Int'l news in brief

Palestinian mosque vandalised in West Bank

JERUSALEM (AP):

Palestinians in the West Bank say a mosque has been vandalised in an apparent attack by a fringe group of extremist Jewish settlers.

Local religious leader Salah Jodeh told The Associated Press that a mosque in the village of Dir Istia was torched early on Wednesday.

He says the mosque door was set ablaze and some of the carpet was burnt.

Graffiti sprayed on the site read: 'Blood for blood, Qusra'.

It's a reference to a village where Palestinians last week roughed up more than a dozen Israeli settlers who witnesses said had earlier attacked other Palestinians.

Thai premier says Feb 2 election to go ahead

BANGKOK (AP):

Thailand's prime minister said Wednesday that elections due in less than three weeks will go ahead despite intense pressure by her opponents to postpone the vote.

The statement came after an overnight shooting attack on anti-government protesters in Bangkok wounded two people and ratcheted up tensions in the country's deepening political crisis.

Yingluck Shinawatra had offered to meet with rivals Wednesday to discuss an Election Commission proposal to delay the February 2 ballot. But protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban and the opposition Democrat Party refused to take part, saying reform to get rid of corruption in politics must happen first.

Yingluck told reporters after a meeting with members of her Cabinet, registered candidates and a top electoral official that there was no legal way for the Election Commission to delay it.

Vigilantes reject disarming in Mexico stand-off

APATZINGAN, Mexico (AP):

Federal forces and heavily armed vigilantes are warily watching each other in a violence-wracked farming area of western Mexico after one deadly clash and a failure by leaders from both sides to work out a deal on disarming.

Officials from the federal and Michoacan state governments met until late Tuesday with leaders of 'self-defence' groups that have increasingly been confronting a drug cartel, but it adjourned with no agreements.

Still, while refusing to give up their weapons, vigilante leaders appeared to be seeking a cooling of tensions.

"We have to be discreet with our weapons and not move up and down the highways with them," Hipolito Mora, a lime grower who leads the self-defence group in the town of La Ruana, said after the meeting.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong confirmed the talks had taken place, and said the government was offering jobs as police to qualified members of the self-defence forces.