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<p>NAIROBI, Kenya — Facing furious criticism at home and abroad, President Daniel arap Moi appeared to back down from a plan to delay this year's elections, but was quickly accused of insincerity by both the opposition and Western diplomats.</p> <p>On Tuesday, Mr. Moi's ruling party, the Kenya African National Union, or KANU, announced it would seek to extend the president's term of office and the life of parliament by up to 12 months beyond this December's scheduled election date.</p>

uleiman Abu Ghaith, a spokesman for Al Qaeda, claimed in an audio recording broadcast late Saturday that the organization carried out the bloody April attack on a synagogue in Tunis and threatened renewed operations in the United States and elsewhere. "Our security and military bodies are now monitoring, investigating and observing new American targets, other than the targets that were monitored before, which we will attack shortly in a way that will delight all Muslims," Mr. Abu Ghaith said, adding, "Also our martyr elements are ready and willing to launch attacks against American and Jewish interests both domestically and...

<p>President Bush must hold hands and stiffen spines this week as he faces a delicate diplomatic task at the first post-September 11 Group of Eight summit at a remote resort in the Canadian Rockies.</p> <p>Mr. Bush said last week he will be looking for a clear show of solidarity from the world's leading industrial powers in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. But he also will face concerns, particularly in Europe, about U.S. unilateralist tendencies and the focus on security and anti-terrorism matters to the virtual exclusion of other concerns.</p>

<p>ABDAREH, Iran — All that remains of Assad Mohammed's childhood home is a mangled heap of broken wood, twisted tin and mud bricks.</p> <p>"Look at this," said the builder, who rushed here from Tehran only to learn that his father, two sisters, a nephew, a niece and other relatives were crushed to death in their homes when an earthquake struck this farming village Saturday morning.</p>

EL AVIV, June 23 (Reuters) — YES, Israel's satellite television provider, said today that it would continue to carry CNN International and BBC World despite public calls to pull the two news channels off the air after protests about its coverage from Israeli government officials and viewers.The chief executive, Shlomo Liran said in a statement, "We are not censors and will not decide for our subscribers what to see and what not to see."But a director of the satellite provider, Ido J. Dissentshik, said he would propose taking BBC World out of the basic package of channels the Israeli...

     Add some muscle Top Stories • Al Qaeda tape vows attacks on U.S., Israel• Hot rhetoric chills tourism• Israel strengthens hold on West Bank• EU plans joint border patrol• Economic slump 'new reality' for Hong Kong• A charged debate• New dream job: Less money, more family time      Folks are apparently pretty fierce about the U.S. border. Rep. Tom Tancredo, chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, reports that the White House e-mail system was overwhelmed by those who want President Bush to deploy U.S. military troops along the U.S. border.      The Colorado Republican posted a petition at his own Web site on June 11, which automatically forwarded...

<p>House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert gave no indication yesterday whether Congress would provide the $200 million bailout Amtrak says it needs to operate beyond midweek and said some railroad routes should shut down.</p> <p>He said Amtrak's management must correct what he called money-losing policies before turning to Congress whenever the railroad runs out of cash — a stance supported by Amtrak's new president.</p>

A Spanish aristocrat has become the first person to cross the Atlantic by jet ski. Alvaro He spent an average 12 hours a day on the water and slept on a support boat, never stepping ashore.Count Alvaro, brother-in-law of Princess Elena of Spain, drank milkshakes and ate grapes and bananas to keep up his strength.He told the Miami Herald the hardest part of the challenge was the cold weather and 18-foot waves.Count Alvaro stood up on the jet ski for most of the journey to prevent possible injury to his spine.He was greeted in Miami by his mother, Countess de...

<p>The battle lines in Congress have been drawn on the key election-year issue of providing seniors with a prescription drug benefit.</p> <p>House Republicans are preparing for a floor debate this week on their $350 billion bill that would provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Democrats, however, have criticized it as insufficient, promoting instead their $800 billion alternative.</p>

ighteen months after leaving the White House, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has made such progress on her memoirs that her publisher Simon & Schuster has tentatively scheduled it for publication in the late spring or early fall of next year, executives there said last week. But former President Bill Clinton — the spouse no longer in public office — has barely begun, according to people at his publisher, Knopf.Both publishers initially said they planned to publish the former First Couple's books in 2003, raising the specter of a race to market. But her businesslike efficiency and his more free-wheeling...

<p>An attempt by Massachusetts Democrats to make a campaign issue out of Mitt Romney's three-year absence from his home state to run the Salt Lake City's winter Olympic games appears to be backfiring.</p> <p>After being pounded for weeks by Democratic officials and candidates who are trying to get the Republican gubernatorial candidate kicked off the ballot, the latest poll of registered voters shows Mr. Romney's favorable approval rating has jumped by seven points and that he easily beats all of his Democratic rivals.</p>

<p>Evelyn Buitrago was laid off from her high-paying consulting job at Accenture in Miami in September. But she is happy to have more time to spend with her family and is looking for more personally fulfilling work, most likely at a lower salary.</p>

<p>HONG KONG — Queenie Lee was on her way to work as a secretary in the head office of a small retail chain one recent morning when she spotted a colleague walking in the opposite direction.</p> <p>"No need to hurry," the woman told Miss Lee, a single, 32-year-old high school graduate. "We've all lost our jobs. Our company has gone out of business."</p>

<p>June 24, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - Top lawmakers said yesterday that terrorists have "perfected" oil-tanker truck bombs as a new form of terrorism and may be angling to use them against Americans with a deadly July 4 attack.</p> <p>Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said he fears that al Qaeda terrorists recently demonstrated their skill by destroying a synagogue in Morocco and could use the new weapon here.</p>

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, facing calls to resign two months after surviving a coup, on Sunday dismissed efforts by political foes to indict him for alleged embezzlement as another attempt to topple his populist government. Chavez faces opposition accusations his three-year-old government misused state money, received improper election funds and damaged the country by selling cheap petroleum to Cuba. "If they want to invent some crime to force me out with an indictment, they'll have to explain it to the people and to the armed forces," Chavez said during his weekly television and radio program. "If...

<p>JERUSALEM — Israeli forces entered Ramallah early today and began to surround the shell-shattered compound of Yasser Arafat, who had accused Israel of moving toward a return to the days of complete control over Palestinians' lives.</p> <p>The move into Ramallah widens the Israeli military's scope of control over once-autonomous Palestinian areas. Israeli troops now control most Palestinian population centers in the West Bank — including Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and Bethlehem — and have placed residents under curfew.</p>

June 18 was another day of agony for Israelis. Palestinian statehood would put an end to Israel's suffering -- along with its existence. Seconds after he boarded a Jerusalem bus, a Palestinian aptly named Mohammad al- Ghoul exploded a nail-studded bomb, killing himself and 19 passengers, mostly students. It was the 69th suicide bombing since the Palestinians began their bloody march toward sovereignty 21 months ago. Shrapnel from the blast ripped through flesh and bone. Rescue workers collected body parts in the street. In a recent poll, 67 percent of Palestinians said they expect such unspeakable evil to pay political...

As John Walker Lindh's lawyers have complained that their client can't get a fair trial in Virginia, and perhaps in anywhere in America, they raise the question as to what a fair trial is. Does a fair trial mean that the court is supposed to protect a defendant from his own mistakes? That seems to be the belief held by the Lindh defense team. For example, Lindh attorneys have complained their client is hurt by pretrial publicity. Apparently it doesn't matter that the pretrial publicity began with Lindh -- who then went by the names John Walker and Suleyman al-Faris...

Supermarkets in Norway are pasting stickers on Israeli products so customers can know where they come from and boycott them. No yellow armbands for Jews. Not yet. The French have published a translation of "Ravelstein," the American novel by Saul Bellow that depicts a cosmopolitan Jewish professor, elegantly described as a connoisseur of fine food, wine and clothes, and the "intellectual counterpart to Michael Jordan." The cover on the French version depicts a man with an ugly prominent nose, large ears, greasy hair and is an anti-Semitic caricature such as you might find in French and German cartoons of the...

WASHINGTON -- Colombia's avowedly hard-line President-elect Alvaro Uribe paid a low-profile visit to Washington last week that seemed successful but actually sowed suspicion. Meeting with Republican House members who will influence the flow of U.S. aid to Colombia, Uribe was asked two key questions. He responded with two disquieting non-answers. The questions: Would Uribe have a place in his administration for Gen. Jose Serrano, the heroic former national police chief? Would he appoint to high office Pedro Juan Moreno, a shadowy figure who had run- ins with U.S. and Colombian authorities over importing precursor chemicals of a kind that produce...