Borders

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday underscored the complexity of resolving the Gaza Strip crisis when he insisted anew that his administration alone should be responsible for the coastal enclave's border crossings.

Hamas militants on Friday hauled away metal spikes that Egyptian soldiers had placed along sections of the Gaza-Egypt border, defying attempts to block movement of vehicles carrying blockade-weary residents of the Gaza Strip. Ever since the border fence was toppled Jan. 23 with a series of explosions, Hamas militants have thwarted several attempts by Egypt to reseal the frontier.

Egypt resealed its besieged gateway to the Gaza Strip on Sunday after rebuffing Hamas' bid for a hand in controlling the crossing. But analysts said the militant Palestinian group emerged strengthened from the standoff over its breach of the border wall last month. As barbed wire and metal barricades went up across the Rafah crossing's only remaining gap, Hamas made a show of cooperating with Egypt's border guards rather than trying to thwart them.

In a bid to overcome angry resistance to the government's planned border barrier, federal officials have agreed to run a contested section close to the Rio Grande rather than slice through miles of private land. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the agreement with Hidalgo County officials Friday, hailing it as a precedent that could be echoed in other parts of the state where resistance to the barrier has been most intense. "It's a great model for what we can do," he said.

If there is a post-Cold War Berlin, it may well be this agricultural town straddling a river between Iran and Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that has become an important ally in Washington's declared war on Islamic extremism.

Well-organized Serbian gangs torched buildings Tuesday along the border between Serbia and Kosovo in a defiant rejection of the breakaway province's declaration of independence. Huge flames and walls of black smoke engulfed border posts and United Nations police and customs offices in the most serious violence to date over Kosovo's unilateral split from Serbia, declared Sunday by the ethnic Albanian government. U.N.

High-rise tower: An article in Sunday's Section A on a community debate in Evanston, Ill., over whether to build a skyscraper described the city as being landlocked. Although the city's ability to expand its borders is limited by neighboring towns, Evanston is not landlocked. It sits on the western shore of Lake Michigan.

A dozen Assembly Republicans on Tuesday announced a package of bills to crack down on illegal immigration, drawing criticism from Democratic lawmakers who called it a divisive political stunt. One bill would withhold state money from cities that do not enforce immigration laws and divert it to grants for local police training on immigration enforcement. Another would seek more money from Washington for the costs of what legislators say is the federal government's inability to secure California's borders.

Senior U.S. envoys have traveled to Pakistan's volatile North-West Frontier Province to visit U.S.-funded border guards who are struggling to secure an area where Osama bin Laden may be hiding. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher arrived in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday, as newly elected Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani was taking his oath of office. Gillani's civilian government has pledged to roll back the powers of President Pervez Musharraf and review U.S.-backed counter-terrorism policies, though he has said the fight against terrorism would continue.

U.S., Afghan and Pakistani officers Saturday opened the first of six joint military intelligence centers planned along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The centers represent the latest American efforts to get Afghanistan and Pakistan to coordinate in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The centers are to be staffed by about 20 personnel from the three countries. Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez, the commander of U.S.