BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, Oct. 15--Israel has decided to resume archaeological excavations near a hotly disputed Beit-ul-Moqaddas holy site, Israeli officials said Sunday, drawing Palestinian charges that Israel is trying to scuttle a US-sponsored peace conference next month.
Fearing an outbreak of violence, an Israeli Cabinet minister said he stalled construction for at least two weeks, reported AP.
But officials said they remained determined to push forward with the project.
The dig is located outside the Old City compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. It caused an uproar in the Islamic world when it began in February, with some Muslims alleging that Israel was plotting to undermine the foundations of the site’s mosques.
Israel termed those charges ludicrous, saying the dig was meant to clear the way for construction of a new pedestrian walkway up to the compound, replacing one damaged in a 2004 snowstorm.
But digging work at the site was quietly halted in June without explanation.
The government’s Committee on Beit-ul-Moqaddas Affairs voted two weeks ago to resume archaeological work at the site, Jacob Edery, a Cabinet minister and committee member.
Edery said the dig had been held up since early summer for bureaucratic reasons related to planning permits.
“I’m sorry the work was held up at all, because the walkway was supposed to be almost finished by now,“ Edery said. He said some aspects of the plan have been modified, but no major changes were made.
After Edery’s announcement, Raleb Majadele, the only Arab Cabinet minister, filed an appeal against the project, halting progress for two weeks.
“I want the excavations delayed because it is very bad timing under the present political conditions,“ he said, citing an upcoming US-hosted peace conference next month and the current Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr.
But Roni Dahan, a spokesman for Edery, said “the idea is definitely to continue excavations there.“

Supporters of the Union of Forces for Change, led by Gilchrist Olympio, gather for an electoral meeting in Lome, Oct. 11.

LOME, Togo, Oct. 15--Togolese voted Sunday in legislative elections that no opposition members boycotted for the first time in nearly a decade, a hopeful sign for democracy in this West African nation that has been ruled by one family for 40 years.
Significant international aid is at stake for Togo over democratic reforms. The European Union, which cut funding to the impoverished country in 1993 over concerns about its totalitarian government, has since resumed some aid, AP said.
But the bloc has said it is looking to Sunday’s vote as a measure of democracy as it decides whether to restore full funding.
Major opposition parties refused to participate in legislative elections in 1999 and 2002 over charges that the ruling party was rigging the vote.
Military ruler Gnassingbe Eyadema controlled Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005, when his son, Faure Gnassingbe, seized power.
He won elections held a few months later under international pressure--the country’s last election before Sunday’s legislative poll.
The opposition had claimed victory in that vote and riots broke out.
Days of violent clashes left hundreds dead, and tens of thousands of Togolese fled into neighboring Benin and Ghana to escape the violence, according to UN agencies.
Sunday’s vote was organized by a power-sharing government under an August 2006 deal that set up an independent electoral commission and put an opposition leader in the post of prime minister.
The president called the election the beginning of a great reform for his nation of 5 million people.
“I believe that this will be the democratic rebirth of the Togolese people. If there are still skeptics, I will do everything to convince them,“ Gnassingbe said after voting at a primary school in a military camp.

Angela Merkel

Vladimir Putin

WIESBADEN, Germany, Oct. 15--German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday urged President Vladimir Putin to work with Europe to find solutions to global problems at a time when Russia and the West are increasingly at odds.
Merkel called for “a close partnership built on mutual understanding“ between Russia and Europe, in a speech to a German-Russian political conference in the spa city of Wiesbaden that Putin is attending, AFP reported.
“We can only solve the big global problems together. At the current time, we are talking a lot about Iran and the nuclear issue and about Kosovo,“ Merkel said.
“We are trying to work in an intelligent way towards constructive solutions. We cannot resolve conflicts if we work against each other.
“We can disagree with each other and still get on well with each other. We should not try to sweep our disagreements under the carpet, we should put them on the table.“
Merkel said human rights, such as freedom of expression, were “essential to building understanding.“
In his speech to the conference, called the Petersburg Dialogue, Putin said Russia was “well aware of our joint responsibility to strengthen strong and reliable relations and cooperation between European countries.“
The Russian president was due to leave Germany on Monday for a rare visit to Iran despite reports of a plot to assassinate him in Tehran.
Putin’s visit to Iran, the first by a Kremlin leader in three decades, comes at a vital time for the Islamic republic’s controversial Russian-backed nuclear program.

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Oct .15--Darfur rebel factions that have not signed a peace deal with Khartoum were meeting in the southern city of Juba on Monday to try to unify their positions ahead of peace talks in Libya later this month.
Salva Kiir, first vice-president and head of the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that formed a government with Khartoum, opened the meeting with a call for “unity of the factions and of the people of Darfur,“ AFP said.
The talks come with the southern semi-autonomous government gripped by its own crisis after it withdrew from the national unity government on Thursday, accusing Khartoum of failing to respect a 2005 peace deal for the south.
A Darfur peace deal was signed in May 2006 between Khartoum and one of three negotiating rebel factions to end four years of conflict which has killed at least 200,000 people according to the United Nations.
Since then, the non-signatory rebel groups have splintered into dozens of factions.
UN envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson said last week he was aware of 28 rebel groups.
Kiir urged participants to draw up “common demands and form a single delegation“ ahead of the Libya peace talks on October 27, according to Jar Al-Nabi Abdel Kader Yunes, who heads a delegation of commanders who split from a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement headed by Abdel Wahed Nur.
Other rebel groups present are the Sudan Liberation Movement-Unity headed by Ahmed Teshafi and a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement, known as JEM-Unified Command, according to Yunes.
Two rebel chiefs from south Darfur known only as Mohammed Ali Kilai and “Commander Seddik“ were also present, Yunes said, but could not immediately identify their factions.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Oct. 15--Serbia wants talks on the future status of Kosovo to continue after a December 10 deadline, its minister for the breakaway province said on Monday.
Serbian Minister for Kosovo Metohija Slobodan Samardzi said it was the only chance to find a solution agreed by both sides.
Neither side budged from their original positions during a new round of talks on Sunday in Brussels ahead of the December 10 report to the United Nations by a trio of envoys.
That date represents a cut-off point after which the Kosovo Albanians have threatened to declare independence, Reuters reported.
“We need time to talk,“ Samardzic told a conference organized by a Serb think-tank. “If we start to speak as two delegations about our legitimate problems we need more time. If there is an idea to come to a compromise, we need more time.“
“Without this kind of time pressure and the pressure ... for imposing a solution, I am sure we could achieve step by step, gradually, progress and finally may be also a solution,“ Samardzic said.
Serb and Kosovo Albanian officials agreed to meet again in on October 22.
Up to four more meetings are planned throughout November, Samardzic said.
“Nobody can expect a positive outcome by December 10, in terms of finding a solution. The most positive outcome would be if we see there is the possibility to continue,“ he added.
Serbia opposes ceding independence to Kosovo, seen by many Serbs as the country’s cultural heartland.
Kosovo Albanians are increasingly frustrated that their UN-administered province remains in limbo eight years after a NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb atrocities.
The West fears a unilateral declaration of independence could unleash new Balkans chaos and is already taking behind-the-scenes measures for such an eventuality.
On Sunday, EU mediator Wolfgang Ischinger appealed to both sides to take “painful decisions“ to narrow their differences.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15--The United States is considering new hearings to decide whether it is right to keep certain suspected “enemy combatants“ at its Guantanamo Bay prison camp, a report said Monday.
Officials were considering a repeat of the so-called combatant-status hearings first held in 2004 and 2005 to classify the detainees, The New York Times said, citing statements by detainees’ lawyers in appeal court documents, reported AFP.
The camp houses around 330 men seized during operations overseas in the wake of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, to round up people suspected of threatening US security.
President George W. Bush’s administration has drawn strong criticism for holding suspects for years without trial at the prison, which rights groups and other opponents have branded unlawful.
The newspaper cited a Pentagon spokesman as saying that discussions were underway on procedures concerning detainees, but no decision had yet been made to hold new hearings.
In a major setback for the government, a military judge in June threw out the case of one detainee, Canadian national Omar Kadhr, ruling that the court could not try him since his precise “enemy combatant“ status had been mis-classified.
The decision cast in a bad light the administration’s procedures for determining what kind of threat a detainee is.