Israel OKs barrier around Jerusalem

Israel's Cabinet yesterday affirmed a plan to surround Jerusalem with a barrier, despite protests by Palestinians, who say the Israelis are unilaterally redrawing the disputed city's boundaries and shifting its demographic balance in favor of Jews.

The Israeli ministers acknowledged that about 55,000 Palestinian residents in four neighborhoods will eventually be cut off from their city by the separation barrier, meant to stop Palestinian bombers, and promised to come up with a plan by Sept. 1 on how to alleviate some of the hardships.

Critics warned that despite the new provisions, tens of thousands of Palestinians, who have Jerusalem residency rights and pay municipal taxes, would probably face major delays in crossing through 11 gates in the barrier every day on their way to jobs and schools. Only half of the barrier has been built.

Ankara, Turkey

Kurds claim bomb in Turkish resort

A militant Kurdish group claimed responsibility for a bomb yesterday in a resort town on Turkey's Aegean coast that wounded 20 people, including a Russian visitor and a British tourist, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported.

The Germany-based Mezopotamya News Agency, which often reports rebel statements, said the shadowy Kurdistan Freedom Falcons Organization, or TAK, claimed responsibility for the blast in the town of Cesme.

Portadown, Northern Ireland

Protestants blocked from annual march

Police using a steel barricade prevented Protestant hard-liners from parading through the main Catholic section of this bitterly divided town yesterday.

The annual confrontation between Orangemen and the predominantly Protestant police force at an Anglican church outside Portadown has triggered widespread, protracted rioting several times.

But yesterday, police significantly reduced their security measures as Orange leaders and ordinary members appeared to concede defeat in the decade-old dispute over the parade route.

Luxembourg

Principality approves EU constitution

Luxembourg approved the European Union's proposed constitution yesterday despite uncertainty over its future, prompting the nation's premier to say it had put the charter "back on the European agenda" after recent rejections.

Luxembourg's vote means a majority of the union's nations — 13 out of 25 — have approved the constitution. However, the bloc's leaders have frozen the ratification process after the charter was rejected in French and Dutch voters in late spring. The constitution needs unanimous approval to take effect, and leaders in France and The Netherlands have said they will not hold a second vote.

But Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker insisted the constitution was not dead after 56.52 percent of voters in Luxembourg approved it.

Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Peacekeepers close in on massacre suspects

The commander of European Union's peacekeepers in Bosnia said yesterday that "the net is closing in" on the two suspected masterminds of the Srebrenica onslaught, 10 years after the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

British Maj. Gen. David Leakey said authorities are gathering intelligence on the location of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander Ratko Mladic — though they remain elusive.

Leakey spoke on the eve of today's ceremonies marking the anniversary of the 1995 massacre in the U.N.-designated safe area.

Compiled from The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times