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Sharon
approves U.S. envoy meeting with Arafat
NABLUS,
West Bank (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed
Thursday to permit a U.S. envoy to meet with besieged Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat, raising the promise of diplomatic activity
after President Bush demanded that Israel halt its weeklong military
offensive and pull out of Palestinian territory.
In
an attempt to end the escalating violence, Bush said in a speech
Thursday that he would send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the
region next week.
Fighting
continued in the West Bank, as Israeli troops took over Nablus,
fought intense battles with gunmen barricaded in refugee camps and
tightened a cordon around armed Palestinians holed up in Bethlehem’s
Church of the Nativity.
Earlier
this week, Sharon had turned down a request by Powell to grant permission
to U.S. mediator Anthony Zinni to hold talks with Arafat. For a
week, the Palestinian leader has been confined to a few rooms in
his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, and Sharon has
said he is determined to keep Arafat isolated.
Sharon
changed his mind after meeting with Zinni on Thursday, his office
said in a statement issued after Bush’s speech.
A senior
Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said Zinni would try to meet with Arafat on Friday.
Stabilization
of oil prices overcomes Iraq concerns
LONDON
(AP) — Oil prices stabilized Thursday in a fresh sign that
world markets were overcoming concerns that Iraq might halt its
crude oil shipments to countries that support Israel.
Fears
that Israel’s offensive against the Palestinians could further
destabilize the Middle East are still keeping crude prices well
above levels justified by demand for oil, analysts said.
OPEC
Secretary-general Ali Rodriguez echoed that view, saying the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries has no plans for now to increase
crude oil output. Rodriguez told the British Broadcasting Corp.
in Dubai that the recent spike in oil prices was the result of speculation
and “political uncertainties” rather than any change in
supply or demand.
“We
(OPEC) can’t increase supply if demand is as low as it is now,”
he said. “If we increase production, we could face a collapse
in oil prices.”
OPEC
pumps about a third of the world’s crude oil.
India’s
prime minister condemns sectarian clashes
AHMADABAD,
India (AP) — India’s prime minister on Thursday issued
his strongest condemnation yet of violence between Hindus and Muslims
in western India, calling for “an end to the heartbreak —
now.”
Addressing
some 10,000 Muslims at a refugee camp in Ahmadabad, commercial capital
of the western state of Gujarat, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
said that he hoped his words would put an end to nation’s worst
sectarian clashes in a decade.
At
least 818 people, mostly Muslims, have been killed since a Muslim
mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims in February, sparking
retaliatory rampages across the state by Hindus who burned Muslims
alive and destroyed their homes.
“There
should be an end to heartbreak — now,” Vajpayee said.
“We have to live together and die together.”
He
said that both the Feb. 27 train attack in the town of Godhra, which
killed 60 people, and subsequent reprisals were “equally shameful”
and should be condemned in the strongest terms.
New
violence erupted in the state Thursday. One person was killed and
three injured when police in the town of Modasa, 75 miles northwest
of Ahmadabad, opened fire to disperse Hindu and Muslim mobs who
attacked each other with knives and threw acid. Another five people
were hurt in the fighting.
Vajpayee,
who heads a Hindu-nationalist party, said his government was committed
to ensuring the safety and welfare of all Indians.
South
Korean envoy meets with North Korean leader
SEOUL,
South Korea (AP) — A South Korean presidential envoy met North
Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Thursday to urge the communist country
to ease tensions on the divided Korean peninsula by resuming dialogue
with the United States and South Korea.
Kim
Jong Il held a dinner for the envoy, Lim Dong-won, in the North
Korean capital, Pyongyang, said Kim Hong-je, a South Korean spokesman.
Lim
delivered a letter from South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and
“relayed President Kim’s proposal for peace and cooperation
between the two Koreas,” the spokesman told reporters in Seoul.
Before
leaving for North Korea, Lim said he was carrying a U.S. proposal
for Kim Jong Il to resume dialogue with Washington over the North’s
weapons of mass destruction.
It
was not clear whether and how Kim Jong Il responded to the offers.
Earlier Thursday, South Korean officials said Lim’s talks in
Pyongyang ran into difficulty as North Korea accused Seoul and Washington
of plotting to provoke a war on the divided Korean peninsula. Lim
arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday for three days of talks on easing
tensions.
Contacts
between the United States and North Korea, which expanded during
the last months of the Clinton administration, halted when President
Bush took office last year.
Atlantis
shuttle liftoff called off after hydrogen fuel leak
CAPE
CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A leak of hydrogen fuel at the launch
pad forced NASA to call off Thursday’s planned liftoff of shuttle
Atlantis on a space station construction mission.
Officials
said the leak occurred in a vent line outside the shuttle, at the
base of the launch platform. The super-cold, highly flammable fuel
could be seen in a NASA videotape, streaming out in large, white
clouds of gas and dissipating into the air.
The
fuel vapors escaped from a pipe that appeared to have broken or
come loose at a fitting.
No
one was right at the pad because the fueling operation is hazardous,
but an engineer spotted the leak on a video image, launch director
Mike Leinbach said. NASA immediately halted the fueling, about an
hour after it had begun. Atlantis’ huge external fuel tank
was less than 20 percent filled at the time.
Because
the leak will take time to repair, the earliest that a new launch
attempt could be made would likely be Sunday, Leinbach said. He
said he didn’t think the leak had created much of a danger.
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