PERSIAN GULF

MORTARS SLAM INTO BAGHDAD NEIGHBORHOODS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Violence killed at least 29 people yesterday, including three American soldiers, and mortar fire rumbled through the heart of Baghdad after sundown despite stringent security measures imposed after an explosion of sectarian violence.

Iraqi police said they had found no trace of abducted American journalist Jill Carroll as the deadline set by her kidnappers for killing her passed at midnight yesterday with no word on her fate.

A ban on driving in Baghdad and its suburbs helped prevent major attacks during daylight yesterday, but after nightfall explosions thundered through the city as mortar shells slammed into a Shiite quarter in southwestern Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding 53, police said. Mortar fire also hit a Shiite area on the capital’s east side, killing three people and injuring six, police reported.

– Associated Press

IRAN, RUSSIA AGREE ON ENRICHMENT DEAL

BUSHEHR, Iran – Iran and Russia agreed in principle yesterday to establish a joint uranium enrichment venture, a breakthrough in talks on a American-backed Kremlin proposal aimed at easing concerns that Tehran wants to build nuclear weapons. But further negotiations on the details lay ahead, and it was not known whether Iran will entirely give up enrichment at home, a top demand of the West.

The deal – announced by the two countries’ top nuclear chiefs after a visit to a Russian-built nuclear plant in southern Iran – could deflect any move by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency at its March 6 meeting to recommend the Security Council consider action on Iran.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

NURSE RAPED FOR REFUSAL TO CARRY OUT ABORTIONS

MATTRAI – The gang rape of a nurse who refused to perform illegal abortions has outraged Pakistan and intensified calls for the repeal of its rape laws. Rubina Kousar, 26, was attacked by three men who burst into her lodgings at a rural health center at Mattrai in the western Punjab last Wednesday. Police arrested Allah Nawaz, 24, his brother Malik Riaz, 34, who has been elected as a local council leader, and a friend, Mohamed Ashraf, 25, on suspicion of rape. They deny the charges. The case has pitted landowners, who rule their fiefdoms with impunity, against those wanting to do away with brutal practices that go unpunished in rural backwaters.

Miss Kousar’s job at the clinic, set among neat squares of cotton and wheat fields bordering Pakistan’s western tribal belt, pays her about $61 a month. Abortion is illegal in Pakistan except when the mother’s life is at risk. Pakistan’s hudood law outlaws extramarital sex and forces a rape victim to field four witnesses to prove her case. The victim can be considered a guilty party.

– The Daily Telegraph

WESTERN EUROPE

THOUSANDS MARCH THROUGH PARIS TO PROTEST ANTI-SEMITIC MURDER

Tens of thousands protested in Paris yesterday at the vicious race-murder of Ilan Halimi, 23, who was kidnapped and tortured before being killed by an anti-Semitic gang. The marchers lit candles and released white balloons in his memory. Among those at yesterday’s rally were France’s Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, government ministers, opposition politicians, Jewish leaders and anti-racism campaigners. Roger Cukierman, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, told the marchers, “It’s important for French society to realize that little anti-Semitic and racist prejudices can have terrible consequences” Youssef Fofana, 25, a French citizen of Ivorian origin, from Ivory Coast, was arrested last week in Ivory Coast. He admitted the kidnapping to police, but denies murder.

– Special to the Sun

FRANCE AND E.C. PUSH FOR PALESTINIANS TO GET AID

PARIS – France and the European Commission are leading a diplomatic drive to unblock about $40 million in E.U. funding for the Palestinian Authority, without waiting for Hamas to renounce violence or recognize Israel.

Senior French officials said their government wanted the money freed immediately, and handed over in one block, as part of a strategy of reaching out to Hamas. France hopes that the Islamist group’s stunning victory in the Palestinian legislative elections may prompt Hamas to change into a responsible partner. The French-led plan has exposed divisions within the E.U. about how best to respond to Hamas, which remains on the E.U.’s list of banned terrorist organizations.

Diplomats said the issue will be the subject of fierce debate at a meeting of all 25 E.U. foreign ministers today.

– The Daily Telegraph