Palestinians’ situation worse off, Fayyad says

Palestinians’ situation
worse off, Fayyad says

RAMALLAH, West Bank — U.S.-led Middle East peace efforts will not be seen as credible by Palestinians unless a deadline is set for a deal, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told The Associated Press on Saturday. Israel has rejected a timeline, the U.S. has been cool to the idea and Fayyad said he is not issuing an ultimatum. However, he warned that the situation on the ground is not static and that with continued expansion of Israeli settlements, prospects for a two-state solution are getting dimmer every day.

Palestinians are worse off today than when peace-making began more than a decade ago, and they need “some notion of when this is going to end, particularly since conditions on the ground continue to deteriorate,” said Fayyad, 55, an economist and former World Bank official who meets frequently with Israeli leaders and has won the respect of the Bush administration. In the run-up to the U.S.-hosted Mideast conference, tentatively set for late November or early December in Annapolis, Md., Israel must make some “bold moves,” Fayyad said in an interview at his West Bank office, with a large Palestinian flag and a wall sculpture of Bethlehem stone as a backdrop.

Jury deliberating
hire-to-kill sentence

PITTSBURGH — A federal court in Pittsburgh will continue Monday to deliberate the fate of a Beaver Falls man who faces the possible death penalty. The jury had previously convicted 28-year-old Jelani Solomon of hiring another man to kill the father of a police informant against him. The jury began deliberating Solomon’s fate Friday but could not reach a verdict. The jury deliberated over two days before ruling late last month that Solomon paid a man cash and drugs to shoot Frank Helisek Jr. at his home in January 2004. Authorities say the shooting was meant to frighten Helisek’s son Shawn who was scheduled to testify against Solomon in a drug case.

Former IRA chief dies

DUBLIN, Ireland — Martin Meehan, a one-time Irish Republican Army commander who spurred IRA members toward compromise, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack in his Belfast home, the Sinn Fein party said. He was 62. Meehan spent 18 years in prison for a wide range of offenses, but ended his days as a firm advocate for peace and compromise in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams — who, like Meehan, joined the IRA in 1966 and spent time in prison with him in the 1970s — praised Meehan as “a dedicated IRA volunteer, political activist and elected representative.”

Antioch to stay open

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio — Trustees overseeing Antioch College said Saturday they have reversed their decision to temporarily close the school, which is known for its pioneering academic program that produces students with a passion for free thinking and social activism. The reversal is contingent on whether alumni and the school can meet fundraising goals over the next three years, board chairman Art Zucker said. Antioch will also close buildings and dormitories and will downsize the faculty to meet budget constraints, he said.

Teacher captured

LEXINGTON, Neb. — A teacher accused of running away with a 13-year-old student planned a romantic life with him in his native Mexico, but she was near broke when they were captured there, authorities said Saturday. Their border crossing during a week on the lam may mean the teen, an illegal immigrant, will not be able to come back to the rural Nebraska town where he was an eighth-grader. The boy’s relatives told police he had called home asking for money, leading investigators to a shopping mall in the border city of Mexicali on Friday. Kelsey Peterson, 25, and Fernando Rodriguez, 13, were taken into custody without incident in the parking lot. Peterson, a sixth-grade math teacher and basketball coach at Lexington Middle School, fled with the boy after police began investigating whether the pair had an intimate relationship, authorities said.

Foggy freeway pileup

FRESNO, Calif. — Collisions on a foggy freeway Saturday resulted in a pileup of as many as 100 vehicles and the deaths of at least two people, the California Highway Patrol said. The collisions included 18 big rigs on northbound Highway 99 just south of Fresno, CHP Officer Scott Jobinger said. A 6-year-old boy and a 28-year-old man traveling in separate vehicles were killed in the chain-reaction collisions around 7:45 a.m.

Associated Press