World IN BRIEF : PALAU : Voters Block Plan for Self-Government

Voters in the remote Western Pacific archipelago of Palau failed to approve a political arrangement with the United States that would give it more self-government, its president told Washington. A majority of voters supported the proposal, but the island chain’s constitution requires a 75% majority. President Ngiratkel Etpison said in a letter to the U.S. Interior Department that he has asked Palau’s 30-member Congress for legislation to allow a compact of free association to be approved by a simple majority of voters. The proposed compact would end Palau’s nearly 43 years of direct U.S. rule under a U.N. trusteeship.