Jewish leader rebuffed over Gibson's 'Passion'

A Jewish leader met with Vatican officials this week to ask them to restate church teachings on the crucifixion, saying Mel Gibson's new film contradicts the church's position that the Jews as a people were not responsible for Jesus's death. A top Vatican official who met with Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said yesterday that no such statement was planned. US Archbishop John P. Foley, who heads the Vatican's social communications office, again praised the film, "The Passion of the Christ," and said he found nothing anti-Semitic in it." (AP)

SYRIA

Offer for peace talks said relayed to Israel

DAMASCUS -- Syria has sent messages to bitter foe Israel -- by way of Turkey -- offering to restart stalled peace talks, Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam said yesterday. The messages carried by Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul expressed "Syria's readiness to resume peace talks from where they broke off" in January 2000, Khaddam said. Israel has routinely rejected such offers, saying it would accept no preconditions. The message also said Syria was "still committed to the peace process in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions." (AP)

NETHERLANDS

Milosevic illness delays war tribunal hearings

AMSTERDAM -- The Hague war crimes tribunal canceled this week's hearings in Slobodan Milosevic's trial yesterday because he was ill, delaying the end of the prosecution's case until next week at the earliest. Prosecutors were to end their two-year-old case yesterday and today after calling more than 290 witnesses in what is regarded as Europe's most significant war crimes trial since leading Nazis were tried at Nuremberg after World War II. Milosevic, who has suffered from periodic bouts of high blood pressure, flu, and exhaustion, was to be examined by a doctor. (Reuters)

ZAMBIA

Labor unions strike in protest of tax hikes

LUSAKA -- Zambia's main labor unions launched their first national strike in 16 years yesterday, shutting banks and schools in a one-day protest against tax increases and a wage freeze aimed at mollifying foreign donors. Several thousand union members, many dressed in black, marched on parliament carrying signs and chanting slogans in the first major backlash against the government's austerity plan. The International Monetary Fund last year froze lending to Zambia, where about 80 percent of the 10 million population lives on less than $1 per day, because of the country's growing budget deficit. (Reuters)

GREECE

Special forces hold Olympic security drill

FLEVES -- Members of an elite Greek Navy unit held a security drill yesterday to prepare for the upcoming Olympics, the first exercise involving military troops. Unlike previous drills involving police forces, the military unit used live ammunition to create realistic conditions. Greece has said it will use all of its military resources to create an Olympic security umbrella that includes a 10,000-member protection and patrol unit for the Games, which are scheduled for Aug. 13-29. (AP)

FRANCE

Intellectuals assail cuts in arts, science funds

PARIS -- France's famed intellectual class is up in arms. Teachers, lawyers, filmmakers, doctors, philosophers, politicians, and researchers are lashing out against what they call the conservative government's "war on intelligentsia." More than 15,000 people signed an appeal published yesterday in the cultural weekly Les Inrockuptibles decrying state cutbacks in the arts and sciences. The French government is trying to trim costs to cut the public deficit, which is set to top 3 percent of gross domestic product for a third year running in 2004, a violation of European Union rules. (AP)