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![]() Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
World Digest
BEIT SIRA, West Bank Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at stone-throwing Palestinians protesting yesterday against a West Bank barrier as the World Court held a second day of hearings on the issue. At least 20 Palestinians were treated for tear-gas inhalation and other injuries in the villages of Beit Surik and Beit Sira west of Jerusalem, medics said. Witnesses said Palestinian farmers and supporters in Beit Surik tried to prevent army bulldozers from razing an olive grove to make way for a new section of razor-tipped fence. Israel says the barrier, which is to stretch 420 miles, is intended to keep out suicide bombers. Palestinians say the barrier, by including the West Bank and taking in Jewish settlements, is intended to annex territory that Israel occupied in a 1967 war but which they want for a viable state. The World Court is holding hearings at the behest of the U.N. into whether the barrier is illegal because its route cuts through occupied territory. Israel boycotted the hearing, contending the project is a security issue beyond the court's jurisdiction. Border guards stop van carrying uranium into Hungary KIEV, Ukraine Ukrainian border guards stopped a man trying to take nearly a pound of uranium into Hungary yesterday, an official said. Border guards arrested the driver of a van at the Tisa checkpoint after finding a container full of the potential nuclear-bomb fuel, said spokesman Yevheniy Bargman. It was unclear whether the uranium was in the form of natural ore or had been enriched for potential use in reactors or weapons. The United States and other nations repeatedly have voiced serious concern about the illegal trade in nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union.
Thai police arrest 9 men in January raid on schools
The attacks Jan. 4 raised concerns that insurgents operating in the region may now have links to foreign al-Qaida-linked terrorist groups. Government soldiers clash with Gypsies in Slovakia BRATISLAVA, Slovakia The government deployed more than 2,000 police and soldiers to central and eastern Slovakia yesterday to quell rioting by Gypsies protesting government welfare cuts. It was the largest deployment of law enforcement in the Eastern European country since the communist era. President Rudolf Schuster warned it could grow into a larger wave of social unrest. The violence erupted Monday when police clashed with up to 400 Gypsies, also known as Roma, who had gathered in the eastern city of Trebisov for an unauthorized demonstration to protest cuts in payments to jobless families. Tape shows Mexican leader allegedly negotiating bribe MEXICO CITY A videotape broadcast nationally yesterday showed the leader of Mexico's Green Party apparently negotiating $2 million in bribes in exchange for help in developing land in the Caribbean resort of Cancún. After first claiming the tape was a fraud, Sen. Jorge Emilio Gonzalez acknowledged at a news conference he had taken part in the early December meeting at party headquarters, but he called it an unsuccessful attempt to bribe him. The video appears to be part of a battle for control of Mexico's fourth-largest party. A dissident faction has been trying to rip control of the party away from Gonzalez's family, which has dominated it since it was founded. More video surveillance ordered in Turkmenistan ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has ordered the government to intensify video surveillance of his isolated Central Asian state. "We should know if a fly quietly buzzes past," Niyazov said. "We must keep an eye on everything electric power stations, an oil refinery in which we invested $2 billion, as well as banks, television and radio." Niyazov, who has ruled gas-rich Turkmenistan since 1985 when it was still a Soviet republic, has built up a personality cult around himself and crushed any opposition. Also ... A man convicted of raping more than 20 children was hanged yesterday in a public square in the Iranian town of Marvdasht. ... A plane carrying a medical team and a heart for a transplant patient crashed yesterday in Sardinia, killing all six people aboard, officials said.... The USS Blue Ridge, flagship of the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet, yesterday arrived in Shanghai, the latest sign of warming military ties. ... Millions of Indian workers walked off the job yesterday to protest a Supreme Court decision banning strikes by government employees.
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
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