PERSIAN GULF

DIPLOMATS: IRAN VIOLATING NUCLEAR FREEZE AGREEMENT

VIENNA, Austria – Iran is testing some parts of machines that can be used to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads, despite a pledge to freeze such activities, diplomats said yesterday. The revelations dealt a fresh blow to hopes Iran would scrap uranium enrichment. The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, emphasized that Iran had not started any of the centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

“It appears no more than checking nuts and bolts” of centrifuge rotors, said one Western diplomat familiar with Iran’s actions and International Atomic Energy Agency controls. The revelations were the latest sign of trouble surrounding talks between European powers and Iran on enrichment.

America and other countries fear Iran is seeking to enrich to weapons-grade uranium. Iran publicly insists it only wants to make low-grade enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. But a European summary of talks says Iran has privately acknowledged what Washington and its allies have argued all along – that as an oil- rich country it does not need nuclear energy.

Iran agreed to freeze all enrichment and related activities late last year while it negotiates with the Europeans on technical, economic, and political support meant to reduce its international isolation.

– Associated Press

RICE: IRAN’S ACTIONS LOATHSOME

LONDON – Iran’s approach to human rights and its treatment of its own citizens is loathsome, Secretary of State Rice said yesterday. While saying Iranians deserve better leaders than “unelected mullahs,” America’s new chief diplomat stopped short of demanding their ouster.

At the start of her first trip abroad since succeeding Colin Powell at the State Department, Ms. Rice also told reporters that last weekend’s election in Iraq vindicates the American-led toppling of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The invasion was broadly unpopular in many of the European capitals that Ms. Rice will visit over the next week. A major goal of Ms. Rice’s trip is to shift the subject in Europe toward the possibility of Middle East peace and other mutual goals.

“I don’t think anybody thinks that the unelected mullahs who run that regime are a good thing for the Iranian people and for the region,” Ms. Rice said en route to London, her first stop. Her itinerary includes visits to Jerusalem and the West Bank to encourage peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

POPE’S HEALTH IMPROVES

VATICAN CITY – Easing fears about Pope John Paul II’s latest health crisis, the Vatican said yesterday he was improving and breathing more easily, but hinted the frail 84-year-old pontiff may have to spend up to a week in the hospital to fully recover. Prayers and good wishes poured in from around the globe, including a hand-scribbled note from the imprisoned Turk who tried to assassinate the pope on St. Peter’s Square in 1981.

John Paul has not suffered from any more throat spasms and spent a second restful night at Rome’s Gemelli Polyclinic hospital, where a team of doctors was watching him carefully for any sign of complications from his flu, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin. “The Holy Father’s general and respiratory conditions show a positive evolution,” it read. “The Holy Father spent a restful night.” Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls suggested the pope might spend up to a week at the clinic’s heavily guarded papal suite, telling reporters: “When I’ve had the flu, it lasts seven days.”

– Associated Press

INDICTED SERB ARMY COMMANDER SURRENDERS

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A top Serbian general accused of playing a role in the murder of hundreds of Kosovo Albanian civilians during a 1998-99 crackdown surrendered yesterday to the U.N. tribunal in the Hague.

General Vladimir Lazarevic has been detained and will have an initial appearance scheduled in several days, the tribunal said in a statement.

General Lazarevic’s indictment said troops under his command “murdered hundreds of Kosovo Albanian civilians as part of a widespread and systematic campaign of brutality and violence that resulted in the forced deportation of approximately 800,000 Kosovo Albanian civilians.” General Lazarevic has denied any wrongdoing, insisting he was only carrying out his duty during a separatist insurgency.

The government of conservative Prime Minister Kostunica praised General Lazarevic’s decision, pledging financial and legal assistance to him and his family. Despite stern warnings from Washington and Brussels that all suspects must be extradited if Serbia hopes to join NATO and the European Union, Kostunica has been reluctant to arrest suspects, instead coaxing them to surrender.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL ASIA

AFGHAN JETLINER GOES MISSING

KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan passenger jet with more than 100 people on board was missing after it failed to land at the Kabul airport, a company official said Friday. The Kam Air Boeing 737 took off yesterday afternoon from the western city of Herat bound for the capital, Kabul, but was unable to land because of bad weather, said the airline’s deputy director, Feda Mohammed Fedayi. Mr. Fedayi said the plane was diverted to an airport in Pakistan, possibly Peshawar, but that the company had no word on whether it landed safely.

Lieutenant Commander Ken Mackillop, a spokesman for the NATO force which controls Kabul airport, said officials at Peshawar airport were not immediately able to confirm whether it had landed there. Kabul has been hit by heavy snow and all flights out of the capital were canceled yesterday.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIER HEADS AWAY FROM INDONESIAN DISASTER ZONE

The American aircraft carrier that led a massive helicopter operation to deliver life-giving aid to cutoff villages in the early days of the tsunami disaster began steaming away from the disaster zone yesterday. The departure of the USS Abraham Lincoln from Indonesian waters marks a major drawdown of American military aid effort that began six days after the December 26 tsunami and was the biggest American military operation in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War.

Helicopters from the ship have flown hundreds of missions delivering food, water, and other aid to remote villages along the devastated western coast of Sumatra Island. American officials said last month the emergency phase of the relief effort was ending and about 5,000 American troops will withdraw gradually after the Lincoln’s departure. Meanwhile, Indonesian workers cleaning up debris after the tsunami found 897 more bodies, raising the confirmed death toll in that country to 111,171, the government said yesterday.

– Associated Press

EASTERN EUROPE

RUSSIA TO SEND PEACEKEEPERS TO SUDAN

MOSCOW – President Putin signed a resolution that would have Russian troops join a proposed U.N. peacekeeping operation in Sudan, the Kremlin said yesterday. The resolution calls for Russia to send units from the Interior Ministry, which has both police and military forces. Sudan’s government and rebels in the south signed a January 9 peace deal to end the African nation’s long-running civil war, setting up a national power-sharing administration with an autonomous south.

The top U.N. envoy to Sudan said late last year that if a peace agreement was reached, he envisioned the U.N. Security Council adopting a resolution in late January authorizing a wide-ranging U.N. peacekeeping mission with up to 10,000 troops. That resolution was delayed. While Russia’s military recently announced plans for a new unit fully dedicated to peacekeeping operations, Moscow has curtailed its participation in such operations abroad in the past few years, citing financial concerns. The final contingent of Russian forces left Kosovo in 2003 after four years of peacekeeping in the Balkans.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

TRAIN CRASHES INTO TRACTOR IN INDIA; 52 KILLED

BOMBAY, India – A train smashed into a tractor carrying wedding guests at a crossing in western India yesterday, killing at least 52 people and injuring 10 others, a railway official said. The train did not derail.

The accident occurred near Kanhan, a small town in Maharashtra state about 500 miles northeast of Bombay, when a local train bound for the central Indian city of Nagpur collided with a tractor crossing the tracks, said Jagdish Kumar, deputy general manager of South-Eastern Central Railway. “The death toll has gone up to 52.There were 62 people in the trailer. They were going to attend a marriage. Ten are injured,” Mr. Kumar said. Rail crossings in India require an attendant to manually raise and lower the guard gates. However, Mr. Kumar said the crossing where the accident occurred was not manned. No one was injured on the train, he said. “The passenger train was traveling at about 70 kilometers [45 miles] per hour and the driver applied the emergency brakes,” Mr. Kumar said by telephone from Bilaspur, the railway’s regional head office. The accident occurred because the tractor driver failed to see the oncoming train before crossing the tracks, Mr. Kumar said.

– Associated Press