Friday, June 6, 2008

UGANDA

Military action against the Lord's Resistance Army could plunge northern Uganda into another nightmare of fear and misery, the leader of the tribe most affected by the insurgency said Thursday during a visit to London.

Uganda's army says it has agreed with Sudan and Congo to jointly fight the cultlike rebel group if peace talks with its elusive leader, Joseph Kony, do not succeed.

Rwot David Acana, paramount chief of the Acholi tribe of which Kony and his fighters are also members, said the gains of 18 months of fragile peace were too precious to squander on a hasty resort to military strikes.

"Let's explore peaceful means," he said. "The people at home still have hope. . . . The international community should also have hope."

Kony, who is wanted on war crimes charges and is in hiding, snubbed mediators in April after raising hopes that he would sign a final peace deal to end decades of war in which tens of thousands were killed and millions displaced.

Turkey's top court ruled Thursday that Islamic head scarves violate secularism and cannot be allowed at universities, reject-

ing constitutional amendments passed by parliament in February and deepening a divide between the country's Islamic-oriented government and secular institutions.

The issue is an explosive one in Turkey, where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government is locked in a power struggle with secular groups that have support from the military and other state institutions.

Turkey and Iran have been carrying out coordinated strikes on Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, a top Turkish general said in the first military confirmation of Iranian-Turkish cooperation in the fight against separatists there.

A bomb ripped through a crowded passenger bus near Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, during the morning rush hour Friday, killing at least 21 people and wounding an additional 47, officials said.

From News Services