World in brief

Sharon: Golan is price of Syrian peace

JERUSALEM - Addressing two of Israel's thorniest issues, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told lawmakers Monday that peace with Syria would require a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights and ordered a review of the contentious West Bank separation barrier.

Sharon's comments on the Golan, made to Parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, were an unprecedented admission by the career hard-liner. In the past, right-wing Israeli governments insisted a peace deal could be reached without a withdrawal from the strategic plateau captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

The prime minister did not tell the closed-door meeting whether he was willing to pay what he defined as the price for peace. However, the Associated Press, quoting an unnamed committee member, reported that it was clear from the context that Sharon is not ready to return the Golan in exchange for a peace deal.

On the security barrier, the AP, quoting a senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported that the government has asked committees to study changes in the route as well as technical means of easing movement for Palestinians.

MORE FEMALE BOMBERS: The founder of Hamas announced a change in strategy, saying the Islamic militant group would increasingly recruit female suicide bombers. Last week, Hamas sent its first female assailant, a 22-year-old woman who blew herself up at the Gaza-Israel crossing and killed four Israeli border guards.

Sheik Ahmed Yassin told reporters in Gaza there had not been a need in the past for women to carry out bombings. Now, he said, women must step up and fulfill their "obligations." He suggested male bombers were increasingly being held back by Israeli security measures.

GENEVA - A World Trade Organization appeals panel gave a boost to the United States on Monday, reversing most of an earlier ruling that said U.S. special duties on Canadian lumber were illegal.

The panel agreed with U.S. claims that lumber from state-owned lands in Canada can be unfairly subsidized if provincial governments sell the wood at below-market price. Therefore the United States has the right to impose extra duties to prevent cheap Canadian wood harming U.S. manufacturers, the panel said.

It stressed, however, that Washington would still have to carry out more extensive investigations before it could justify imposing duties on some imports of logs.

Two government ministers in the Netherlands acknowledged Monday that highly sensitive nuclear technology developed by a Dutch company may have been transferred to Libya and North Korea along with Iran and Pakistan.

The disclosure in Parliament in Amsterdam marked the first public confirmation of assertions that centrifuge technology for enriching uranium apparently found its way to Libya and North Korea. It was already known that Pakistan and Iran had the technology.

The Dutch officials, Foreign Minister Bernard Bot and Economic Affairs Minister Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, said it was not clear how the technology had been transferred.

BEIJING - A senior Chinese official rejected the new wording of a referendum that Taiwan is planning to hold in March and warned Monday that it would push cross-strait tensions "to the brink of danger." But he did not say how China would respond if the island goes ahead with the vote.

The statement was the first by a Chinese leader on the subject since Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, under U.S. pressure, announced Friday that he was changing the questions.

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