Four Palestinians Die In Factional Fighting

Monday, June 5, 2006

Four Palestinians Die In Factional Fighting

JERUSALEM -- At least four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were killed Sunday night in factional fighting between Fatah and Hamas gunmen. Among the dead, Gaza hospital officials said, were three armed men and the sister of one of them.

The clashes, which occurred in Khan Younis and Gaza City, followed word from advisers to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that he would give Hamas until Tuesday to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state on the land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war or face a nonbinding referendum on the issue. Hamas, a radical Islamic movement now running the Palestinian ministries, envisions a larger Palestinian state on land that now includes Israel.

Also Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to meet with Abbas in an effort to revive peace negotiations that have been dormant for years. Olmert made his comments after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. He did not specify a date for his summit with Abbas, which would be the first between Israeli and Palestinian leaders since June 2005.

Some Palestinian Authority employees, who have gone nearly three months without pay because of a freeze in international aid and in the transfer of Palestinian tax revenue by Israel following Hamas's election victory in January, began receiving a portion of their back wages on Sunday. Civil servants and members of the security forces who make $325 a month or less were given one month's salary in the form of interest-free loans from local banks. Most of the authority's more than 150,000 employees received nothing.

-- Scott Wilson

ASIA

· HANOI -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States wants to expand its military relationship with Vietnam but has no plans to seek access to military facilities in the former enemy nation.

Arriving in Hanoi days after the United States signed a trade agreement with Vietnam, Rumsfeld planned to meet with the U.S. military team involved in finding and identifying the remains of hundreds of U.S. servicemen still missing from the Vietnam War.

· KABUL, Afghanistan -- NATO will double the number of soldiers in southern Afghanistan when it takes over security there from U.S. troops next month, seeking to quash the worst rebel violence since the Taliban's ouster, said Lt. Gen. David Richards, the NATO force commander.

There was no letup in the fighting in the south. More than two dozen people were killed in weekend violence, including four in an attempt by a suicide car bomber to kill the governor of Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban militia.

· KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the release of three former cabinet ministers detained after the recent change in government.

· BEIJING -- Chinese police joined throngs of tourists in a crowded Tiananmen Square, heading off any incidents to mark the anniversary of the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations 17 years ago.

While no major protests were reported in China proper, organizers of an evening vigil in Hong Kong said 44,000 people showed up to sing and wave candles in memory of the victims of the crackdown. Police put the number at 19,000.

· BEIJING -- A Chinese military transport plane crashed Saturday in the eastern province of Anhui, killing all 40 aboard, the New China News Agency said on Sunday.

EUROPE

· LONDON -- Two brothers suspected of plotting to make a chemical bomb for an attack in Britain have denied all accusations, their attorneys said, as police continued to search their home.

The men, ages 23 and 20, were detained during a dawn raid Friday when more than 250 police officers, some in chemical protection suits, stormed their house in east London.

The 23-year-old was shot in the shoulder during the raid, one of the biggest operations since last July's suicide attacks in the British capital, although police said it was not related to those attacks.

AFRICA

· YENAGOA, Nigeria -- Nigerian militants released eight foreign workers kidnapped Friday from an oil platform 40 miles from the southeastern coast. Police involved in negotiating the release of the six Britons, one American and one Canadian, who looked tired but unharmed, would not say whether a ransom was paid.

· MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Militiamen loyal to Somalia's Islamic courts seized the strategic town of Balad, outside the capital, dislodging a key member of a warlord coalition in fierce fighting that left 18 people dead, officials and residents said.

-- From News Services