UN official arrives in London
JUBA, Sudan (AP):
The United Nations' humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, arrived in southern Sudan yesterday, where he says he is willing to meet a notorious Ugandan rebel leader wanted for war crimes.
Egeland says a meeting with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army high command and its shadowy leader, Joseph Kony, should focus on humanitarian issues related to a bloody 20-year conflict between the group and the Ugandan government.
US, North Korea to hold nuclear talks
TOKYO (AP):
The United States and North Korea may hold working-level talks in New York as early as next week aimed at resuming six-country negotiations on Pyongyang's nuclear programme, a newspaper said yesterday.
Citing unnamed sources familiar with U.S.-North Korea affairs, Japan's Mainichi newspaper said in a Washington-datelined story that officials from the two countries will discuss such as issues as the financial sanctions imposed on North Korean interests by the United States.
Thaksin has no plan to sneak into Thailand
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP):
If and when ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra returns to Thailand, he won't sneak back across the border but he will fly into the country with dignity, his lawyer said yesterday.
Thaksin has been living in London, where he owns an apartment, since being removed by a military coup in September. While on a trip to China last month, there were rumours that Thaksin might try to slip back into Thailand by land.
Guards face possible second Iraq tour
WASHINGTON (AP):
The nation's citizen-soldiers, already strained by long tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be tapped again under new plans being developed by the Pentagon.
National Guard combat brigades that have already served in Iraq may be called for a second tour, likely breaking the 24-month deployment limit initially set by the Pentagon, the Guard's top general said.
Palestinian national unity government is near
DAMASCUS, Syria:
A senior Hamas official has said that a deal between his group and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on forming a national unity government was near, adding that an agreement on the name of the new prime minister has been reached.
"There is some progress on this issue and in the next days, God willing, the remaining outstanding issues will be resolved," Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy leader of Hamas' political bureau in Syria, said in a telephone interview late yesterday. He spoke following talks he held in Damascus with Farouk Kaddoumi, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's political wing.
