World datelines

Congo: Train crash kills 100

KINSHASA — A passenger train derailed in central Congo and eight cars tumbled off the tracks, killing about 100 people and trapping some passengers in the wreckage, officials said Thursday.

The accident occurred after the brakes failed as the train traveled between the city of Ilebo and the provincial capital of Kananga, said Medard Ilunga, head of Congo's state railway agency.

Seven cars overturned and an eighth went partly off the tracks just before midnight Wednesday, about 100 miles northwest of Kananga, Ilunga said. The conductor was able to detach the locomotive and go for help.

Injured passengers were being carried on people's backs and on bicycles to a hospital six miles away, Radio Okapi said.

Libya: Missile contracts

TRIPOLI — Moammar Gadhafi's long-isolated Libya has signed two contracts for missiles and communications equipment with French companies totaling $405 million, a government official said Thursday.

The first contract, worth $230 million, is for Milan missiles, and the second, totaling $175 million, is for advanced Tetra communications and surveillance equipment for the police, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. He did not reveal the names of the French companies.

The official said the deal is important because it is the first of its kind that Libya signed with a Western country since sanctions were imposed in the early 1990s.

Mexico: 'Dog' case closed

PUERTO VALLARTA — A Mexican judge has ruled to close the criminal case against bounty hunter and TV reality star Duane "Dog" Chapman, but state prosecutors have appealed the decision, officials said Thursday.

In the July 27 ruling, Judge Jose Alberto Montes said the statute of limitations has expired on the case, said Guillermo Diaz, assistant prosecutor for the state of Jalisco, where Puerto Vallarta is located.

Chapman was arrested in September by U.S. authorities on a Mexican warrant stemming from his 2003 capture of fugitive convicted rapist and Max Factor cosmetics heir Andrew Luster in Puerto Vallarta. Bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico.

Puerto Rico: Faux M.D.s?

SAN JUAN — U.S. federal agents arrested dozens of doctors accused of obtaining medical licenses through fraud or bribery, carrying out sweeping raids across Puerto Rico Thursday.

A federal grand jury indicted 88 doctors following an investigation into members of the U.S. Caribbean territory's medical licensing board, who allegedly altered low-scoring tests to certify unqualified candidates.

The doctors, mostly Puerto Ricans who studied medicine in the Dominican Republic, Mexico or Cuba, paid board members bribes of as much as $10,000, according to the indictment. At least 75 were practicing medicine in Puerto Rico, including some at hospitals or emergency rooms, authorities said.