The United Nations Security Council’s permanent members and Germany agreed Tuesday on the contents of a new draft resolution on sanctions against Iran after talks on its nuclear program, the German foreign minister said. A European diplomat and a U.S. official, both speaking of condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the draft resolution would moderately expand existing sanctions, but would not feature new economic sanctions.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the Bush administration will fight efforts to curb billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Pakistan while warning President Pervez Musharraf he must support and promote democracy. Ahead of talks with Musharraf in Switzerland on Wednesday — the highest-level, face-to-face U.S. contact with the Pakistani leader since last month’s assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto — \nRice said it is critical that February legislative elections be free and fair.
A suicide bomber apparently targeting a senior security official blew himself up inside a funeral tent Monday, killing 18 people in the latest of a series of deadly attacks chipping away at the notion of a calmer Iraq. The U.S. military has repeatedly warned that the fight against insurgents is not over, and the bombing in a village north of Baghdad was the third in as many days in Sunni Arab areas thought to have been largely rid of al-Qaida militants.
A newborn in Sierra Leone has the lowest chance in the world of surviving until age 5, and the prospects are almost as bad for children in Angola and Afghanistan, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday. In 2006, nearly 9.7 million children died worldwide before their fifth birthdays, mostly from preventable causes such as diarrhea, malaria or malnutrition, the U.N. Children’s Fund said in its annual report. More than 26,000 children under 5 die each day on average.\nIsrael eased a blockade of Gaza imposed in retaliation for militant rocket attacks, allowing in some food and fuel Tuesday after the U.N. warned that international food aid to the impoverished territory may have to be suspended by the weekend. Israel pumped cooking oil and fuel for Gaza’s power plant through the Nahal Oz crossing. It was also expected to allow a single shipment of fuel, food and medicine into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
