul, was flown home overnight after giving a tearful statement Saturday pleading for the release of four colleagues still held in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban is demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan. Cordelier worked in southwestern Nimroz province and was kidnapped April 3 with her colleagues from the aid organization Terre d'Enfance. The Taliban said the three Afghans and a French man, identified by the embassy as Eric Damfreville, would continue to be held until French troops leave. Cordelier and Damfreville are both in their 20s, the Embassy said, without providing further details. A French Foreign Ministry spokesman in Paris declined to comment, saying it wanted to exercise discretion over the case.

Philippine air force grounds helicopters

MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippine air force grounded its Vietnam War-era Huey helicopters Sunday after one crashed on a busy street while landing in a central city after combat training, killing nine people, officials said. The UH-1H plummeted out of control while landing and crashed on a street outside an air base in Lapu-Lapu city on the central island of Mactan on Saturday afternoon, pinning a motorcycle taxi and hitting another near a public market, air force officials said. All seven people riding the motorcycle taxi were killed and a driver and a commuter were wounded in the other. The crash also killed one of two veteran pilots and one of two crewmen of the helicopter, the officials said. Most of those who died on the ground were commuters on their way home. The air force said it would shoulder the cost of their burial and extend other help to their families.

Cellist Rostropovich buried to applause

MOSCOW -- Mstislav Rostropovich, the celebrated cellist and champion of human rights, was buried Sunday to the applause of hundreds of mourners, an echo of the ovations he received during his life. Considered by many to be the world's greatest cellist, "Slava" Rostropovich was renowned for his electrifying, seemingly effortless playing. But at home, under communism, his fight for the rights of dissidents resulted in canceled concerts, foreign tours and recordings and, finally, self-imposed exile. Several thousand teary admirers of his musical talent and ebullient personality flocked to a morning service in the soaring, gold-domed Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was blown up by Communists in 1931 and which Rostropovich helped rebuild after the Soviet Union collapsed.

-- From wire reports