MIDDLE EAST

ISRAELIS THREATEN MILITARY RESPONSE TO PALESTINIAN MORTAR FIRE

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A four-month-old truce frayed yesterday as Palestinian Arab terrorists fired mortars and rockets at Jewish targets for a second straight day and Israeli security chiefs threatened retaliation.

Senior Palestinian Arab and Israeli officials met to try to defuse the escalating violence and protect a cease-fire agreement seen as a key to renewing peace negotiations. Dozens of projectiles fell on Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, and a mortar shell exploded at an Israeli army base just outside Gaza, causing some damage but no injuries. Two rockets hit the Karni crossing point into Israel, the military said. After nightfall, a rocket landed in the yard of a house in Sderot, an Israeli town just outside Gaza, but did not explode.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz called military commanders in for consultations, and participants reported that he warned that Israel could resume targeting anyone who was seen about to fire mortars – as it did Wednesday, killing a Hamas member.

Such raids would likely trigger further violence by Hamas, which claims the right to retaliate for Israeli strikes, and a tit-for-tat escalation could shred the truce that has significantly reduced bloodshed since February 8.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL ASIA

SIX AFGHANS KILLED IN ATTACK ON EMPLOYEES OF U.S.-FUNDED PROJECT

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Gunmen shot and killed six Afghans in an ambush on a major highway in the country’s troubled south yesterday, the second fatal attack in two days on employees of an American-funded anti-drug project, officials said.

The company managing the project said it was withdrawing employees from southern Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.

The victims were transporting the body of one of five victims in the earlier assault to the capital, Kabul, for a funeral when militants stopped their vehicle and shot everyone in the head, a doctor in the town of Qalat, where the bodies were taken, Naik Mohammed, said.

The killings are the latest spasm of violence in a region prone to drug traffickers and insurgents. The assaults, along with the kidnapping of an Italian aid worker this week in Kabul, have raised fears that tactics used in Iraq may be copied here.

Also in the country’s south, two American soldiers were slightly wounded when a bomb exploded near their vehicle, the American military said.

Two of the Afghans killed in yesterday’s attack and all five killed Wednesday were believed to be employees of Chemonics International Incorporated, a Washington-based consulting firm. Two others killed Thursday were relatives of one of Wednesday’s victims, and the remaining two were drivers.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL AMERICA

EASTERN PACIFIC HURRICANE THREATENS CENTRAL AMERICA

Salvadoran officials evacuated 10,000 people and closed schools yesterday as the eastern Pacific’s first hurricane of the season threatened the impoverished Central American nation and neighboring Guatemala. Both countries declared emergencies as the storm gained force and headed for their coastlines, carrying heavy rains that forecasters warned could cause flooding.

Forecasters said Adrian was only about 35 miles from the Salvadoran coast, and would likely hit land last night. President Saca appealed to his citizens to obey evacuation requests as the country faced what was believed to be its first hurricane. “We understand that they are guarding their belongings, but lives are worth more than anything,” he told Radio La Chevere.

In Puerto La Libertad, the beach resort and seafood center closest to San Salvador, streets were nearly deserted as rains sprayed across an increasingly agitated surf and waves pounded the pier.

“You can feel the concern because we have never had anything like this,” a seafood vendor, Marco Antonio Hernandez, said.

– Associated Press

SOUTHERN AFRICA

U.N. ENVOY GOES TO ZIMBABWE TO DISCUSS REFORMS

HARARE, Zimbabwe – A U.N. envoy went to Zimbabwe for talks with President Mugabe yesterday amid signs the economically distressed African nation was dropping its opposition to food aid as long as it came without any political conditions attached.

The state-owned Herald newspaper reported Wednesday that Mr. Mugabe had told U.N. Secretary-General Annan the country would accept food assistance if it is not linked to political demands.

There were new indications of Zimbabwe’s economic hardship yesterday. The central bank announced a 45% devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar, a ban on luxury imports, and heavy subsidies for agriculture and exporters to try to end an economic crisis that has seen mass arrests of black-market traders, long lines for gasoline, and stampedes for scarce foods.

With an estimated 5 million Zimbabweans now admittedly in urgent need of food aid, Mr. Mugabe has agreed to meet World Food Program chief James Morris, who is due to visit the country next week, Mr. Mugabe’s press secretary, George Charamba, was quoted as telling the Herald.

“The Zimbabwean government is clear that the primary responsibility of ensuring that Zimbabweans are provided with food is its own,” Mr. Charamba said.

– Associated Press

SOUTH AMERICA

DESTRUCTION OF AMAZON RAIN FOREST AT 10-YEAR HIGH

RIO DE JANEIRO – The destruction of the Amazon rainforest reached its highest level for a decade last year, with the equivalent of six soccer fields being flattened every day.

The destruction was nearly 6% higher than the previous year, according to figures released by the Brazilian government.

Satellite photographs and other data showed that ranchers, soybean farmers, and loggers burned and cut down more than 10,000 square miles of rain forest in the 12 months prior to August 2004. Deforestation hit a record in 1995 when the Amazon shrank by 11,200 square miles, an area almost as big as Belgium.

Environmental activists say this year’s clearing means that 17.3% of the Amazon has now been flattened. “It’s absolutely scandalous,” the coordinator of public policies for the World Wildlife Fund Brazil, Nurit Bensusan, said. “This government hasn’t even managed to slow the destruction; it’s getting worse.” The devastation is a huge embarrassment to the president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former socialist who came to power in January 2003, promising to put a brake on forest clearing.

– The Daily Telegraph