East Timor president shot at by rebels

DILI, East Timor: Rebel soldiers shot at and critically wounded East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta and fired on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao yesterday in a failed coup attempt.

Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace laureate, was hit in the stomach and was flown to a hospital in Australia in an "induced coma", breathing through a ventilator, a spokesman for the company that airlifted him out of East Timor said.

Gusmao, however, escaped unhurt when his motorcade was attacked.