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Israeli-Arab talks on handover break down

JERUSALEM - Israeli and Palestinian commanders failed to reach an agreement Sunday night over Israel's planned handover to Palestinian security control of two West Bank cities, even though both sides had shown new flexibility to try to thwart a feared outbreak of violence.

Negotiators canceled talks for today and said they would meet again Tuesday, and an Israeli security official said that the talks were being conducted with "good spirits." But Palestinian officials sounded more concerned, saying that the Israelis had disappointed them.

The talks on the handover of Jericho and Qalqiliya stalled over Israel's insistence that the Israeli army will retain roadblocks controlling movement, spokesman Elias Zananiri said.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Rebels attacked a village in northwest Colombia as President Alvaro Uribe arrived in a helicopter Sunday, the president's spokesman said. No injuries were reported.

Uribe immediately flew out of the village of Granada in Antioquia state, returning to a military base in nearby Rionegro, said his spokesman, Ricardo Galan.

ATTACK IN AFGHANISTAN: Hundreds of insurgents in a convoy of trucks attacked a police headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan, triggering a gunbattle Sunday that killed 22 people, officials said. The fierce fighting in Paktika province was the latest in a wave of violence that has underscored just how unstable Afghanistan remains after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

ARRESTS IN INDONESIA: Investigators have arrested nine people in the Aug. 5 attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people and wounded nearly 150, the national police chief said Sunday. Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the nine suspects were picked up in separate raids over the past week. He gave no details on the arrests or the suspects.

CLERICS DECRY TERROR: Saudi Arabia's highest religious body, the Council of Senior Clerics, has condemned violence by Islamic militants and deemed helping terrorists "one of the greatest sins."

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said Sunday that Lee Hsien Loong, the son of the city-state's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, will succeed him when he steps down, possibly in 2005.