From Wire Reports

American shot dead in Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - An American who worked for a U.S. defense contractor was shot and killed Tuesday in the Saudi capital, the second deadly shooting of a Westerner in the kingdom in three days.

An unknown assailant killed the man in his home, said a spokesman for Vinnell Corp., based in Fairfax, Va. "He was found by another employee at his apartment and taken to a hospital, but did not survive," said the spokesman, Jay McCaffrey.

The victim was identified as Robert C. Jacobs, 62, of Murphysboro, Ill., a seven-year employee of Vinnell, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corp., said Northrop spokeswoman Janis Lamar.

Seven Vinnell employees were among the 35 people, including nine suicide bombers, who died last year in an attack on a Riyadh foreigners' housing compound.

Israeli choppers strike Gaza City

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a metal workshop next to an office building in Gaza City late Tuesday, sparking a fire and wounding two people, residents said.

They said the target was a workshop alongside a Hamas office at the entrance to the Shati refugee camp. The two people were treated at the camp clinic for minor injuries.

The Israeli military said the target was "a factory used by the Hamas to house arms and ammunition that Hamas used to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians."

The airstrike came a few minutes before midnight.

British journalists get armed guards

LONDON - The British Broadcasting Corp. has decided to hire armed guards from Western countries in "exceptional circumstances" to protect its journalists working in hostile areas, the broadcaster said Tuesday.

The shift in policy was announced after an attack by gunmen on a BBC television crew Sunday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. An Irish cameraman, Simon Cumbers, 36, was killed in the shooting, and a British reporter, Frank Gardner, 42, was critically injured.

A BBC spokeswoman denied, however, that the new policy had arisen as a result of the attack on Cumbers and Gardner and said it was the outcome of six months of discussions.

Ex-president accused of graft

NAIROBI, Kenya - The principal owner of an export company at the center of Kenya's biggest financial scandal told an inquiry Tuesday that he paid more than $100,000 of the firm's profits to former President Daniel arap Moi.

Kamlesh Pattni said when his company, Goldenberg International, started making money, he split the firm's profits 50-50 with Moi, paying him $110,294 in three installments in January 1991.

Pattni's testimony further implicates the former head of state in a corruption scandal that cost this cash-strapped East African nation hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when the economy was spiraling toward recession, largely because of government mismanagement.