Israelis announce left-center coalition

Jerusalem

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that his centrist Kadima party would work to form a governing coalition with the left-leaning Labor Party as a senior partner, an alliance that would promote his plan for a withdrawal from large areas of the West Bank.

Olmert, who made his announcement with Labor leader Amir Peretz at his side, is expected to bring in several smaller parties, including the ultra-Orthodox factions Shas and United Torah Judaism, as well as the Pensioners Party, which won a surprising seven seats.

On the Gaza Strip, Israeli artillery shells killed a Palestinian and wounded several others in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, medics reported, after militants fired crude Qassam rockets into Israel, causing no casualties.

Sinn Fein informer tortured and slain

A former Sinn Fein official recently exposed as a British spy was found fatally shot Tuesday after apparently being tortured, police said — a slaying certain to send shock waves through Northern Ireland's peace process.

Denis Donaldson was Sinn Fein's former legislative chief in the failed power-sharing government of Northern Ireland. He admitted in December he had been on the payroll of the British secret service and the province's anti-terrorist police for two decades. He went into hiding because the traditional Irish Republican Army punishment for informing is death.

But the IRA denied responsibility in a statement.

The killing comes at a pivotal moment in Northern Ireland's 13-year-old peace process.

On Thursday, Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are to travel to Northern Ireland to reveal a new blueprint for reviving a Protestant-Catholic administration, the intended cornerstone of the province's 1998 peace accord.

Bogotá, Colombia

Land-mine deaths set world record

More people were killed or hurt by land mines in Colombia last year than in any other country as rebels planted explosive devices to protect crops used to make cocaine, the government said Tuesday.

While the United Nations says countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia recorded fewer than 900 land-mine deaths and injuries apiece last year, 1,077 Colombians were killed or maimed by stepping on mines, the vice president's office said.

Also

No space: Plans to send the first South Korean into space have been delayed by a year because of a lack of seats, South Korea said Tuesday. A South Korean astronaut was expected to ride on a Russian spacecraft in April 2007, but the United States has to take that seat to rotate crew at the international space station, according to the South Korean Science and Technology Ministry.

Brothers' bodies found: Venezuelan authorities found the bullet-ridden bodies of three Canadian brothers — John Faddoul, 17; Kevin Faddoul, 13; and Jason Faddoul, 12 — about 30 miles west of Caracas, Justice Minister Jesse Chacon said Tuesday. The three were kidnapped Feb. 23 and kidnappers had demanded more than $4.5 million in ransom, which the family was unable to pay.

Police officer's rampage: A senior South African policeman went on a shooting rampage, killing eight people — including four other policemen, three women and a 2-year-old baby — before being shot dead by colleagues Tuesday, Johannesburg police said.

Compiled from The Associated Press, Reuters and Chicago Tribune