Briefly

JERUSALEM

Palestinian official upset over garbage dump plan

Israel plans to dispose of garbage on Palestinian land in the West Bank, and a Palestinian official immediately denounced it Monday as violating international law, saying, “We are not a dumping ground.”

The dump is to be built in a Palestinian quarry between the Jewish settlement of Kedumim and the West Bank town of Nablus, said Adam Avidan, a spokesman for the military’s civil administration.

The site is already being used. On Monday, there were thousands of tires, plastic bags full of household trash and plastic beverage bottles mixed in with construction debris in the old quarry.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the plan violates international law. “We are not the dumping ground for Tel Aviv’s garbage,” he said, adding the Palestinians would complain to Mideast mediators and the World Health Organization.

Avidan said the landfill didn’t violate international law because Palestinians also would be allowed to use it.

California

Witness recalls Jackson’s ‘tickling’

The adult son of an ex-Neverland maid cried on the witness stand Monday as he swore that Michael Jackson molested him more than a decade ago after playful bouts of “tickling.”

“This took a lot of counseling to get over, just so you know,” said the 24-year-old man, staring hard at Jackson, 46, who he said slipped him $100 bills after two of the three groping incidents.

The singer, who paid the witness and his family $2 million in 1994, stared straight back, with his head held high.

Jackson isn’t charged with molesting the 24-year-old, but prosecutors were allowed to present his testimony to show the singer has an alleged “propensity” to molest kids.

The now-married auto parts salesman and youth pastor said Jackson twice touched his private parts over his clothes during giggle-filled tickling fights while watching cartoons in the singer’s Los Angeles high-rise apartment in the late ’80s.

But during cross-examination, the man admitted he initially denied he was molested and told police it was just “tickling” and “no more than a 30-second thing.”

Jackson’s legal team will cross-examine the witness today.

Haiti

U.N. troops clash with gangs in slum

U.N. troops battled street gangs in firefights near a lawless Haitian slum, the latest in a series of clashes between peacekeepers and armed groups that some fear could disrupt fall elections.

At least five gang members wounded or killed in the gunfight late Sunday in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil, soldiers said. But U.N. military spokesman Lt. Col. Elouafi Boulbars could not immediately confirm the casualties. No U.N. peacekeepers were hurt, he said.

Peruvian peacekeepers were patrolling the western edge of Cite Soleil when armed men in four cars opened fire, Boulbars said. Troops returned fire and chased the cars through the slum, a hotbed of gang violence between supporters and opponents of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The clash was the fiercest since peacekeepers first surrounded Cite Soleil on Thursday as part of a promised crackdown on violence that has surged in the capital more than a year after an uprising ousted Aristide.

WASHINGTON

Bush vows to help Ukraine join NATO

President Bush pledged Monday to help Ukraine join NATO and the World Trade Organization, and said the two countries would work together to foster reform in other former Soviet republics.

Some Russia experts warned that Bush’s tight embrace of Ukraine and advocacy of change elsewhere on Russia’s borders could trigger Russian fears of encirclement and worsen already strained relations between Washington and Moscow.

Bush hosted a luncheon for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who defeated a pro-Russian candidate in December and has vowed to move his country closer to the West while maintaining good relations with Russia. Bush called Yushchenko a “courageous leader” and “an inspiration to all those who love liberty.”

Yushchenko was the first head of state Bush called following his Jan. 20 inaugural address, in which he laid out his second-term goal of encouraging the spread of democracy throughout the world — a doctrine that drew criticism from some overseas.