Jerusalem

Four indicted in antiquities fraud

Four Israeli antiquities collectors and dealers were indicted Wednesday on charges they ran a sophisticated forgery ring that spanned the globe and produced a treasure trove of fake Bible-era artifacts, including some that were hailed as major archaeological finds.

Police said the ring forged what were presented as perhaps the two biggest biblical discoveries in the Holy Land in recent years — the purported burial box of Jesus’ brother James and a stone tablet with written instructions by King Yoash on maintenance work at the ancient Jewish Temple.

Investigators warned that collectors and museums around the world could be in the possession of fakes, and scholars urged museums to re-examine items of suspicious origin. The forgery ring has been operating for more than 20 years, Shuka Dorfman, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said.

Additional indictments will be issued in coming days, said Shaul Naim, chief investigator of the Jerusalem police.

West Bank

Abbas urges Israel to tear down barrier

Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made a campaign run Wednesday through West Bank towns living in the shadow of Israel’s separation barrier, urging Israel to tear down the huge structure that he said would never help peace.

Abbas, the front-runner in the Jan. 9 presidential election, made the appeal in Tulkarem, a town of 40,000 on the line between Israel and the West Bank, blocked on two sides by the 25-foot-high concrete slabs of the barrier. Israel began building it to stop a wave of Palestinian suicide bombers who were infiltrating unhindered from the West Bank.

“I say to our neighbors … no fence will bring peace or bring you security,” Abbas told a rally at a Tulkarem stadium just 500 yards from the barrier.

The complex of walls, fences, trenches, barbed wire and electronic devices, still under construction, roughly follows the “Green Line,” the 1949 cease-fire line that divided Israel from the West Bank until 1967, when Israel captured the territory.

In some places, however, the barrier is designed to dip into the West Bank to include Jewish settlements, taking West Bank land and cutting Palestinians off from their farmland and services.

Moscow

Space agency to end free rides for astronauts

Russia plans to stop giving American astronauts free rides on its spacecraft to the international space station beginning in 2006, the head of Russia’s space agency said.

Anatoly Perminov said the no-cost agreement between NASA and Russia’s space agency Roskosmos could be replaced by a barter arrangement, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russian Soyuz crew capsules and Progress cargo ships have been the sole link to the international space station since U.S. shuttles were grounded after the shuttle Columbia burned up on re-entry in February 2003. NASA said it plans to resume its shuttle program in May.

The Russian agency has been looking to expand commercial ventures in recent years, amid dwindling government budgets for space-related research. The agency is expected soon to sign a contract with the European Space Agency to send an Italian astronaut to the space station in April, along with a Russian cosmonaut and NASA astronaut.

Roskosmos is also trying to renew its lucrative space tourism program. Perminov said two people were being considered to fly on a Russian spacecraft to the international space station, possibly in 2006.

Moscow

Putin adviser criticizes Yukos sale

In an apparent sign of infighting among Kremlin aides, a top adviser to President Vladimir V. Putin has harshly criticized the takeover of Yukos Oil Co.’s main production unit by a state-owned company and warned of far-reaching repercussions for Russia’s economy.

“The sale of the main oil-producing asset of the best Russian oil company … and its purchase by Rosneft company, 100 percent owned by the state, has undoubtedly become the scam of the year,” top presidential economic adviser Andrei Illarionov told an annual end-of-year Moscow news conference, speaking just days after Putin praised the deal and called it entirely legal.

“When the Yukos case began, everybody was asking which will be the rules of the game,” Illarionov added. ” Now it is clear that there are no rules of the game.” Even before the news conference, many observers saw Illarionov as on his way out because of disagreements with other Kremlin figures, a perception that has now been reinforced.