U.N. aid workers trapped in Lebanese camp
TRIPOLI, Lebanon, May 22 (UPI) -- A short-lived truce between factions at a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon ended Tuesday with a U.N. relief convoy coming under fire.
A U.N. spokesman told CNN three vehicles were hit and 10 workers were trapped at the Nahr al-Bared camp where Fatah al-Islam is fighting Lebanese government forces. Three other U.N. trucks escaped the camp just outside Tripoli. The trucks were carrying food, water, medical supplies and an electricity generator, the BBC said.
The BBC said fighting resumed between the militants and government troops.
CNN reported negotiations are under way among U.N. officials, the Lebanese government and the militants.
Thirty Lebanese troops and 25 militants have died in the fighting that began Sunday, a Fatah spokesman said. Some 31,000 civilians occupy the camp. Reports of civilian casualties varied from 20 to 60.
Lebanese television stations have reported that the dead militants included fighters from Bangladesh, Yemen and other Arab countries. Fatah al-Islam has denied allegations it is part of the al-Qaida terror network.
Explosion rocks Ankara shopping center
ANKARA, Turkey, May 22 (UPI) -- A large explosion at a shopping district in the Turkish capital of Ankara that authorities say was a bomb killed at least five people.
At least 60 others were wounded by the blast, CNN reported Tuesday.
Investigators say that they found traces of A4 plastic explosive at the site of the blast at Ankara's Ulus shopping center. They describe the explosive as a type often used by the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, a separatist group.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited the scene, described the explosion as a terrorist attack.
"We have to unite against terrorism," Erdogan said. "We have to create a global platform against terrorism."
The blast was in the neighborhood of a bus station at rush hour at a seven-story shopping center in the center of the busy shopping and tourist bazaar.
Four of the dead were Turks and one was a Pakistani national. Some of the injured were also Pakistani.
Olmert visits Sderot as rocket hits
SDEROT, Israel, May 22 (UPI) - The Israeli Air Force fired on four targets in Gaza Tuesday, a day after a Hamas rocket killed a woman in Israel.
Hamas said one of the air strikes destroyed a building used by its Executive Force.
"Harming ... any of Hamas' leadership will cost the occupation dearly," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Haaretz.
More than 150 Qassam rockets have been fired from Gaza into the city of Sderot during the past week. On Monday, a 32-year-old woman was killed.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Sderot a few hours later and the city again was targeted by rockets. Olmert would not take refuge in a bomb shelter, saying "If you're staying, I'm staying, too," Ynetnews reported.
Angry residents accused the prime minister of not doing enough to help and called on him to resign.
"I want to talk with the residents. I came even though I knew they'd yell at me," Olmert said.
"I didn't have much to say to (Olmert). Just now two more Qassams fell. Sderot mourns another resident tonight, killed by a direct Qassam hit," Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal told Ynetnews.
Musharraf supporters urge concessions
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 22 (UPI) -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he won't strike a deal with his political rivals before the country's presidential election.
Musharraf, whose popularity has suffered since his controversial firing of Pakistan's chief justice and clashes in Karachi this month left dozens of people dead, said in a TV interview that he has no plans for reconciliation with opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, The New York Times reported.
"About their return before elections, no, there is nobody returning before elections," Musharraf told Aaj Television.
The Times reported that political supporters are advising Musharraf to reach a compromise with Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, whose dismissal led to protests and was seen as a challenge to the nation's court system.
Members of the ruling party say the reaction to the justice's removal was unexpected.
"It's the last thing you would want in an election year," Mushahid Hussain Sayed, general secretary of the ruling party, told the Times. "One thing after another is piling up and most of these things are negative."
Musharraf is up for re-election this year, although the election has not been scheduled.
Judge blocks illegal immigrant rent ban
DALLAS, May 22 (UPI) -- A Dallas judge has blocked a suburb's ordinance that would have banned housing rentals to illegal immigrants beginning on Tuesday.
Voters in the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch passed the measure by 68 percent in a referendum May 12, but two lawsuits were filed in an effort to block it, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported.
A suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund claimed the law would separate families and violate the Constitution's equal-protection clause.
A second suit by a group of landlords said the ordinance was not specific enough about what documents would-be renters needed to prove their legal status.
U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay is expected to schedule a preliminary injunction hearing in coming weeks to debate whether his order should stay in place, attorneys for both sides told the newspaper.
