Jerusalem

Sharon wins victory on Gaza pullout

Israel’s parliament on Monday rejected a last-ditch attempt to torpedo Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, vetoing a proposed national referendum. The plan now goes to the nation’s Supreme Court.

Demoralized by the defeat, settlers said they would move their fight into the streets, promising to bring 100,000 protesters to the settlements slated for evacuation to prevent the withdrawal.

They also pinned their hopes on the Supreme Court, which agreed Monday to hear a challenge to the law providing the legal framework for the withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements.

Approval of a referendum would have almost certainly delayed the withdrawal, scheduled for this summer, and could have brought down Sharon’s government and forced new elections. Sharon has repeatedly rejected calls for a national vote as a stalling tactic. Opinion polls show a large majority of Israelis back the withdrawal plan.

Vatican City

Pope unable to give post-Easter blessing

Pope John Paul II skipped another beloved tradition Monday — a post-Easter blessing from his window — ending the Easter holiday as silently as he began it.

A few hundred people had gathered in St. Peter’s Square in hopes that John Paul would appear as he has on each Easter Monday of his 26-year pontificate, and Vatican TV cameras zoomed in on his third-floor window around noon.

But the curtains remained closed as the 84-year-old pope continued recovering from Feb. 24 surgery to insert a tube in his throat to help him breathe.

“Despite the regret, we’re happy because it’s good that he continues his convalescence without strain,” said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, head of programming at Radio Vatican.

Monaco

Prince Rainier remains in ‘worrying’ condition

Doctors for ailing Prince Rainier III of Monaco said he was in stable but “worrying” condition Monday, breathing on a respirator and under sedation after dialysis halted the 81-year-old ruler’s deterioration.

Rainier’s doctors said in an update that dialysis and other treatment had stopped the decline of his kidneys, lungs and heart. The medical update issued by the royal palace added that the health of Europe’s longest-serving monarch was “still worrying but remains stable.”

The prince underwent dialysis Sunday evening, palace spokesman Armand Deus said. Dialysis cleans the blood, just like the kidneys. In Rainier’s case, the process can allow the kidneys to rest as the body devotes more energy to fighting other problems.

The announcement about Rainier’s condition came just two days after doctors said his key internal organs had been “progressively deteriorating.”

China

Bamboo plant die-off threatens wild pandas

Giant pandas in western China could be at risk of starvation because the bamboo plants that they eat are beginning to die off in a cycle that happens about every 60 years, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Workers at the Baishuijiang State Nature Preserve in the northwestern province of Gansu plan to monitor the 102 pandas in the preserve for signs of hunger, according to Xinhua.

Threatened pandas will be moved to areas that still have bamboo, with special attention given to older, feeble animals, it said, citing Zhang Kerong, the preserve’s director.

Pandas derive most of their nutrition from arrow bamboo and can starve once the plant enters its dying-off stage. The stage begins when the bamboo forms flowers, after which the pandas refuse to eat it. The bamboo then starts to produce seeds before dying.

Blooming happens about once every 60 years, with a new crop taking 10 years to mature. However, the cycle seems to run along different schedules in different places and an earlier mass die-off of bamboo in the 1980s caused the deaths of about 250 pandas, Xinhua said.

China regards the panda as an unofficial national mascot, but the animal’s limited diet is just one factor threatening its survival. Panda numbers have declined as its habitat has fallen to farming and development, and the animal’s low fertility rate causes it to reproduce at an agonizingly slow rate.