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U.S. backs new Palestinian program

UNITED NATIONS - The United States bowed to pressure from its allies on Tuesday and agreed to support a new program to temporarily funnel additional humanitarian aid directly to the Palestinian people.

A statement by Mideast peacemakers, issued after a day of diplomatic meetings, did not suggest precisely how much or what kind of aid they would provide. But the agreement seemed to underscore a concern that months of withholding most aid from the Palestinians, part of an effort to pressure the new Hamas-led government toward a more accommodating stance with Israel, was harming the Palestinian people.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the European Union would take the lead in the new effort. The United Nations and Russia, the other partners in the Quartet peacemaking group along with the United States, also endorsed the program.

"The thrust of this is the international community is still trying to respond to the needs of the Palestinian people," Rice said.

The cutoff has left the government virtually broke and increasingly unable to provide basic services. Some 165,000 government workers, whose incomes had supported one-third of Palestinian families, have not been paid for two months.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military intercepted more than a half-ton of TNT being shipped from Egypt to the Gaza Strip by boat, the army said Tuesday.

When the crew on the Palestinian boat saw Israeli navy boats approaching Wednesday, they dumped the bags of weapons-grade TNT into the sea before escaping to the Gaza shore, the army said.

Israeli naval divers retrieved 11 bags containing 1,100 pounds of TNT from the sea floor, Israel's largest seizure of weaponry headed to the Palestinian territories since 2002, Capt. Yoram Laks of the Israeli navy said.

Israel does not yet know who sold or purchased the explosives.

In Gaza City, Hamas militants attacked a Fatah funeral procession and children were among the wounded Tuesday. Nine Palestinians, including five children on their way to school, were wounded. Afterward. militants linked to Hamas and Fatah agreed to end the internal violence that has plagued Gaza, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said.

China's record bust: 300 pounds of cocaine

BEIJING - Chinese and U.S. agents seized more than 300 pounds of cocaine smuggled from Colombia, authorities said Tuesday - a record drug bust for China that underscores how South American narcotics gangs are aggressively moving into Asia.

Nine people were arrested.

Egyptian security forces kill suspected extremist

EL-ARISH, Egypt - The leader of an al-Qaida-inspired group wanted for last month's bombings at a Red Sea resort was killed in a gunbattle Tuesday in the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula.

Nasser Khamis el-Mallahi was the seventh suspect killed by Egyptian security forces since a massive sweep was launched in the Sinai after three bombings in Dahab that killed 21 people last month.

An accomplice, Mohammed Abdullah Abu Grair, was captured.

Cuba, Russia among U.N. human rights additions

UNITED NATIONS - Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia won seats on the new U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday despite their poor human rights records, but two rights abusers - Iran and Venezuela - were defeated.

Human rights groups said they were generally pleased with the 47 members elected to the council, which will replace the highly politicized Human Rights Commission. It was discredited in recent years because some countries with terrible rights records used their membership to protect one another from condemnation.

[Last modified May 10, 2006, 06:54:27]