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World in brief

Bill would give Putin chance at third term

By wire services
Published June 25, 2005

MOSCOW - Russian lawmakers are considering an electoral amendment next week that could open the way for President Vladimir Putin to run for a third term, drawing accusations that his supporters of trying to cling to power.

Putin has repeatedly said he will not change the constitution, which bars presidents from serving more than two consecutive terms.

However, Alexander Moskalets, a senior member of Putin's United Russia party, submitted a legislative amendment Thursday that would allow Putin to stand for re-election.

Moskalets declined to comment on the initiative, which was part of a package of electoral legislation to be voted on in its second reading Wednesday.

Critics in the opposition accused the Kremlin clan of seeking a back-door means for keeping Putin in office because they could not find a popular enough successor.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - The Irish Republican Army apologized Friday for shooting to death a Catholic girl in 1973 during a botched ambush on a British army patrol.

The IRA had long insisted that British soldiers killed the girl, 14-year-old Kathleen Feeney, in Londonderry. But in a statement published in the Derry Journal newspaper, the outlawed group said a new internal investigation had confirmed what the public had long believed: The IRA did it.

The statement was the latest act of public contrition from the IRA, which killed about 1,800 people from 1970 to 1997 as part of a failed campaign to abolish Northern Ireland as a British territory. The underground organization called an open-ended truce that year as part of a peace process that produced Northern Ireland's Good Friday accord of 1998.

BEIT HAGGAI, West Bank - Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a group of hitchhikers Friday and killed one, the third Israeli slaying in a flareup of violence that threatens a truce reached in February.

The driveby attack also left four people wounded and highlighted the difficulties faced by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in trying to rein in militants.

Israel announced this week that it's renewing its policy of hunting down and killing militants.

Gunmen shot at the hitchhikers as they were getting into a car near Beit Haggai, a Jewish settlement just south of the West Bank city of Hebron, the army said.

A teenager was killed and two others were wounded, one of them critically, while two people inside the Israeli car were also lightly injured by gunfire, said Maj. Sharon Asman.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militant group with links to Abbas' ruling Fatah movement, claimed responsibility, Israeli media and the army said.

The attack came as Palestinian police swept through Jenin in a hunt for militants who killed an officer Thursday. Ten militants were arrested.

NORTH KOREA: Top North Korean envoys declined to set a date for returning to international nuclear disarmament talks before going home Friday after talks with South Korea.

HONG KONG CHIEF: The Chinese government Friday officially appointed Donald Tsang as the chief executive of Hong Kong.

KASHMIR BLAST: Islamic militants triggered a car bomb by remote control as an army convoy drove past a popular park in India's portion of Kashmir on Friday, killing nine soldiers and wounding 22 other people, an army official said.

DRUNKEN FLIGHT CREW: A Norwegian court sentenced the pilot of a British Airways jet to six months in prison Friday for preparing to fly even though members of his crew were drunk. The flight's purser was sentenced to 45 days in prison for being drunk on duty. Neither was present at the trial this week, and both have the right to appeal. A similar case against the co-pilot was still pending. All three resigned from British Airways shortly after the Nov. 11, 2003, incident.

ZIMBABWE CAMPAIGN: The African Union on Friday sidestepped international demands to act against a so-called urban renewal campaign in Zimbabwe that has left as many as 1.5-million people homeless, while President Robert Mugabe defiantly congratulated police on the operation.

[Last modified June 25, 2005, 00:35:14]