World in brief

Proposal on N. Korea advances

SEOUL, South Korea - The United States, Japan and South Korea have worked out a joint proposal on how to ease tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and will ask China to relay it to the Communist North, a South Korean official said Saturday.

If Pyongyang accepts the proposal, a second round of six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis will convene in Beijing, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo Hyuck told South Korean reporters upon returning home from a trip to Washington.

Ahead of the Washington talks, South Korean officials said the proposal would deal with the main sticking point: when the United States should give written security assurances to North Korea. The North wants Washington to issue the assurances simultaneously with a Northern renunciation of its nuclear weapons program, but the United States wants the North to move first.

"The three countries have reached an understanding on the wording of a joint statement and agreed to give it to China," Lee said. "China will send it to Pyongyang and then there will be a response."

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro - A U.S. peacekeeper was found dead with a gunshot wound in eastern Kosovo, the Army said Saturday.

The soldier, identified as Sgt. Daryl Brooks, 43, of Philadelphia was found in a concrete bunker inside the U.S. military base Camp Monteith on Thursday, said Sgt. William Houk, a U.S. military spokesman.

No further details were available. A military statement said the incident is under investigation.

About 2,500 U.S. peacekeepers serve in the 20,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

CAIRO - The Alexandria Library has withdrawn the first Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion from an exhibit after United Nations cultural officials questioned the display of the 19th century anti-Semitic tract.

In a statement faxed to the Associated Press on Saturday, library director Ismail Serageldin denied allegations that the book was displayed next to the Jewish holy book, the Torah.

"The book was promptly withdrawn from public display. But its very inclusion showed bad judgment and insensitivity, and an internal hearing is under way to determine whether further action is to be taken," the statement read.

The book, which tells of a supposed Jewish plot to take over the world, has long been dismissed as a forgery. It was written by Imperial Russia's secret police to blame the country's troubles on Jews.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The Anglican Church in Southeast Asia has severed ties with its U.S. counterpart for elevating an openly gay man to the rank of bishop - another sign of growing disapproval for the move around the world.

Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, the Anglican Primate for Southeast Asia, said leaders representing about 170,000 Anglicans in eight Asian countries voted unanimously Nov. 20 to cut ties with the U.S. Episcopal Church, a member of the 77-million-member global Anglican Communion.

The Southeast Asian leaders voted at a special meeting of the region's synod after the Nov. 2 consecration of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

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