PERSIAN GULF

RUMSFELD HINTS AT START OF TROOP REDUCTIONS IN IRAQ

BAGHDAD, Iraq – America soon will trim its military force in Iraq to slightly below 138,000 troops, the level it has considered its core force this year, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other American officials hinted yesterday.

The cuts, probably in the 5,000 to 7,000 range, would be achieved by canceling the planned deployment to Iraq of two Army brigades and could be announced as early as Friday, officials said.

The reduction would bring the troop level in the insurgency-torn country to just above 130,000 sometime in the spring, said one Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because an announcement was not yet finalized.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL KILLS 3 PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS; PALESTINIANS STEP UP ATTACKS

NABLUS, West Bank – Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian Arab terrorists during an arrest raid yesterday in the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses and the military said. Hours later, terrorists in the Gaza Strip launched a homemade rocket into an Israeli military base, wounding five soldiers, the army said. Israel responded with an artillery barrage into Gaza that Palestinian Arab officials said killed one Palestinian. Israeli officials also threatened further unprecedented retaliation but would not elaborate.

Soldiers entered Nablus early yesterday in pursuit of wanted men and opened fire on a four-story building where terrorists were holed up, the military said. One wanted man and two associates were shot as they tried to escape, it said.

Witnesses identified one of the dead men as the Nablus leader of the small Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Bashar Hanani. The other two men shot were Anas Al-Sheikh and Ahmed Jiyousi, both members of a militant faction linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah Party, the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

POLICE CHARGE MAN IN CONNECTION WITH FAILED LONDON BOMBINGS

LONDON – Police investigating the failed July 21 London bombings charged a man yesterday with conspiracy to cause explosions. Metropolitan Police identified the man as Adel Yahya, 23, and said he had been charged with conspiring with four other men, who are awaiting trial over the plot to attack three subway trains and a double-decker bus in the British capital.

– Associated Press

ITALIAN PROSECUTORS INVESTIGATE AMERICAN SOLDIER IN KILLING IN IRAQ

ROME – An American soldier is being investigated for his alleged role in the March killing in Baghdad of an Italian secret service agent, who had just secured the release of a journalist held hostage, a prosecutor and news reports said yesterday.

Rome prosecutors are investigating the March 4 death of Nicola Calipari, who was killed by American gunfire near a checkpoint as he headed to the Baghdad airport with Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who was held hostage by militants for a month. Prosecutor Franco Ionta confirmed reports in Italian news agencies ANSA and Apcom that the soldier is being investigated, but he refused to discuss details.

– Associated Press

COURT DISMISSES POPE FROM SEX ABUSE CASE

VATICAN CITY – An American judge in Texas dismissed Pope Benedict XVI from a civil lawsuit accusing him of conspiracy to cover up the sexual abuse of minors by a seminarian, ruling yesterday that the pontiff has immunity as a head of state.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal cited a motion filed by the Justice Department, known as a “Suggestion of Immunity,” in which the government said allowing the lawsuit to proceed would be “incompatible with the United States’ foreign policy interests.”

– Associated Press

AUSTRIAN WITH HITLER OATH ON VOICEMAIL GETS MORE TIME IN PRISON

VIENNA, Austria – An Austrian court added two months to the sentence of a convicted thief yesterday because he used an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler as a voice mail greeting on his cell phone. The 20-year-old defendant, whose name was withheld in accordance with privacy laws, was convicted by a court in the Alpine province of Tyrol, where police accidentally came across his phone message in 2004 when they called to question him about a burglary.

The defendant testified yesterday that the download was a “spontaneous act” and that he did not fully embrace the meaning of the oath. The man was sentenced to a year in prison for theft and fencing stolen goods, but the court tacked on two extra months for the voice mail greeting, invoking an Austrian law making Nazi propaganda a crime.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

RARE BIRD FLIES THOUSANDS OF MILES ACROSS ASIA IN SEARCH OF FOOD

BANGKOK, Thailand – A Christmas Island frigate bird named Lydia recently made a 26-day journey of about 2,500 miles – across Indonesian volcanoes and some of Asia’s busiest shipping lanes – in search of food for her baby.

The trip, tracked with a global positioning device by scientists at Christmas Island National Park, is by far the longest known nonstop journey by one of these endangered seabirds. Previously, the black-and-white scavengers with distinctive pink beaks and wingspans of up to 8 feet were known only to fly a few hundred miles from their nesting sites, staying away for just a few days at a time, officials said.

“It’s a real revelation,” said David James, coordinator of biodiversity monitoring for Christmas Island National Park, the birds’ only known breeding ground.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

JAPAN: CHINA POSES ‘CONSIDERABLE’ THREAT

BEIJING – Japan’s new foreign minister has awakened an old feud with China by attacking its lack of transparency and describing its increased military spending as a “threat.” Taro Aso said: “It’s a neighboring country with nuclear bombs, and its military expenditure has been on the rise for 12 years. It’s beginning to pose a considerable threat.”

Mr. Aso’s words drew an angry response from China, which has itself attacked Japan for its “militarism.” A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said: “As a foreign minister, to so irresponsibly incite such groundless rhetoric about a China threat, what is the purpose?”

– The Daily Telegraph

CHINESE PRIESTS FIGHT TO RECLAIM PROPERTY SEIZED BY COMMUNISTS

BEIJING – Dozens of Chinese Roman Catholic priests and nuns who have been barricaded for a week inside a building they claim they own promised not to move yesterday despite being beaten up during a protest over the property dispute. The attack on the members of the official Chinese Catholic Church in the city of Tianjin is the second such assault reported in recent weeks.

The group of 48 priests and two nuns arrived in Tianjin last week demanding that the government return two Western-style buildings on the harbor front that were seized in the 1949 Communist revolution. On Friday the group came under attack from a gang wielding iron bars. A priest was knocked unconscious, four others were injured and a nun was taken to hospital suffering from head injuries. One priest, Wu Liqiang, said “We are prepared in our hearts to be beaten again. We have agreed that we are not leaving until we get a solution to this problem.”

– The Daily Telegraph