West Bank

Blair proposes talks to restart peace process

British Prime Minister Tony Blair offered Wednesday to have a one-day Mideast conference in the new year to help rehabilitate the battered Palestinian Authority, encourage reform and serve as a bridge to renewed peace talks, stalled by four years of violence.

Blair, the highest-ranking visitor to the West Bank since Yasser Arafat’s death Nov. 11, said a growing sense of hope must now be translated into action.

Blair said the conference would be a one-day affair in March dealing only with reforms in the Palestinian administration and additional aid. He said it would serve as a “bridge to the road map,” the stalled international peace plan leading to a Palestinian state.

Ukraine

Opposition leader warns of more threats

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko praised thousands of his supporters Wednesday night, telling a roaring, orange-clad crowd that they changed the country without bloodshed — but he also warned of trouble during this weekend’s presidential runoff.

Yushchenko did not say who was plotting against Sunday’s court-ordered vote, but he told supporters at a rally in Kiev that he was “calling on your courage to defend the results of the election.

“The vote on Dec. 26 will not be an easy political walk,” Yushchenko said in freezing temperatures on Independence Square to mark one month since the beginning of the “orange revolution” protests. “There are some forces preparing to disrupt, and they are preparing brigades, groups who are readying to come to Kiev.”

Russia

Ballistic missile’s test-firing successful

Russia successfully test-fired a heavy intercontinental ballistic missile Wednesday in a launch intended to extend the lifetime of aging Soviet-built weapons.

It was the first time that an RS-20V Voevoda, which NATO identifies as the SS-18 Satan, had been fired from its combat positions in Russia since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

The missile, which was launched from a silo in the Orenburg region in the southern Ural Mountains, hit a designated target on a testing ground on the Far East Kamchatka Peninsula, more than 3,750 miles away.

The heavy missile, capable of slamming 10 individually guided nuclear warheads at targets more than 6,800 miles away, is the heaviest weapon in the Soviet Union’s inventory.

Russia

State oil company acquires Yukos buyer

The state-controlled oil company Rosneft has acquired the unknown front company that won a controversial auction in recent days for a major Russian oil production unit, news agencies reported late Wednesday.

Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies confirmed what many analysts suspected: Shares in Yuganskneftegaz, a subsidiary of the embattled Yukos oil company, have been taken by the state and will be eventually routed to Gazprom, the huge state-controlled natural gas and oil conglomerate.

The move effectively nationalizes one of Russia’s largest oil production units. Yuganskneftegaz pumps nearly 1 million barrels of oil a day.

According to the news agency reports, Rosneft on Wednesday bought 100 percent of the shares in BaikalFinansGroup, a previously unknown company. Baikal bought the oil production unit at a government auction on Sunday for $9.3 billion. Outsiders had estimated that the oil production unit was worth far more.

Indonesia

U.S. company admits mercury pollution

A U.S. mining company admitted Wednesday that it released mercury into the environment at one of its Indonesian gold mines but denied that it had any health impact on people.

Newmont Mining Corp., which has been accused by Indonesian police of polluting a bay near its gold mine and sickening residents, insisted in its statement Wednesday that it had adhered to all “appropriate standards.”

The Denver, Colo.-based company was responding to an article in The New York Times saying that an internal company report in 2001 warned that the mine in Buyat Bay on Sulawesi island was putting tons of toxic mercury into the environment. The internal report also said that the company wasn’t abiding by its public claims to be upholding U.S. environmental standards, the Times said.