QUOTE OF THE DAY
“To be blunt, I do not expect that we’re going achieve anything substantial.”
United Nations mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, on the Syrian peace talks in Geneva, which are set to end Friday Article this page
Filipinos killed top 40 after peace deal
MANILA, Philippines - More than 40 people were killed in violence around the island of Mindanao, days after a landmark peace deal was struck with the largest Muslim insurgency group in the Philippines, officials said Wednesday.
The bloodiest battles involved a group opposed to the peace deal, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. The fight was initiated by police officers and soldiers trying to arrest rebel fighters.
On Saturday, the Philippine government finalized the details of a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that would give the group control over an autonomous area of Mindanao and let it share the wealth from the area’s resources in return for the rebels gradually giving up their weapons.
The bodies of at least 37 rebels have been recovered in remote villages in the central part of Mindanao, Col. Ramon Zagala said.
Also in the overall death toll was one soldier.
Pakistani names Taliban-talks team
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s prime minister vowed Wednesday that his government will pursue peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, naming a four-member committee to facilitate negotiations.
In a speech to Parliament, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also called on the militants to observe a cease-fire and condemned them for targeting security forces and civilians in recent months.
“It is necessary for the success of the talks to start this process with good intentions, and it demands that the acts of terrorism be immediately stopped. Talks and terrorism cannot go side by side,” Sharif told lawmakers.
He said he had decided to accept a recent offer by the militants to start negotiations. “We want to give peace another chance by forgetting the bitter experience of the past,” Sharif said.
The four people named by Sharif to head the negotiations are: Rahimullah Yousafzai, a local journalist and expert on the Taliban;
Pakistan’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, Rustam Shah Mohmand; retired intelligence officer Mohammed Amer; and columnist Irfan Sadiqui.
U.N. crew inspects Iran uranium mine
TEHRAN, Iran - A group of United Nations inspectors visited a key uranium mine in southern Iran on Wednesday as part of a deal to allow expanded monitoring of the country’s nuclear sites.
Nuclear spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told the official IRNA news agency that the three-member team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - inspected the Gachin uranium mine, 31 miles west of the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.
Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said U.N. inspectors were given a “managed access” to the Gachin site.
The term refers to a level of scrutiny that provides agency inspectors with access to data while at the same time allowing the host country to protect some information.
Next to the Gachin uranium mine is an associated mill that turns the mined uranium into uranium-ore concentrate, a powder known as yellow cake because of its mostly yellowish color.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/30/2014