Protests grow urging premier to step down

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - A square in front of Hungary's parliament overflowed Saturday with demonstrators demanding the prime minister quit in the largest protest yet since a recording was leaked on which he admitted lying to the people.

About 20,000 people filled Kossuth Square by midevening Saturday - double the size of the crowds seen earlier in the week.

The larger turnout had been expected. Some turned out who had planned to join a political rally by Fidesz, the main opposition party, before it was postponed because of security concerns.

The crowd diminished to less than 1,000 shortly before 2 a.m. today.

Still, the turnout of 20,000 reflected continued support for those demanding Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany resign for acknowledging his government lied about the dire economic state of the economy.

Minister detained, Chavez says

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - President Hugo Chavez said his foreign minister was detained by U.S. authorities at a New York airport Saturday for more than hour as he tried to return to the South American country.

Mr. Chavez told Venezuela's state TV broadcaster that U.S. officials alleged that Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro had links to a failed coup that Mr. Chavez led in Venezuela in 1992.

But a U.N. diplomat said Mr. Maduro's passage was delayed at John F. Kennedy International Airport because he had showed up late without a ticket.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly, said that under U.S. government regulations, anyone who shows up late and buys a ticket in cash has to be put through secondary screening at the airport.

Human error probed in crash

LATHEN, GERMANY - Investigators sought Saturday to determine why safety rules didn't prevent a high-speed magnetic train from powering up and speeding into a maintenance vehicle still on the elevated test track, killing 23 people.

Alexander Retemeyer, a prosecutor speaking for investigators, said they were focusing on what happened in the 20-mile track's control center, where the required two employees were on duty.

In other news

A HELICOPTER WITH 24 PEOPLE aboard, including an American aid worker and foreign conservationists, went missing Saturday in Nepal's mountainous east, officials said. The World Wildlife Fund said the 20 passengers were on their way back from a conservation site and seven staff members from the organization were among the missing.

HUNDREDS OF ISLAMIC MILITIAMEN in heavily armed trucks headed Saturday to the strategic town of Kismayo in what appeared to be an imminent takeover attempt of one of the last seaports outside their control in Somalia, witnesses said.

INDONESIA'S FOREIGN MINISTER said Saturday that the execution a day earlier of three Roman Catholic militants for bloody attacks on Muslims six years ago was a matter of justice, not religion.

NORTH KOREA IS PLANNING to remove fuel rods at a nuclear reactor within the next three months in what would be a significant boost to its nuclear weapons capability, an American expert said Saturday.

POLICE HAVE RECOVERED a revered religious icon that was stolen from a monastery in southern Greece, after an intense five-week investigation, authorities said Saturday. The 700-year-old icon of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus, credited with having healing powers and performing miracles, was stolen Aug. 18. The 28-year-old suspect was arrested after he attempted, through a telephone call, to sell the 14th-century icon to a local bishop for $1.28 million.

CZARINA MARIA FEODOROVNA'S descendants joined Danish royals, officials and dignitaries Saturday to bid farewell to the mother of Russia's last emperor, 78 years after she died in exile in Denmark. The casket of the Danish-born Feodorovna - who was Princess Dagmar before marrying Czar Alexander III - was then paraded through the Danish capital before being put on a ship to St. Petersburg.

- Edited from wire reports by Jennifer Bishop