Peace

JERUSALEM -- Israelis and Palestinians broke off talks yesterday, leaving an apparent deadlock in negotiations over a new deal to revive the stalled Middle East peace process.Although a draft settlement agreement had been typed and titled, the discussions were stalled over a dispute on the number of Palestinian political prisoners Israel was willing to release as part of the deal and a new timetable for a final round of talks to conclude the historic experience in peace-making.The dispute threatened to scuttle plans to sign a new addendum to the Wye River peace agreement at a special ceremony in Cairo late today, presided over by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.

WASHINGTON -- Israel and Syria took "critical steps in the journey toward peace" in negotiations here over the past two days, President Clinton said yesterday, with the two sides agreeing to return here for more-intensive talks on Jan. 3.The meetings between Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa of Syria, described as formal but cordial by U.S. officials, were the highest-level talks ever conducted between their countries.Secretary...

WASHINGTON -- Ah, peace, it's wonderful! We flew only 610 bombing sorties over Yugoslavia on the night after hopeful declarations around the world that the police action, or whatever we call it, was over, over there.Over for us, I mean, after more than 30,000 bombing runs. But a new phase in the fighting between the Kosovars and the Serbs has only just begun. If the peace agreement holds and an international peace-keeping force is installed in Kosovo, then begins the countdown to the day the Kosovo Liberation Army opens guerrilla warfare against the peace-keepers to drive them out in the name of an independent Kosovo and a Greater Albania.

THE MARYLAND Science Center breaks all-time attendance records and plans expansion. Port Discovery exceeds its membership projections. The National Historic Seaport is unveiled. The National Aquarium draws record crowds and announces plans for a multimillion-dollar expansion.Not so long ago, Baltimore seemed to have reached its max on museums near the Inner Harbor: The City Life Museums closed. The exhibit hall at the Columbus Center shut down.More recent announcements, however, suggest the doom and gloom may have been misplaced or premature -- at least when it comes to enterprises that relentlessly promote themselves as world-class attractions for visitors and Baltimoreans alike.

PETROVEC, Macedonia -- When Ferat Jafa woke up yesterday morning at a refugee camp here, the plan was that he and seven members of his family would fly to Denmark on a humanitarian airlift. Then, picking up a newspaper that circulates in the camps, he learned that the Kosovo peace deal had been struck the night before.Suddenly, he had the beginnings of a choice: Denmark, or, in maybe just a matter of days, home, in the Kosovo village of Vuciterna.It wasn't a close call. "Well, I wish I could change my mind, but this is the way to go," he said, as he waited at the airport here for the flight to Copenhagen.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's new prime minister, Ehud Barak, was sworn into office yesterday and set out a firm course to get the Jewish state back on the road to peace after a three-year detour engineered by his hard-line predecessor.Barak, a highly decorated commando and retired army chief of staff, outlined the goals of his government -- peace agreements with the Palestinians and Syria, a withdrawal of Israeli troops from South Lebanon, a secure northern border, a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty for "eternity."

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Don't isolate Yugoslavia.That was the plea made yesterday by the country's leading businessman during a wide-ranging one-hour interview with U.S. journalists.Bogoljub Karic said that to sustain peace in the Balkans, international reconstruction aid should pour into all parts of the region, including Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, which is being treated as an outcast by the West."The economic aid and international acceptance of Yugoslavia would help the international forces implement this peace in Kosovo," said Karic, a Serbian government minister who is within the country's ruling circle.

What is life like for people around the globe? We took a quick look at the United States, then asked a few foreign correspondents to tell us.U.S.: LESS POVERTY, MORE FEARThere's plenty to celebrate in the United States these days. The economic boom continued this year. Thanks largely to the strong economy, violent crime has plunged to its lowest level in a decade. On the down side,according to a YMCA report, only one in three kids feels safe in school now -- an all-time low.-- Lou CarlozoCOLOMBIA: 'DANGEROUS, FRUSTRATING' TIMEColombia is one nation where things are still getting worse.

Peace is the best solution for KosovoThe Sun editorializes that "NATO allies must stay the course in Kosovo" (March 30). This is in spite of the fact that instead of bringing peace to the region, the U.S.-led NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia are the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire.The bombing is exacerbating what it was supposed to prevent. Slobodan Milosevic and his thugs have increased the slaughter of Kosovars as nationalist hatreds intensify. Russsia's opposition reinvigorates Cold War antagonisms and effectively shuts down talks on nuclear disarmament.

In response to Ku Klux Klan leaflets that have been distributed throughout Ellicott City for the past five or six weeks, an Annapolis-based coalition of churches and peace groups is planning to visit Main Street Sunday to promote unity and equality.Ten to 20 members of the Unity Now Coalition will visit Main Street between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to hold signs and pass out leaflets promoting peace, said George Law, an organizer."We don't feel there's a whole lot of room for such a degree of hatred in this day and age in this society," said Law, a member of Unity-by-the-Bay in Severna Park, a nondenominational church.

Courageous stand for gay marriage I was very pleased to read of former Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest's testimony in Annapolis in support of same-sex civil marriage ("Support for gay marriage," March 13). Mr. Gilchrest, unlike most in his party, "gets it" when it comes to the injustice inherent in denying one group of citizens access to rights accorded other citizens. He understands that the issue of same-sex civil marriage has nothing to do with religion, that no church can be, or would be, compelled to sanctify a marriage that violates that congregation's tenets.

ARTS 'Labyrinth of Peace' Living Labyrinth for Peace by visionary artist and labyrinth builder Sandra Wasko-Flood runs through Jan. 10 at the Sub-Basement Artists Studios, 118 N. Howard St. Unlike mazes, labyrinths have one path that leads to the center and back. Wasko-Flood's Rainbow Labyrinth of Peace is an interactive installation of computer-programmed lights, designed to be walked. The exhibit also includes a labyrinth workshop Saturday, a peace workshop Dec. 20, a poetry reading Dec. 27 and a "peace panel" Jan. 3. Go to sbastudios.

Ann Louise Peace, a retired office manager, homemaker and volunteer, died of heart failure Aug. 28 at Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson. She was 88. Ann Louise Thomas was born in Baltimore and raised on Canterbury Road. After graduating from Bryn Mawr School in 1938, she attended the old Hawkins Office Training School on North Charles Street, and went to work as a typist for the Baker-Whiteley Towing Co. During the 1960s and 1970s, Mrs. Peace returned to work as an office manager for the Thomas and Thompson Co., the East Baltimore Street drugstore that had been founded by her family in 1872.

A peace agreement with the Palestinians would have rehabilitated Ehud Olmert's reputation. And that's not solely a reference to allegations of misconduct that now engulf him. A sharp-tongued arrogance, brash style and shrewd intellect characterized his political persona before he became Israel's prime minister in 2006. Since then, he has modified his hard-line views and hardball tactics and become an advocate of peace. It was his hope to deliver an agreement with the Palestinians. But in this part of the world, hope is often fleeting.

On April 10, 2008, MARGURITE ESTELLE. Friends may visit the family owned

After watching her team play an uninspired first half, Poly coach Kendall Peace clearly wasn't happy. Thankfully for Peace, a pep talk with an emphasis on defense did the trick, as the host Engineers outscored Randallstown 17-6 in the third quarter en route to a 54-43 win in a Class 2A North semifinal. The Engineers (19-5) advanced to face archrival City, a 62-50 winner over Overlea in the other semifinal, for the regional championship. "I'm a defensive coach, so I believe in defense," Peace said.

On February 21, 2008, ANNIE PEACE, loving mother of Eugene Richardson. Friends may call at the family owned March Funeral Home West Inc

President Bush set the bar so high for his Israeli and Palestinian peace partners, and for himself, that it seems out of reach. His prediction that the two sides will conclude a peace agreement by year's end reflects little more than the unbridled optimism of a president from Texas on his first visit to the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's ruling coalition got smaller this week as members of an ultraconservative political party bolted his government in protest against the U.S.-backed push toward peace.

Nov. 30 1782 The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, ending the Revolutionary War.

"I think everyone's still in bed," sighed Adee Telem as she gazed across the deserted St. John's campus. Telem works for One Voice, an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation group; early yesterday she was hoping to round up some local idealists in time for the midday rallies outside the Naval Academy, where the peace talks were being held. The 26-year-old Owings Mills native and her colleagues figured that St. John's College was a prime place to look, even through the few students stirring there were plugged into iPods and slurping blearily from cups of coffee.