Aruba

One of three young men who took an Alabama teenager to the beach during her high school graduation trip to Aruba said "something bad happened" to her, police said Friday. Deputy Police Commissioner Gerold Dompig said the man was leading police to the scene late Friday. He refused to identify which man had made the statement.

Aruba police arrested three young men who acknowledged giving a missing Alabama teenager a ride the night she disappeared more than a week ago. Those detained were two brothers from Suriname and a Dutch student who is the son of a high-ranking Dutch justice official. No charges were immediately filed. Prime Minister Nelson Oduber said finding Natalee Holloway, 18, was Aruba's "No. 1 goal."

Accidental death has not been ruled out in the disappearance of an Alabama honors student in Aruba, despite the arrest of two men, authorities said. Police and the FBI kept up a search for 18-year-old Natalee Holloway. Officials said the two suspects had not been charged, contrary to previous reports. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said authorities initially had misspoken while trying to explain the situation to reporters in English, a second language in the Dutch territory.

Two men were charged in connection with the disappearance of an Alabama teenager, Aruba's attorney general said. Authorities on the Dutch Caribbean island also requested a special FBI diving team, said Atty. Gen. Caren Janssen. The arrests came nearly a week after 18-year-old Natalee Holloway disappeared during a trip with more than 100 classmates from Mountain Brook High School, near Birmingham.

Peru's fugitive ex-spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, slipped illegally into Costa Rica, then headed for the Caribbean island of Aruba, said Costa Rican Security Minister Rogelio Ramos. Montesinos and his crew abandoned their yacht Nov. 21 on Costa Rica's remote island of Coco and went to the city of Liberia, about 100 miles northwest of the capital, San Jose, Ramos said. He said a small plane took them to Aruba, about 20 miles off Venezuela.

I'd never given much thought to the term "desert island" until I visited Aruba. Its arid, rumpled landscape bristles with long-armed cactuses, aloe plants and sad, spindly divi-divi trees bent low by the persistent winds. The key features of the interior of this Caribbean island are gigantic rock piles inhabited by wild goats, the remains of gold-mining operations, a few caves with ancient inscriptions and a massive stub of magnetic rock.

Paul O'Neill and Jeff Nelson of the New York Yankees and Seattle catcher John Marzano were suspended for two games by American League president Gene Budig for their roles in a brawl last week. Budig also fined O'Neill and Nelson $1,000 and fined Yankee outfielder Darryl Strawberry and Mariner pitcher Bobby Ayala $500. Marzano and Nelson both decided not to appeal and their suspensions began Tuesday night. O'Neill's suspension is not scheduled to begin until Friday.

ARUBA (Kodak Video Trip, 50 minutes, 1993) . After a colorful introduction using brief montages of beaches, hotels, restaurants, shops and casinos, viewers are given a more leisurely tour of Aruba, one of the Netherlands' "ABC" islands (Bonaire and Curacao are the others) off the coast of Venezuela. Not surprising, the major lures of Aruba are the lovely white sand beaches and clear turquoise waters, where visitors wind surf, scuba dive, swim and go boating.

Prosperity has returned six years after a brush with economic collapse, and in the process, this tourist island has put off plans for independence from the Netherlands. Many Arubans see the stability of the Dutch connection as essential to attracting foreign investment and visitors and are wary of how things turned out in Suriname.

The usual, bustling Caribbean harbor-front market, featuring the usual display of straw baskets, wooden bowls, maracas and other trinkets, is to be found on this westernmost of the three Dutch Leeward Islands. And although these items are attractive to some and inexpensive, they are generic souvenirs, mostly made in factories in South America and representing nothing distinctive about the island on which they are sold.