Nation briefs 1/13/04

Iran's reformers threaten elections boycott

TEHRAN, Iran -- A showdown between Iran's hard-liners and liberals deepened Monday as reformist lawmakers barred from upcoming elections threatened to boycott the vote and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised to intervene if the crisis is not resolved soon. For the second day in a row, legislators who were among those barred from the Feb. 20 elections held a sit-in protest in the parliament building. The hard-line Guardian Council disqualified more than 3,000 of the 8,200 people who filed papers to run for the parliament's 290 seats, lawmakers have said.

Syria declines Israel's invitation for peace talks

JERUSALEM -- Israel's ceremonial president on Monday invited Syrian leader Bashar Assad for peace talks, but Syria brushed off the offer as insufficient. President Moshe Katsav's invitation came amid growing debate among Israeli officials about how to respond to recent peace gestures from Damascus. Syrian leaders have repeatedly said since December they are ready to resume negotiations with Israel where talks broke off in 2000 -- with Israel offering to return nearly all the Golan Heights captured in the 1967 Middle East War. Sharon said Sunday that Israel would restart negotiations with Syria only after Syria stops backing militant groups that continue to attack Israel.

Chechnya says refugee camps should be closed

VLADIKAVKAZ, RUSSIA -- Chechen authorities said Monday the war-plagued region was safe enough for thousands of refugees to return and proposed closing tent camps in neighboring Ingushetia by March. Russian authorities have repeatedly insisted that stability is being restored in Chechnya. But on Monday, an official in the Kremlin-backed Chechen administration reported that six Russian soldiers had been killed in rebel attacks. An estimated 67,000 Chechens have fled to neighboring Ingushetia, with some 5,000-7,000 living in tent camps that have embarrassed Russian officials as a visible sign of continuing instability in the breakaway republic after more than four years of fighting against separatist rebels.

U.S. wants Japan to take bigger role in missions

TOKYO -- As Japan prepares to send hundreds of troops to help rebuild Iraq, some U.S. officials hope the deployment marks a first step in drawing the staunch American ally into a more active role in U.S.-supported military operations. Bush administration and Pentagon officials would be happy to see Japan evolve into an ally like Australia, willing to commit its high-tech combat forces to coalition operations around the world, according to a Western diplomat in Tokyo, speaking Monday on the condition of anonymity.

New drug disappointing in lung cancer tests

LONDON -- A drug that has prolonged the lives of many breast cancer patients has failed to live up to hopes that it might help people with lung cancer, new research has found. In a study outlined this week in the European journal Annals of Oncology, those treated with Herceptin in combination with two chemotherapy medicines did no better than patients treated with the chemotherapy drugs alone. Herceptin, a standard treatment for spreading breast cancer, belongs to a new set of cancer drugs called targeted therapies, which are intended to arrest cancer by disrupting the internal signals that fuel its unruly growth.

French mayor's assailant found unfit for trial

PARIS -- A Paris judge on Monday dismissed criminal charges against a man who allegedly stabbed Mayor Bertrand Delanoe at an all-night party in 2002, ruling the suspect was not mentally fit to stand trial, judicial officials said. Judge Nathalie Frydman ordered Azedine Berkane instead to be sent to a psychiatric hospital within the next several days, the officials said on customary condition of anonymity. Frydman made her ruling after a team of psychiatrists last week turned in the results of a third round of examinations of Berkane, the officials said.

-- From wire reports