MIDDLE EAST

HAMAS LEADERS GATHER FOR TALKS

CAIRO, Egypt – Top Hamas leaders tried to find a formula for a new Palestinian government in talks yesterday with Egyptian officials, who stepped up pressure on the terrorist Islamic group to recognize Israel and renounce violence. A top Hamas official said the group would, for now, abide by past agreements that Palestinian Arab leaders made with Israel – but would not recognize the Jewish state. Hamas’s contradictory stance – those agreements include recognition – reflected its strained attempts to win the support of regional powerhouse Egypt, which signed a peace deal with Israel in 1979, and persuade Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to bring his more moderate Fatah party into a coalition government.

– Associated Press

SCHUMER BLASTS IRANIAN NEWSPAPER OVER HOLOCAUST CONTEST

Senator Schumer released a statement yesterday criticizing an Iranian newspaper for holding a Holocaust cartoon drawing contest. “The deranged logic that this cartoon contest represents shows how radical and backward the Iranian leadership really is and notifies the world that the Iranian regime cannot be trusted,” Mr. Schumer said in the statement.

Hamshahri, Iran’s largest selling newspaper, announced it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

– Special to the Sun

PERSIAN GULF

11 KILLED IN ATTACKS; SUNNI ARABS SLAIN IN SECTARIAN KILLINGS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen and roadside bombs killed at least 11 people across Iraq yesterday, while police found the bullet-riddled bodies of two men in the capital, the latest victims of sectarian killings. Angry Iraqis in the country’s south, meanwhile, threw stones and shot at Danish troops following the furor over publication of caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, a Danish military official said yesterday. No one was injured.

– Associated Press

CORRUPT IRAQ OFFICIALS ‘FUND REBELS’

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s insurgency is receiving millions of dollars from smuggling oil through a network of supporters working in its oil industry, the Baghdad government and American officials said. The finance minister, Ali Allawi, issued a statement estimating that 40-50% of all oil smuggling profits in the country were going to insurgents. Although no specific figures were given, industry experts said this would amount to tens of millions of dollars a year to be spent on weapons and financing fighters.

– The Daily Telegraph

YEMEN LOOKS AT INTELLIGENCE HELP FOR ESCAPED AL QAEDA CONVICTS

SAN’A, Yemen – Investigators are looking into the possibility that Yemeni intelligence officers helped 23 Al Qaeda prisoners – including a terrorist convicted in the 2000 USS Cole bombing – escape from an underground prison located beneath a heavily guarded security headquarters, officials said yesterday. The prisoners escaped Friday, apparently by digging a tunnel about 180 yards long that emerged at a mosque.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL ASIA

U.S. SERVICE MEMBER KILLED; AL QAEDA PLOT UNCOVERED

KABUL, Afghanistan – Militants attacked an American patrol in eastern Afghanistan yesterday and killed an American service member, while a suspected insurgent was killed and two policemen were wounded in a separate clash involving American forces, the military said. Security forces, meanwhile, thwarted a suspected Al Qaeda assassination attempt on a prominent provincial governor in northern Afghanistan, police said.

– Associated Press

CARIBBEAN

MULES DELIVER ELECTION MATERIALS ON EVE OF HAITI’S ELECTIONS

GONAIVES, Haiti – Mules carried ballots into the Haitian countryside yesterday to reach a remote village on the eve of elections aimed at putting the country’s democracy back on track. Hours before polls were to open today, thousands of U.N. peacekeepers fanned out to guard against attacks by heavily armed gangs, some of whom are loyal to a former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ousted in a rebellion two years ago.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL AMERICA

NOBEL LAUREATE, ECONOMIST IN CLOSE RACE

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Electoral officials sorted the last uncounted votes yesterday in Costa Rica’s surprisingly close presidential election between Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias and an economist critical of the country’s free trade pact with America.

Mr. Arias, a former president who helped end the bloody conflicts that wracked Central America in the 1980s, had the narrowest of leads over Otton Solis of the Citizens’ Action Party, an economist who contends the Central American Free Trade Agreement would hurt Costa Rican farmers and should be renegotiated.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

‘I HAVE A FACE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE,’ TRANSPLANT PATIENT SAYS

AMIENS, France – The Frenchwoman who received the world’s first partial face transplant showed off her new features yesterday. A 38-year-old mother of two, Isabelle Dinoire, spoke with a slur and had trouble moving her lips at her first news conference since the surgery in November. But said she was looking forward to resuming a normal life. She also thanked the family of the brain-dead female donor, who gave her new lips, a chin, and a nose.

– Associated Press

SARKOZY UNVEILS LAWS TO EXPEL FOREIGN WORKERS

PARIS – France’s interior minister and presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy, has unveiled tougher rules on immigration, making it easier to expel foreign workers or those refusing to integrate. The proposals included in a draft law, which Mr. Sarkozy will present to the cabinet on Thursday, aim to change the very nature of immigration into France. It calls for the creation of a points system for students and workers that gives them rankings depending on the country of origin and their field of work and study.

– The Daily Telegraph

GOVERNMENTS PURSUE DEAL TO REVIVE N. IRELAND POWER-SHARING

HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland – Negotiations to revive a Catholic-Protestant administration for Northern Ireland resumed yesterday after a 14-month hiatus caused by the IRA’s alleged robbery of a Belfast bank. The governments of Britain and Ireland, which jointly oversaw yesterday’s discussions, hope that such reconciliatory actions by the IRA will eventually permit Protestants to work again with the IRA-linked party that represents most of Northern Ireland’s Roman Catholic minority, Sinn Fein.

– Associated Press

NORTH AMERICA

NEW CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER VOWS TO IMPROVE TIES WITH AMERICA

TORONTO – Stephen Harper, who promises to mend Canada’s relations with America, was sworn in as the nation’s 22nd prime minister yesterday. The economist, 46, has pledged to cut taxes, clean up government corruption, and reconsider such hot button issues as gay marriage.

– Associated Press