World in brief

Israeli forces storm Gaza refugee camp

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli forces using dozens of tanks and attack helicopters pushed into Rafah refugee camp on Saturday, one of the largest military incursions into the Gaza Strip in 30 months of fighting, Palestinians said.

At least five people were killed and at least 35 were wounded, four critically, witnesses and doctors said.

Israeli military officials confirmed an operation was under way in the Rafah area but declined to give details.

The incursion appeared to have targeted the Yibna neighborhood, one of two known militant strongholds in the camp.

Witnesses said the Israeli forces penetrated the camp from three directions using more than 35 tanks and armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and jeeps.

Five attack helicopters circled overhead, beaming spotlights on the densely populated area, which is home to about 60,000 Palestinians.

"I was sitting outside with some friends playing cards when suddenly we came under fire," said Marwan Khatib, 39, a resident. "Bullets hit the wall next to us and tanks were coming toward us very fast."

Three men in their 20s and a 15-year-old boy were killed, Palestinian doctors said.

N. Korea proposes talks with S. Korea in wake of claims

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea made a conciliatory gesture toward South Korea on Saturday, proposing high-level talks a day after jeopardizing negotiations with the United States by claiming it is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, possibly for weapons.

North Korean officials telephoned South Korean officers at the border village of Panmunjom to propose Cabinet-level talks on April 27-29 in Pyongyang. The North called off a similar meeting last week.

In a message carried by the North Korean state news agency, KCNA, a Pyongyang official stressed "the need to resourcefully settle the issue of inter-Korean relations by the nation itself through national cooperation."

North Korea often has tried to drive a wedge between South Korea and its chief ally, the United States, by dealing with the two nations separately and saying only Koreans can resolve tensions on the peninsula.

India makes conditional offer to hold talks with Pakistan

SRINAGAR, India -- India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee conditionally offered to negotiate with Pakistan over Kashmir and other key issues dividing the nuclear-armed rivals.

Vajpayee's comments came at a news conference concluding a two-day visit to Jammu-Kashmir, the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

"If Pakistan says tomorrow that it will close down the terrorist camps in Pakistan, if it says this today, I will send a top Foreign Ministry official to Islamabad tomorrow to draw up a schedule for the talks," Vajpayee said.

India says Islamic separatists are crossing into Jammu-Kashmir from Pakistan's portion of the Himalayan region to attack Indian troops.

Elsewhere . . .

FRANCE: Standing uncontested, extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was re-elected head of the National Front party Saturday. Le Pen said that success was just "a start" and that his party was looking forward to regional elections next year and what he called "the mother of all battles" -- presidential elections in 2007.

BRAZIL: A tourist schooner carrying 64 people on a day trip sank in a canal east of Rio de Janeiro, killing at least 11 people, authorities said.

BURUNDI: Army soldiers have killed 26 insurgents since Burundi's largest rebel group attacked the capital of Bujumbura this week, an army spokesman said. The army suffered no losses since the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, or FDD, began their attack Thursday, army spokesman Col. Augustine Nzabampema said.

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