Palestinian security forces deploy in Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip, January 21. (AFP Photo)

GAZA CITY, Occupied Palestine,
Jan. 25--Palestinian forces will take up positions in the southern Gaza Strip by midweek, completing their deployment across the coastal territory in another step toward ending more than four years of conflict with Israel, AP quoted a Palestinian Cabinet minister as saying Tuesday.
Israeli and Palestinian generals were to meet later Tuesday to complete the deployment plan, said the minister, Saeb Erekat. Once the plan is approved, officers will take up positions in southern Gaza within 24 hours, he said.
The deployment is accompanied by a promise by militants to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to halt attacks on Israel, provided the Israeli military suspends operations, including arrest raids and targeted killings of wanted men. Israel has refused to give such a guarantee, but has said it will respond to calm with calm.
Leaders of the Islamic militant group Hamas were to hold a news conference in Gaza City later Tuesday. A senior Hamas leader in the West Bank has said the group has agreed to suspend attacks for 30 days, to test Israel's response, while other Hamas members emphasized that a truce deal is not yet complete.
Over the weekend, some 3,000 Palestinian police deployed in the northern half of Gaza, mainly along the border fence with Israel, to prevent rocket attacks by Palestinian militants on Israeli communities. No rockets or mortars have hit Israeli communities since last week.
In Tuesday's meeting, the Israeli and Palestinian generals are to discuss police deployment in the southern half of Gaza, said Erekat, who is involved in negotiations with Israel. The meeting is to be attended by Palestinian Maj. Gen. Moussa Arafat and Israeli Brig. Gen. Aviv Kochavi.
Erekat said he has been in touch by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's aides to prepare for a future summit between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He said contacts with Israel are going well, but that the two sides have not yet begun to discuss the content of a summit.
The Palestinians want to reach agreement before the summit on key issues, such as the release of prisoners and an Israeli troop redeployment in the West Bank.

MOSCOW, Jan. 25--Russia hit out on Tuesday against US threats towards Syria over its alleged ties to terrorists and cross-border help for insurgents in neighboring Iraq, saying they only worsened the situation in the region, AFP reported.
"We are concerned about the situation surrounding Syria. It is important not to provoke further tension in a region already overflowing with crises," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a statement.
"If there are some remaining concerns, they should be backed up by concrete proof and resolved through negotiations. The language of threats can only worsen the situation," he added. Syrian President Bashar
Al-Assad arrived Monday on a four-day official visit to Russia and was to hold talks Tuesday with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
The visit comes as Washington continues to accuse Syria of sponsoring international terrorism and turning a blind eye to anti-American insurgents crossing the border into neighboring Iraq.
US President George W. Bush warned Syria last month against "meddling" in Iraq and said Washington had a variety of diplomatic and economic measures it could take.
Assad's talks in Moscow have been marked by controversy since Israel accused Russia of planning to sell advanced missiles to its arch-foe Syria, charges dismissed by the Russian government.

RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia,
Jan. 25--Saudi Arabia will expand its consultative Shura council this year and grant its hand-picked members wider powers, but sees little benefit in holding elections to choose them, Reuters quoted a senior prince as saying.
The 120-strong advisory body has steadily gained influence in the absolute monarchy, including the right to propose or challenge legislation. But reformers say its members must also be elected if it is to have real muscle.
"We are planning to develop the council in three months' time," Saudi newspapers quoted Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz on Tuesday as saying.
"The Shura Council now has 120 members and will grow to 150.
There will be about 30 new members and we will choose them from every section of the kingdom," said Sultan, the third most senior royal after King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah.
"No region, no tribe and no village will be unrepresented in
the council and we will expand its authority, God willing," he said.
Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah has faced pressure for reform since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, carried out by mainly Saudi hijackers, and a wave of militant violence in the kingdom which began in May 2003.
Abdullah has introduced cautious changes including elections for municipal councils which will be held from February to April.
But the limited scope of the moves was underlined by the arrest last year of several prominent reformists and a warning from ministers that government employees who criticize the state would face strict punishment.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 25--A top Al-Qaeda operative from Tanzania was handed over to US authorities shortly after his arrest in Pakistan last July, Reuters quoted a senior Pakistani intelligence official as saying on Tuesday.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa that killed more than 200 people, was arrested after a shootout in the eastern Pakistani city of Gujarat on July 27.
"A week after the arrest, he was handed over to the Americans," a senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pakistani had not previously announced the handover of Ghailani, who was on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's most wanted list and had a $5 million US bounty on his head.
Ghailani was charged by a New York court in December 1998 for his alleged involvement in the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
Pakistan is a key ally in the US-led war on terror. It has arrested hundreds of Al-Qaeda suspects since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and many are now thought to
be at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Several senior Al-Qaeda figures have been handed over to Washington but the organization's leader, Osama bin Laden, and other top figures remain at large.
US officials have said they believe bin Laden is hiding in the rugged border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Yulia Tymoshenko

MOSCOW, Jan. 25--Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko, visiting Moscow on a trip to mend relations after a bitter election campaign, appointed top ally Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister Monday--a move likely to anger the Kremlin, AP reported.
Yushchenko, who was inaugurated Sunday, initially said he would need more consultations before nominating a prime minister. His hesitation seemed to be aimed at avoiding a provocative decision just before his Moscow trip--his first foreign visit as president.
But after arriving in the Russian capital, Yushchenko's office said he had nominated Tymoshenko, who is widely disliked by the Kremlin. Moscow supported Yushchenko's opponent in the presidential campaign, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
Tymoshenko, a firebrand opposition leader, was a key driving force behind a wave of opposition protests dubbed the "Orange Revolution" that paved the way for Yushchenko's victory in a fiercely contested presidential race that took two elections to settle.
For Yushchenko, the Kremlin meeting was part of his delicate balancing act to move closer to the West while not upsetting relations with his powerful neighbor. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the meeting could help undo the damage of his unsuccessful foray into Ukrainian politics.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25--The Pentagon, edging into foreign spy operations traditionally handled by the CIA, will soon begin using its own special intelligence teams to work with US military forces in world trouble spots, Reuters quoted senior defense and military officials as saying on Monday.
The officials told reporters that a new Strategic Support Branch under the Defense Intelligence Agency was a change sparked by 2001 attacks on America and not an attempt by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to grab authority over intelligence operations.
The Pentagon detailed the program after the Washington Post on Sunday revealed its existence, sparking charges from some Washington critics that Rumsfeld was trying to circumvent the CIA and may even have avoided necessary congressional oversight. Some Democrats called for congressional hearings. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said at a briefing that Pentagon groups of interrogators, linguists and others had been operating in Iraq and Afghanistan on an ad hoc basis for two years but are now being organized into 10-member civilian teams for deployments on request this year.
The move "is being done completely in coordination with and full knowledge and participation" of the Central Intelligence Agency, a senior military official said.
A senior defense official said one US defense expert had helped analyze information that was directly responsible for the capture of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in December 2003 and that the move gave impetus to the new plan.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jan. 25--Almost three quarters of South Africans think corruption is getting worse and is becoming a way of life, affecting police officers and senior levels of government, a survey showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
The poll comes as police prepare to arrest 40 current and former members of parliament over a $2.86 million travel expenses scam.
But almost half of those questioned by Research Surveys said they believed corruption was not as bad as elsewhere in Africa.
"This may be more a statement about how bad the rest of Africa is rather than we are better," the pollster's chief executive Henry Barenblatt told Reuters.
Of 500 adults questioned, 76 percent said corruption was getting worse and 74 percent that it had become a way of life.
Seventy nine percent said there was corruption at senior levels in government and 75 percent said many police officers took bribes.
Blacks were more likely to say that police officers took bribes, while whites were more likely to accuse senior government officials of corruption.
Barenblatt said a hard-core of whites tended to distrust South Africa's black-run African National Congress government more than a decade after the end of apartheid.
Apartheid had left many blacks distrusting the police, although it was not clear whether their perceptions of corruption were also based on personal experience, he said.
But South Africans appear to trust newspaper and television reporters to keep an eye on corrupt officials, with 67 percent agreeing with the statement "the media exposes most corruption".