WORLD IN BRIEF

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

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.

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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.

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish state prosecutors charged nine people, including a journalist who works for the Reuters news agency, with spreading propaganda on behalf of Kurdish separatists.

If found guilty, the nine, who include other journalists and human rights activists, face up to three years in jail.

ASIA

KATMANDU, Nepal -- Communist rebels in Nepal announced they would end a four-month cease-fire, saying they had to take up arms to defend themselves against government attacks.

Hours after their statement, a series of explosions rocked three towns in Nepal. No casualties were immediately reported.

BEIJING -- Censors have told Chinese media to stop discussing plagiarism claims against the Communist Party's star legal scholar, who is accused of copying parts of his new book from the writings of a once-jailed dissident.

Reporters and scholars involved said propaganda officials last week ordered no more reporting of the claims against Zhou Yezhong, a professor at Wuhan University in central China. Zhou reached the peak of official favor in December 2002, when he lectured Communist Party chief Hu Jintao and the Politburo, the party's inner circle, on constitutional law. His subsequent career has been marked with promotions and accolades.

The Americas

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's main rebel group ruled out a proposed prisoner exchange with the government while Alvaro Uribe is president.

The statement appeared aimed at hurting the hard-line leader's reelection bid. It also means that 60 hostages -- including politicians, military personnel and three American contractors -- could remain in captivity until at least 2010, when Uribe's term would end should he be reelected.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican officials called for an investigation into the death of a man they said was fatally shot while sneaking across the border into California.

Raul Martinez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in San Diego, acknowledged that an agent fired at an immigrant on Friday near a metal wall separating San Diego from Tijuana, saying the agent feared for his life after the man threw a large rock at him. Martinez said the man fled back into Mexico after the agent fired, and that U.S. investigators were unsure if the victim had been struck.

--From News Services