Blockade

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Intensive efforts to convene an emergency summit meeting of Israeli, Palestinian, American and Egyptian leaders ended without success early today, with the Palestinians continuing to insist that Israel must first lift its "siege." The efforts by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, President Clinton and other foreign leaders to set up a meeting in an effort to break 16 days of deadly violence had intensified yesterday, the day after a Palestinian mob in Ramallah killed two Israeli soldiers and Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Ramallah and Gaza.

WASHINGTON -- Police arrested hundreds of angry protesters surging toward barriers around the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank late yesterday, marking the most serious incident in a week of demonstrations that was expected to reach its climax today. Law enforcement officials were still processing arrests last night, but D.C. police Chief Charles Ramsey said he expected to detain 500 people before the night was through. Those arrested were charged with demonstrating without a permit, refusal to disperse and other minor offenses, police said.

ABOARD COAST GUARD CUTTER PENOBSCOT BAY, on the Hudson River -- The inch-thick steel bow plates on this 140-foot, bluff-nosed cutter thundered as it pulled away from the wharf of the U.S. Military Academy at dawn and quickly began "hardwater sailing," the term its commander uses to describe ice breaking. "It's a lot rougher than softwater sailing," said Lt. Andrew Raiha, 31, the ship's captain, as the 700-ton vessel plowed into Worlds End, a serpentine turn in the river near West Point, 50 miles north of New York City, where it cuts through a gap in the 1,300-foot-tall ramparts of the Hudson Highlands.

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court yesterday barred a criminal case against two Roman Catholic figures who said they intentionally broke the law against abortion clinic blockades as a result of their religious beliefs -- a claim that had led a federal judge to absolve them.The case, closely watched from both sides of the abortion debate, appears headed to the Supreme Court in the wake of the 6-6 decision yesterday by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.As a result of the ruling, a federal judge's decision in favor of a retired Catholic auxiliary bishop and a Franciscan friar was left standing, and the case against them was scuttled -- unless it is revived by the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON -- After weeks of bellicose rhetoric that appeared to endorse an expansion of the war in Yugoslavia, Britain is now inclined to oppose a U.S.-proposed military blockade to thwart oil tankers supplying the Serbian army, Pentagon officials say.British diplomats insisted yesterday that no final decision had been made on the armed interdiction of oil and other supplies arriving at Yugoslav ports. But with Germany and France opposing a blockade, the waning British resolve appears to have doomed the U.S. initiative.

THE Berlin Airlift that began 50 years ago this summer is being heralded everywhere as the first significant Cold War triumph for the West.It was indeed that. But it also was the single most important event in persuading the Western allies that only a policy of resolute firmness would repel the gathering tide of Communism that threatened to sweep across most of Europe after World War II.The 11-month airlift, which delivered fuel and food to a Berlin threatened with starvation by a Russian blockade, was one of destiny's improbable successes, an accidental happening that proved to be a marvel of technical proficiency and military can-do.

MOSCOW -- Striking coal miners lifted a 10-day-old blockade of the Trans-Siberian and other vital railroads yesterday after the government promised to pay some overdue wages. But the breakthrough probably provided only a short pause in a disruptive clash over how to handle looming mine closures.Thousands of miners angered by the government's failure to pay them for months had been camping out on the rail lines to hinder traffic and transport, having despaired of drawing official attention with hunger strikes and work stoppages in pits destined for closure anyway.

A man suspected of robbing a Severna Park gas station was shot to death minutes later by Anne Arundel County police officers after leading them on a car chase into a dead-end industrial park road in Glen Burnie.The suspect, Kevin P. Ferguson, 43, of the 4200 block of Wentworth Road in West Baltimore, was pronounced dead at the shooting scene near East Ordnance Road and Baymeadow Drive after trying to drive through a police blockade, police said.Police said Ferguson and the black Mercedes-Benz he was driving matched descriptions of the man and the car involved in several recent armed robberies at businesses in the county.

TO REACH A durable cease-fire with rebels in Chechnya, Russia should end offensive operations and pull its troops out of that constituent republic of the Russian Federation.Then, it should attempt to negotiate a permanent end to the war by offering autonomy to the Chechens.If those efforts should fail, Russia would retain the recourse of instituting a blockade to punish and pressure the rebels for as long as necessary -- without having to bomb the region back into the Stone Age in the process.