Olmert pledges to release 150

JERUSALEM - Ehud Olmert, Israel's embattled premier, pledged to free more than 150 Palestinian prisoners in a meeting Wednesday with President Mahmoud Abbas, a gesture meant to energize their sluggish peace talks.

The release could also boost the prestige of the embattled Palestinian leader, whose Fatah movement is engaged in a tense power struggle with the militant Islamic Hamas.

The meeting at Olmert's official Jerusalem residence was the first since the Israeli premier announced last week that he would resign next month because of corruption investigations against him.

The Olmert-Abbas summit came on the day Israel freed five Palestinian prisoners as part of its exchange with Hezbollah guerrillas to bring back the bodies of two soldiers captured in 2006.

MEXICO

Border mix-up; death ignored

Four Mexican soldiers crossed into Arizona and held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint early Sunday before realizing where they were and returning to Mexico, federal authorities said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Mexicans struggling with increasingly gruesome crimes at home devoted the least attention in recent memory to the execution of one of their citizens in Texas.

With Mexico riveted on its own kidnap and killing of a 14-year- old boy, the normally anti-death-penalty country expressed far less outrage at the death on Tuesday of Jose Medellin, a Mexican national convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two Texas girls.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Tanker contract rebid begins

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon opened a second round of bidding Wednesday for a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract following an error-plagued first attempt that featured bitter competition between Northrop Grumman Corp. and Boeing Co.

A revised draft request for proposals was issued to build 179 new aerial refueling tankers meant to replace the Air Force's current fleet that dates back to the 1950s.

The team of Northrop and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. won the first contract, but Boeing protested, saying the Air Force did not conduct the process fairly . A Government Accountability Office review found "significant errors."

SNAPSHOTS

Murder charge: A South Florida man was charged with first-degree murder Wednesday in the killing of a federal agent outside a busy post office. James Patrick Wonder, 65, was detained without incident in the killing Tuesday of 52-year-old customs agent Donald Pettit in Pembroke Pines.

A-bomb memorial: About 45,000 people attended a memorial ceremony Wednesday at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park to mark the 63rd anniversary of the city's 1945 U.S. atomic bombing.

Indonesian quake: A shallow earthquake rattled Indonesia's eastern Sumbawa island today, causing damage and sending frightened residents running from their homes, officials and news reports said. The magnitude 5.7 quake did not appear to trigger a tsunami.

- Compiled by Mark Watson

Originally published by From Our Press Services .

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