Briefly

Tunisia

Egypt proposes taking canceled summit

Egypt offered to be host to a meeting of Arab leaders as governments launched fresh efforts Sunday to convene a summit after Tunisia abruptly called off this week’s session because of policy divisions.

The Arab League summit, which was to begin today, was postponed indefinitely late Saturday after foreign ministers failed to bridge differences about how to respond to a U.S. reform plan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Arab leaders intended for the conference to relaunch a Saudi-crafted peace initiative to Israel and to submit their own proposals for political reforms in response to U.S. calls for greater freedoms.

Arab officials were at a loss Sunday to explain how a meeting planned for months fell apart as leaders were preparing to travel to this North African Arab country for the annual summit.

Vatican City

Church alters handling of crimes among clergy

The Vatican, enacting a change in the way it handles clerical sex abuse cases and other serious crimes against church law, has begun delegating cases that normally would have gone straight to the pope instead to his key orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The congregation tribunal that handles such cases involving lower-ranking prelates is expanding to include crimes involving bishops, cases which had previously been decided by the pope, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, a prosecutor in the congregation, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Pope John Paul II called for the shift in the April 30, 2001, document “Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela,” which outlined how the most serious crimes against church law should be handled.

Scicluna said the pope decided to refer all such cases, including those implicating high-ranking churchmen, to the congregation because it has more experience in dealing with them.

Gaza Strip

Hamas leader says Bush ‘enemy’ of God

The new leader of the militant group Hamas on Sunday called President Bush the enemy of Islam and said that “God declared war” against Bush, the United States and Israel.

In a speech at Gaza’s Islamic University, Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi said he was not surprised that the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s assassination Monday of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

“We knew that Bush is the enemy of God, the enemy of Islam and Muslims. America declared war against God. Sharon declared war against God, and God declared war against America, Bush and Sharon,” Rantisi said.

The United States lists Hamas as a terrorist organization. The militant group has carried out many of the suicide bombings that have killed more than 450 people in the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Wales

9-11 artist wins prize

A New York-based artist became the first winner of a new British art prize Sunday for a work made from dust collected from the streets of Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Xu Bing was awarded the inaugural $72,000 Artes Mundi, the Wales International Visual Art Prize, at a ceremony at the National Museum and Gallery in Cardiff.

Xu, a New York resident who was born in China, used white dust from near ground zero to trace an ancient Chinese verse on the floor of the Cardiff museum. It reads: “As there is nothing from the first, where does the dust collect itself.”

The Artes Mundi, launched in September, was judged by an international panel. A shortlist of 10 artists was drawn from more than 350 nominations.