Rabbis press U.S. on Sudan embargo

More than 275 American rabbis asked the United States this week to expand the arms embargo against Sudan.

In a letter Sept. 22 to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, under the auspices of the American Jewish World Service, the rabbis asked that Rice “press all countries to voluntarily suspend any arms sales to Sudan and to use the U.S. seat on the United Nations Security Council to introduce a resolution to expand the current U.N. arms embargo this October.”

The rabbis extend across the denominational spectrum, the AJWS said.

They placed a particular emphasis on the government of China because that country, according to the letter, is providing an estimated 90 percent of Sudan’s small arms imports. — jta

Missing Israeli found after seven years

Authorities said they believe wreckage found on a steep California mountainside Sept. 21 is the remains of the plane of a former Israeli paratrooper who vanished seven years ago.

The disappearance of 24-year-old Daniel Katz on June 3, 2001 spurred one of the most extensive and high-tech searches in the area’s history.

The tail number on the Piper Archer II confirmed it was the plane Katz rented. Fragments of human remains were also found about 400 feet from the debris on a steep mountainside in the San Bernardino National Forest near Lytle Creek.

Katz, the grandson of a prominent Israeli businessman who lived in Mexico, was flying back to a La Verne airport from Perris, where a skydiving trip had been canceled because of low clouds. — ap