Briefly

Gaza Strip

Israel launches retaliatory strike

An Israeli helicopter fired missiles Tuesday at a Gaza City building, killing two Palestinians and wounding 14, including a 2-year-old girl. The attack was the start of a new Israeli offensive sparked by a suicide bombing at an Israeli seaport.

The missile strike came just hours after Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a new campaign of stepped-up raids into Gaza cities and towns. The Cabinet also approved killings of Palestinian militants, including leaders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, an Israeli security official said.

Throughout the day Tuesday, Israeli tanks were seen mobilizing around the volatile coastal strip, while Palestinians lined up at bakeries and groceries to stock up on food in case of new Israeli assaults.

The Israeli military said the building destroyed in the missile strike housed “Islamic Jihad terrorists, involved in attacks against Israelis.”

Haiti

New Cabinet lacks pro-Aristide names

Haiti’s new prime minister formed a unity government Tuesday, filling 13 Cabinet positions but excluding supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Aides to Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue circulated a list of names for the Cabinet after Latortue met with Interim President Boniface Alexandre at the National Palace. The Cabinet is to be sworn in today, aides to Latortue said.

Leslie Voltaire, a former Aristide Cabinet member, said no members of the former president’s Lavalas Party were chosen.

Aristide spent his second day in exile in neighboring Jamaica, which gave him temporary asylum despite fears in Port-au-Prince and Washington that his presence would provoke more violence among his supporters in Haiti.

Russia

Thieves suspected in gas explosion

Police searched for two homeless scavengers who apparently stole bronze fittings from gas pipes and triggered an explosion at an apartment building Tuesday that killed at least 33 people, authorities said.

The blast sheared off a section of the nine-story prefabricated apartment building in Arkhangelsk, 600 miles north of Moscow.

Two dozen people were rescued from the rubble, said Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andriyanova.

The men allegedly were carrying metal pipes and tools, and police believed they had opened the gas valves in order to steal the bronze fittings that seal them.

Beijing

China declares fight against bird flu over

China declared victory Tuesday in its fight against bird flu, saying it had “stamped out” all its known cases, while a factory worker in Thailand became Asia’s 23rd victim of the virus.

Japan redoubled its efforts against its outbreak, with new penalties for farmers who fail to report cases, and North Korea said it was strengthening quarantine measures.

Since December, eight Asian countries have battled a severe form of the virus. About 100 million chickens either have died from the illness or have been killed under orders of the government.

The virus has jumped to humans in the two hardest-hit countries, Vietnam and Thailand, killing 23 people and raising fears of a health crisis that would buffet the region’s economy more severely than last year’s SARS outbreak.

Both Vietnam and Thailand have said in the past two weeks that their outbreaks were coming under control.

Tokyo

Nuclear inspections to resume in Iran

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator confirmed Tuesday that Tehran would allow international nuclear inspections to resume unconditionally later this month.

Iran had said Saturday that it was indefinitely shutting out IAEA inspectors, after the agency’s 35-nation governing board adopted a resolution that said it “deplores” recent discoveries of uranium enrichment equipment and other suspicious activities that Iran had failed to reveal.

But the head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Monday that Iran was ready to allow inspectors back into the country starting March 27. Hasan Rowhani, on a three-day visit in Japan, backed that Tuesday.

“It is certain. And it will be without any conditions,” Rowhani, who also heads Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said at a news conference in Tokyo.

India

Powell to ask Pakistan about nuclear smuggling

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday he would ask Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf this week whether Pakistani officials aided rogue scientist A. Q. Khan in leaking nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Powell also waded into the growing U.S. political dispute about American companies sending jobs overseas, asking India to help create more jobs in the United States by opening its markets to more U.S. exports. But he said that was not a precondition for the continued outsourcing of American jobs to India.

“There is no quid pro quo here,” Powell told reporters after discussing the sticky subject with Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha.

On Pakistan, Powell said he would ask Pakistan’s president about the black market nuclear network headed by Khan.

“We can’t be satisfied until this entire network is gone, branch and root,” Powell said. He later met with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Venezuela

Court weighs validity of recall petition

The battle over an opposition push to unseat President Hugo Chavez went to Venezuela’s divided Supreme Court on Tuesday as the government sought to overturn a ruling that validated signatures on a recall petition.

Any final decision could ignite unrest in a country profoundly polarized between those who accuse Chavez of steering Venezuela toward Cuba-style dictatorship and those who argue he’s trying to bring social justice to the poor.

Hundreds of Chavez supporters demonstrated in front of the Supreme Court to protest Monday’s ruling, a huge victory for Chavez opponents as it revived their campaign for a recall referendum.

The National Elections Council had asked for confirmation of 870,000 signatures it said were questionable. The opposition claimed that the ruling would create a logistical nightmare that would have killed the recall drive.

But on Monday, the high court said that council must consider those signatures valid unless citizens come forward to disclaim them.

Turkey

Police arrest 18 in attacks plot

Police investigating the suicide bombing of a Masonic lodge last week have arrested 18 suspected Islamic militants, including three who were planning new suicide bombings, Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said Tuesday.

The 18 were arrested in the past week in raids of Istanbul homes, he said.

“We have foiled new suicide attacks,” Guler told a news conference at which he displayed a vest with homemade pipe bombs attached.

Guler did not say what targets the militants were planning to strike, but private NTV television said the militants were planning an attack on a leading media company.

Guler did not say what targets the militants were planning to strike, but he said all those arrested were involved in building bombs and planning the March 9 attack on the Masonic lodge, in which one bystander and one attacker died. Five people and another attacker was seriously hurt.

Paris

Threats reported about head scarf ban

Officials are investigating threats issued by a radical Islamic group against France and its overseas interests, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.

The shadowy group identified itself as the “Servants of Allah the Powerful and Wise,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that the group was unknown to French authorities.

Justice officials did not disclose the nature of the threats, but RTL radio reported that Le Parisien newspaper received a letter threatening Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin about France’s plan to ban Islamic head scarves and other religious apparel in schools.

“The letter only mentioned the head scarf,” Jacques Esperandieu, deputy editor of the Parisien, told RTL.

In February, an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant criticized the ban.