World in brief

Powell hears option, sticks with road map

WASHINGTON - The Israeli and Palestinian authors of a private Middle East peace plan presented their proposals to Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday but were unable to alter the Bush administration's approach to peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians.

"It was a very good meeting," Powell said. "We welcome other ideas."

However, Powell said, the "road map" for peace still had "primacy" in the effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. And a State Department spokesman said that the blueprint would not be altered as a result of Powell's meeting with former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo, his Palestinian counterpart.

Both men describe their initiative as a complimentary to the U.S. plan, as it fleshes out details left out of the road map. The Israeli government has dismissed the plan as harmful to its interests.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Israel's Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in published remarks that there is no chance of reaching a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians and that Israel should unilaterally define its borders and withdraw from parts of the Palestinian territories.

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivia on Friday released nine Bangladeshis it had detained and questioned after French police warned the men may have planned to hijack a plane to attack an American target in Argentina.

Interior Minister Alfonso Ferrufino said the nine, who had lived in Bolivia for a year, were ordered released for a lack of evidence.

The Bangladeshis did not talk to reporters as they left police headquarters in the western city of Santa Cruz.

They will be allowed to remain in Bolivia while the investigation continues, Ferrufino said.

PARIS - In the first case linked to the long and cruel siege of the city of Sarajevo, former Gen. Stanislav Galic was sentenced to 20 years in prison by judges at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

He commanded the Bosnian Serb troops during more than half of the 44 months of the blockade, a slow and bloody stranglehold that prosecutors said had turned the historic Bosnian city into a "medieval hell."

In the summary of their verdict, the judges said civilians of the mostly Muslim city had been deliberately fired on "while attending funerals, while in ambulances, trams and buses and while cycling." They were attacked while tending gardens or shopping, the judges said, most of the time in daylight, without posing any military threat.

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