Assad: Peace offers submitted to Israel

September 5, 2008

BEIRUT - President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said yesterday that his country had made specific proposals for peace with Israel to Turkish mediators, but that the latest round of indirect negotiations between the two states had been postponed because of internal Israeli politics and that the outcome would depend on who becomes Israel's next prime minister in upcoming elections there. Assad spoke at a news conference in Damascus alongside the leaders of France, Turkey, and Qatar, in a televised appearance seemingly designed to underscore Syria's efforts to emerge from US-led efforts to isolate it diplomatically. (New York Times News Service)

HAVANA - Two prominent Cuban dissidents have asked President Bush to temporarily loosen restrictions on travel and sending money to the communist-run island to help tens of thousands left homeless by Hurricane Gustav. Marta Beatriz Roque and Vladimiro Roca signed a Spanish-language letter to Bush that they delivered to the US Interests Section in Havana on Wednesday. Officials at the mission, which Washington maintains here instead of an embassy, said they passed it along to the White House. About 100,000 homes nationwide were damaged. (AP)

BEIJING - An Asian elephant that became addicted to heroin at the hands of illegal traders will return home after a three-year rehab program, Chinese state media said yesterday. Xiguang, a 4-year-old male Asian elephant, became addicted after he was captured by smugglers along the Chinese-Burmese border in March 2005. The traders fed the elephant bananas laced with heroin as bait and to pacify the creature, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Xiguang received daily methadone injections in doses five times larger than those given to a human and has now fully recovered, Xinhua said. (AP)