Direct talks with Israel futile at this time, Palestinian leader Abbas says

Monday, July 12, 2010; A09

AFGHANISTAN

Government official, 11 policemen killed

Militant attacks in once-calm northern Afghanistan killed at least 11 police officers and a government official, whose car was hit by a remote-controlled bomb, officials said Sunday.

In the south, NATO said that a U.S. service member died Sunday after an insurgent attack and that a joint coalition and Afghan patrol killed a senior Taliban commander and a dozen other insurgents who were discovered planting a homemade bomb on a road.

Insurgents as well as coalition troops have escalated attacks across the country in recent months, as the NATO-led force pours in 30,000 more U.S. troops in a new push to break the Taliban's grip over their strongholds and establish stable Afghan governance.

International and Afghan commandos have been conducting near-nightly raids to capture or kill insurgents, while the Taliban has launched attacks on army bases and local officials and planted thousands of roadside bombs.

Insurgents in Kunduz province overran a checkpoint near the northern border with Tajikistan on Saturday, killing at least six of the nine border police officers stationed there, provincial deputy police chief Abdul Rahman Aqtash said.

-- Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

Abbas: No point now in direct negotiations

The Palestinian Authority president, who is under U.S. pressure to resume direct talks with Israel, said that doing so under the current circumstances would be pointless.

Mahmoud Abbas sounded determined not to return to the table unless Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commits to an internationally mandated settlement freeze and agrees to pick up talks where they had left off under the Israeli leader's predecessor in December 2008.

Netanyahu has not agreed to either demand and has curbed, but not frozen, settlement activity. He insists that negotiations be held without any preconditions.

Later this week, White House envoy George J. Mitchell is to meet with Abbas and is expected to detail some gestures that Israel is prepared to make to bring the Palestinian leader back to the table, an Abbas aide said.

Abbas said in a speech late Saturday that he has no incentive to resume direct talks.

In another development, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said a peace accord should be based on "population exchanges, not land for peace." The Palestinians claim the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem for a state, but they have indicated readiness to swap some land in the West Bank for territory in Israel.

Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Arab lawmaker, called Lieberman's proposal "fascist." Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel's population.

-- Associated Press

IRAN

Woman's stoning is postponed

The controversial sentence of death by stoning for an Iranian woman convicted of adultery will not be implemented for now, a judicial official said Sunday.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the top judicial official in the province where the mother of two was convicted, told the Iranian state news agency that the crimes were "various and very serious" and not limited to adultery but that the sentence "will not be implemented for the time being." He added that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's stoning will still take place if the judiciary wants, despite "propaganda" by the West.

-- Associated Press

CHINA

Google license renewal confirmed

China confirmed Sunday that it had renewed Google's license to operate after a months-long standoff over Internet censorship, saying the company had pledged that it would not provide "lawbreaking content." The California-based Internet giant said Friday that it had received approval to operate in the world's most populous country after it agreed to stop automatically rerouting users of Google.cn to its site in Hong Kong, which is not subject to China's censorship.

The company began the rerouting this year when it decided to stop censoring its search results on the mainland site.

-- Associated Press

'Barefoot bandit' captured in Bahamas: The teenage fugitive known as the "Barefoot Bandit" and accused of stealing cars, boats and airplanes to dodge U.S. law enforcement was caught Sunday in the Bahamas as he tried to make a water escape. He was then brought handcuffed -- and shoeless -- to the capital to face justice. Colton Harris-Moore, who had been on the lam for two years, was arrested before dawn on northern Eleuthera island.

Aid ship no longer bound for Gaza: A ship commissioned by a Libyan charity has left Greece headed for the Egyptian port of al-Arish, not for the Gaza Strip, as originally planned, according to Greek authorities. The Amalthea's trip comes more than a month after Israeli commandos boarded a Gaza-bound aid ship, killing eight Turks and a Turkish American.

French minister cleared in tax probe: A French financial inspection agency said Sunday that a beleaguered government minister did not intervene in the tax affairs of the heiress to the L'Oreal beauty empire, who is at the center of a snowballing scandal that has destabilized the country's government. Labor Minister Eric Woerth still faces pointed questions about the multifaceted scandal and about his links to the 87-year-old heiress, Liliane Bettencourt.

-- From news services