World Report

MOSCOW (JTA) -- Some 120 adults and children from the Jewish communities of Ukraine finished a 12-day summer camp devoted to the study of Judaism and Zionism.

The Black Sea camp was sponsored by the Metro West Federation of New Jersey with the support of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

The Jewish Agency is also sponsoring 150 teenagers who arrived in Israel last week from the former Soviet Union as part of a program designed to absorb youngsters through study. In September, 850 more are expected.

Nestle yields to fund in final claims crunch

ZURICH (JTA) -- Nestle will contribute $14.6 million to the $1.25 billion Swiss banks settlement for Holocaust-era claims, to be distributed through a plan yet to be devised.

The court-appointed deadline for that proposal is Sept. 11.

In a related development, six more Swiss firms joined an approximately $5 billion German fund to compensate World War II-era slave laborers. The moves by Roche, Ciba Speciality Chemicals, Holderbank, Kuehne & Nagel, Ascom and Swisscom/Debitel brings the total number of Swiss firms participating to 11.

Interfaith protests besiege beatification

ROME (JTA) -- An umbrella Jewish group dealing with Jewish-Catholic relations told the Vatican that Pope Pius IX doesn't deserve to be a saint.

The protest came in a letter Wednesday from Seymour Reich, chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations.

Pius IX, who became infamous for ordering the 1858 kidnap of Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy who had been forcibly baptized as a baby, is slated to be beatified next month, the last step before sainthood.