Canadian leader warns U.S. on Arctic

Toronto Stephen Harper, elected Monday as Canada’s prime minister, warned the United States on Thursday to back off from its challenge of Canadian sovereignty in Arctic waters that are fast thawing from global warming.

In the first news conference since his election, Harper upbraided the U.S. ambassador for asserting that the icy polar regions, including the legendary Northwest Passage, are international waters.

Canada claims that its archipelago of some 16,000 islands makes that region Canadian territory.

“The United States defends its sovereignty. The Canadian government will defend our sovereignty,” Harper said. “It’s the Canadian people we get our mandate from, not the ambassador of the United States.”

The two countries – as well as Russia – have had conflicting claims in the Arctic for at least three decades.

Mexico reconsidering plan to distribute maps

Mexico City Mexico will suspend its plan to distribute maps to migrants wanting to cross the U.S. border illegally, but an official said Thursday the decision was not made because of American pressure.

Miguel Angel Paredes, spokesman for the federal Human Rights Commission, said the government wanted to “rethink” its plan because human rights officials in border states expressed concern that the maps would show anti-immigrant groups – like the Minutemen civilian patrols – where migrants likely would gather.

“This would be practically like telling the Minutemen where the migrants are going to be,” Paredes said. “We are going to rethink this, so that we wouldn’t almost be handing them over to groups that attack migrants.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the United States opposed the plan “in the strongest terms.” He said the effort would lead more people to cross the border, “leading to more migrant deaths and the further enrichment of the criminal human trafficking rings.”

The commission, a Mexican government-funded agency with independent powers, originally said it would print and pay for at least 70,000 maps showing highways, rescue beacons and water tanks in the Arizona desert.

Britain boosting Afghanistan presence

London Britain will send at least another 4,000 troops – four times its current deployment – to Afghanistan in coming months as a NATO mission expands into a dangerous region rife with Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents, the government said Thursday.

Britain now has about 1,000 troops in Afghanistan. That would peak at about 5,700 but drop to less than 4,700 after engineers complete building a base for troops by July, Defense Secretary John Reid said.

He told the House of Commons that the mission in southern Afghanistan was dangerous, and warlords and drug trafficking gangs were active in the region.

“Those risks are as nothing compared to the dangers to our country and our people of allowing Afghanistan to fall back into the hands of the Taliban and the terrorists,” he said.

The Afghanistan deployment comes as NATO expands its peacekeeping mission there from 9,000 to about 16,000 troops. In May, Britain takes control of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force based in the capital, Kabul.