Hostage Is Freed for Checkup, Returns

Rebels in Suva, Fiji, briefly released a hostage for a medical checkup as talks resumed on ending the Pacific nation’s crisis. The release was not linked to new contact between Fiji’s military rulers and rebel leader George Speight, who since May 19 has held 31 hostages, including former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry. Ului Kauvadra, a minister in Chaudhry’s deposed government, left Parliament by ambulance and returned about 30 minutes later after going to a medical center. Speight says he is fighting on behalf of Fiji’s indigenous majority. Chaudhry was Fiji’s first ethnic Indian prime minister.