Indonesia

Police re-arrest cleric

Police re-arrested a militant cleric Friday who allegedly heads the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group, whisking him away for questioning about a series of deadly bombings.

Abu Bakar Bashir’s renewed detention set off a clash between police and about 300 supporters, who gathered outside Jakarta’s Salemba prison before daybreak.

The protesters threw rocks and bottles at police in riot gear, who responded with water canon and tear gas. Several people, including at least one officer and two journalists, sustained minor injuries. There were no immediate reports of protesters being arrested.

Berlin

Nations vow to combat anti-Semitism, hate

Western nations pledged Thursday to fight “new forms” of anti-Semitism, rejecting any attempt to use the strife in the Middle East as a justification for hate crimes against Jews.

Meeting in the city from where the Nazis directed their campaign to annihilate Europe’s Jews, governments of 55 countries unanimously adopted a declaration that condemned “all attacks motivated by anti-Semitism or by any other forms of religious or racial hatred or intolerance, including attacks against synagogues and other religious places, sites and shrines.”

Delegates and Jewish organizations welcomed the “Berlin Declaration” by the two-day meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as a strong, timely denunciation of a recent surge in attacks on Jews in Europe and North America.

South Korea

N. Korean nuclear talks to convene May 12

The six nations negotiating the North Korean nuclear standoff will lay the groundwork for another round of talks at low-level meetings next month in Beijing, South Korea and China said Thursday.

Word of the apparent breakthrough came as North Korea repeated demands for aid in return for freezing its nuclear program, and a newspaper reported that the United States was prepared to upgrade its estimate of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal to at least eight atomic weapons. The United States has said the North had “possibly two” weapons.

But American and South Korean officials on Thursday denied that there were new estimates.

BEIJING

China confirms two more SARS cases

As China confirmed two more SARS cases Thursday, the World Health Organization called for reducing the number of virus samples around the globe to prevent laboratory infections like the one apparently responsible for China’s latest outbreak.

The mother and aunt of an infected nurse are the latest confirmed SARS cases, the Ministry of Health said. They previously were listed as suspected cases and already were being quarantined before Thursday’s announcement, which brought China’s number of cases in the mini-outbreak to four confirmed and five suspected.

Quarantines continued for about 1,000 people who came into contact with the confirmed SARS cases, official media said.

In Taiwan, meanwhile, a 78-year-old man was quarantined and being tested for SARS after returning from a trip to mainland China.