Around the world

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Monday that reconciliation is impossible with Colombia’s president as the two leaders traded stern warnings in an escalating diplomatic crisis that threatens trade ties between the South American neighbors.

Chavez said Sunday he is putting relations "in the freezer” after President Alvaro Uribe ended the Venezuelan leader’s role mediating with Colombia’s leftist rebels. That announcement drew a strong rebuke from Uribe, who said Chavez’s actions suggest he wants to see a "terrorist government” run by leftist rebels in Bogota.

The spat is the bitterest yet between Chavez and the U.S.-allied Uribe, who in the past have sought to cultivate cordial ties despite their deep ideological differences.

It could have serious economic consequences. The two countries are major commercial partners, with $4.1 billion in trade last year, about two-thirds of that in Colombian exports to Venezuela. Neither leader announced any concrete plan, but Chavez said economic relations will be hurt as a result of Uribe’s actions, which he called "a spit in the face.”

Relations with Colombia have reached their "most serious crisis,” Chavez said in a televised interview early Monday.

Chadian army and rebel group each claim to inflict heavy casualties on others

N’DJAMENA, Chad — Chad’s army and a rebel group both claimed to have killed hundreds of fighters on the opposing side in fighting Monday in the country’s east, an area in turmoil from domestic unrest as well as spillover conflict from the neighboring Darfur region in Sudan.

The violence at Abougouleigne, about 60 miles east of the town of Abeche, left "several hundred (rebels) dead, several injured and several prisoners of war” in military custody, according to a statement from Chad’s general staff.

"The fighting lasted four hours and ended in the total and definite annihilation of this column” of rebels, said the statement read on state radio and television by an unidentified officer.

He did not say if any Chadian soldiers were killed or injured, but said the statement was a preliminary report on the fighting.

A statement from one of Chad’s rebel movements, the Forces for Development and Democracy, claimed its fighters killed more than 200 government soldiers.

"Loss of human life on the enemy side, more than 200 dead, including division Gen. Dirmi Haroun and Col. Guende Abdramane,” said the statement posted a Chadian opposition Web site.

The Chad did not give any figures of its own casualties, but rebels claimed that only 20 of its fighters were killed.

It was not possible to independently confirm either side’s claims, but if proved close to accurate, the fighting would be the worst since a separate rebel group tried to take the capital in April 2006. At the time the government said it killed over 300 rebels.

Chad has struggled in the face of several rebellions in the east, with some insurgents saying President Idriss Deby has not given enough support to their kinsmen in Darfur.

The fighting came after the rebel group last week expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of the implementation of a peace agreement that it signed with the government along with three other insurgent groups. Violence between the Forces for Development and Democracy and government fighters was first reported over the weekend, but there was no word at the time on casualties.

U.N. officials estimate about 3 million people have been uprooted by conflicts in the region, including the fighting in Darfur and the unrelated rebellions in Chad and Central African Republic.

Aid workers say recruiters for Chad’s rebel groups and the government have visited refugee camps trying to lure children into their forces.

The European Union has offered to send a 3,700-soldier force to Chad and Central Africa Republic to help protect refugees displaced by the four-year conflict in Darfur. The force has been held up, however, by a lack of air transportation and medical and supply units.

A meeting last week at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, failed to get more commitments, raising the possibility that the EU mission might not be able to deploy in December as planned.

Chad, a largely arid country that is one of Africa’s newest oil producers, has been convulsed by civil wars and invasions since independence from France in 1960.

The most recent conflict is intertwined with the one in Darfur. Chad’s president is from the same ethnic group as some of the African rebels who have rebelled against Sudan’s Arab-dominated government, and each country accuses the other of supporting rebel groups on the other’s soil.

Hundreds of army officers and members of Deby’s own family defected in 2005 after they accused him of not providing enough support to the rebels in Darfur.

Once a fight between nomadic Arab tribes and settled African farmers, both the Darfur and Chadian conflicts have grown increasingly complicated as rebel groups splintered, formed new alliances and received defectors over the years.

Armed bandits have taken advantage of the lawlessness to attack civilians, and local politicians have used ethnic rivalries to fan the violence.

Instability has increased ahead of a planned U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur and the announcement of the EU mission for Chad and Central African Republic.

The EU force is widely seen as strengthening Deby’s regime, which has also benefited from high oil prices that has allowed it to buy more weapons. In 2005, a referendum lifted constitutional term limits and Deby won a third term in elections boycotted by the opposition.

Ecuador: At least 60 miners trapped following explosion

QUITO, Ecuador — An explosion ripped through an underground gold mine in southern Ecuador Monday, trapping about 60 miners and killing at least one, officials said.

Interior Minister Gustavo Larrea said an undetermined number of miners were injured in the blast at the mine located in the village of Ponce Enriquez, 230 miles southwest of Quito. Ponce Enriquez police officer Jose Pazmino told The Associated Press that at least one miner had been killed.

"It was an explosion in the mine — we still don’t know the cause — and the injured are being taken to Machala,” a nearby town, Larrea told Channel 1 television.

The minister did not give a precise number of injured, but Pazmino said at least 40 were hurt.The minister said that authorities expect to help the roughly 60 people buried in the mine in "the coming hours.”

Larrea said the mine was run by a local cooperative with "limited safety.”

Britain’s pigeon racers petition to become sport

LONDON — Pigeon racers are petitioning Queen Elizabeth II to have their activity officially classified as a sport.

The Belford Racing Pigeon Club hopes the British monarch, the patron of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association, will intervene in a dispute that could see them pay millions of dollars in taxes, chairman Eric Sim said.

Racers, known as "pigeon fanciers,” house their birds in sheds — buildings the British government now wants to tax, beginning in April. Sports clubs can get tax relief, but pigeon racing is not classified as a sport, which would leave racers footing a hefty tax bill.

Even if it’s not officially classified a sport, "pigeon racing has been recognized as a sport for well over 100 years and this latest turn of events will cause many clubs to struggle to make ends meet,” Sim said.

Local representative Geoff O’Connell said he wanted to raise the matter with British tax authorities.

"During World War II, owners gave more than a quarter of a million pigeons to our defense forces and they were used most effectively to carry messages from battlefronts and to save lives from sinking ships and downed aircraft,” O’Connell said.

"It is little to ask the government to show some sympathy towards this group of people by reversing this latest decision and recognizing this activity is a sport.”