Jerusalem

Israeli-Palestinian couples split under law

Israel’s parliament passed a measure Thursday that would force Palestinians who marry Israelis to live separate lives or move out of Israel. The government said the law was necessary to prevent terror attacks, but critics called it racist.

The law, to be in effect for one year, will prevent Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who marry Israeli Arabs from obtaining residency permits in Israel.

In pushing the measure, Israel’s government cited instances in which Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza have exploited their residency permits — which grant them freedom of movement in Israel — to carry out terror attacks.

The vote was 53 in favor, 25 against and one abstention.

London

Broker wins bullying suit against executive

A former senior manager at the brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald International was awarded $1.45 million in damages Thursday because the company’s president regularly screamed obscenities at him.

The High Court’s award to Steven Horkulak, 39, actually will be closer to $1.6 million because of interest. Horkulak also was awarded legal costs.

Horkulak, a former senior managing director and head of global interest rate derivatives for Cantor Fitzgerald, claimed company president Lee Amaitis regularly screamed obscenities at him during a six-month period until Horkulak was dismissed in June 2000, several months before his employment contract expired.

The company said it would appeal.

One of the world’s leading brokerages, Cantor lost more than 600 of its employees in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s World Trade Center.

Malaysia

Government to change ‘electronic’ divorce law

Cell phone text messages, e-mails and faxes may be a boon to modern life, but they won’t be acceptable ways for Malaysian men to start Islamic divorces.

Reacting to an Islamic court’s recent ruling approving a divorce initiated with a husband’s text message to his wife, the government said Thursday it would tighten laws to bar the use of electronic messages in divorces.

Under Islamic law, a husband can get a divorce by declaring his intention to his wife and then repeating his desire before a religious law judge. The procedure for women is much more difficult.

Russia

Putin participates in Orthodox pilgrimage

President Vladimir Putin celebrated Russia’s spiritual history and its nuclear prowess Thursday, joining pilgrims in honoring a revered saint and meeting with scientists in a closed city at the core of the country’s weapons program.

Patriarch Alexy II warmly welcomed Putin to Sarov, about 250 miles east of Moscow, noting that the last Russian leader to join the Orthodox Church in honoring St. Seraphim of Sarov was Czar Nicholas II.

The celebration, part of four days of festivities, drew widespread attention throughout Russia, where the Orthodox church is dominant and has long been seeking to regain the prominent role it lost during Soviet times.

It also gave a rare glimpse behind the metal barricades and gun-toting guards that still keep Sarov off-limits to unauthorized visitors because it is home to a nuclear weapons plant.