World briefs

02-18-2009 |

Panama Star KABUL – The number of Afghan civilians killed in armed conflict surged to a record 2,118 people last year as the Afghan war turned increasingly bloody, the U.N. said in a new report Tuesday.

Insurgents were responsible for 55 percent of the deaths, but U.S., NATO and Afghan forces killed 39 percent, the report said. Of those 828 deaths by the forces, 552 were blamed on airstrikes.

Civilian deaths have been a huge source of friction between the U.S. and President Hamid Karzai.

DOHA, Qatar – The Sudanese government and Darfur's most powerful rebel group signed an declaration Tuesday to conduct future peace negotiations, but failed to agree on a hoped-for cease-fire after a week of talks.

The rebels, however, did pledge to release some captured government soldiers as a goodwill gesture.

The "declaration of good intentions," worked out in negotiations in the Gulf nation of Qatar, laid the groundwork for a second round of talks next month that are to address core problems in the six-year conflict.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – A cruise ship with 64 passengers and 41 crew members aboard ran aground near an Argentine base in Antarctica on Tuesday, but there were no risks to the people aboard, the Argentine navy reported.

The Bahaman-flagged Ocean Nova ran aground about one mile (two kilometers) from the San Martin base, pushed by "extremely high winds" into craggy rocks, Quark Expeditions president Patrick Shaw told The Associated Press.

MINGORA, Pakistan – NATO led a growing chorus of international concern Tuesday by warning that a truce between the government of Pakistan and Taliban militants in a restive region near the Afghan border risks giving the extremists a "safe haven."

a hard-line cleric sent to the region to negotiate, Sufi Muhammad, expressed hope the militants would give up their arms to honor the pact, which imposes Islamic law and suspends a military offensive in the former tourist haven and nearby areas.

BOGOTA – Colombia's main leftist rebel group said Tuesday that it "executed" eight Indians in the country's remote southwest, accusing them of acting as paid informants for Colombia's military.

The communique posted on a Web site sympathetic to the rebels followed widespread but unconfirmed reports that as many as 27 Awa Indians had been killed — allegations that prompted denunciations by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.

The development was a major blow to rebel efforts to promote a prisoner swap with the government and to get removed from the EU's list of terror organizations.