Nation & World Digest

Al-Maliki seeks recount in elections

BAGHDAD

Iraq’s political process lurched toward crisis Sunday as the country’s prime minister, president and interior minister threw their weight behind a ballot-by-ballot recount of the nation’s parliamentary elections.

In addition, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose election slate is locked in a tight race with that of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, invoked his military powers as Iraq’s commander in chief to insist that the Independent High Electoral Commission respond to the recount demand.

The Iraqi election commission defended its results in a news conference Sunday night and said it did not intend a ballot-by-ballot recount. It expects final results Friday.

Israeli official: No building restrictions

JERUSALEM

Israel will not restrict construction in east Jerusalem, Israel’s prime minister said Sunday hours before he left for Washington, despite a clear U.S. demand that building there must stop and a crisis in relations between the two longtime allies.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Barack Obama on Tuesday will be the first high-level meeting since the crisis erupted 10 days ago, when Israel embarrassed visiting Vice President Joe Biden by announcing a plan for construction in a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem, which is claimed by the Palestinians.

50th anniversary of killings in S. Africa

JOHANNESBURG

Family members of victims raised flowers to the sky and placed them on gravestones Sunday as mourners sang songs from the anti-apartheid struggle to mark the 50th anniversary of a massacre that drew world condemnation.

Police officers killed 69 black South Africans in Sharpeville, where people had gathered to protest the pass books that the white apartheid government required them to carry at all times. Police shot demonstrators including women and children as they ran away.

The Sharpeville massacre drew global condemnation of the ruthless treatment of South Africa’s disenfranchised black majority and led the apartheid government to outlaw the African National Congress party.

Pope doesn’t mention rebuke to bishops

VATICAN CITY

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged Catholics to refrain from judging sinners a day after he rebuked Irish bishops for their handling of a half-century of sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

While the pope made no mention of the Vatican’s widely criticized policy of cloaking abuse allegations in secrecy, a Swiss churchman called for the Holy See to start a registry of molester clergy to avoid more shuttling by bishops of pedophile priests from parish to parish.

Demise of species shows Web’s impact

DOHA, Qatar

The Internet has emerged as one of the greatest threats to rare species, fueling the illegal wildlife trade and making it easier to buy everything from live baby lions to wine made from tiger bones, conservationists and law enforcement officers said Sunday.

The Web’s impact was made clear at the meeting of the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. Delegates voted overwhelmingly Sunday to ban the trade of the Kaiser’s spotted newt, which the World Wildlife Fund says has been devastated by the Internet trade.

A proposal from the United States and Sweden to regulate the trade in red and pink coral — which is crafted into expensive jewelry and sold on the Web — was defeated.

Combined dispatches