The Palestine Chronology

British hostage Jack Mann released by Revolutionary Justice Organization in Beirut amid indications that pace of comprehensive hostage-prisoner exchange may be quickening. (NYT 9/25)

Soviet FM Boris Pankin repeats Pres. Bush's 9/23 call for UN General Assembly to repeal "Zionism-racism" resolution. (NYT 9/25)

PFLP Gen. Secy. George Habash and Nayif Hawatma, lead attack on conditions of participation in peace conference at PNC meeting and are poised to stop Fateh's strategy of having the PNC avoid deciding on whether or not to attend but instead leaving the decision to the PLO Exec. Comm. (MEM 9/24, Radio Monte Carlo 9/24 in FBIS 9/25)

At a ceremony dedicating Tzur Yigal, a new Israeli town being built in Israel just across the "green line" separating Israel proper from the West Bank, Israeli health min. Ehud Olmert declares that the border between the two areas is "dead." The town is being built as part of the "seven stars" project designed some two years ago which aimed to build seven new towns on Israeli side of the "green line" which would eventually spread into the West Bank, effectively erasing the border. Prime Min. Shamir later told Israeli television that "the 'green line' doesn't exist." (NYT, WP 9/25)

In New York, Lebanese pres. Ilyas al-Hirawi, Prime Min. 'Umar Karami, Speaker of the House of Representatives Hussein al-Husseini meet with Pres. Bush to discuss Lebanese demand that Israel withdrawal from S. Lebanon, as called for in UN Security Council Resolution 425, will be treated separately from question of Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories it occupied in 1967. In comments to the press shortly before meeting with al-Hirawi, Bush states U.S. cannot unilaterally pressure Israel to withdraw. (MEM 9/25)