Iraq Lawmakers Extend State of Emergency

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Beset by rampant sectarian violence, Iraq’s Parliament voted yesterday to extend the country’s state of emergency for 30 more days, as at least 66 more Iraqis were killed or found dead. Yesterday’s deaths included those of eight soccer players and fans cut down by a pair of mortar rounds that slammed onto a field in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood.

— Associated Press

Maoist Rebels To Join Nepal Government

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Maoist rebels are to join the Nepalese government following a peace deal that promises to end 10 years of civil war and could spell the end of the 238-year-old monarchy. More than 13,000 people have died in the conflict, which saw Nepal become a human-rights disaster and led analysts to warn it could become a failed state. Under the deal, signed yesterday morning after marathon negotiations, Maoist fighters will be confined to special camps under U.N. supervision. Their weapons will be kept in locked and alarmed rooms, with an equivalent number of government soldiers and guns held under similar conditions.

— The Daily Telegraph

Tamil Tigers: It’s ‘Too Late’ To Save Sri Lankan Cease-Fire

NEW DELHI — Tamil Tiger rebels have given warning that it will soon be “too late” to save Sri Lanka’s rapidly disintegrating cease-fire after army shells and rockets killed at least 45 civilians, including six infants, in a refugee camp. The 30-minute barrage, which followed days of skirmishing in the eastern district of Batticaloa also left some 200 people with shrapnel and blast injuries, rebels said. The Sri Lankan government denied the attack was deliberate and accused the separatists of using human shields to defend positions from which they had been shelling government forces. After the breakdown of peace talks in Geneva last month, there have been growing fears that both sides had opted for a “military solution” to Sri Lanka’s 23-year ethnic war which has killed 65,000 people.

— The Daily Telegraph