World briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 25, 2001

Mideast peace talks resume today

TABA, Egypt -- Israel will return to peace talks with the Palestinians here today after a nearly two-day suspension prompted by the killing of two Israeli civilians in the West Bank, the Israeli Cabinet decided Wednesday night.

Negotiations will continue for "several more days," Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office said, "with the intention of resuming them after the elections" of Feb. 6, when Barak competes against the Likud leader, Ariel Sharon. Sharon has a commanding lead in public opinion polls, and Likud leaders said Wednesday that if Sharon is elected he will declare any agreement reached here "null and void."

Sharon told a U.S. audience Wednesday he wants President Bush to participate in the Middle East peace process, as long as he doesn't pressure Israel to make concessions.

Talking by closed-circuit television to members of the Council on Foreign Relations, Sharon urged the Bush administration to act as go-between in negotiations. That was the traditional U.S. role before former President Clinton produced his own peace formula and demanded that both sides accept it.

Sharon said he has already established informal contacts both with the Palestinian Authority and neighboring Arab governments.

Yugoslavs refuse plea to hand over Milosevic

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The U.N. chief prosecutor met a wall of resistance Wednesday to her demands that Slobodan Milosevic go before the war crimes tribunal at The Hague, with leaders in Belgrade insisting the former president be tried at home.

After meeting with U.N. chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said that most Serbs don't trust the U.N. tribunal and that Milosevic's trial in Yugoslavia would build people's confidence in local courts.

Even Serbian Prime Minister-designate Zoran Djindjic, one of Milosevic's fiercest rivals, suggested he preferred to try him at home, although he urged "cooperation" with U.N. tribunal.

Asked how Del Ponte reacted, Djindjic said "she was not delighted at all because it entails time. She thinks something has to be done now."

Japan unleashed fleas with plague, doctors say

TOKYO -- In the first testimony of its kind, two Chinese doctors said Wednesday that Japan's military dumped swarms of infected fleas on China that triggered outbreaks of bubonic plague in the 1940s.

Retreating Japanese forces unleashed fleas tainted with cholera, typhoid, anthrax and bubonic plague in one attack in China's southwestern Zhenjian province, said Qiu Mingxuan, a 70-year-old physician.

He said the attacks had killed 50,000 people in six years.

"Japan's germ warfare has left behind problems that still threaten our lives," Qiu said at a trial in which about 180 Chinese plaintiffs are demanding compensation and an apology from the Japanese government for the deaths of their relatives.

China clamps down on Tiananmen Square

BEIJING -- China scored a victory Wednesday in its 18-month-old standoff with the Falun Gong spiritual movement, thwarting planned protests by the banned sect but at the cost of the heaviest security clamped on central Beijing in years.

Checkpoints ringed Tiananmen Square, marring the beginning of the lunar new year, the most auspicious date in the Chinese calendar. Police inspected identification papers, bags, pockets and coat sleeves to ferret out suspected Falun Gong followers.

The intrusive security came after five people, doused in gasoline, set themselves on fire Tuesday. One person was killed.

There were brief outbreaks of protest Wednesday, but the square was generally peaceful.

Congolese lawmakers endorse Kabila as leader

KINSHASA, Congo -- Lacking a blueprint for a handover of power, lawmakers were hastily convened Wednesday to endorse the ascension of Joseph Kabila as troubled Congo's new leader after the assassination of his father.

The special session of the slain Laurent Kabila's hand-picked Parliament -- held in the same hall where his body had lain in state before his burial Tuesday -- appeared little more than a rubber stamp measure before his son was officially sworn in later in the week.

After observing a minute of silence for the elder Kabila, the 225 lawmakers present at the open-air People's Palace approved Joseph Kabila by a unanimous show of hands.

Joseph Kabila, believed to be in his late 20s, was initially scheduled to take an oath of office Wednesday, but the ceremony was postponed as state lawyers worked out legal details of the succession.

Unconfirmed reports say there may be divisions over the younger Kabila's ascension between the political and military factions that make up the government's inner circle, or perhaps among Congo's allies in a 21/2-year civil war: Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia.

Kinshasa and the rest of government-held Congo remain calm, but some observers fear that could disintegrate in the days ahead.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright