Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

World in brief

Rice increases U.S. pressure on Syria

By wire services
Published March 2, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Tuesday blamed terrorists based in Syria for last week's deadly suicide attack in Israel and called for an immediate end to Syrian military and political domination over neighboring Lebanon.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice applied the strongest American pressure on the Syrians to date, saying at an international conference in London that they were "out of step" in the Middle East and that there was growing international resolve against them.

In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "We do have firm evidence that the bombing in Tel Aviv was not only authorized by Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus, but that Islamic Jihad leaders in Damascus participated in the planning."

President Bush made a similar point during a White House meeting with congressional leaders, participants said, and so did Rice while in London for a conference on the Palestinians.

An explosion triggered by a suicide bomber outside a Tel Aviv nightclub Friday killed five people.

"The Syrians are out of step with where the region is going and out of step with the aspirations of the people of the Middle East," Rice said after an international conference on Palestinian security and political reform.

At the conference, Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad said that donor nations have promised $1.2-billion to help the government of Mahmoud Abbas establish itself, and he expects to get additional aid from Arab states.

Much of the money would cover operating costs of the Palestinian Authority, whose monthly $40-million deficit raised questions about its ability to pay tens of thousands of security officers who will be crucial as Abbas tries to impose control.

Part of the aid apparently will pay pensions for retiring some members of the security forces, which Abbas promised Tuesday to reform and streamline - reducing their number from a dozen to perhaps three branches and putting them under the control of a single Cabinet minister.

The sum included $391-million from the United States. That figure, which could not be confirmed with U.S. officials, would be four times the previous level of U.S. aid.

ISRAEL UNCOVERS BOMB PLOT: An Islamic Jihad militant told Israeli interrogators his group planned to detonate a large car bomb near Israeli targets, security officials said Tuesday, after troops discovered a vehicle packed with half a ton of explosives in the West Bank, the largest bomb found in four years of fighting.

The militant, Jibril Zubeydi, is the brother of a prominent militant leader in the West Bank town of Jenin, Zakariye Zubeydi, security officials said. Jibril Zubeydi, an Islamic Jihad member, was arrested two months ago.

The car bomb was discovered Monday near Jenin. The vehicle was parked at a junction near the town of Jenin. It was safely detonated in a controlled explosion, the military said Tuesday.

During Zubeydi's interrogation by the Shin Bet Security service, he revealed three plots the Islamic Jihad was planning, including the car bomb, a rocket attack on the Israeli town of Afula and a double suicide bombing against a Jerusalem school, the official said.

WEST PALM BEACH - A federal appeals court reversed a $54.6-million verdict against two retired Salvadoran generals accused of torture during a civil war in their home country two decades ago.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled Monday that the 10-year statute of limitations had expired before the generals were sued for their actions in the 1980s. The court said the three torture victims failed to prove inequitable circumstances prevented them from bringing their case forward before then.

The victims - a church worker, doctor and professor who fled to the United States after being tortured by Salvadoran soldiers - sued under the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act. The act allows U.S. courts to assess damages against perpetrators of human rights abuses committed abroad.

In July 2002, a federal jury found that Gens. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova and Jose Guillermo Garcia ignored massacres and other acts of brutality against civilians during the war. The two now live in Florida.

KIEV, Ukraine - President Viktor Yushchenko announced Tuesday that authorities have detained suspects in the 4-year-old slaying of Internet journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who wrote about high-level graft. His killing sparked protests and accusations against then-President Leonid Kuchma, who denied involvement.

The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified Interior Ministry source as saying a general and two colonels were detained.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Authorities on Tuesday found that Romania's state-owned airline illegally excluded gays from a Valentine's Day sale for couples, and ordered the company to pay a $180 fine.

The nation's main gay rights group welcomed the decision, but said the fine was "ridiculously small" and announced plans to sue.

The group ACCEPT had filed charges against TAROM, accusing the airline of denying gay couples the right to purchase tickets in a two-for-one discount offer.

Homosexuality was a crime in Romania until 2001, when the government removed the offense from the penal code to comply with demands from the European Union, which Romania hopes to join.

[Last modified March 2, 2005, 00:48:07]