Storm shreds aging tents in Haiti earthquake camps (AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti � The sudden, powerful storm that ripped through Haiti's battered capital destroyed thousands of tents in the homeless camps where more than 1.3 million people live eight months after the earthquake destroyed their homes, shelter officials said Saturday.

The death toll from Friday afternoon's storm stood at six people, with nearly 8,000 tents damaged or destroyed, according to a statement from the United Nation's International Organization for Migration. The organization said it had distributed 5,000 tarps.

Earlier, Civil Protection chief Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste told The Associated Press that the dead included two children and hundreds of people were reported with varying degrees of injury.

The storm's effect was exacerbated by the flimsiness of tarps and tents that have been baking, soaking and flapping in the Caribbean elements since the Jan. 12 earthquake killed at least 230,000 people and left millions homeless. Hundreds of thousands of families continue living on the streets of the capital waiting for temporary housing or money to find new apartments.

"Many of the tents that were destroyed had reached their end of lifespan," said Gerhard Tauscher, shelter cluster coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross.

Reconstruction has barely begun despite billions of dollars pledged for Haiti in the wake of the disaster. Less than 15 percent of money promised at the U.N. donor's conference in March 2has been delivered. The United States, which spent more than $1.1 billion in humanitarian aid after the quake, has not delivered any of its promised long-term funds.

Wood and metal temporary shelters fared much better in the storm, suffering minimal damage. But few of the earthquake homeless have those.

Instead they continue living in tarps and tents, sometimes reinforced with metal or wood. As many as 10 percent of such shelters were destroyed in some areas of the capital by the sudden squall, with damage concentrated in central urban areas, Tauscher said.

Camp-management facilities including office tents, clinics and childcare spaces were shredded, especially in camps perched on the steep hillsides between downtown Port-au-Prince and the suburb of Petionville.

"(Our) infrastructure has been ripped up: the house, the office, child-friendly spaces. The clinic held up pretty well and there wasn't any one person hurt. But trees fell and the place looks an absolute mess," said Emmett Fitzgerald of the American Refugee Council, who manages the 26,000-person camp at Terrain Acra.

Sean Penn's J/P Haiti Relief Organization also suffered damage to its administrative and clinic tents at the Petionville country club golf-course camp home to tens of thousands of quake homeless.

There was less damage to the north of the city at the Corail-Cesselesse camp, where residents used tools to drain water away from tents and shore up sagging homes with help from international aid and security teams, manager Bryant Castro said.

The storm was not part of any tropical system but rather a standard early-fall Caribbean storm caused by cold and dry conditions in the upper atmosphere, U.S. National Hurricane Center senior specialist Stacy Stewart told AP.

Windspeed and rainfall data were not immediately available. Based on the reports of uprooted trees and damaged tents, Stewart estimated winds might have reached 60 mph (100 kph) � a violent storm, but far below hurricane strength.

Haiti has not suffered a direct hit from a hurricane or tropical storm this year, but months of hurricane season remain. Forecasters are watching the remnants of Tropical Storm Matthew off the coast of Central America, which could transform into a "monsoon low" and threaten the Western Caribbean next week.

The impoverished nation was extremely vulnerable to damage from passing storms even before the quake. Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil slum was flooded by rains in 2007. In 2008, four named storms struck in the space of a month, killing nearly 800 people and plunging the coastal city of Gonaives under water for weeks.

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Chavez fights to keep control in legislative vote (AP)

CARACAS, Venezuela � Going into Sunday's legislative elections, President Hugo Chavez pitched his candidates like a salesman, promising Venezuelans he will give them low-interest credit cards and discounted appliances from washing machines to TV sets.

Chavez turned to his long successful populist appeals seeking to woo voters more concerned with their pocketbooks than with his socialist politics. He is trying to hold off a determined challenge by the opposition, which is intent on breaking Chavez's stranglehold on the National Assembly for the first time in his presidency.

"I want us to win the elections by knockout!" Chavez told cheering supporters during one of his final campaign rallies, standing amid allied candidates dressed in his party's signature red.

Chavez's allies have had near total control of the congress since opposition parties boycotted the last legislative elections in 2005. If Chavez's opponents can deny him a two-thirds majority, they would have more clout in trying to check his sweeping powers.

The vote is also a referendum on Chavez himself before the next presidential election in 2012. Polls suggest he remains the most popular politician in Venezuela, yet surveys also say his approval ratings have slipped in the past two years as disenchantment has grown over problems including rampant crime, poorly administered public services and 30 percent inflation.

Apparently seeking to turn up the heat in the campaign, Chavez has launched a program to provide Venezuelans with special, low-interest credit cards that can be used to shop at state-run stores and for travel, calling it the "Good Life Card."

Chavez also campaigned for his allies touting cheap appliances that the government has begun importing from China on credit. He called that evidence of his government's commitment to making life affordable while prices charged by private stores have been climbing rapidly.

"I'm going to sell you all some tremendous refrigerators � very cheap, among the best in the world," Chavez said during one televised event. "Gas stoves at half price, water heaters, washers, television sets, air conditioners � on credit and with no down payment."

Opposition candidates dismissed the program as a gimmick and also complained that Chavez's allies have benefited from public funds while trying to hold on to control of the 165-seat legislature.

"What's at stake is democracy, the balance of powers, that there be controls," said Stalin Gonzalez, a 29-year-old opposition candidate and former student protest leader running against the incumbent assembly president, Cilia Flores.

Gonzalez said that for the past five years, compliant lawmakers have focused on helping Chavez amass more power while ignoring Venezuela's violent crime and corruption and government scandals such as the discovery of thousands of tons of decomposing food in shipping containers at a port.

"What Chavez is is a populist, and he keeps playing with the public and making electoral offers to try to get support," Gonzalez said.

He noted that the credit card and discounted appliance programs are still barely getting off the ground, and pointed out that many of Chavez's past promises for public housing, hospital renovations and other projects have not been kept.

The opposition's stated goal is to win a majority in the National Assembly vote for the first time since Chavez was elected president nearly 12 years ago. The opposition faces major challenges, in part due to a controversial election law that redrew some legislative districts and gave greater weight to votes in rural areas, where Chavez remains more popular.

Opposition candidates, whose support has grown in urban areas, called the changes an unfair advantage for Chavez but agreed to participate in the elections and respect the results as long as the vote count is transparent. Both political camps will have witnesses at polling stations keeping an eye on the balloting.

If Chavez's allies manage to retain a two-thirds majority, it would give them the power to keep rewriting laws unopposed and to appoint officials including Supreme Court justices and members of the electoral council.

Chavez and his supporters sought to mobilize his loyalists by calling the election a chance to keep his "Bolivarian Revolution" rolling and to defend its socialist-inspired programs.

As Chavez stepped atop a campaign truck in Caracas, supporters called to him excitedly as he made eye contact person-by-person, waved and pounded his fist into the palm of a raised hand.

"I love him," gushed Sinahy Tuta, a 37-year-old accountant who shouted out to Chavez. She said the opposition seems a loosely unified collection of leaders. "We have a single one," she said.

Despite those emotions, disillusionment with Chavez's government has grown. Even in the barrios that have traditionally been pro-Chavez strongholds, some people say they see the government as unresponsive to their problems.

"I'm not sure if I'm going to vote," said Rosalba Machado Diaz, an unemployed 45-year-old who in the past voted for Chavez and his supporters. "I'm not sure, because there's so much disenchantment."

In the hillside slum of Blandin where she lives on the outskirts of Caracas, heavy rains caused a landslide several days ago that crushed a home and killed seven people � among at least 14 landslide victims citywide during the week.

Machado lost her home in similar landslides in 1999. She said that despite years of trying, she has been unable to get help from the government to relocate � so she must live with six relatives crowded in a two-room concrete home.

Her neighbor, Evelyn Laguna, pointed to a hillside above that has begun to erode, threatening more destruction.

"What we want are solutions," she said.

While officials evacuated dozens of residents, Chavez sent condolences to the community hit by the first landslide. He said the sprawling slums on unstable hillsides are a product of the policies of previous governments and that his government is working to solve the housing problems.

Chavez often blames societal problems on his predecessors and says he is still working to remedy the ills of capitalism. He points to a decline in poverty during his presidency and to programs he began for the poor such as adult education, cash benefits for single mothers and free medical clinics staffed by Cuban doctors.

On the campaign trail, Chavez used his time-tested script, pledging more social programs while seeking to portray his opponents as stooges serving the interests of Venezuela's old-guard elite and his adversaries in the U.S. government.

"We're going to give them a beating," Chavez told supporters at a rally Thursday. The crowd responded by chanting, "They won't return!"

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Chavez fights to keep control in legislative vote (AP)

CARACAS, Venezuela � Going into Sunday's legislative elections, President Hugo Chavez pitched his candidates like a salesman, promising Venezuelans he will give them low-interest credit cards and discounted appliances from washing machines to TV sets.

Chavez turned to his long successful populist appeals seeking to woo voters more concerned with their pocketbooks than with his socialist politics. He is trying to hold off a determined challenge by the opposition, which is intent on breaking Chavez's stranglehold on the National Assembly for the first time in his presidency.

"I want us to win the elections by knockout!" Chavez told cheering supporters during one of his final campaign rallies, standing amid allied candidates dressed in his party's signature red.

Chavez's allies have had near total control of the congress since opposition parties boycotted the last legislative elections in 2005. If Chavez's opponents can deny him a two-thirds majority, they would have more clout in trying to check his sweeping powers.

The vote is also a referendum on Chavez himself before the next presidential election in 2012. Polls suggest he remains the most popular politician in Venezuela, yet surveys also say his approval ratings have slipped in the past two years as disenchantment has grown over problems including rampant crime, poorly administered public services and 30 percent inflation.

Apparently seeking to turn up the heat in the campaign, Chavez has launched a program to provide Venezuelans with special, low-interest credit cards that can be used to shop at state-run stores and for travel, calling it the "Good Life Card."

Chavez also campaigned for his allies touting cheap appliances that the government has begun importing from China on credit. He called that evidence of his government's commitment to making life affordable while prices charged by private stores have been climbing rapidly.

"I'm going to sell you all some tremendous refrigerators � very cheap, among the best in the world," Chavez said during one televised event. "Gas stoves at half price, water heaters, washers, television sets, air conditioners � on credit and with no down payment."

Opposition candidates dismissed the program as a gimmick and also complained that Chavez's allies have benefited from public funds while trying to hold on to control of the 165-seat legislature.

"What's at stake is democracy, the balance of powers, that there be controls," said Stalin Gonzalez, a 29-year-old opposition candidate and former student protest leader running against the incumbent assembly president, Cilia Flores.

Gonzalez said that for the past five years, compliant lawmakers have focused on helping Chavez amass more power while ignoring Venezuela's violent crime and corruption and government scandals such as the discovery of thousands of tons of decomposing food in shipping containers at a port.

"What Chavez is is a populist, and he keeps playing with the public and making electoral offers to try to get support," Gonzalez said.

He noted that the credit card and discounted appliance programs are still barely getting off the ground, and pointed out that many of Chavez's past promises for public housing, hospital renovations and other projects have not been kept.

The opposition's stated goal is to win a majority in the National Assembly vote for the first time since Chavez was elected president nearly 12 years ago. The opposition faces major challenges, in part due to a controversial election law that redrew some legislative districts and gave greater weight to votes in rural areas, where Chavez remains more popular.

Opposition candidates, whose support has grown in urban areas, called the changes an unfair advantage for Chavez but agreed to participate in the elections and respect the results as long as the vote count is transparent. Both political camps will have witnesses at polling stations keeping an eye on the balloting.

If Chavez's allies manage to retain a two-thirds majority, it would give them the power to keep rewriting laws unopposed and to appoint officials including Supreme Court justices and members of the electoral council.

Chavez and his supporters sought to mobilize his loyalists by calling the election a chance to keep his "Bolivarian Revolution" rolling and to defend its socialist-inspired programs.

As Chavez stepped atop a campaign truck in Caracas, supporters called to him excitedly as he made eye contact person-by-person, waved and pounded his fist into the palm of a raised hand.

"I love him," gushed Sinahy Tuta, a 37-year-old accountant who shouted out to Chavez. She said the opposition seems a loosely unified collection of leaders. "We have a single one," she said.

Despite those emotions, disillusionment with Chavez's government has grown. Even in the barrios that have traditionally been pro-Chavez strongholds, some people say they see the government as unresponsive to their problems.

"I'm not sure if I'm going to vote," said Rosalba Machado Diaz, an unemployed 45-year-old who in the past voted for Chavez and his supporters. "I'm not sure, because there's so much disenchantment."

In the hillside slum of Blandin where she lives on the outskirts of Caracas, heavy rains caused a landslide several days ago that crushed a home and killed seven people � among at least 14 landslide victims citywide during the week.

Machado lost her home in similar landslides in 1999. She said that despite years of trying, she has been unable to get help from the government to relocate � so she must live with six relatives crowded in a two-room concrete home.

Her neighbor, Evelyn Laguna, pointed to a hillside above that has begun to erode, threatening more destruction.

"What we want are solutions," she said.

While officials evacuated dozens of residents, Chavez sent condolences to the community hit by the first landslide. He said the sprawling slums on unstable hillsides are a product of the policies of previous governments and that his government is working to solve the housing problems.

Chavez often blames societal problems on his predecessors and says he is still working to remedy the ills of capitalism. He points to a decline in poverty during his presidency and to programs he began for the poor such as adult education, cash benefits for single mothers and free medical clinics staffed by Cuban doctors.

On the campaign trail, Chavez used his time-tested script, pledging more social programs while seeking to portray his opponents as stooges serving the interests of Venezuela's old-guard elite and his adversaries in the U.S. government.

"We're going to give them a beating," Chavez told supporters at a rally Thursday. The crowd responded by chanting, "They won't return!"

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Bomb scare diverts plane; may have been a hoax (AP)

STOCKHOLM � Canadian police are investigating whether a phoned-in hoax caused a Pakistani jet to be diverted to Stockholm for several hours Saturday for fear that one of its passengers was carrying explosives.

Police evacuated 273 people from the jet, and briefly detained a Canadian man, after an anonymous caller in Canada tipped-off authorities that the suspect was carrying explosives.

However, no explosives were found on the man, who was released after questioning by police, or on the Boeing 777 from Pakistan International Airlines, which had been bound from Toronto to Karachi, Pakistan.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it was investigating whether the incident was a "terrorism hoax."

"If the information is deemed to be a hoax, the person who passed along that information can be charged for public mischief," said spokeswoman Sgt. Julie Gagnon in Ottawa.

All passengers � except the suspect � were allowed back on the plane at Stockholm's Arlanda airport nine hours later.

It took off for Manchester, England, from where the passengers would continue their journey to Karachi, said Jan Lindqvist, a spokesman for airport operator Swedavia.

Swedish police described the suspect as a Canadian citizen born in 1982. Initially they said he was of Pakistani background but later said they were not sure.

A spokesman for the state-owned Pakistan International Airlines said the suspect was a 25-year-old Canadian national.

A prosecutor decided to release the man after questioning, and police were trying to help him continue his journey to Karachi either late Saturday or Sunday, police spokesman Erik Widstrand said, adding the man had cooperated with investigators.

"He was calm but irritated," Widstrand said.

The pilot asked to land the plane in Stockholm after Canadian authorities said they received a tip-off by phone the man was carrying explosives. Passengers were told there was a technical problem with the aircraft and didn't find out the real reason until they were on the ground, Widstrand said.

A SWAT team detained the suspect as he was evacuated from the aircraft along with the other passengers. An Associated Press reporter at the airport saw the passengers boarding yellow airport buses parked near the aircraft.

The tip was "called in by a woman in Canada," police operation leader Stefan Radman said, adding that Swedish police took the threat seriously.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman Sgt. Marc LaPorte said an anonymous caller called twice Friday saying a man on the flight had explosives.

"The first call provided vague information. It did lay out that there was an individual on that specific flight in possession of explosives and then the second call provided more details with regards to the identity of the person," LaPorte said.

He declined to elaborate on the caller, saying there was potentially a criminal offense involved.

"On its face" it appears someone had an ax to grind against the man, LaPorte said, but couldn't elaborate on the motive.

"If the Swedish authorities are saying that they released him and there is no investigation on their end, we will obviously pursue this as a hoax," LaPorte said, adding there could be a terrorism hoax charge as well as a public mischief charge.

In Washington, the FBI was assisting Swedish and Canadian authorities in their investigation, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said Saturday.

Swedish police said the man was not on any international no-fly lists and had cleared a security check in Canada. He didn't resist when the SWAT team took him into custody.

In Pakistan, a spokesman for state-run PIA confirmed the incident involved Flight PK782 to Karachi.

The passengers waited at the "international holding area" at the airport as they and their luggage were scanned and searched, airline spokesman Sultan Hasan said. Pakistani diplomats were at the airport to coordinate with the security officials.

PIA said there were 255 passengers and 18 crew members on the plane. Of the passengers, 102 were Canadian nationals, 139 Pakistanis, eight U.S. citizens, three Indians and one each from Japan, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

The Canadian Embassy in Stockholm was in contact with local authorities to gather additional information, Foreign Affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione said.

___

Associated Press Writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

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Bomb scare diverts plane; may have been a hoax (AP)

STOCKHOLM � Canadian police are investigating whether a phoned-in hoax caused a Pakistani jet to be diverted to Stockholm for several hours Saturday for fear that one of its passengers was carrying explosives.

Police evacuated 273 people from the jet, and briefly detained a Canadian man, after an anonymous caller in Canada tipped-off authorities that the suspect was carrying explosives.

However, no explosives were found on the man, who was released after questioning by police, or on the Boeing 777 from Pakistan International Airlines, which had been bound from Toronto to Karachi, Pakistan.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it was investigating whether the incident was a "terrorism hoax."

"If the information is deemed to be a hoax, the person who passed along that information can be charged for public mischief," said spokeswoman Sgt. Julie Gagnon in Ottawa.

All passengers � except the suspect � were allowed back on the plane at Stockholm's Arlanda airport nine hours later.

It took off for Manchester, England, from where the passengers would continue their journey to Karachi, said Jan Lindqvist, a spokesman for airport operator Swedavia.

Swedish police described the suspect as a Canadian citizen born in 1982. Initially they said he was of Pakistani background but later said they were not sure.

A spokesman for the state-owned Pakistan International Airlines said the suspect was a 25-year-old Canadian national.

A prosecutor decided to release the man after questioning, and police were trying to help him continue his journey to Karachi either late Saturday or Sunday, police spokesman Erik Widstrand said, adding the man had cooperated with investigators.

"He was calm but irritated," Widstrand said.

The pilot asked to land the plane in Stockholm after Canadian authorities said they received a tip-off by phone the man was carrying explosives. Passengers were told there was a technical problem with the aircraft and didn't find out the real reason until they were on the ground, Widstrand said.

A SWAT team detained the suspect as he was evacuated from the aircraft along with the other passengers. An Associated Press reporter at the airport saw the passengers boarding yellow airport buses parked near the aircraft.

The tip was "called in by a woman in Canada," police operation leader Stefan Radman said, adding that Swedish police took the threat seriously.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman Sgt. Marc LaPorte said an anonymous caller called twice Friday saying a man on the flight had explosives.

"The first call provided vague information. It did lay out that there was an individual on that specific flight in possession of explosives and then the second call provided more details with regards to the identity of the person," LaPorte said.

He declined to elaborate on the caller, saying there was potentially a criminal offense involved.

"On its face" it appears someone had an ax to grind against the man, LaPorte said, but couldn't elaborate on the motive.

"If the Swedish authorities are saying that they released him and there is no investigation on their end, we will obviously pursue this as a hoax," LaPorte said, adding there could be a terrorism hoax charge as well as a public mischief charge.

In Washington, the FBI was assisting Swedish and Canadian authorities in their investigation, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said Saturday.

Swedish police said the man was not on any international no-fly lists and had cleared a security check in Canada. He didn't resist when the SWAT team took him into custody.

In Pakistan, a spokesman for state-run PIA confirmed the incident involved Flight PK782 to Karachi.

The passengers waited at the "international holding area" at the airport as they and their luggage were scanned and searched, airline spokesman Sultan Hasan said. Pakistani diplomats were at the airport to coordinate with the security officials.

PIA said there were 255 passengers and 18 crew members on the plane. Of the passengers, 102 were Canadian nationals, 139 Pakistanis, eight U.S. citizens, three Indians and one each from Japan, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

The Canadian Embassy in Stockholm was in contact with local authorities to gather additional information, Foreign Affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione said.

___

Associated Press Writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Pakistan, and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

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5 shot at party near Seton Hall in NJ; 1 killed (AP)

EAST ORANGE, N.J. � A man who was denied access to a private party at an apartment near Seton Hall University left and returned with a handgun, fatally shooting a university student and wounding four people, sending screaming partygoers rushing out the door and climbing out windows.

Seton Hall student Jessica Moore, 19, died from her injuries at 3:20 p.m. Saturday, said Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office. Moore had been hospitalized in critical condition after the shooting just before 12:20 a.m.

The other four victims were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, but one has since been released, said East Orange Police Sgt. Andrew Di Elmo.

Di Elmo says the victims did not know the shooter, who fled from the apartment on foot. Police are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the suspect's capture.

Police said that in addition to Moore, two of the other victims are both 19-year-old female students at Seton Hall, and one is a 25-year-old male student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The fifth victim is a 20-year-old man from New York City who is not a student.

The university's interim president, Gabriel Esteban, said Moore was a sophomore honors student from Disputanta, Va., majoring in psychology. During a news conference on campus, Esteban, who appeared to be on the verge of tears, said he had been with the students' families in the hospital all day.

"It's a call no parent wants to get," he said.

Police were not releasing the other victims' names because the shooter remains at-large, Di Elmo said.

A student who said she attended the party and had classes with Moore told The Associated Press that there was a fight after a man was kicked out because he didn't want to pay the cover charge. The woman did not give her name, citing fears for her safety because the shooter was still at large.

The student said the man then came back and began firing his gun.

"This girl was here to go to school and nothing else, and she just wanted to go have fun, and we all were having fun 30 seconds before that happened," the student said of the shootings.

Another partygoer told The Star-Ledger of Newark that he was in the kitchen and heard people shouting in the living room when a shot rang out. More shots were fired as the panicked crowd stampeded toward the back of the house to try to escape, the man said. He also declined to give his full name to the newspaper out of fear for his safety.

The apartment is located at 564 South Clinton Street in East Orange, less than a mile from the university. Well-kept row homes line the street, but a main cross street leads to a tougher part of town.

Police cruisers and orange cones blocked traffic on the street where the shootings happened. An electronic highway sign propped up down the street offered a reward for information and gave a tip line phone number.

Mary Williams, a 59-year-old retiree who lives next door, said she was in bed when she heard the gunshots, and she called 911.

"I seen people scattering, climbing out the window, trying to get out the front door, back windows, a lot of hollering and screaming," Williams said in a telephone interview.

A number of people who fled the house sought refuge at a White Castle restaurant down the street, said Vanie Estime, an employee there.

"I was doing the drive-in and I heard screaming through my headset," she told the AP.

Some 500 students, faculty and staff attended a Saturday evening prayer service for Moore at the university, where participants were asked to describe her in just one word. Those words included "sunshine" and "strong" and "selfless."

Esteban said that Moore's family � her parents, grandparents, uncle � had arrived on campus, where she lived in a dormitory, and were mourning her death and praying for her also.

The school's Department of Public Safety urged students to "travel in groups when walking off campus."

Student Connor McCormick, of Colchester, Vt., said the school sends campuswide e-mails whenever a mugging occurs.

"We probably get one a week," said McCormick, 19, adding than when students go off campus, "You don't walk alone."

Seton Hall, a private Catholic university in nearby South Orange, about 15 miles west of New York City, enrolls about 10,000 students.

___

Henry reported from South Orange, N.J. Associated Press writer Tom McElroy in New York City contributed to this report.

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At UN, climate ministers seek way out of stalemate (AP)

UNITED NATIONS � Climate ministers and top negotiators from dozens of nations remain deadlocked over how to cut greenhouse gases less than three months before the next major international climate summit.

The U.N.'s top climate official told a high-level gathering Saturday that the key issues "are frankly in a deadlock" and the official negotiating text is bogged down by national interests.

But Christiana Figueres said some governments are trying to "rebuild the sense of trust in the process and rekindle the commitment to deliver" some agreements and funding.

"Governments have realized this year that you don't build tall buildings without laying the foundations, unlike last year when they tried to build a very tall building without laying the foundations," she later told The Associated Press.

Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, who will preside over the December summit in Cancun, told 45 climate ministers and top negotiators that any agreement will require "close guidance from the highest levels of government."

The meeting here helped to "show that there are in fact areas, many areas, in which we can reach a significant agreement that would allow the possibility of initiating programs, projects and very concrete actions against climate change in all countries," she later told AP. Many of the participants, including Figueres and Espinosa, noted the predominance of women in leading roles, which helped to set a friendly tone.

South Africa's environment minister, Buyelwa Sonjica, said all nations expressed a belief that there should be "an outcome in Cancun and a significant one." She said there were better odds for that to occur than there were at last December's summit in Copenhagen because of a negotiating text that includes a fair number of issues "that we can find consensus in."

Saturday's gathering followed a week of press conferences and other meetings on climate and environmental issues, including two days of talks among major economic powers on ways to move ahead in slowing and coping with climate change.

A lead U.S. negotiator, special climate envoy Todd Stern, said earlier in the week that among those attending the 17-nation talks, "no one is expecting or anticipating in any way a legal treaty to be done at Cancun this year."

The annual U.N. climate conference will be hosted by the Mexican resort Nov. 29-Dec. 10.

The U.N. talks are meant to produce a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, whose relatively modest emissions reductions expire in 2012. The U.S. is the only industrial nation not to have ratified the Kyoto pact.

In Cancun, delegates from some 190 nations will seek to break the stalemate over a legally binding agreement on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

"The big bargain that we expected in Copenhagen would probably not be possible," Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told AP, adding that other small gains might be achievable.

The last summit in Denmark's capital produced a nonbinding "Copenhagen Accord" that President Barack Obama and several other world leaders cobbled together at the 11th hour.

The voluntary agreement has since prodded 85 nations to say they will take voluntary action to rein in emissions. It also included the first global agreement to keep the Earth's temperature increases below 2 degrees C (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels and head off the worst effects of heat-trapping gases � as recommended by the U.N.'s Nobel Prize-winning international scientific panel studying global warming.

But the emission reductions envisioned in those pledges fall far short of what researchers say is needed to keep the atmosphere from warming dangerously through this century, leading to shifts in climate, worsening droughts and floods, rising seas and other damage.

Despite the U.S. deadlock over climate legislation to limit emissions, the Obama administration has pledged to reduce U.S. emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, through executive orders and a continuing push for the legislation.

___

Associated Press Writer Ana Elena Azpurua contributed to this report.

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Mexico nabs drug trafficker poised to replace capo (AP)

DOCTOR GONZALEZ, Mexico � Mexican authorities have arrested an alleged trafficker known as "The Tiger" who they say shipped a half-ton of drugs to the U.S. each month and may have been poised to take over for a dead capo in the Sinaloa cartel.

Federal police said Saturday that Margarito Soto Reyes, 44, was detained along with eight alleged accomplices near the western city of Guadalajara, but could not immediately specify when or in what circumstances the capture occurred.

Police said Soto Reyes allegedly traded in synthetic drugs on routes established by former Sinaloa leader Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, who was killed in a gunbattle with soldiers in July.

"Intelligence reports indicate that amid the reorganization within the Sinaloa cartel after the death of Ignacio Coronel ... 'The Tiger' was able to use the so-called Southern Pacific route" presumably operated by Coronel, a federal police statement said.

It said officers seized drugs, weapons and cash during the arrests of Soto Reyes and his alleged accomplices. Those detained included a man who allegedly posed as a veterinarian to acquire precursor chemicals for synthetics drugs like methamphetamines, and two women who allegedly helped operate a synthetic drug lab.

Also Saturday, police in the northern state of Chihuahua announced they had found the bodies of six men piled in a sport utility vehicle on a roadside in a remote, southern area of the state. The men had all apparently been shot in the head. And in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, unidentified assailants dumped the hacked-up body of a man on a street.

Elsewhere, mourners and officials held a wake for a mayor shot to death Thursday in a small town near the northern city of Monterrey.

Mourners mounted honor guards around the coffins of Mayor Prisciliano Rodriguez Salinas and his aide in the town of Doctor Gonzalez, where the two were slain.

The coffins were surrounded by floral wreaths inside a small, heavily guarded community center in the agricultural community about 30 miles east of Monterrey. Soldiers and state and federal police patrolled nearby.

No motive has been identified in the killing, but the town lies on a major highway leading to the border, in an area plagued by drug gangs.

Two other small-town mayors in northeastern Mexico have been killed in the last month and at least seven have been slain in border states this year.

Residents described the dead mayor as a cheerful, helpful official who liked to brighten the mood by playing cumbia music at the town hall. Rodriguez Salinas reportedly spent the last day of his life handing out sheets of roofing material to poor residents.

"My father always helped the poor, he was a hard worker," said the mayor's son Daniel, 21, a computer science student.

Asked who might have wanted to kill his father, he said, "We have no idea."

Also Saturday, an army base near Monterrey reported that soldiers came under fire when they went to look into a tip that a local ranch had been taken over by members of a drug gang Friday. The soldiers fired back, killing two alleged assailants, and then seized 12 rifles and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition, the army said.

Drug gangs have been known to take over ranches in northern Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas states to use them as training grounds or safe houses.

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Israel: Settlers brace for end of building freeze (AP)

JERUSALEM � Israeli settlers have hauled construction equipment into a Jewish settlement deep inside the West Bank, officials said Saturday, preparing to break ground on a new housing project even as the U.S. raced to prevent peace talks from collapsing with the end of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building.

The end of the Israeli construction restrictions late Sunday presents the first major crisis in the new round of Mideast peace talks, launched earlier this month at the White House by President Barack Obama.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who imposed the settlement slowdown 10 months ago as a peace gesture, says he will not extend the restrictions, despite public calls from Obama to do so. But the Palestinians, who oppose all Israeli construction on territories they claim for a future state, say they quit the talks if building resumes.

"Israel must choose between peace and the continuation of settlements," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an address to the United Nations General Assembly Saturday.

He said the Palestinians and the wider Middle East are continuously pushed into "the corner of violence and conflict" as a result of Israel's "mentality of expansion and domination."

Abbas left the U.S. late Saturday for meetings in France.

"The American efforts are continuing and will continue in the coming hours," Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh told The Associated Press from the plane before takeoff. "These are serious and important efforts, but they still haven't reached an Israeli commitment to stop settlement activities."

President Abbas has called for a meeting of key Arab foreign ministers to convene in Egypt in the next few days to discuss developments, Abu Rdeneh said.

With the clock ticking, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying to broker a last-minute compromise before Sunday's midnight deadline in hopes of averting a breakdown in talks.

Abbas and top Israeli officials, including the defense minister and Netanyahu's chief negotiator, were all in the U.S. working on the issue. Clinton has urged both sides not to take provocative actions that could derail the negotiations.

Israel's military chief last week warned that violence could erupt if peace talks break down � a concern that was underscored by rioting in east Jerusalem following the shooting death of a Palestinian man Wednesday.

Violence broke out again Saturday, as Israeli riot troops clashed with Palestinian protesters demonstrating against a settlement near the West Bank city of Hebron. An Associated Press photographer was briefly detained and roughed up by security forces and suffered a broken rib. The army claimed the photographer had refused calls to allow troops to operate.

As negotiations proceed in the U.S., there have been signs that both sides are willing to compromise.

Abbas, wary of being blamed for the talk's collapse, told a group of American Jewish leaders last week that he would not necessarily walk away from the negotiations even if settlement construction resumes. And senior Palestinian officials told The Associated Press they are willing to show "some flexibility."

They said one proposal being considered was that Israel would resume building new projects only in some areas, probably in communities close to the Israeli border and likely to be retained by Israel in a future deal as part of a land swap.

But the officials added that at least two other scenarios were also under discussion, including a three-month extension of the moratorium or a conditional extension in which the Palestinians would agree to some "exceptions."

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has signaled that future construction will be far less than the thousands of new homes currently in the pipeline.

An Israeli official familiar with Defense Minister Ehud Barak's negotiations in the U.S. said Israel had floated the idea of requiring all future construction to be personally approved by Barak. This scenario would essentially leave the current restrictions in place without formally declaring so.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal deliberations.

The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, home to 300,000 Jewish settlers, as part of a future state, and say that by expanding settlements, Israel is imposing facts on the ground that make it increasingly difficult for them to establish a viable country.

Netanyahu declared the West Bank slowdown, which put a halt to most new housing starts, last November with the hope of coaxing the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

The Palestinians initially rejected the gesture because it contained loopholes that allowed construction to proceed on thousands of settlement apartments.

With peace talks now under way, the Palestinians say it is essential that Israel leave the restrictions in place. Abbas has repeatedly said he will be forced to walk away from the negotiations if construction resumes.

At the same time, Netanyahu faces heavy pressure within his pro-settler governing coalition to resume construction. Hardline elements in the coalition could try to bring down the government if Netanyahu extends the settlement slowdown.

"There is no reason why we should agree" to extend the restrictions, Limor Livnat, a Cabinet minister in Netanyahu's Likud Party, told Israel Radio on Saturday.

She said some 2,000 homes have received all the necessary approval to be built, and that construction should resume immediately. "Building simply must continue," she said.

In reality, construction will likely be far below maximum levels. But in a symbolic move, Danny Danon, a pro-settler Likud lawmaker, said Saturday that settlers have already moved bulldozers, cement mixers and other equipment into the Revava settlement in the northern West Bank.

He said activists would lay the cornerstone for a new neighborhood on Sunday, the last day of the slowdown, and planned additional construction Monday after the restrictions formally end.

Nawaf Souf, the Palestinian deputy governor in the area, said settlers have moved construction equipment and 20 to 30 mobile homes into Revava in recent days. The homes could be seen Saturday in a crescent shape on what appeared to be freshly dug earth, while bulldozers stood idle in a nearby olive grove.

"The moment that the freeze is lifted, they will do the work openly," Danon said.

___

Associated Press writers Diaa Hadid and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, and Nasser Ishtayeh in Revava contributed to this report.

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Flood fight continues in parts of Minn., Wis. (AP)

MINNEAPOLIS � With 240 guests expected, Luke Fischer and Rachel Smith weren't about to let the widespread flooding in southern Minnesota get in the way of their wedding Saturday.

The 24-year-olds, who live in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, went back to her hometown of Waseca to get married at the Church of the Sacred Heart. Their reception was about 10 miles away at the Owatonna Country Club, in a city where 70 homes had to be evacuated.

"We're pretty happy we don't have to take a duck boat to the reception," a relieved Fischer joked a few hours before the nuptials.

With the Owatonna area drying out, officials at the state's Emergency Operations Center said the focus Saturday included Zumbro Falls and Hammond in southeastern Minnesota, and St. Clair and Madelia in south-central Minnesota. Across the border, concern shifted to the rising Wisconsin River in central Wisconsin.

A slow march of thunderstorms across southern Minnesota through central Wisconsin from Wednesday through Friday dumped several inches of rain across the region. Storm totals between 5 and 7 inches were common, with 10.86 inches at Amboy in south-central Minnesota. The governors of both states declared states of emergency.

In Owatonna, a town of about 24,000 about 65 miles south of Minneapolis, Maple Creek, Turtle Creek and the Straight River were receding Saturday. Emergency Operations Manager Mike Johnson said he didn't expect levels to rise, despite some rain in the forecast.

In Wabasha County, Zumbro Falls and Hammond continued to report heavy flooding Saturday. Residents were evacuated from both cities Friday, and the Zumbro River was continuing to rise Saturday, officials said.

The Post-Bulletin of Rochester reported that Zumbro Falls, where 180 people were forced to leave their homes, remained deserted Saturday.

The newspaper also reported on a dramatic rescue of horses in Zumbro Falls. Wading through floodwaters up to their chests, Lamar Johnson and his nephew, Matt Johnson, were able to free four horses that were tied up and surrounded by water. Matt Johnson tried to lead the horses through strong currents, but the horses pulled away and were swept downstream. Fortunately, the horses managed to swim to shore, where Lamar Johnson's wife caught hold of them.

In Blue Earth County, St. Clair asked residents to avoid using water, including their toilets and drains, because high water on the Le Sueur River was causing the sanitary sewer system to fail. State authorities were responding to the city's request for 50,000 additional sandbags Saturday. In Watonwan County, crews in Madelia sandbagged around four homes to protect them from the rising Watonwan River.

In central Wisconsin, Columbia County Emergency Management asked people living in Blackhawk Park near Portage and in any low-lying areas near the Wisconsin River to relocate. Deputy Director Kathy Johnson said no evacuations have been ordered. She said they're "just strongly encouraging" people in low-lying areas along the river to leave.

Johnson said the main concern was that if the river rises too high, the road leading into Blackhawk Park would be cut off. The gates on the Wisconsin Dells Dam were wide open to release the heavy flow.

The Stevens Point (Wis.) Journal reported that most of Stevens Point escaped flooding, but close to 30 roads in the area, including some major thoroughfares, remained closed due to waters that weren't expected to recede until Sunday. Officials in Wisconsin Rapids urged people to avoid the downtown area to keep it free for emergency crews.

But the town of Arcadia, Wis., was starting to clean up after the Trempealeau River and its tributaries forced the evacuations of more than 340 homes Thursday and Friday. Most residents had been allowed back into their homes by Saturday and the main highways in the area were open again, the Trempealeau County sheriff's office said.

"The water has receded, but it's not the end of having to deal with the flood," Dan Schreiner, the county's emergency management director, told the Winona (Minn.) Daily News. He added that the damage assessment would begin Saturday.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation reported that several highways and county roads in southeastern Minnesota that had to be closed earlier in the week reopened Saturday, but several fresh closures were announced in the Mankato area of south-central Minnesota on Saturday as the Minnesota River swelled.

Despite multiple highway closures, Fischer said it sounded like all their wedding guests would make it to the church in Waseca on time. He said they relied heavily on MnDOT's website to help their well-wishers navigate the roadblocks and detours.

The parking lot at one of the hotels where their guests stayed had been inundated by the high water, but he said the "very accommodating" staff pumped it dry in time.

The Minnesota National Guard said it had 134 soldiers on flood duty across the southern part of the state on Saturday. Fischer, who's the city administrator for the community of Watertown, west of Minneapolis, confirmed they were out in force.

"You can see the National Guard and emergency response teams running around and taking care of things," he said. "As we have this big event today, we recognize all the hard work they're putting into keeping things moving and we appreciate that."

Online:

Minnesota Climatology Working Group storm summary:

http://bit.ly/bYInN3

Storm summary from National Weather Service in La Crosse, Wis.:

http://bit.ly/aN6izb

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Wounded in Iraq, double-amputee returns to war (AP)

ASHOQEH, Afghanistan � When a bomb exploded under Dan Luckett's Army Humvee in Iraq two years ago � blowing off one of his legs and part of his foot � the first thing he thought was: "That's it. You're done. No more Army for you."

But two years later, the 27-year-old Norcross, Georgia, native is back on duty � a double-amputee fighting on the front lines of America's Afghan surge in one of the most dangerous parts of this volatile country.

Luckett's remarkable recovery can be attributed in part to dogged self-determination. But technological advances have been crucial: Artificial limbs today are so effective, some war-wounded like Luckett are not only able to do intensive sports like snow skiing, they can return to active duty as fully operational soldiers. The Pentagon says 41 American amputee veterans are now serving in combat zones worldwide.

Luckett was a young platoon leader on his first tour in Iraq when an explosively formed penetrator � a bomb that hurls an armor-piercing lump of molten copper � ripped through his vehicle on a Baghdad street on Mother's Day 2008.

His Humvee cabin instantly filled with heavy gray smoke and the smell of burning diesel and molten metal. Luckett felt an excruciating pain and a "liquid" � his blood � pouring out of his legs. He looked down and saw a shocking sight: his own left foot sheared off above the ankle and his right boot a bloody mangle of flesh and dust.

Still conscious, he took deep breaths and made a deliberate effort to calm down.

A voice rang out over the radio � his squad leader checking in.

"1-6, is everybody all right?" the soldier asked, referring to Luckett's call-sign.

"Negative," Luckett responded. "My feet are gone."

He was evacuated by helicopter to a Baghdad emergency room, flown to Germany, and six days after the blast, he was back in the U.S.

As his plane touched down at Andrew's Air Force Base, he made a determined decision. He was going to rejoin the 101st Airborne Division any way he could.

For the first month at Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Luckett was bound to a wheelchair. He hated the dependence that came with it. He hated the way people changed their voice when they spoke to him � soft and sympathetic.

He wondered: how long is THIS going to last? Will I be dependent on others for the rest of my life?

At night, he dreamed of walking on two legs.

When he woke, only the stump of his left leg was there, painfully tender and swollen.

His family wanted to know, is this going to be the same Dan?

He assured them he was.

Luckett was fortunate in one sense. His wounds had been caused not by shrapnel, but the projectile itself, which made a relatively clean cut. That meant no complications � no joint or nerve damage or bone fractures.

His right foot was sheered across his metatarsals, the five long bones before the toes. Doctors fitted it with a removable carbon fiber plate that runs under the foot and fills the space where toes should be with hardened foam.

His left leg was a far bigger challenge.

In early July, Luckett strapped into a harness, leaned on a set of parallel bars, and tried out his first prosthetic leg.

It felt awkward, but he was able to balance and walk.

The next day, Luckett tried the leg on crutches � and tried to walk out the door.

"They were like, 'You gotta' give the leg back,'" Luckett said of his therapists. After a brief argument, they grudgingly gave in. "They said, 'If you're gonna be that hard-headed about it, do it smart, don't wear it all the time.'"

By February 2009, he had progressed so far, he could run a mile in eight minutes.

He rejoined his unit at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and told his battalion commander he wanted to return to duty "only if I could be an asset, not a liability," he recalled.

Months later, he passed a physical fitness test to attain the Expert Infantryman's Badge. It required running 12 miles (19 kilometers) in under three hours with a 35-pound (16-kilogram) backpack. It was a crucial moment, Luckett said, "because I knew if I can get this badge, then there's nothing they can say that I'm not capable of doing."

The Army agreed, and promoted him to captain.

In May, he deployed to Afghanistan.

On his first patrol, wearing 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of gear and body armor, Luckett slipped and fell down. But when he looked around, everybody else was falling, too.

The region around his outpost at Ashoqeh, just west of the provincial capital of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, is surrounded by irrigation trenches and 4-foot (1.2-meter) high mud walls that grapes grow over. Troops must traverse the treacherous terrain to avoid bombs on footpaths.

Capt. Brant Auge, Luckett's 30-year-old company commander, said Luckett was as capable as every soldier in his company, and treated no different.

"He's a soldier who just happens to be missing a leg," said Auge, who is from Ocean Springs, Mississippi. "He tries to play it down as much as possible, he doesn't like to bring a lot of attention to it."

On one of those early patrols, Luckett took to a knee and his pants leg rode up a little bit, revealing the prosthetic limb to a shocked group of Afghan soldiers nearby, Auge said. One gave him the nickname, the "One-legged Warrior of Ashoqeh."

Beside his cramped bunk-bed, the 185-pound (84-kilogram), 5-foot-11 (1.80-meter) Luckett keeps prosthetic legs for different tasks, each with a carbon fiber socket that attaches to his thigh.

One is fitted with a tennis shoe for running, another a boot. One, made of aluminum so it won't rust, has a waterproof black Croc for showering. The most important leg though, he saves for patrols. It is made with a high-tech axle that allows him to move smoothly over uneven terrain. His squad leader painted its toenails purple.

Luckett's prothesis is often a source of good humor � most often generated by Luckett himself.

Some joke of his advantage of having little to lose if he steps on a mine. "That's always a big one," he said, "but the reality is, you don't want to step on an IED (bomb) because you enjoy living and you want stay living. The fear is no different than any other soldier."

Before heading to Afghanistan, Auge said Luckett had an as yet untried "master plan" to upset the insurgents.

Troops would have Luckett step on a mine and blow his fake leg off. He'd then look up at the trigger man while whipping a replacement leg over his shoulder and slipping it on.

"Then he would flip them off," Auge said, "and keep on walking."

___

Associated Press Writer Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.

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Abbas says settlements block Mideast peace deal (AP)

UNITED NATIONS � Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday there will be no peace deal with Israel unless the Jewish state stops settlement construction in areas the Palestinians claim for their future state.

"Israel must choose between peace and the continuation of settlements," Abbas said in his address to the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting.

Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled only three weeks after starting in Washington in early September over the impending end of a 10-month freeze on new Israeli settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians.

Abbas reaffirmed the Palestinian commitment to try to reach a peace deal.

"We have decided to enter into final status negotiations. We will continue to exert every effort to reach an agreement for Palestinian-Israeli peace within one year in accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy ... and the vision of the two-state solution," Abbas told ministers and diplomats.

But with a Sunday deadline looming for Israel to resume the contested building, the Palestinians are waiting for U.S. efforts to break the impasse. President Barack Obama has increasingly placed efforts to resolve the conflict at the center of his foreign policy, but both Israeli and Palestinian officials said Saturday a deal was far from certain.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said U.S. special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell met with Abbas for about half an hour on Saturday.

"We remain engaged with both sides," he said.

Earlier, Crowley said, "We are doing everything we can to keep the parties in direct talks."

In his U.N. speech, Abbas said, "Our demands for the cessation of settlement activities, the lifting of the siege (of Gaza) and an end to all other illegal Israel policies and practices do not constitute arbitrary preconditions in the peace process."

These are past obligations that Israel is required to implement, he said, and Israel's implementation "will lead to the creation of the necessary environment for the success of the negotiations."

He said the Palestinians and the wider Middle East are continuously pushed into "the corner of violence and conflict" as a result of Israel's "mentality of expansion and domination."

The Palestinian president demanded an end to Israel's repeated flouting of U.N. resolutions, its destruction of the historical identity of Jerusalem, and its blockade of the Gaza Strip which he said has created massive suffering for the people living there and prevented reconstruction.

On the settlement dispute, some in Israel have proposed, for example, that limited building will resume but not the relatively unfettered construction that prevailed before the Israeli moratorium.

Palestinians say it is essential that Israel leave the restrictions on settlement construction in place.

Abbas has repeatedly warned that he will be forced to walk away from the direct negotiations if construction resumes.

The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, home to 300,000 Jewish settlers, as part of a future state, and say that by expanding settlements, Israel is imposing facts on the ground that make it increasingly difficult to establish a viable country.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces heavy pressure within his pro-settler governing coalition to resume construction. Hardline elements in the coalition could try to bring down the government if Netanyahu extends the settlement slowdown.

Pro-settler activists hauled bulldozers, cement mixers and other construction equipment into the Revava settlement in the northern West Bank on Saturday. Danny Danon, a pro-settler lawmaker in Netanyahu's Likud Party, said activists would lay the cornerstone for a new neighborhood on Sunday, the last day of the slowdown, and planned additional construction Monday after the restrictions formally end.

In his U.N. address earlier this week, Obama called on Israel to extend the moratorium, saying it "has made a difference on the ground and improved the atmosphere for talks."

The Quartet of Mideast peacemakers � the U.S., U.N., European Union and Russia � made a similar plea to extend the moratorium.

"Restoring the credibility of the peace process requires compelling the government of Israel to comply with its obligations and commitments," Abbas said, "particularly to cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, especially in and around East Jerusalem, as well as the dismantling of the annexation apartheid wall."

The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. They also object to the separation barrier built by Israelis between the West Bank and Israel to prevent deadly suicide bombings. Some parts of the barrier cuts into Palestinian territory, leaving almost 10 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side.

The Palestinians themselves are bitterly divided between Abbas' Fatah movement, which governs the West Bank, and the Hamas rulers of Gaza, a coastal strip seized by the Islamic militant group three years ago. Hamas doesn't recognize Israel and has denounced the U.S.-backed peace talks as illegitimate.

___

Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington.

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Moscow-Nice run: Got time? Money? Take new train (AP)

NICE, France � A new train taking rich Russians to the French Riviera in style and luxury has arrived in Nice, some 53 hours after it departed from Moscow.

The new service launched by Russian Railways is a once-a-week run for those with money and time.

In the era of bullet trains and air travel, this train travels at a sedate 63 kph (40 mph), and just slightly faster on the return.

For fares ranging from euro306 ($412) one-way to euro1,200 ($1,616) for a luxury compartment, the traveler passes through two dozen cities and a half-dozen countries before reaching Nice.

From the czars of old to the new-money entrepreneurs of today, rich Russians have long haunted France's Mediterranean coast.

All aboard Sunday for those training it for 3,000 kilometers (1864 miles) to Moscow!

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Abbas says settlements block Mideast peace deal (AP)

UNITED NATIONS � Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday there will be no peace deal with Israel unless the Jewish state stops settlement construction in areas the Palestinians claim for their future state.

"Israel must choose between peace and the continuation of settlements," Abbas said in his address to the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting.

Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled only three weeks after starting in Washington in early September over the impending end of a 10-month freeze on new Israeli settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians.

Abbas reaffirmed the Palestinian commitment to try to reach a peace deal.

"We have decided to enter into final status negotiations. We will continue to exert every effort to reach an agreement for Palestinian-Israeli peace within one year in accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy ... and the vision of the two-state solution," Abbas told ministers and diplomats.

But with a Sunday deadline looming for Israel to resume the contested building, the Palestinians are waiting for U.S. efforts to break the impasse. President Barack Obama has increasingly placed efforts to resolve the conflict at the center of his foreign policy, but both Israeli and Palestinian officials said Saturday a deal was far from certain.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said U.S. special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell would meet Abbas on Saturday.

"We are doing everything we can to keep the parties in direct talks," Crowley said.

In his U.N. speech, Abbas said, "Our demands for the cessation of settlement activities, the lifting of the siege (of Gaza) and an end to all other illegal Israel policies and practices do not constitute arbitrary preconditions in the peace process."

These are past obligations that Israel is required to implement, he said, and Israel's implementation "will lead to the creation of the necessary environment for the success of the negotiations."

He said the Palestinians and the wider Middle East are continuously pushed into "the corner of violence and conflict" as a result of Israel's "mentality of expansion and domination."

The Palestinian president demanded an end to Israel's repeated flouting of U.N. resolutions, its destruction of the historical identity of Jerusalem, and its blockade of the Gaza Strip which he said has created massive suffering for the people living there and prevented reconstruction.

On the settlement dispute, some in Israel have proposed, for example, that limited building will resume but not the relatively unfettered construction that prevailed before the Israeli moratorium.

Palestinians say it is essential that Israel leave the restrictions on settlement construction in place.

Abbas has repeatedly warned that he will be forced to walk away from the direct negotiations if construction resumes.

The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, home to 300,000 Jewish settlers, as part of a future state, and say that by expanding settlements, Israel is imposing facts on the ground that make it increasingly difficult to establish a viable country.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces heavy pressure within his pro-settler governing coalition to resume construction. Hardline elements in the coalition could try to bring down the government if Netanyahu extends the settlement slowdown.

Pro-settler activists hauled bulldozers, cement mixers and other construction equipment into the Revava settlement in the northern West Bank on Saturday. Danny Danon, a pro-settler lawmaker in Netanyahu's Likud Party, said activists would lay the cornerstone for a new neighborhood on Sunday, the last day of the slowdown, and planned additional construction Monday after the restrictions formally end.

In his U.N. address earlier this week, Obama called on Israel to extend the moratorium, saying it "has made a difference on the ground and improved the atmosphere for talks."

The Quartet of Mideast peacemakers � the U.S., U.N., European Union and Russia � made a similar plea to extend the moratorium.

"Restoring the credibility of the peace process requires compelling the government of Israel to comply with its obligations and commitments," Abbas said, "particularly to cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, especially in and around East Jerusalem, as well as the dismantling of the annexation apartheid wall."

The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. They also object to the separation barrier built by Israelis between the West Bank and Israel to prevent deadly suicide bombings. Some parts of the barrier cuts into Palestinian territory, leaving almost 10 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side.

The Palestinians themselves are bitterly divided between Abbas' Fatah movement, which governs the West Bank, and the Hamas rulers of Gaza, a coastal strip seized by the Islamic militant group three years ago. Hamas doesn't recognize Israel and has denounced the U.S.-backed peace talks as illegitimate.

___

Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington.

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China rises and rises, yet still gets foreign aid (AP)

BEIJING � China spent tens of billions of dollars on a dazzling 2008 Olympics. It has sent astronauts into space. It recently became the world's second largest economy. Yet it gets more than $2.5 billion a year in foreign government aid - and taxpayers and lawmakers in donor countries are increasingly asking why.

With the global economic slowdown crimping government budgets, many countries are finding such generosity politically and economically untenable. China says it's still a developing country in need of aid, while some critics argue that the money should go to poorer countries in Africa and elsewhere.

Germany and Britain have moved in recent months to reduce or phase out aid. Japan, long China's biggest donor, halted new low-interest loans in 2008.

"People in the U.K. or people in the West see the kind of flawless expenditure on the Olympics and the (Shanghai) Expo and it's really difficult to get them to think the U.K. should still be giving aid to China," said Adrian Davis, head of the British government aid agency in Beijing, which plans to wrap up its projects in China by March.

"I don't think you will have conventional aid to China from anybody, really, after about the next three to five years," he said.

Aid to China from individual donor countries averaged $2.6 billion a year in 2007-2008, according to the latest figures available from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Ethiopia, where average incomes are 10 times smaller, got $1.6 billion, although measured against a population of 1.3 billion, China's share of foreign aid is still smaller than most. Iraq got $9.462 billion and Afghanistan $3.475 billion.

The aid to China is a marker of how much has changed since 1979, when the communist country was breaking out in earnest from 30 years of isolation from the West. In that year, foreign aid was a paltry $4.31 million, according to the OECD.

Today's aid adds up to $1.2 billion a year from Japan, followed by Germany at about half that amount, then France and Britain.

The U.S. gave $65 million in 2008, mainly for targeted programs promoting safe nuclear energy, health, human rights and disaster relief. The reason Washington gives so little is because it still maintains the sanctions imposed following the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square, said Drew Thompson, a China expert at the Nixon Center in Washington, D.C.

China is also one of the biggest borrowers from the World Bank, taking out about $1.5 billion a year.

Asked why China still needed foreign aid after making so much economic progress, the Commerce Ministry said that China remains a developing country with 200 million poor and big environmental and energy challenges.

The current debate spotlights the challenges of addressing poverty in middle-income countries such as China, India and Brazil, where economic growth is strong but wealth is unequally spread. After the U.S., China has the world's most billionaires, yet incomes averaged just $3,600 last year.

Roughly three-quarters of the world's 1.3 billion poor people now live in middle-income countries, according to Andy Sumner, a fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the U.K.

That's a major shift since 1990, when 93 percent of the poor lived in low-income countries, Sumner said. It raises the question of who should help the poor in such places: their own governments or foreign donors?

Experts say it's hard to justify giving aid to China when it spent an estimated $100 billion last year equipping and training the world's largest army and also holds $2.5 trillion in foreign reserves.

"China's made a strategic choice to invest in building its military and acquiring these massive reserves, but at the same time it's underfunding social services, so I think it's going to be harder and harder for donor nations to continue to fund projects in China," said Thompson.

Japan's generosity has historically been driven at least in part by a desire to make amends for its invasion of China in the 1930s. But in recent years Japanese lawmakers and officials have repeatedly questioned whether the money flow should continue, pointing to China's emergence as a donor to African countries.

China provided around $1.4 billion in aid to Africa last year, according to Professor Deborah Brautigam, an expert on China-Africa relations at the American University in Washington, D.C.

Japan has cut its aid down to grants and technical help for environmental and medical projects. Germany's current projects are due to be completed by 2014.

China is cautious about its new status. It is proud of having lifted half a billion people out of poverty and is beginning to flex the muscle that comes with being an economic power. Yet when, for instance, it is called on to agree to binding reductions in carbon emissions, it replies that it can't because it's still a developing country.

At this week's U.N. global summit on fighting poverty, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to expand Chinese foreign aid and announced an additional $200 million in aid to flood-hit Pakistan.

But he also stressed that China still had to help its own tens of millions of poor. And when Europe's top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, visited China this month, her hosts made sure to take her to a poor village in the remote southern province of Guizhou.

Development aid is not always solely based on need either. Aid groups say China is an ideal place to try out projects, because the authoritarian government can expand successful ones rapidly on a large scale.

But China is effectively robbing the poor by competing for grants, said Dr. Jack C. Chow, who was the lead U.S. negotiator in talks that set up the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a major funder of health programs.

The $1 billion China has been awarded in grants from the fund could have paid for 67 million anti-malarial bed nets, 4.5 million tuberculosis treatments, or nearly 2 million courses of AIDS therapy in poorer countries, Chow said.

"I think the milestone that China is now the second largest economy, arguably, I would say that it's no longer a developing country with the likes of sub-Saharan Africa," Chow said in an interview. "Having money from the Global Fund going to China really detracts and depletes that mission of helping people in the poorest of countries."

Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden said China has not taken any money away from other countries so far, because the organization has had sufficient funds to approve all applications "of quality" that it has received. But China could help by contributing more to the fund, he said.

The World Bank defends its assistance to China, saying it enables the bank to work with Beijing on climate change and projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Sometimes there's a simplistic view that there should just be the developed countries and the very poorest countries," the bank's president, Robert Zoellick, said recently in Beijing. "But that would run exactly against ... the changes in the world economy, where the role of the emerging economies are to support demand, to take on responsibilities as stakeholders with the environment, to help support other poor countries."

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and researcher Xi Yue in Beijing contributed to this report.

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Online:

China's Billion-Dollar Aid Appetite: http://bit.ly/a3ilwQ

Global poverty and the new bottom billion: http://bit.ly/b8owKo

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Italian victims of pedophilic clerics gather (AP)

VERONA, Italy � Italian victims of pedophilic clergy want such sexual abuse declared a crime against humanity, and they launched an international appeal on Saturday during the first public gathering of such victims in Italy.

Organizer Salvatore Domolo, a former victim and an ex-priest, said the group is looking abroad for solidarity because justice for pedophile victims is hard to come by in Italy with a statue of limitations of 10 years.

"Here there is no hope. By the time a victim arrives at the awareness of having been a victim, legal intervention is not possible," Domolo said in a country that has long been reluctant to confront the Vatican in its own backyard.

"The complicity of the hierarchy, together with the enormity of the numbers and vast geography of these crimes, should lead us to consider that we are facing a crime against humanity carried out by a political-religious organization," Domolo told a news conference before the victims met, his delivery bearing the cadence of a homily.

"With this gathering, we want to ask civilian justice to do its duty in full freedom and truth, without being intimidated by the clerical culture."

In all, several dozen victims and family members came to the Verona gathering, which organizers hope will help isolated victims to know they are not alone and persuade an Italian public reluctant to believe priests and nuns could have committed such crimes.

The meeting was held opposite Verona's heavily visited Roman colosseum and advertised with placards outside. Passers-by were free to enter, but few did.

Another will be held in Rome at the end of October, but Verona was chosen for the first gathering because it is the home of a school for the deaf where 67 former students have alleged suffering sexual abuse, pedophilia and corporal punishment from the 1950s to early 1980s.

About 40 former victims inquired by e-mail � but many are still reluctant to come forward, organizers said.

"We still don't know who their faces are. We know them only by e-mail," Domolo said.

The Vatican has been reeling for months as thousands of victims around the globe have spoken out about priests who molested children, bishops who covered up for them and Vatican officials who turned a blind eye to the problem for decades. In the latest admission, hundreds of victims came forward in Belgium with tales of horrific abuse linked to at least 13 suicides.

While Italian bishops have acknowledged 100 sexual abuse cases that warranted church intervention in the last decade, victims believe the true number in Italy is much higher because the reluctance to speak out in Italy is especially strong.

"This gathering is fundamental because we live in a social situation in which the presence of the Catholic church reduces the possibility of talking about the situation," Domolo said. "They do it all over the world, but in Italy even more. That we are just now having the first gathering of victims indicates that only in the recent months is something exploding in Italy."

Domolo, now 45, said he had been a victim of his parish priest from age 8 to 12, and that he was forced to confess "as if I had sinned."

"The church has known for 50 years this has been going on" but "kept it quiet in a disgusting way," he said.

Domolo was a priest for 15 years. He renounced both the priesthood and his Roman Catholic faith after meeting another victim on a trip to Ireland in 2001.

A man named Francesco from Padova, who did not give his surname, told the group he had been abused both by priests and nuns who used punishment as an excuse to touch him inappropriately.

"The worst was my family. They refused to believe it was true," he told the group, adding he has only been able to come to grips with it through therapy.

A 58-year-old deaf woman, who only gave the nickname given to her by the nuns of Verona's Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf, carefully annunciated her words as she told her story. During her 15 years at the institute, she was only alone with priests once a week for confession.

Recalling her first confession, she said she asked the nuns what to say, and they asked her what she had done. "I told them I scratched myself everywhere because I had too much wool clothing. The nuns said, 'Tell them you touched yourself."'

At that, she said, the priest asked her to lift her clothing to show him where. And so it continued, she said, "little by little, week after week."

"We girls didn't do anything, and we had to confess. The priests, who sinned, did they ever confess, I ask?"

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US wants more aid recognition in Pakistan (AP)

ISLAMABAD � Concerned that U.S. help to Pakistan is not getting enough recognition, Washington is making a new push to get international aid groups it funds to advertise the fact. But it is meeting resistance from partners worried U.S. branding could prompt Taliban attacks.

The conflict highlights a major challenge for the U.S. as it tries to win hearts and minds in Pakistan, a key ally in the war in neighboring Afghanistan and a deep well of anti-American sentiment. The U.S. has earmarked $7.5 billion in aid over the next five years, but it will do little to sway public opinion if Pakistanis don't know where the money is coming from.

The issue has taken on new urgency in recent weeks as the U.S. has donated nearly $350 million to help Pakistan cope with this summer's devastating floods.

U.S. officials have said they are only focused on saving lives, but the country's special envoy to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, repeatedly expressed concern last week that the U.S. wasn't getting enough credit for its assistance.

"So much American aid goes through NGOs and the international community ... that people may be less aware of the American aid than they ought to be," said Holbrooke after visiting a relief camp for flood victims in southern Sindh province.

Many groups that turn U.S. dollars into the food, water and shelter Pakistanis desperately need are reluctant to use American logos on items they distribute because they fear they may be targeted by Islamist militant groups.

The Pakistani Taliban killed five U.N. staffers in a suicide attack last October at the office of the World Food Program in Islamabad. In March, militants attacked World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian aid group helping survivors from the 2005 earthquake in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing six Pakistani employees.

World Vision said it is worried about using American logos anywhere in the country after the attack, even in less risky Punjab province in central Pakistan, where it is currently distributing thousands of U.S.-funded hygiene, shelter and cooking sets to flood victims.

"We're not as concerned with the threat in Punjab, but even there we are not sure," said Ahmed Khan, the group's procurement officer. "If we go with U.S. branding, the Taliban who attacked us might have a good network and think that World Vision started in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but are now in Punjab, and come attack us."

Robert Wilson, the Pakistan director for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, said Washington is sensitive to security concerns but also must weigh the benefit that comes from average Pakistanis knowing that America is helping them.

Holbrooke and other senior officials have raised concerns that groups receiving U.S. funding in Pakistan are not branding their assistance with the USAID logo as required. Groups are exempt from this requirement when operating in Pakistan's militant-infested tribal region along the Afghan border but must get a specific waiver to forgo U.S. branding elsewhere in the country.

"A lot of them may have assumed they don't have to do it because it's Pakistan, and that's not correct," said Wilson. "We want to publicize our partnership."

USAID first implemented its branding policy in 2004 when delivering assistance to Indonesia after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami and saw favorable perceptions of the U.S. nearly double in the country, according to the agency.

Following Holbrooke's recent visit, USAID sent a notice to its partners in Pakistan reminding them of the branding policy, said the agency.

It also appears to be taking a harder line on granting waivers outside the tribal areas.

Earlier this week, USAID rejected a waiver request from a large international aid group for a $5 million program to provide food, water and sanitation assistance in Sindh, said the group's representative. It also reminded the group that a waiver for its operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa expires in 120 days even though the program runs for another 300 days.

The representative acknowledged that the risk of attack in Sindh was much lower than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but said the group is still reluctant to associate itself with the U.S. there because it could affect its image elsewhere in the country. It plans to appeal the waiver rejection and try to convince the U.S. to rely on media outreach rather than use of the USAID logo to advertise American assistance.

"We recognize the need for USAID to do some branding in terms of promoting awareness in Pakistan of the positive impact that its programs are having, but we also need to make sure we do so in a way that doesn't put our staff and beneficiaries at risk," she said.

She requested that neither she nor her organization be named because of concerns that militants would discover that it is backed by the U.S. Several other aid groups declined to comment at all.

The U.S. depends on independent groups to advertise its assistance because unlike other countries, it does not carry out many relief or development activities directly on the ground, said Holbrooke during his recent visit.

The U.S. began to rely more on outside groups after USAID's work force was cut by nearly 40 percent in the 1990s as part of downsizing following the end of the Cold War.

The limits on U.S. operations, which are also driven by security concerns, can often make it seem like other countries are doing much more for Pakistan even though America is the nation's biggest donor, said Holbrooke.

"Some of the smaller efforts are much more visible," said Holbrooke, while visiting an area filled with camps run by the Saudis, the Chinese, the Iranians and Jamaat-e-Islami - an Islamic political party known for its anti-American views. "They give less aid with higher visibility in the local areas."

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Detainee releases offered to ease Kashmir unrest (AP)

NEW DELHI � The Indian government said Saturday it will ask authorities to release hundreds of students and youths detained during months of civil unrest that has left at least 107 people dead in Kashmir and review the massive deployment of security forces there.

The government also offered a dialogue, saying it would appoint interlocutors to talk to all stakeholders in the Indian-controlled portion of the divided Himalayan region, where many oppose Indian rule. It stopped short of offering direct talks with separatist leaders.

These "steps should address the concerns of different sections of people, including protesters," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.

At least 107 people, mostly teenage boys and young men in their 20s, have died in the crackdown by security forces on often-violent demonstrations since June, with every death stoking public anger and more protests. The government's proposals follow a visit by nearly 40 lawmakers from major Indian national parties to seek ways to end the unrest.

Chidambaram said New Delhi would advise the state government to "immediately release all students and youth detained or arrested for pelting stones and withdraw charges against them." There are believed to be hundreds of such detainees.

He also advised the state government to review the cases of all those detained under the Public Security Act which empowers authorities to detain people for two years without trial. Hundreds more people are believed held under this law.

He also announced a compensation of 500,000 rupees ($10,800) each to the families of those killed since June.

On the presence of troops, Chidambaram said New Delhi would also ask the state government to convene a meeting of the army and security forces unified command "to review deployment of security forces in the Kashmir Valley." He said particular attention would be paid to reducing the number of bunkers and checkpoints in the main city of Srinagar and other towns.

There was no immediate comment on the proposals by separatist leaders who had met some of the visiting lawmakers. At the time, they dismissed the visit as grandstanding by the Indian government.

Nearly a dozen rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for independence of the Indian portion of Kashmir or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. More than 65,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

In recent years, the insurgency in Kashmir has waned, but hundreds of thousands of security forces remain deployed in the region, and the past three summers have seen widespread civil unrest.

Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan have fought two wars over control of Kashmir � where most of the population are Muslims � since they won independence from Britian in 1947. Kashmir is divided between the archrival nations but both claim all of it. All efforts to negotiate a resolution to the dispute have failed.

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