World Report

PARIS (JTA) -- The umbrella group representing France's 750,000 Jews expressed outrage at a petition signed by two former prime ministers and other senior figures calling for the early release of a jailed Nazi-era war criminal.

Former premiers Pierre Messmer and Raymond Barre were among signatories to a petition sent to President Jacques Chirac last week urging that Maurice Papon, 90, be released on grounds of age and his frail condition.

"This use of a humanitarian alibi to rewrite one of the most somber chapters in French history is outrageous," CRIF, the umbrella group of secular French Jewish organizations, said in a statement last week.

Papon began serving a 10-year jail sentence in October 1999 after he was found guilty of helping deport some 1,500 Jews to Nazi death camps.

Belgian lawyer hired to defend Arik Sharon

BRUSSELS (JTA) -- Israel's Prime Minister's Office has hired a Belgian lawyer to handle a war crimes lawsuit filed here against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, according to local reports.

The suit was brought against Sharon, then defense minister, over his role in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, which killed several hundred people. He was forced to resign over the matter.

The judge involved in the case began hearing testimony July 26.

IDF thinking locally, but is acting globally

NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Israeli army will open nine recruitment stations across the world, including several in the United States, to ease contact with Israeli citizens living or vacationing abroad if a major crisis breaks, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot reports.

Israel Defense Force officials say the stations would help coordinate with Israeli soldiers overseas, many of whom may want to return during a major conflict.

The recruitment centers will be located here, as well as Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Bangkok, Bombay and Johannesburg.