Jerusalem: Israel clears soldiers in 12 Palestinian deaths

An internal army investigation on Friday cleared Israeli soldiers who killed 12 Palestinians in three incidents last week, prompting angry Palestinian complaints of a whitewash. None of those killed carried firearms.

Also Friday, Israel imposed curfews on most West Bank towns and froze Palestinian travel to keep out militants during the Jewish New Year’s holiday. The restrictions confined more than 630,000 Palestinians to their homes.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli army vehicles surrounded the central town of Deir el Balah under cover of machine gun fire, Palestinian security officials said. The army had no immediate comment.

Romania: Prime minister says orphans sold online

Romania’s prime minister defended a ban on international adoptions, claiming that the country’s orphans had become a commodity.

Romania banned international adoptions in October after coming under pressure from the European Union, which said the system was tainted by corruption.

Prime Minister Adrian Nastase said that before the ban, Romanian orphans had been sold using the Internet for as much as $50,000.

“Unfortunately … we had cases in which children became a kind of commodity exposed on different sites and by agreement with certain organizations without the state being able to intervene,” Nastase told a group of Romanian diplomats on Friday.

He didn’t say when the alleged sales took place or whether any suspects were under investigation.

Sweden: Suspect ordered held

A Swedish appeals court ruled Friday that a man suspected of planning to hijack a London-bound airliner must remain in custody. The suspect’s brother described him as a pacifist whose Muslim faith had made him a better person.

Kerim Chatty, 29, had appealed a district court’s decision earlier this week keeping him in jail while prosecutors prepare formal charges of planning to hijack a plane and illegal possession of a weapon.

Chatty was arrested on Aug. 29 at Vaesteraas airport in central Sweden after security officials found a gun in his carry-on luggage. He was preparing to board a Ryanair flight on his way to an Islamic conference in Birmingham, England.

Iran: Missile test a success

Iran successfully test fired a new ballistic missile, news reports said Friday, and experts said it might be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

State-run Tehran television said the Fateh 110 A missile was “one the most accurate surface-to-surface missiles manufactured in the world.” No details were given on when or where in Iran the test was conducted nor was the missile’s range revealed.

Doug Richardson, editor of the authoritative Jane’s Missiles and Rockets, told The Associated Press the Fateh 110 A missile may be based on the Chinese DF-11 A missile, which has a range of 186 to 248 miles and is capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

If that range proves accurate, Iran would be able to fire the new missile well within the border of Iraq and Turkey to the west or Afghanistan, to the east, but not Israel, which is about 600 miles west.