February 2001 World Headlines

Monday, February 19, 2001 - Web posted at 8:34:56 AM GMT

WORLD IN BRIEF

* JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak came under fire from his Labour Party for his plan to forge a unity government with right-winger Ariel Sharon aimed at grappling with Middle East violence.

* JERUSALEM - Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups slammed Israel's highest court for setting free a Jewish settler after he served eight years of an 11-year prison sentence for shooting dead a bound Palestinian assailant.

* NEW YORK - Former US President Bill Clinton has defended his controversial pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, saying in the New York Times that the move was "in the best interests of justice."

"* GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo - Nyamuragira, a 3 050-metre volcano, is spewing thousands of tons of molten lava from three cones, threatening a wide area of rebel-held territory near the northeastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

* MANAMA - Bahrain abolished two controversial emergency laws as part of its landmark reforms, meeting a key opposition demand in the conser VAT ive Gulf Arab state.

* LONDON - Britain has no plans for now to "buy into" a US missile shield aimed at protecting Washington from attacks by rogue states, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said.

Cook said Britain had more pressing military spending priorities, including helping build up a European rapid reaction force.

* DHAKA - Bangladeshi police said they had cordoned off a remote forest area where suspected tribal guerrillas were believed to be holding two Danes and a Briton for ransom.

ALGIERS - Radical Algerian Islamist Group planned in 1994 to blow up a hijacked Air France plane over Eiffel Tower to oblige France to end its political support of the Algerian authorities, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

* LUCANE, Yugoslavia - Three Serb police officers were killed when their vehicle hit two anti-tank mines in a buffer zone next to the Kosovo boundary, Serbian officials said.

* PARIS - President Jacques Chirac accused food safety officials of "inciting panic" by suggesting tough new measures to contain mad cow disease, including a ban on human consumption of certain sheep and goat organs.

- Nampa-Reuters