KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan’s foreign minister called the U.N. Security Council’s 30-day deadline for action on Darfur “illogical,” saying Sunday the country instead would implement a 90-day program agreed to earlier with Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Friday’s Security Council resolution gave Sudan 30 days to disarm Arab militias blamed for the deaths of thousands of black Africans in the vast western Darfur region or face diplomatic and economic penalties.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail renewed his country’s earlier commitment to carry out a 90-day agreement signed July 3 with Annan. The agreement called for disarming the militias, deploying 6,000 Sudanese soldiers and policemen to improve security, facilitating humanitarian aid and allowing African Union troops and human rights monitors into Darfur.
Masked gunmen loyal to Yasser Arafat broke up a conference of reformers from his Fatah movement, who were calling for a “revolution,” in the West Bank city of Nablus In Gaza early today, Israeli forces entered the Khan Younis refugee camp. As bulldozers destroyed a building, soldiers opened fire, and a woman was killed when a bullet came in through her window, residents said. Six other civilians were wounded, doctors said.
Through the U.S. Congress, Israel is trying to prevent an arms deal that would put high-tech U.S.-made air-to-air missiles on Jordanian aircraft, Israeli government and security officials said Sunday. A security official, who declined to be named, said Israel would settle for a compromise that would make it technologically impossible to aim AMRAAM missiles at Israel or a pledge that the weapons would not be sold to Egypt.
In a gesture of humility, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder bowed on the steps of a memorial to the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation and expressed shame Sunday for the “immeasurable suffering” inflicted by Germans when they crushed the revolt 60 years ago. Schroeder became the first German chancellor to attend an anniversary of the two-month uprising, which ended with 200,000 Warsaw residents dead and most of the city systematically destroyed by the Nazis.
Nine out of 10 eligible Afghans have signed up for landmark Oct. 9 elections, the United Nations said Sunday. Women and ethnic minorities are strongly represented among those registered for the first-ever direct vote for president. But parts of the south risk being left behind because of stepped-up attacks on election workers and Afghan and U.S. security forces.
The death toll from South Asia flooding reached 1,551 on Sunday as 30 million people huddled in shelters or were stranded in homes inundated by engorged rivers. Volunteer agencies and relief officials distributing food, drinking water and medicine complained there was not enough milk formula or cereals to feed infants and not enough oral saline solution to treat those suffering from diarrhea.
Hong Kong: China’s military parades
China’s military staged its first parade in Hong Kong on Sunday, with 3,000 soldiers marching crisply in formation along with armored vehicles and helicopters, in a display of Beijing’s military might in the territory.
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