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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

U.N., Sudan talk of Darfur force

The Spokesman-Review

The United Nations and Sudan are discussing the deployment of U.N. military advisers to reinforce the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, hoping to avert a standoff that could deepen the crisis in the war-torn region, officials from both sides said Tuesday.

The proposal appeared to be gaining momentum amid fears violence could escalate. The United Nations has demanded Sudan accept a U.N. peacekeeping force in the region, but Sudan has fiercely opposed it, insisting it will only accept strengthening the current African Union mission.

The African peacekeepers’ mandate runs out in late December. If no new arrangement is reached, they could withdraw, opening the door to even worse violence in the vast western region of Sudan, where some 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes by fighting since 2003.

New York

Pakistan won’t recognize Israel

Pakistan’s government will eventually have to recognize Israel, but it would be political suicide to do so today, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday.

Such recognition would end any hopes of Pakistan serving as bridge between the Muslim world and the West, Musharraf said.

Musharraf, who addressed the U.N. General Assembly last week and is promoting his new autobiography, said his considerable skills at walking a tightrope would not enable him to negotiate the firestorm that recognizing Israel would cause, particularly after its recent attacks on Lebanon.

“We cannot do something that sidelines us from the Muslim world,” Musharraf said after a speech to the Weill Cornell Medical College.

Musharraf said his country would consider formally recognizing Israel only after the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Paris

EU may admit Romania, Bulgaria

The European Commission recommended Tuesday that Romania and Bulgaria be admitted to the European Union on Jan. 1 but attached unprecedented conditions, signaling that there is still deep unease about the union’s expansion eastward and the potential economic and political problems that go with it.

The addition of the two Balkan nations would bring the bloc’s membership to 27 countries, raise its population by 30 million to 490 million people and expand its borders to the Black Sea. Analysts expect the recommendation by the commission, the EU’s executive arm, to win final approval of European leaders next month.

Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, underscoring the ambivalence toward future expansion, said that following the two countries’ entry, he would favor freezing membership until the union resolves a controversy over its proposed constitution, which voters in France and the Netherlands rejected last year.