Gaza Strip

Bomb suspect among 3 killed by Israelis

Israeli helicopters blasted a Gaza City building with missiles on Wednesday, killing a suspected militant, one of several violent incidents on a day also marked by Israeli statements about Palestinian statehood.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that as part of the U.S.-sponsored “road map” for Mideast peace, Palestinians could set up a temporary state in part of the West Bank and much of Gaza. But Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that even before peace talks, Palestinians would have to give up their demand to relocate millions of refugees in Israel.

In Gaza City, the pair of Israeli helicopters fired several missiles at a cinderblock hut used by security guards at a Palestinian government complex, killing the guard, Mustafa Sabah, 35, Palestinians said.

According to the Israeli army, Sabah was involved in three powerful roadside bomb attacks against Israeli tanks in Gaza that killed seven soldiers from February to September.

Haiti

General strike closes businesses, schools

Shops and schools were bolted shut Wednesday during a general strike called to protest President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s government a day after police and mobs broke up anti-government demonstrations.

Nearly 200 businesses, including banks and gas stations, closed in the capital of Port-au-Prince, while others in the northern provinces were shuttered in solidarity. Business leaders said other strikes would follow if government reforms weren’t made.

The call for the general strike came hours after whip-wielding Aristide partisans and police firing tear gas broke up anti-government demonstrations across the country Tuesday.

Pressure has been mounting on Aristide to step down, but he has refused. Parliamentary elections are slated for next year, but presidential elections aren’t scheduled until 2005. Some leaders say elections are impossible given the current political instability.

Kenya

Police detain three in bombing probe

Police investigating last week’s coordinated attacks on Israelis in Kenya questioned three more men Wednesday, including one who said he recently sold the four-wheel-drive vehicle used in a deadly hotel bombing.

Kenyan police detained two men Wednesday who witnesses said were near the Mombasa airport on Nov. 28 when a pair of surface-to-air missiles narrowly missed an Israeli charter flight ” minutes before the attack on the hotel.

The seller of the car, a Kenyan of Somali origin, was detained late Tuesday in Mombasa. He told police he sold the green Mitsubishi Pajero to “two Arab-looking young men,” who traded in a Toyota Corolla sedan and paid about $1,025, Deputy Police Commissioner William Langat said.

Langat insisted that none of those detained in the case so farhad been named as suspects. Authorities hope they might provide information that would lead to the actual culprits, he said.

Australia

Wildfires advance on Sydney outskirts

Thousands of firefighters battled through the night Wednesday to contain fires raging through suburban bush land on the outskirts of Sydney, destroying at least 25 homes.

Strong, hot winds blowing out of the drought-stricken Outback west of Sydney were forecast to continue today, and Australia’s most populous city braced for more devastation.

“The Bureau of Meteorology suggests that winds are going to get quite strong today which is going to cause very erratic fire behavior,” warned Phil Koperberg, commissioners of New South Wales state Rural Fire Service.

He said 3,000 firefighters would battle blazes today.