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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — Sudanese President Omar  Bashir has told the United Nations he endorses a plan for a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force to help quell violence and protect civilians in Darfur.

DUBAI (AP) — Hand-selected voters went to the polls on Saturday to pick members of an government advisory panel in this oil-rich Gulf country’s first-ever elections. About 60 per cent of the 1,677 citizens chosen to vote in the capital

MANAMA (AP) — Bahrain’s main Shiite opposition party boycotted the king’s inauguration of parliament Friday, protesting what it called the “marginalisation” of the country’s Shiite majority.

MOGADISHU (AP) — A Somali lawmaker bypassed the government and signed an agreement Saturday to end hostilities with the country’s powerful Islamic Courts, a symbolic gesture that is unlikely to have any real effect.

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somalia’s Ethiopia-backed forces and Islamic fighters clashed Thursday near the seat of government in Baidoa for a second day with both sides claiming inflicting massive casualties, officials and witnesses said. A day after European Commission humanitarian chief Louis Michel said he had secured both sides’ commitment to …

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqi forces were told to cooperate with their Turkish counterparts during a 1980s campaign against Kurdish civilians, according to evidence presented Thursday to a court trying Saddam Hussein. Prosecutors seeking to prove that the ousted Iraqi leader ordered the slaughter of 182,000 Kurdish civilians in the 1988 …

KHARTOUM (AFP) — The Sudanese army said it killed 200 rebels while repelling an attack in Darfur, the deadliest single military operation reported in the war-torn region since fighting started there four years ago. The bloodshed came amid intensified efforts to reach an agreement on the deployment of UN peacekeepers …

MOGADISHU (Reuters) — Somali Islamists and troops defending the government’s only stronghold battled with rockets and heavy weapons on Wednesday at two frontline areas, but a top Islamist leader denied it was the start of war.

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somalia’s powerful Islamists Tuesday said they were finalising plans to fight Ethiopian forces deployed in the lawless country as a seven-day ultimatum for Addis Ababa to pull out its troops was due to expire.

UNITED NATIONS — US Ambassador John Bolton has pushed President George W. Bush’s global agenda with a lawyer’s drive during his 16 months at the United Nations — not a diplomat’s finesse which has upset some ambassadors and UN officials.