World in brief: Pakistan will fence, mine Afghan border
Pakistan said Tuesday it will plant land mines and build a fence on parts of its long, rugged frontier with Afghanistan to meet criticism it does too little to stop Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas from crossing the border.
Relations have been souring between the neighbors, which are key U.S. allies in its war on terror groups. Afghan and NATO officials contend militants operate from sanctuaries in Pakistan, but the Islamabad government insists it does all it can to stop them.
The plan did little to ease those frictions.
Afghanistan quickly objected to the idea of a fence along the 1,510-mile border, whose demarcation is disputed by the two nations.
But Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan said his country would be acting on its own territory and did not need Afghan consent.
Khan told reporters Pakistan also will send unspecified military reinforcements to the frontier, joining about 80,000 soldiers already in the country’s northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
MADRID, Spain
Doctor says Castro ‘hasn’t got cancer’
A Spanish surgeon who treated Fidel Castro said the ailing Cuban leader does not have cancer, insisting Tuesday he was recovering slowly but progressively from a serious operation.
The comments by Dr. Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido, the chief surgeon at Madrid’s Gregorio Maranon Hospital, represented the first independent medical assessment of Castro’s condition since the Cuban leader underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July.
The Cuban government has kept Castro’s condition a state secret, occasionally releasing photographs and videos of him to show he is convalescing.
Garcia Sabrido visited Havana last week to examine Castro and consult with his medical team.
“He hasn’t got cancer,” Garcia Sabrido said, adding that he believed Castro, 80, could be physically capable of running the country again.
UNITED NATIONS
Sudan leader will accept U.N. plans
Sudan’s president said he accepts a U.N. package to help end escalating violence in Darfur and is ready to discuss a cease-fire, according to a letter circulated Tuesday.
President Omar al-Bashir said in the letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Sudan is ready to immediately implement two recent agreements endorsing a three-step U.N. plan to strengthen the beleaguered 7,000-strong African Union force in the vast western region of the country.
Al-Bashir also dropped his opposition to a hybrid AU-U.N. force that would be deployed as the final step in the peace plan.
However, U.N. Security Council diplomats cautioned that al-Bashir remains opposed to any large-scale deployment of U.N. troops and has backtracked on agreements regarding Darfur in the past.