WORLD IN BRIEF: Communists tighten seal on border

North Korea began restricting traffic through two checkpoints in its tightly sealed border with South Korea on Monday as punishment for Seoul’s hard-line stance toward the communist regime. The restrictions forced the suspension of two landmark reconciliation projects: cross-border train service and tours to the North’s historic border city of Kaesong, setting back a decade of rapprochement efforts between the Cold War rivals.

U.N. pact pushed on climate change

Negotiators in Poznan, Poland, kicked off a final yearlong push Monday for a new climate-change treaty. U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer warned the more than 10,000 delegates and environmental activists, “The clock is ticking. Work needs to shift into a higher gear.” The delegates have set next December as a deadline for a new pact to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to allow countries enough time to ratify it for a smooth transition after 2012.

Unpaid soldiers steal, spark riots

Police skirmished with soldiers Monday in Harare, Zimbabwe, after the soldiers, frustrated over unpaid wages, attacked money changers and stole cash, touching off a riot. In another sign of growing turmoil, the government rejected a regional court ruling that demanded Zimbabwe stop seizing land from white farmers. The government instead vowed to speed up efforts to take land remaining in whites farmers’ hands and redistribute it to black subsistence farmers.

‘Blue sky days’ met, thanks to measures

Beijing said Monday it has already reached its target number of 256 “blue-sky days” this year, with the help of ambitious environmental measures the city imposed to cut emissions for the Olympic Games. China’s daily air pollution index, which ranges from 1 to 500, uses a standard calculation derived from levels of major pollutants. A reading below 50 is considered good, and 51 to 100 is moderate. Below 100 is considered a “blue-sky day.” But environmentalists say a blue-sky day is still more polluted than what is considered healthy by the World Health Organization.

Soldiers recapture town held 18 years

Sri Lankan soldiers recaptured a key northern town near the headquarters of Tamil Tiger rebels, 18 years after the area was seized by the insurgents, the military said Monday. The seizure of Kokavil, about 12 miles south of the insurgents’ de facto capital of Kilinochchi, bolstered the government’s vow to defeat the decades-old insurgency by the end of the year.

Recording praises executed bombers

Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, in an audio recording posted Monday on an Islamic Web site, praised the three Bali bombers recently executed in Indonesia and criticized Saudi and other Arab leaders for participating in a U.N. interfaith conference. He accused Indonesia and other governments in the Islamic world of protecting the interests of the “Crusaders” and the Jews and preventing Muslims from joining the jihad, or holy war, against them.

Blockaders hold off ship carrying relief

The Israeli navy on Monday turned away a Libyan ship heading to Gaza with 3,000 tons of humanitarian aid, ending the most high-profile effort yet to break a blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory. Gaza’s borders have been largely sealed by Israel and Egypt since the Islamic militant Hamas group seized control by force in June 2007.

—- From news services

‘Year of the Gorilla’ primarily to protect

The “Year of the Gorilla” began Monday —- as the U.N. effort launched an effort to raise money for primates threatened with extinction from disease, hunting and deforestation. Officials for the U.N.-backed Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals said they hoped to raise $630,000 for projects to promote more gorilla-watching tourism, to get more equipment and infrastructure to help rangers combat poaching and to conserve habitat.

—- Associated Press