WESTERN EUROPE

BRITAIN SECRETLY HELPED LAUNCH ISRAELI NUCLEAR PROGRAM

LONDON — Britain helped launch Israel’s nuclear program in 1959 by secretly selling Israel 20 tons of heavy water, a key ingredient in making atomic bombs, newly declassified documents suggest.

British officials involved were at pains to avoid telling Washington about the secret deal, according to the papers made available on yesterday to the Associated Press by the National Archive in London.

“On the whole I would prefer NOT to mention this to the Americans,” a Foreign Office official, Donald Cape, wrote in an official paper at the time, the documents showed.

The BBC’s “Newsnight” program, broadcast late Wednesday, first reported that government papers held at the archive showed Britain shipped the heavy water to Israel in 1959. A spokesman for Britain’s Foreign Office declined to comment on the transaction, saying he had not seen the documents.

The revelation is potentially embarrassing for the British government at a time when London is heavily engaged with its E.U. partners in trying to persuade Iran — a nation hostile to Israel — to give up its nuclear ambitions.

The declassified documents show that in 1959, British officials did not believe that Israel was capable of building an atomic device.

Israel has said its Dimona reactor in the southern Negev desert is used only for peaceful purposes, and nuclear experts said yesterday that heavy water can also be used for civilian purposes. Heavy water, also known as deuterium, is used both as a reactor coolant and as a moderator in turning natural uranium into weapons-grade plutonium. Israel, which at the time had also received smaller amounts of heavy water from France and Norway for its facility at Dimona, has always refused to confirm reports that it had built up a nuclear arsenal consisting of several hundred warheads.

— Associated Press

EAST ASIA

AMERICAN ENVOY SAYS N. KOREA IS HOLDOUT AT TALKS

BEIJING — Diplomats seeking a basic agreement on nuclear disarmament of North Korea decided yesterday to soldier on with more talks despite fundamental differences that have left them deadlocked after 10 days of grueling negotiations.

The assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and chief American delegate, Christopher Hill, said an accord proposed by China to govern dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear programs has been accepted by five of the six nations involved in the talks: America, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China. The holdout, he told reporters, is North Korea itself.

“We want to denuclearize the Korean peninsula but we seek peaceful use,” North Korea’s chief negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, told reporters in Beijing.

“All countries in the world have the right to peaceful nuclear activities,”he said. “We are not a defeated nation in war and we have committed no crime, so why should we not be able to conduct peaceful nuclear activities?”

Nevertheless, Mr. Hill said, delegation heads who met yesterday evening resolved to keep trying to whittle away differences for another day or so. At the same time, he added, America is insisting on clarity, leaving no room for diplomatic ambiguity or papering over disagreements.

“We cannot have a situation where the North Koreans pretend to abandon their nuclear weapons and where we pretend to believe them,” he said.

— The Washington Post

LEADER THREATENS TO DISBAND PARLIAMENT OVER POSTAL SERVICE

TOKYO — Postal reform sounds like an unlikely issue to stake a government on, but Prime Minister Koizumi did just that yesterday by warning he will disband parliament and call a general election if his reform package is rejected.

Mr. Koizumi has been pushing privatization of Japan’s sprawling postal savings system for years. It was a central plank in his platform when he became prime minister in 2001 and has been featured in major speeches since.

The ramifications for the world’s second-largest economy are pivotal: Japan Post is in effect the world’s largest bank, with $2.9 trillion in savings and insurance deposits.

Mr. Koizumi had hoped for a vote on privatization by Friday, but his ruling Liberal Democratic Party is now aiming for Monday amid resistance from a unified opposition and some members of his own party, news reports said. Mr. Koizumi argues the reform is needed to make the enormous pot of money in the postal service open to more efficient investment, providing a jump-start to a country that is only now emerging fitfully from a lengthy slowdown triggered by the bursting of the 1980s “bubble economy.” The legislation would privatize Japan Post by 2017.

Mr. Koizumi suggested that a failure of the package could lead him to dissolve the powerful lower house of parliament. “If the bill is passed, then the house won’t have to be dissolved,” he told reporters yesterday.

Opponents argue that privatization will reduce postal services in rural areas and lead to layoffs among the 400,000 postal-system workers. They also say the new bank created will drive private financial institutions out of business.

— Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

AMERICAN COMPANY AND EXECUTIVE ON TRIAL IN INDONESIA

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The world’s largest gold mining producer and its top American executive in Indonesia go on trial Friday for allegedly dumping toxins into a bay and sickening villagers.

Analysts say the case against Newmont Mining will test the cash-strapped government’s ability to attract foreign investment while cracking down on environmental crimes.

The Denver-based company and Richard Ness, president and director of its local subsidiary, Newmont Minahasa Raya, insist they will be cleared of charges that they intentionally or negligently engaged in acts that resulted in pollution. They say a police report showing high levels of mercury and arsenic in the Buyat Bay on Sulawesi island is flawed.

“We have not done anything wrong,” said Mr. Ness, 55, who faces a 10-year prison sentence if convicted. “I am very confident … we will be exonerated.”

Newmont faces a string of pollution accusations growing out of the company’s operations on five continents. But it is the first time the world’s largest gold miner has faced criminal charges for environmental problems and one of the few times Indonesia has dared take a multinational company to court.

Newmont began operations in Sulawesi in 1996, and stopped mining two years ago after extracting all the gold it could.

But it continued processing ore until August 31, 2004, when the mine was permanently shut. The trial in the North Sulawesi capital of Manado, 1,300 miles northeast of Jakarta, could take several weeks.

— Associated Press

CARIBBEAN

CUBAN TEENAGERS DISCOVER SUNKEN AMERICAN SHIP

HAVANA — Two teenagers swimming in seas off the eastern Cuban city of Santiago discovered a sunken American ship from the late 19th century, possibly a remnant of the Spanish-American War, a maritime expert said yesterday.

Bronze nails, chains, and old-fashioned containers were among artifacts inside the ship, director of Santiago de Cuba’s Investigative Center of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, Nicasio Vina, said.

“The teenagers got in touch with our institution and we were able to verify the find: a 32.5-meter [106-foot] boat, the remains of which were uncovered during the recent passing of Hurricane Dennis,” Mr.Vina said in a telephone interview from Santiago, about 500 miles east of Havana.

The teenagers made the discovery near Siboney beach, 10 miles south of Santiago, an area used by American troops during the Spanish-American War.

— Associated Press

NORTH AMERICA

GLIDER FLIERS TO TRACK BUTTERFLY MIGRATION

MEXICO CITY — The annual arrival of millions of Monarch butterflies from the forests of eastern Canada to the central Mexican mountains for the winter is an aesthetic and scientific wonder. And this year, they won’t be flying alone.

A crew of two plans to accompany the butterflies on their 3,415 mile-journey while riding in an oversize hang-glider painted with giant versions of the orange, black, and white wings of the Monarch. Mexican pilot Francisco “Vico” Gutierrez and a crew including other pilots from Canada, America, and Mexico plan to leave Quebec on August 15 for the trip.

The ultra-light plane, which will be propelled by a tiny motor, will track every part of the winter migration.The route will take them to Montreal and Toronto in Canada and south across America with stops at Niagara Falls, N.Y.; New York City; Washington, D.C.; Lawrence, Kan.; Oklahoma City; Austin, Texas, and Eagle Pass on the Mexican border.

The trip is scheduled to an end on November 2, in Valle Del Bravo, close to the forests where the butterflies winter in Michoacan state. It is sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund of Mexico, the government of Michoacan, and Gutierrez himself.

The project is dubbed Papalotzin, a word from the ancient Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs that roughly translates to small butterfly.

— Associated Press