WORLD IN BRIEF
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
U.N. Panel Presses Syrian Leader To Take Part in Probe of Killing
BEIRUT -- A U.N. commission said Monday that it had asked a second time to question Syria's president about the assassination of a former Lebanese leader, turning up the pressure on Damascus after a former top government official said President Bashar Assad had issued a threat before the killing.
The commission's spokeswoman, Nasra Hassan, said it also wants to interview former Syrian vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam "as soon as possible." Khaddam, a onetime stalwart of Syria's ruling party, said in a television interview last week that Assad had threatened former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri several months before Hariri's Feb. 14 assassination in a truck bombing in Beirut.
* * *
AFRICA
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- Gunmen attacked the two main military barracks in Ivory Coast's largest city, setting off a battle with security forces that killed 10 people, officials said.
The armed forces chief, Gen. Phillipe Mangou, went on state television to reassure nervous residents after an hour of gunfire, saying military forces had repulsed the attack at Camp Akuedo in northeastern Abidjan. An army spokesman, Col. Hilaire Gohourou, Babri said seven of the attackers and three security personnel were killed in the battle.
THE MIDDLE EAST
SANAA, Yemen -- Yemen's prime minister said his government would not negotiate with armed tribesmen holding five Italians hostage, setting out a tougher policy after the second kidnapping of Western tourists in five days.
Prime Minister Abd al-Qadir Ba Jamal also said that more troops had been sent to the Sirwah mountains, where gunmen of the Zaydi tribe kidnapped three Italian women and two male compatriots on Sunday.
GAZA CITY -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas raised the possibility that this month's Palestinian elections could be delayed, saying they would not take place if Israel barred voting in Arab East Jerusalem.
Increased violence has intensified calls from Abbas's Fatah movement to put off the Jan. 25 vote for parliament, in which the ruling party faces a strong challenge from Hamas militants.
In the latest violence, Israel killed two Islamic Jihad militants in the northern Gaza Strip in a missile strike on their car.
