Shaukat Aziz

NEW DELHI, India, Nov. 23--Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz begins talks with Indian leaders on Tuesday to keep alive a year-old peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors that is stumbling over the dispute on Kashmir, Reuters reported.
Aziz is making a rare trip to New Delhi in his capacity as the head of a South Asia grouping, but officials and analysts said the wobbly peace process between the neighbors would dominate the two-day visit.
"Naturally, he's meeting with our leadership and bilateral discussions can be expected to take place," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said.
Aziz was due to arrive at 1000 GMT and hold talks with Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose offer of friendship to Pakistan started the process of normalization of ties in 2003.
Aziz's talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the powerful Italian-born leader of the ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, are scheduled for Wednesday.
The talks will take place less than a week after Singh ruled out any redrawing of India's borders or a further division of Kashmir, pouring cold water over a set of proposals by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf suggested that Kashmir be de-militarized and India and Pakistan agree on a compromise over its status which could be independence, joint control or some form of UN control.
"The peace process is currently at a low," said Kalim Bahadur, a New Delhi-based South Asian affairs expert. "One should not expect too much from the dialogue right now except that they will keep it going."

A South Korean soldier listens to Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers and civilians in Arbil in northern Iraq, October 3. (Reuters File Photo)

SEOUL, South Korea,
Nov. 23--The South Korean government on Tuesday agreed to extend the deployment of thousands of its troops in Iraq by one year until the end of 2005, AFP quoted officials as saying.
The decision to extend the mission, due to expire at the end of this year, was made at a cabinet meeting led by Prime Minister Lee Hae-Chan, the prime minister's office said.
"The government will send a motion to parliament seeking approval for extending the troop deployment in Iraq by another year," said Chung Yong-Wook, an official from the office who attended the meeting.
Some 2,800 South Korean troops are based in Arbil, a Kurdish-controlled town in northern Iraq, on a rehabilitation and humanitarian mission. Another contingent of more than 700 is set to join them soon.
In February parliament approved the dispatch of up to 3,600 troops for relief and rehabilitation in Iraq until December 31, 2004.
But the dispatch was delayed for months against a backdrop of growing anti-war protests and the beheading of a South Korean civilian by Islamic militants.
It was only in late September that South Korea completed its initial deployment of 2,800 troops in Arbil.
Political analysts say the government motion will easily win approval from parliament since the ruling Uri Party, which has a majority in parliament, has pledged to endorse an extended mission.
The conservative main opposition Grand National Party has also approved the troop deployment in Iraq.

Supporters of Ukraine's opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko take part in a rally in Kiev, November 23. (Reuters Photo)

KIEV, Ukraine,
Nov. 23--Ukraine faced more mass street protests on Tuesday from an opposition complaining it was cheated of the presidency by the Moscow-backed government, and the political split threatened to turn violent, Reuters reported.
Western observers have said that Sunday's election, which preliminary results say Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich won, fell far short of international standards and the United States warned of punitive measures if the Ukraine government failed to investigate allegations of vote rigging.
More than 100,000 supporters of liberal, West-leaning candidate Viktor Yushchenko poured into the streets of Kiev on Monday after the result became clear and the charges of vote count fraud mounted.
At least 1,500 Yushchenko supporters spent the night in insulated tents near Independence Square, scene of the major pro-opposition rally the previous day, braving freezing night temperatures.
On Tuesday morning several thousand supporters, sporting the bright orange campaign colors of Yushchenko, were milling around among the ranks of tents stretching part way down Khreshchatyk, Kiev's elegant main street.
The authorities have said that any lawlessness would be quickly suppressed.
The West spoke of blatant irregularities. Nationalist western regions rejected official returns and said they would recognize only the authority of Yushchenko.
But on the first anniversary of Georgia's mass "rose revolution" which brought down veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze and then elected a pro-Western leader, it was uncertain if Ukraine's liberals could engineer similar changes.
Among those who camped out overnight off Independence Square was Irakli Cheishvili, a 23-year-old Georgian student from the Black Sea port of Batumi. "I've been here 23 days and I'll stay until the end. They've got themselves really well organized here. It wasn't like that for us back home a year ago.

A Sudanese girl plays in the dust in front of the makeshift huts of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp of Krindng on the outskirts of the western town of El-Geneina, near the border with Chad, September 14. (AFP File Photo)

OTTAWA, Nov. 23--A top UN aid official warned that the number of people chased from their homes in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region would reach two million by next month, AFP reported.
World Food Program executive director James Morris said that estimate on the region's torrents of displaced people was a staggering 300,000 people higher than a WFP estimate issued just one week ago.
"By December, there will be two million displaced persons," Morris said during a visit to Canada, in the same week that the country's Prime Minister Paul Martin was due in Sudan to press for a end to the humanitarian crisis.
Morris said that already in Darfur "more than one and half million people have been brutally chased from their home."
There were currently 155 camps for the displaced in Darfur plus 13 in neighboring Chad, he said.
Fighting erupted in Darfur in February 2003 after rebels launched an armed insurrection to protest what they allege is the political and economic marginalization of the region's black Africans by the Arab-led government.
Khartoum's response was to unleash Arab militia, the Janjaweed. Since the fighting began more than 70,000 people have been killed or have died from hunger and disease in the area, according to the United Nations.
Morris lavished praise on Canada meanwhile for its increased support for the WFP.
Morris, in Ottawa on a two-day working visit, told a joint meeting of the foreign affairs and agricultural committees of the House of Commons, that Canada's lead in two crisis areas--Sudan and Haiti--was especially welcome.
In Haiti, said Morris, the WFP was already "feeding 602,000 people."
He described the Caribbean country as "the most food-deficient country in the world," and welcomed Canada's commitment to help restore order there.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov. 23--A row erupted in mainly Muslim Malaysia Tuesday over a court decision upholding a ban on schoolboys wearing Muslim turbans, AFP reported.
The Islamic Party (PAS) denounced the decision, likening it to France's recent controversial ban on schoolgirls wearing Muslim headscarves.
The landmark ruling by Malaysia's Court of Appeal ends seven years of legal dispute after three boys aged between 10 and 13 were expelled from a government-run school in 1997 for wearing turbans, known here as serbans.
Their parents took legal action and the High Court ruled in 1999 that the boys should be allowed to wear the serban after lawyers argued that the constitution allowed freedom of religion.
The government appealed against the decision, arguing that the school's action was in line with government regulations. The appeal court agreed, saying dress codes were for the government and school administrators to decide, local media reported.
"If the courts were to interfere, we might as well manage the schools," judge Gopal Sri Ram was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times. "We have to interpret the constitution sensibly and in the context of a multi-racial society."
Muslim Malays make up some 55 percent of Malaysia's 25 million population, with ethnic Chinese accounting for 25 percent and Indians 7.5 percent.
Islam is the official religion but the constitution is secular. The government is led by a Malay Muslim party in a coalition with parties representing other races and religions.
The PAS opposition wants to change the constitution and impose Islamic rule, but suffered a heavy defeat in March elections amidst fears of Islamic extremism in the wake of terror attacks around the world.
PAS central committee member Hatta Ramli told AFP the court ruling was "moving backwards from a decision allowing freedom of expression for the children.

ABIDJAN,
Ivory Coast, Nov. 23--Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo wants former colonial power France to disarm rebels holding the north of the country and said presidential elections slated for next year could still take place if it does so, Reuters reported.
Gbagbo told Reuters in an interview late on Monday that France had prevented him from retaking the north of the world's top cocoa grower when it destroyed his air force this month and it was now up to the French to finish off the job.
"The French have already forced me to disarm because they destroyed all my planes. What you apply to a legitimate government you also have to apply to rebels who are not legitimate," he told Reuters at his residence in Abidjan.
"Whoever destroys my planes should be ready to do what I was doing," he said, dressed in an open-necked shirt and flanked by a huge orange, white and green Ivorian flag.
Ivorian government warplanes started bombing rebel-held towns in the north two and a half weeks ago, shattering an 18-month ceasefire and raising fears of an all-out civil war that could suck in other West African states.
The assault was brought to an abrupt end when France crippled the Ivorian air force after a raid killed nine of its peacekeepers, stationed in the country alongside UN soldiers to keep the rebels and government forces apart.