WESTERN EUROPE

SPAIN LEGALIZES GAY MARRIAGE, BECOMES THIRD COUNTRY TO DO SO

MADRID, Spain – Parliament legalized gay marriage yesterday, defying conservatives and clergy who opposed making traditionally Roman Catholic Spain the third country to allow same-sex unions nationwide. Jubilant gay activists blew kisses to lawmakers after the vote.

The measure passed the 350-seat Congress of Deputies by a vote of 187-147. The bill, part of the ruling Socialists’ aggressive agenda for social reform, also lets gay couples adopt children and inherit each others’ property.

The bill is now law.The Senate, where conservatives hold the largest number of seats, rejected the bill last week. But it is an advisory body and final say on legislation rests with the Congress of Deputies.

Opposition conservatives said they will consider challenging the law before Spain’s highest tribunal, the Constitutional Court.

The Spanish Bishops Conference criticized the new law and urged resistance to it. The group said the bill, along with another passed Wednesday making it easier for Spaniards to divorce, mean that “marriage, understood as the union of a man and a woman, is no longer provided for in our laws.”

– Associated Press

BUSH: ADHERING TO K YOTO TRE AT Y WOULD HAVE ‘WRECKED’ ECONOMY

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – President Bush said in a Danish TV interview aired yesterday that adhering to the Kyoto treaty on climate change would have “wrecked” the American economy, and he called American dependence on Gulf oil a “national security problem.”

“I couldn’t in good faith have signed Kyoto,” Mr. Bush told the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, noting that the treaty did not include other nations – including India and China – that he called “big polluters.”

In Mr. Bush’s view, the Kyoto treaty’s mandatory limits also would not ensure that climate risks would be addressed unless countries like China also make emission cuts.

He also says more study is needed to determine whether human activity is primarily to blame for rising temperatures.

The interview was recorded Wednesday at the White House. Mr. Bush will visit Denmark next week before going to a G-8 summit in Scotland.

Prime Minister Blair plans to make cutting greenhouse gas emissions a key theme at the G-8 meeting. On Wednesday, Mr. Blair told the Associated Press it was not possible to persuade America to implement the Kyoto Protocol.

– Associated Press

NORTH AMERICA

BUSH ADMINISTRATION FREEZES ASSETS OF TWO SYRIAN OFFICIALS

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration, turning up the heat on Syria, acted yesterday to block the financial assets of the country’s interior minister and its chief of military intelligence for Lebanon.

The Treasury Department believes the Syrians have played lead roles in directing their country’s military presence in Lebanon.

The action against Syria’s minister of interior, Ghazi Kanaan, and the chief of Syrian Military Intelligence for Lebanon, Rustum Ghazali, means that any assets belonging to these men found in America will be frozen. Americans also are prohibited from doing business with them.

The power for the department to take the action stems from a May 11, 2004, executive order by President Bush. Yesterday’s designations targeting the two Syrians were the first under that order, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, Molly Millerwise, said.

Syria’s official news agency, SANA, quoted a government press official as saying the action was an attempt to escalate political pressure on Syria and divert attention from what Syria described as Israeli aggression in southern Lebanon.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAELI SOLDIERS STORM HOTEL, REMOVE DOZENS OF SETTLERS

PALM BEACH HOTEL, Gaza Strip – Israeli forces stormed a Gaza Strip hotel yesterday where dozens of Jewish squatters were holed up to disrupt this summer’s Israeli withdrawal, in a quick operation that could serve as a blueprint for the pullout itself.

Struggling and shouting as soldiers lifted them from the floor of the hotel dining room and carried them outside, the squatters quickly surrendered to the overwhelming numbers of security forces.

“You’re expelling Jews like the Germans, like the Russians,” a West Bank settler, Nadia Matar, shouted at the soldiers, who ignored her as TV cameras rolled. The squatters, including well-known West Bank settlers repeatedly arrested for harassing Palestinian Arabs and soldiers, had insisted they would never be taken out alive, but the evacuation took only a few minutes and no shots were fired. Police with clubs hauled the protesters out as armed soldiers ringed the compound.

– Associated Press

EASTERN EUROPE

CHINA, RUSSIA STRENGTHEN TIES IN PACT TO OPPOSE AMERICA

MOSCOW – President Hu of China visited Russia yesterday and is expected to bolster ties with Beijing’s former rival in hopes of quadrupling their trade turnover to up to $80 billion a year by 2010.

“Sustainable and long-term development of bilateral relations and the eternal friendship between peoples meets the fundamental interests of both countries and serves peace, stability, and prosperity in the world at large,” Mr. Hu was quoted as saying upon arrival in Moscow by the Interfax news agency.

Mr. Hu’s trip reflects the strategic importance Beijing places on ties with its giant neighbor. He said his talks with President Putin would likely “push our relations of strategic partnership forward,” according to an interview carried by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Messrs. Hu and Putin were to sign a declaration reaffirming their nations’ call for respecting international law and establishing a stronger U.N. role internationally, a Kremlin official said on condition of anonymity.

After decades of rivalry, Moscow and Beijing have developed what they call a strategic partnership since the 1991 Soviet collapse. They have pledged their adherence to a “multipolar world,” a term referring to their opposition to the perceived domination of America in global affairs.

– Associated Press