Prime Minister

JERUSALEM -Israeli voters delivered a split decision in national elections yesterday, sparking competing claims by backers of opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni over who will be the next prime minister. Voters appeared to give Livni's Kadima Party, which favors negotiations with the Palestinians, a slight and unexpected edge over Netanyahu's Likud, which has been critical of peace talks, according to nearly complete returns and exit polls. But the overall shift in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, was sharply to the right.

With provincial elections scheduled for the end of January, Iraq's political troubles seem closer to Shakespearean drama than to nascent democracy. There is talk of a coup to oust the prime minister. The speaker of the parliament has abruptly resigned, making angry accusations on his way out the door. And there have been sweeping arrests of people believed to be conspiring against the government, both in Baghdad and Diyala province. Beneath the swirl of accusations and rumors is a power play in which different factions within the government - and some outside it - are struggling to gain ground as American influence in the country wanes and elections approach that could begin to reshape the political landscape in Iraq.

Hubble repair mission delayed until May The long-delayed launch of an 11-day shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope has been delayed again - this time from late winter until no earlier than May 12. NASA officials in Houston said yesterday that they need more time to prepare an 18-year-old space science data computer for flight. Astronauts are scheduled to install the device during one of five spacewalks. Scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and around the world are counting on astronauts to restore two failed instruments on the telescope, install two new instruments and replace key hardware needed to extend the observatory's lifetime by at least five years.

BANGKOK - Thailand's embattled Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat declared a state of emergency yesterday around two Bangkok airports occupied by protesters but insisted he wanted a peaceful resolution. "I do not have any intention to hurt any members of the public," he said in announcing the targeted restrictions on civil liberties aimed at reopening the country's main international airport. Under a state of emergency, the government can suspend civil liberties, ban public gatherings and take other measures to restore order without imposing broader restrictions that many Thais have feared.

In Israel, some people want to know if Barack Obama will visit Jerusalem on his way to Tehran. It's shorthand for concerns about the president-elect's interest in engaging Iran rather than continuing to isolate the Islamic Republic. In the Arab world, some might well complain that Mr. Obama doesn't need to stop in Jerusalem; he's been there. That telegraphs a different concern, that as president, Mr. Obama will favor the Jewish state over the Palestinians, as did his predecessors in the White House.

JERUSALEM - Israel will have to give up "almost all" of the West Bank areas it occupies and accept the division of Jerusalem in order to take advantage of a rapidly closing window of opportunity for peace with the Arabs, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published yesterday. "The decision we are going to have to make is a decision we have been refusing for 40 years to look at open-eyed," the Israeli leader told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharanot. "The time has come to say these things.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Bitter rivals reached a power-sharing deal yesterday that leaves Robert G. Mugabe president of Zimbabwe and in control of its armed forces but gives his opponents hopes for enough power to rescue the shattered country. The complicated agreement makes Mugabe's rival, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, prime minister and creates a government whose ministers meet twice in parallel structures - once with the prime minister in charge and once under the president.

Anger grows over rescue efforts in Cairo CAIRO, Egypt: Hopes diminished yesterday for finding survivors among hundreds of people believed trapped beneath massive boulders that destroyed an impoverished neighborhood on Cairo's outskirts, killing at least 32 people, including whole extended families. Anger and resentment mounted as authorities failed for a second day to get heavy machinery into the devastated shantytown to try to clear the large slabs that split away from the Muqattam cliffs early Saturday.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A former Thai prime minister and his wife jumped bail yesterday and returned to exile in Britain to escape prosecution on corruption charges. In a statement read on Thai television, Thaksin Shinawatra said from London that unnamed political opponents were out to get him and that he was the victim of "judicial interference." "What happened to me and my family and my close relations resulted from efforts to get rid of me from politics," Thaksin said. "These are my political enemies.