Monday, November 17, 2008

PAKISTAN

Pakistan temporarily barred oil tankers and container trucks from a key passageway to Afghanistan, threatening a critical supply route for U.S. and NATO troops Sunday and raising more fears about security in the insurgent-plagued border region.

Last Monday, a band of fighters hijacked about a dozen trucks, including some carrying Humvees, headed to foreign forces in Afghanistan. Renewed security concerns prompted officials to impose the temporary ban on tankers and trucks carrying sealed containers late Saturday, government official Bakhtiar Khan said. He said the ban could be lifted as early as Monday.

The ambush last week occurred at the entrance to the pass. Police said about 60 masked insurgents forced the convoy to stop, briefly trading fire with nearby security officers.

Islamist insurgents now control most of Somalia, President Abdullahi Yusuf admitted Saturday, and he raised the prospect that his government could collapse.

Insurgents have been slowly advancing on the capital, raising the stakes in their two-year-old rebellion and undermining fragile U.N.-brokered peace talks to end 17 years of chaos in the country. A grenade attack Sunday killed four people and injured nine in Baidoa, the government's seat.

Congolese Rebel Agrees to Talks

Congo's main rebel leader promised a U.N. envoy Sunday to support the world body's efforts to end the fighting, but clashes between the army and rebels continued in the east despite his declared support for a cease-fire. After meeting U.N. special envoy Olusegun Obasanjo, Laurent Nkunda said he had agreed to respect a cease-fire, open a humanitarian corridor to aid refugees and support the U.N. peace initiative.

7 Killed in Canadian Plane Crash

A small plane crashed on a remote island off British Columbia's southern coast Sunday, killing seven of the eight people on board. One passenger on the charter flight from Vancouver survived, rescue officials said. The Grumman Goose amphibious airplane went down on Thormanby Island, north of Vancouver.

A group of high-profile Israeli politicians, intellectuals and business leaders have banded together to form a dovish faction ahead of February elections, worried by polls that give hard-line opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu a strong chance of winning. The movement hopes to breathe new life into Israel's moribund peace movement.

From News Services