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MOSCOW (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak vowed to do everything possible "to have Vladimir Goussinsky come back home, to Israel." Barak, who called the Russian media tycoon and Jewish leader his personal friend in a Jan. 10 German radio interview, said he is seeking Goussinsky's release.

Goussinsky is currently under house arrest in Spain, pending a high court decision on his extradition to Russia, where he is wanted on fraud charges.

In another development, Boris Berezovsky, another controversial Jewish media mogul who was recently ostracized by the Kremlin, has almost completed the sale of his 49 percent stake in Russian national TV channel ORT to an oil and aluminum magnate.

Roman Abramovich, also Jewish, is widely seen as Berezovsky's heir as a Kremlin insider.

Abramovich, who was recently elected governor of the Chukotka region on Russia's northeastern border, is likely to entrust the stake to the government, according to sources in Moscow.

The state already controls 51 percent of ORT, but the channel is widely viewed as controlled by Berezovsky.

China awaiting arms; Israel searches a way

BEIJING (JTA) — China may still be able to buy an airborne radar system from Israel provided the Jewish state can find a compromise that will enable it to sell such equipment, according to a deputy of Israel's Foreign Ministry.

When a solution is found, it will be presented to the United States, Alon Liel said Tuesday.

In July, Prime Minister Ehud Barak canceled the sale of the Phalcon system to China after coming under intense pressure from U.S. officials. The officials had expressed concern that the sale would enhance China's threatening position against Taiwan and could be used to track U.S. aircraft in case of a military conflict.

Polish bill has catch; labeled an 'outrage'

WARSAW (JTA) — Poland's lower house of Parliament passed a bill that would give former owners for property seized between 1944 and 1962 half of the value of their lost assets.

But because the bill restricts payments to those who held Polish citizenship at the end of 1999, it will exclude most Jewish Holocaust survivors, who joined a class-action lawsuit in the United States for the return of their property.

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