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JERUSALEM - After 18 days, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails called off their hunger strike on Thursday, and while Palestinian officials tried to put on a brave face there was little doubt that they had suffered a significant defeat.
The Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, Hisham Abdel-Razek, said in Gaza that "most of the demands" for improved conditions in prison had been met, an assertion Israeli officials quickly denied.
A Palestinian Cabinet minister, Qadoura Fares, asserted that serious negotiations had occurred between the Israeli authorities and the prisoners. Officials of the Israeli prison authority, however, insisted that no negotiations with the prisoners had taken place.
Abdel-Razek said that one prominent prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, who is in isolation after being sentenced to five life sentences for involvement in the killing of Israelis, would continue to strike. Early in the strike, the Israelis secretly filmed Barghouti eating in an effort to discredit him.
Elsewhere . . .S. KOREA URANIUM: South Korean government scientists secretly enriched uranium to nearly bomb-grade levels in experiments conducted four years ago, officials in Seoul and Vienna acknowledged Thursday, as the International Atomic Energy Agency announced it had launched a major investigation of the country's programs and nuclear technologies.
MALAYSIAN FREED: His sodomy conviction overturned by Malaysia's highest court, Anwar Ibrahim, 57, was set free Thursday six years to the day after the one-time heir apparent to the premiership plunged into a divisive fight with his political mentor, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
ESTONIA YANKS MONUMENT: A controversial monument commemorating Estonians who fought in the German army against Soviet troops during World War II was removed Thursday, after the Estonian government said it damaged the Baltic state's image.
LEBANON RESOLUTION: A deeply divided U.N. Security Council approved a U.S.-backed resolution late Thursday aimed at pressuring Lebanon to reject a second term for its pro-Syrian president and calling for an immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces - an indirect reference to Syrian troops. The council approved the resolution just hours before Lebanon's Parliament was scheduled to vote to amend the constitution so that President Emile Lahoud can keep his job.
ARGENTINA TRIAL: A federal court acquitted five men Thursday of being accessories to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed 85 people, the deadliest terrorist attack on Argentine soil.