UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 8--The UN Security Council held consultations on Tuesday on a draft resolution circulated by the United States and Britain seeking an expanded UN role in Iraq.
During the meeting, the 15-member council heard a briefing on the work of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), whose current mandate expires on Friday, by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe, and discussed the draft that would extend UNAMI’s mandate for another year.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Pascoe said that there is strong consensus within the council on the proposal to increase the UN’s role in Iraq, but he also acknowledged the security restraints imposed by the continuing conflict in the country, Xinhua reported.
He stressed that physical security is a concern after the UN secretary-general’s Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others were killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad four years ago.
Since then, international UN staff in Iraq has been reduced to 65, although many more UN personnel work from Amman in neighboring Jordan.
He cited recent mortar and other attacks in the Green Zone in Baghdad but said the number of UN staff in the city should reach 95.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters that he expected the draft to be adopted on Thursday by the Security Council.
“The United Nations needs to play an enhanced role in helping Iraqis overcome the difficulties that they have at the present time,“ he said.
He said the world body, “given its comparative advantage,“ can help promote national reconciliation among Iraqis, facilitate dialogue and cooperation with Iraq’s neighbors and address the country’s humanitarian difficulties.
UNAMI, established by the Security Council through its resolution 1500 adopted on
August 14, 2003, has mainly focused its work on organizing elections, promoting consensus-building on the drafting of a national constitution and offering humanitarian assistance.

Ismail Haniyeh

GAZACITY,
Occupied Palestine, Aug. 8--Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the sacked Hamas-led Palestinian coalition government, Tuesday expressed his readiness to quit the premier post if such a move could help resume dialogue with President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement.
“If the cost for national dialogue is the (premier) post, we are ready to pay this price,“ Haniyeh told a group of local journalists at his office in the Gaza Strip, under control of Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, Xinhua reported.
He said the Gaza takeover and the successive crackdown against Hamas people in West Bank by pro-Abbas forces were past events, underscoring that Hamas and Fatah are “key pillars for any Palestinian political regime.“
President Abbas dismantled the coalition after the Islamic movement took control of the coastal enclave in bloody fighting in mid June and appointed a new one led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank.
Palestinian security services loyal to Abbas launched a detention campaign against Hamas members and supporters in the West Bank shortly after Gaza takeover.
Hamas had made several overtures to resume internal dialogue with Fatah but were all rejected by Abbas, who is sticking to preconditions for any dialogue, which demand Hamas to evacuate security compounds in Gaza, restore things in Gaza to pre-takeover condition and recognize the Fayyad-led new government.
The international-recognized new government, which includes non-Hamas persons, has left the Islamists cramped in Gaza Strip under Israeli closure of all crossings and under lack of cash.
Haniyeh reiterated that the US administration doesn’t want Fatah to hold talks with Hamas in order to pave the way for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations “and keep exhausting Gaza to weaken Hamas.“
He also warned against a US-proposed international peace conference, saying it aims to “embody a decision for striking an Arab or Islamic country.“

SANAA, Yemen,
Aug. 8--Yemeni security forces on Wednesday killed four Al-Qaeda militants involved in a bombing that killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis last month, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Wednesday.
Saleh was addressing officers at a graduation ceremony, Reuters reported.
The militants were killed when forces raided a hideout near the city of Marib about 150 km
(95 miles) east of the capital Sanaa in the early hours of Wednesday, security sources said. Two troops were wounded in the raid.
A security source said on Friday that authorities were looking for nine people suspected of involvement in the attack, including a Saudi citizen.
A 21-year-old Yemeni man, Abdou Mohammad Rahiqa, carried out the suicide bombing at the Queen of Sheba Temple in Marib.
Yemen has previously said its security forces killed an Egyptian who helped mastermind the attack. Yemen, which joined the US-led war on terrorism after Al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities, has offered a $75,500 reward for information leading to the capture of those behind the attack.
Al-Qaeda issued a statement days before the attack demanding the release of some of its members jailed in Yemen and threatening unspecified action.
Yemen, the ancestral home of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is viewed in the West as a haven for Islamist militants. It has seen several major bombings.
One of the poorest countries outside Africa, Yemen has been trying to encourage tourists put off by kidnappings and bombings and boost foreign investment as its oil resources dwindle.

Bulava-M is a naval derivative of the land-based missile Topol.

MOSCOW, Aug. 8--Russia has moved to a higher level in the design of strategic sea-based nuclear systems.
Admiral Vladimir Masorin, commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, said the Bulava-M (SS-NX-30), a naval derivative of the land-based missile Topol (SS-27), had been approved for mass production, Ria Novosti reported.
It will be supplied to the new fourth-generation Project 955 Borey-class strategic submarines. Three such submarines, the Yury Dolgoruky, the Vladimir Monomakh and the Alexander Nevsky, are being built at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Region (north of European Russia).
The Yury Dolgoruky, the first of the series, will have 12 Bulava missiles. It was commissioned in the presence of First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is in charge of Russia’s defense-related sectors, and other eminent guests in April 2007. Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Space Agency, which is responsible for designing and supplying strategic missiles to the armed forces, said the Bulava could be delivered to the navy after 12-14 tests.
He referred to the experience of the United States, where the Trident II naval missile was delivered to the navy after 19 ground tests and nine launches from a submarine.
Admiral Masorin said the trial period of the Bulava would end in 2008 after two more tests this year. One of the trials will determine the missile’s maximum range. It is not clear where that particular missile will land, but it will clearly be beyond the Kura range on the Kamchatka Peninsular in Russia’s Far East. On the other hand, it could be aimed at the range, but launched not from the White Sea, as usual, but from some other sea.
According to the Western press, the three-stage solid-fuel Bulava-M missile will be one of the lightest in its class. Weighing only 30 metric tons, it was initially named Bulava-30. It has an effective range of 8,000 kilometers (4,972 miles) and will carry four to ten warheads.

SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 8--Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun will meet in Pyongyang on Aug. 28-30 for the second inter-Korean summit, Xinhua reported.
Since the 1990s, the DPRK and South Korea have been trying to explore ways to ease the tension in their relations, proposing to hold high-level meetings between the two sides.
The summit comes amid an improvement in North Korea’s ties with the outside world, and has been warmly welcomed by the international community.
But South Korea’s main opposition party rejected the move as an election stunt ahead of December’s presidential polls.
The two Koreas have agreed to formalize an agenda at preparatory meetings in the border city of Kaesong, where they jointly run an industrial park, according to AP.
South Korea’s presidential office said that the summit would “contribute to substantially opening the era of peace and prosperity between the two Koreas“.
North Korean state news agency KCNA said it would be “of weighty significance in opening a new phase of peace on the Korean Peninsula“.
China expects “positive results“ from DPRK-ROK summit
Meanwhile, China hopes the forthcoming second summit would lead to “positive results,“ said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao Wednesday.
The ROK and the DPRK have agreed to hold the second Inter-Korean Summit in Pyongyang from August 28-30, both sides reported.
“China has always been supporting whatever benefits peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia,“ said Liu.
As a neighbor of the Korean Peninsula, China has been supportive of the south and north for the improvement of relationship through dialogue, he said. And it also conforms to the fundamental interest of the 70 millions people of the peninsula, and conduces to regional peace and stability.

Sudanese children in the Sakali Camp in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, Aug. 7.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 8--The United Nations has released details of the countries that have pledged troops or police for a peacekeeping force in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
The proposed force, backed by the UN and the African Union, will comprise up to 26,000 members, most of them drawn from eight African nations, BBC said.
Some Asian nations have also promised forces. No Europeans or Americans are participating at this stage.
A UN official said the force needed more specialized military equipment.
In terms of an agreement between the UN and the Sudanese government, the proposed force must be predominantly African.
“We are meeting the objective of a predominantly African force,“ the UN Assistant Secretary General in peacekeeping, Jane Holl Lute, told Reuters news agency.
She said the operation needed attack helicopters, engineers, and people who could supply and drive cargo across Sudan, from Port Sudan to Darfur.
The African countries that have confirmed their participation are Egypt, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ghana.
Among Asian countries, Pakistan, Nepal and Indonesia have offered police, while Bangladesh has agreed to send troops and police.
Malaysia, Thailand and Jordan have offered troops. The UN says this list is neither final nor binding. The UN Security Council authorized the “hybrid“ force a week ago after months of delay in getting agreement from the Sudanese government. It is the first joint peacekeeping operation by the African Union and the UN and will replace the beleaguered 7,000-strong AU force that will remain in Darfur no later than
Dec. 31.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug. 8--Kenyan women have launched a campaign to collect one million signatures to lobby MPs to reserve 50 seats in parliament for women before elections later this year.
Some 10,000 women attended a rally in the capital, Nairobi, calling for the Affirmative Action Bill to be passed, said BBC.
Health Minister Charity Ngliu said that women face bias and financial drawbacks when seeking nomination, but they were ready to take up positions.
In the current parliament, only 18 out of 224 MPs are women.
The launch coincided with a new poll--conducted by Infotrak Research and Consulting, Harris Interactive Global and the Centre for Multi-Party Democracy-- that suggests that 51% of Kenyans are ready to elect a woman as president.
Ngilu is the only woman to have vied for Kenya’s presidency in the past, but at the rally she said women faced an uphill struggle in Kenyan politics.
“It’s very difficult for women to really campaign and win seats, not because they do not qualify, not because they are not good,“ she told the BBC’s Network Africa program.
“(There is) the obvious bias that comes from the communities, and women do not have enough money to mount a successful campaign.“
According to the bill before parliament, female seats would be elected through special ballots among women’s interest groups.