Berlin

Delegates discuss surge in anti-Semitism

Western governments pledged Wednesday to redouble efforts to protect Jews as a 55-nation meeting heard Nazi death camp survivor Elie Wiesel warn of the spreading “disease” of anti-Semitism.

Foreign ministers from Germany, Britain and other European countries conceded on the conference’s first day that combating anti-Semitism requires a fresh push to educate young people about the Holocaust and punish perpetrators of hate crimes.

The most emotional appeal came from Wiesel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

“Stop! Stop a disease that has lasted so long,” he implored delegates.

Two reports issued this week found that anti-Semitic attacks are increasing worldwide, with France, the United Kingdom, Russia and Germany joining Canada as the countries with the largest number of cases.

Thailand

Fighting blamed on Iraq war stance

A heap of bodies in a bullet-scarred mosque attested to a sharp and sudden upsurge of separatist violence Wednesday in Thailand’s Muslim south. While the prime minister said the issues were local, some tied the clashes to the country’s support for the war in Iraq.

Police said they shot and killed 107 Islamic fighters, including 32 inside the mosque, after repelling near simultaneous attacks by hundreds of militants.

The violence began when the militants, mostly teenagers, stormed about 15 police stations and government buildings in three provinces.

Three policemen and two soldiers were killed, and 17 militants arrested during the predawn attacks in Yala, Pattani and Songkhla provinces, officials said.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the outcome would help end an Islamic insurgency that has simmered for decades in this Buddhist nation’s impoverished south.

Iran

Judiciary chief bans torture in interrogations

Iran’s judiciary chief Wednesday ordered a ban on the use of torture for obtaining confessions — a move widely seen as the first public acknowledgment of the practice in the country.

“Any kind of torture of the accused to obtain confessions is banned and confessions extracted through torture will not be religiously or legally legitimate,” Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said in a statement addressed to interrogators and other judicial officials.

The statement, posted on the Web site of Iran’s judiciary, added that concealing the whereabouts of detainees and blindfolding them will also be banned.

Shahroudi’s decision is aimed at “preserving human values and civil rights,” a report on the Web site said.

Macedonia

PM wins election; opponent declares fraud

Macedonia’s liberal prime minister won presidential elections Wednesday, pledging to help keep the ethnically troubled Balkan country at peace. But his conservative opponent claimed voter fraud and demanded the ballot be annulled.

With virtually all of the ballots counted, Branko Crvenkovski received 62 percent, the state electoral commission said early today.

Crvenkovski replaces Boris Trajkovski, a highly respected politician who died in a February airplane crash in Bosnia.

His opponent, right-wing opposition candidate Sasko Kedev — a U.S.-educated doctor with little background in politics — had 37 percent, the commission said.

Crvenkovski’s ruling Social Democrat party dismissed the claim, saying the elections were democratic. Kedev’s angry crowds started gathering in the capital to protest; opposing groups sporadically skirmished, but there were no major incidents.

Colombia

School bus crushed, killing at least 21

A construction crew’s backhoe tumbled down a steep hillside onto a major highway Wednesday and crushed a school bus, killing at least 21 children and two adults, and injuring 36 children, officials said.

The backhoe was being towed along a section of road higher up the hill when it rolled off a ledge and plunged nearly 70 feet before crushing the bus on the highway below, said Claudia Cubillos, a spokeswoman for the Bogota Health Ministry, which oversees rescue efforts.

Mayor Luis Eduardo Garzon sped to the scene of the accident by motorbike to show solidarity with the victims and their families.

“This is a dramatic, terrible tragedy,” Garzon told reporters at the scene of the crash.

The children aboard the bus ranged in age from 7 and 12.

Gaza Strip

Large bomb explodes at police chief’s house

A large bomb went off early today at the house of Gaza police chief Ghazi Jabali shortly after he left the site, witnesses said.

No one was hurt in the 2:30 a.m. blast, but there was considerable damage at the house in the Rimal district of Gaza, they said.

The explosive appeared be detonated by remote control. Witnesses said they found an 80-foot-long wire leading from the scene of the blast, attached to a switch. They said all avenues were being checked.

It was not immediately known who planted the bomb. Jabali was not available for comment.

The Israeli military said it had no role in the blast, and Palestinian police investigators did not name Israel among the possible suspects.