ISRAELI opposition deputies scoffed at a request submitted to parliament on Tuesday to add $1.4 million to the $1.8 million already budgeted for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's travels abroad, already exhausted after six months. Avraham Shochat, a leading Labour Party member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, said Netanyahu's overseas trips had borne no fruit as far as the peace process was concerned. During the committee hearing, accounts of which were published yesterday, Shochat noted that previous Labour prime ministers had achieved more positive results on far smaller travel budgets. A spokesman in Netanyahu's office said the requested budget hike was a result of an underestimate at the start of the year and because the prime minister was also holding the portfolio of Foreign Minister. Bomb threats TENSION mounted in Tehran yesterday, a day after bomb attacks on government sites killed at least three people. The state-run radio reported an explosion at a government building in northern Tehran late Tuesday and said security men had foiled an attack by saboteurs at the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Earlier on Tuesday a bomb exploded at the Islamic revolutionary Court in northern Iran killing three and injuring six others according to official sources. Amid conflicting reports of the number of casualties, the Iraqi-based Iranian opposition Mujahedeen Khalq claimed responsibility for the attacks. Meanwhile, police evacuated guests and staff at the Ferdowsi Hotel in central Tehran yesterday following a bomb threat made by a telephone call. No bomb was found in the hotel, which is close to the Foreign Ministry and military offices. Related: Khatami celebrates, conservatives vociferate More than liberation from the chador African force AMID escalating tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has proposed the deployment of an African force. Libyan television said Gaddafi had asked an official representing the Sahel and Saharan Countries Group to travel to the area and put a proposal to the two leaders that includes sending troops from the group to patrol disputed border areas. The Sahel and Saharan Countries Group includes Libya, Sudan, Chad, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Ethiopia has accused Eritrean forces of incursions into Ethiopia territory. Eritrea denies the claim and has suggested international mediation. Addis Ababa has rejected this suggestion and threatened to use force to clear 400 square kilometres in northwestern Ethiopia of Eritrean troops. Related: Hornet's nest in Africa's horn Leader killed MOHAMED Kebaili, a leader of the militant Algerian Islamic Group, together with six other people including two children, was killed in an army operation in Algiers on Tuesday. Algerian authorities said troops surrounded the apartment in which the suspected terrorists were holding two children hostages before storming it. The official statement said a woman was among the four militants killed. Both hostages, and a policeman, were also killed. Kebaili had been accused by Algerian authorities of organising and committing numerous crimes, including the massacre of 400 villagers last year.
