In the World
Biden reaches missile accord
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Vice President Biden yesterday won agreement from the Czech Republic to join President Obama's reconfigured missile-defense system in Europe, just two days after Poland said it also would take part.Under the plan, U.S. Navy ships equipped with antimissile weapons would form a front line of defense in the eastern Mediterranean. Those would be combined with land-based antimissile systems to be placed in Europe.
The deployment replaced a Bush-era proposal that would have put missiles in Polish and Czech territory - former Soviet bloc nations - a move that would have angered Russia.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen praised the new plan as offering good defense for the West. "It is good for solidarity," he said.
- AP
Bobbies making armed patrols
LONDON - Wielding submachine guns and pistols, British police are making rare armed patrols in crime-blighted London neighborhoods, a change in tactics that may prompt calls for the wider use of weapons by the country's traditionally unarmed Bobbies.London's police department'' said yesterday that the armed unit would carry out regular sweeps of districts riven by gun battles between rival drug gangs.
Chief Inspector Neil Sharman said the unit began work in June and would double in size starting in November amid concerns over the increasing use of weapons.
- AP
McCain's mother treated after a fall
LISBON, Portugal - The 97-year-old mother of Arizona Sen. John McCain spent the night in a Lisbon hospital after a fall, the senator's office said yesterday.The Sao Jose hospital said Roberta McCain was in stable condition and undergoing tests after being admitted Thursday evening.
McCain's office said his mother "had a fainting episode and injured her head" while on vacation in Portugal. McCain spoke with his mother and hospital doctors, who said she was "recovering well," his office said.
- AP
Elsewhere:
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree calling for presidential and parliamentary elections Jan. 24, a move likely to deepen the rift with the rival Hamas movement that rules Gaza. The decree calls for elections in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, but it remained unclear how Abbas' faction would organize balloting in Israeli-controlled East Jerusalem or Hamas-ruled Gaza. Hamas promptly condemned the decision.
The United States formally asked Switzerland to extradite filmmaker Roman Polanski to authorities in California, where he could serve up to two years in prison for the 1977 rape of a 13-year-old girl. Swiss officials said they would hold a hearing but gave no date. Polanski, 76, has been in Swiss custody since his arrest Sept. 26.
