Iran

Nobel laureate refuses to obey court summons

Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi told Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Court on Saturday she won’t obey a summons to appear, even if it means her arrest — an open challenge to a powerful body that has convicted many pro-reform intellectuals.

Ebadi, the first Iranian and Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, vowed to resist hard-line threats against her life.

She said she wrote to the Revolutionary Court on Saturday, telling it she would not adhere to the summons, which was issued Wednesday and ordered her to appear within three days. She described the summons as “illegal” because it did not specify a reason for her to face the court and said its deadline was today as she received it Thursday.

Ebadi, 57, who won the peace prize in 2003, said she would not bow to intimidation.

Rome

Account: Hitler planned Pius XII kidnapping

The Nazi commander in Rome warned Pope Pius XII in 1944 of a plan by Adolf Hitler to abduct the pontiff, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Avvenire, an Italian Catholic daily, cited a written statement by Gen. Karl Wolff, the head of the SS in German-occupied Rome, saying Hitler considered Pius a “friend of the Jews.”

The comment would seem to refute claims that Pius did little or nothing to protect Jews from slaughter by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Avvenire, published by the Italian bishops conference, said the new details emerged during research to help the Vatican determine if Pius XII merits beatification.

Some Jewish groups oppose the move, the last formal step before possible sainthood. They contend Pius didn’t speak out or do enough to save Jews during the Holocaust.

The newspaper says Wolff told Pius about Hitler’s plan when the commander was granted an audience in May 1944 at the Vatican.

Beijing

China, Taiwan approve holiday charter flights

Longtime rivals China and Taiwan agreed Saturday to allow nonstop charter flights between them over the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday.

The arrangement marks the first time in more than five decades that a commercial aircraft from the mainland would be officially allowed to touch down on Taiwanese soil.

Under the deal negotiated in Macau, six airlines from each side would transport Taiwanese people working in China to and from the island during the busiest Chinese holiday season.

Taiwan has banned direct air and shipping links to mainland China since Nationalists fled to the island in 1949 after losing a civil war to their communist foes.

Afghanistan

U.N. official suggests move to help refugees

Eased-up American military operations could persuade former Taliban militants to return home from countries such as Pakistan, the chief of the U.N. refugee agency said Saturday.

Thousands of Taliban supporters fled to Pakistan and Iran — many with their entire families — when U.S. forces and Afghan anti-Taliban militias drove them from power in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden. The exodus was just the latest during more than 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan dating back to a communist coup in 1978 and the Soviet invasion a year later.

To encourage their return the U.S. military’s offensive operations could become “more selective,” Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said.