Spain

Annan seeks global terrorism treaty

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for a world treaty on terrorism that would outlaw attacks targeting civilians and establish a framework for a collective response to the global threat.

Although the United Nations and its agencies already have 12 treaties covering terrorism, a universal definition has been elusive.

World leaders and officials have had deep disagreements over whether resisters to alleged oppression — for example, Palestinian suicide bombers attacking Israeli targets — are terrorists or freedom fighters, and whether states that use what they think is legitimate force might be branded terrorists.

But Annan was categorical in his address Thursday to terrorism experts and world leaders from 50 countries.

“The right to resist occupation … cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians,” Annan said.

London

Government pushes for anti-terrorism law

Prime Minister Tony Blair battled to pass a new anti-terrorism bill Thursday, as a judge ruled that nine foreign suspects locked up for three years without charges should be released on bail.

The government wants new powers to place suspects under house arrest and impose curfews and travel bans after Britain’s highest court ruled that an emergency law passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is illegal.

An Algerian was released on strict bail conditions late Thursday and eight more men, including Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, are expected to be released under similar terms today. But the power to impose the bail orders expires Monday, and the government is pushing hard to get new legislation through Parliament before then.

Blair faces stiff resistance from the main opposition Conservative Party, who say his proposed legislation is flawed, infringes on civil liberties and should expire within a year of passage.

Moscow

Islamic judge next to lead Chechen rebels

An Islamic fundamentalist judge emerged Thursday as the likely successor to Chechen rebel commander Aslan Maskhadov, raising the prospect of the separatist conflict turning decisively into a religious war more than a decade after it erupted.

Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev was backed both by supporters of Maskhadov — who was killed Tuesday in a Russian raid — and by Chechnya’s most feared warlord, Shamil Basayev.

On Thursday, Basayev urged his people to rally behind Sadulayev in a message on a separatist Web site.

But Sadulayev is relatively unknown outside rebel circles, leading to speculation that he would be a figurehead while real power is wielded by Basayev. The warlord, an adherent of fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam, is the self-declared organizer of a series of terrorist attacks — including last year’s seizure of a school in southern Russia in which 330 people died.

Vatican City

Pope aims for release by Palm Sunday

Pope John Paul II will extend his hospital stay “a few more days” but still plans to return to the Vatican in time for the start of Holy Week that begins March 20, which is Palm Sunday, his spokesman said Thursday.

No date had been given for the pontiff’s return, but the announcement appeared to suggest there may have been an earlier plan to release him that was dropped to give him more time to regain his strength.

At the hospital he is receiving only his closest aides, while back at the Vatican he might be tempted to resume regular audiences with visiting bishops and foreign officials.

Mexico City

Rice vows cooperation on border issues

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, acknowledging the difficulty of monitoring the porous southern border, said Thursday the United States would work with Mexico to thwart al-Qaida and other terrorist groups rather than trade accusations.

Rice, on her first visit to Mexico since taking over at the State Department in late January, echoed concerns raised in congressional testimony that al-Qaida has considered using the Southwest border to infiltrate the United States.

Rice also announced the United States and Mexico had settled a decades-old, cross-water debt.

Mexico will transfer enough water to the United States to cover a debt that Texas has claimed that Mexico has owed under a 1944 treaty. That water-sharing pact requires Mexico to send the United States an average of 350,000 acre-feet of water annually from six Rio Grande tributaries. The United States in return must send Mexico 1.5 million acre feet from the Colorado River.

Netherlands

Ex-prime minister faces war crime charges

A U.N. war crimes court charged Kosovo’s former prime minister Thursday with 37 counts of war crimes for alleged atrocities committed against Serbs and Gypsies by ethnic Albanian separatists during the province’s 1998-1999 war.

Ramush Haradinaj, a former commander of the Western-backed Kosovo Liberation Army during its fight against Serb forces, surrendered to the court Wednesday, a day after resigning as prime minister of the semiautonomous Serbian province, which is overseen by the United Nations.

Haradinaj, 36, could face life imprisonment if convicted of any charge stemming from the war.

France

Judge orders probe of Concorde crash

A French magistrate on Thursday opened a formal investigation of Continental Airlines for manslaughter in the July 2000 crash of the supersonic Concorde that killed 113 people.

Judge Christophe Regnard placed Continental under investigation — a step short of being formally charged — for manslaughter and involuntary injury, judicial officials said.

Investigators concluded a titanium strip that fell from a Continental DC-10 jet onto the runway caused a tire on the Concorde to burst, propelling rubber debris that perforated the supersonic jet’s fuel tanks. The experts also determined, however, that the Concorde’s fuel tanks lacked sufficient protection.

The Concorde caught fire two minutes after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport on July 25, 2000, and slammed into a hotel, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.

The prosecutor’s office has contended that Continental violated U.S. Federal Aviation Administration rules by using titanium in a part of the plane that normally called for use of aluminum, which is softer.