World Scene

IRAN

Reformers to fast over election ban

TEHRAN — Reformist lawmakers staging a sit-in protest in parliament vowed yesterday to begin a fast in an attempt to force the reversal of the disqualification of more than 3,000 candidates from next month’s election.

Mohammed Reza Khatami, a vice speaker of parliament who is among 80 pro-reform lawmakers barred by hard-liners from running for re-election, said the fast would start today.

Mr. Khatami is the leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran’s largest reformist party, and a younger brother of President Mohammed Khatami.

The Guardian Council, an unelected constitutional watchdog controlled by hard-liners, has disqualified thousands of the nearly 8,200 prospective candidates for Feb. 20 legislative elections.

GERMANY

Tunisian charged with bomb plots

BERLIN — State prosecutors said yesterday they had charged a Tunisian man, purportedly trained by al Qaeda in Afghanistan, with trying to form a “terrorist group” to attack U.S. and Jewish targets in Germany.

The prosecutors’ office said the 33-year-old man, named only as Ihsan G., had tried to recruit fellow militants at a Berlin mosque to set off a series of bombs around the time of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last March.

INDIA

Top Kashmir militants killed by military

SRINAGAR — Indian troops shot and killed four guerrilla leaders in disputed Kashmir, authorities said yesterday in what they called major successes for security forces battling a 14-year insurgency.

An army spokesman said three leaders of Hizbul Mujahideen, including its operations commander and No. 2, Gulam Rasool Dar, were killed in gunbattles near Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir.

VATICAN CITY

Rabbis seek help to curb anti-Semitism

ROME — Israel’s two chief rabbis met Pope John Paul II yesterday and asked the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to help combat anti-Semitism and terrorism.

Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger said the pope, who has worked hard to mend Christian-Jewish ties during his 25-year pontificate, shared their concerns on the issues.

A survey published Thursday suggested anti-Semitism was on the rise in Italy, with 35 percent of those polled saying they believed Jews secretly control finance and the media.

BURMA

26 opposition members freed

BANGKOK — Burmese military rulers have released 26 members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy from detention, the Information Ministry said yesterday.

It did not give any names and it was not clear if the prisoners had been arrested after clashes on May 30 between Mrs. Suu Kyi’s supporters and government backers. NLD officials in Rangoon said they were unaware of the releases.

ITALY

Berlusconi reappears after plastic surgery

ROME — Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi attended a Cabinet meeting yesterday, one of the few occasions he has appeared in public in almost a month during which he reportedly had plastic surgery around his eyes.

The prime minister’s return to Rome after weeks in his villa in Sardinia came amid mounting speculation that he might be ill.

From wire dispatches and staff reports