Peace Proposals

Two top U.N. officials said Friday that the continuing conflict in Darfur had thwarted a yearlong effort to start peace talks and deploy a peacekeeping force there, while new conflict in neighboring Chad could ignite a regional war. U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno and the special envoy for Sudan, Jan Eliasson, told the Security Council that increasing clashes between Sudanese troops and rebels in western Darfur made it difficult to deliver aid to the area and deploy peacekeepers.

He's accused of torturing enemies, cozying up to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s and plotting to assassinate Egypt's president. But presidential advisor Nafie Ali Nafie says his moderation and pragmatism won him his latest assignment: overseeing the Sudanese government's response to the conflict in Darfur. "I was picked for this because I'm a mild person," said Nafie, maintaining a wary smile and unflappable demeanor throughout an 80-minute interview in his office here.

A government-mandated disarmament program got underway here Tuesday without much of a bang. At one designated weapons drop-off point in the Somalian capital, bored-looking Ethiopian soldiers milled about with little to do. A second collection site, nestled on a bluff overlooking the Indian Ocean, closed early because "no one showed up," a Somalian government soldier said.

Seeking a fresh start for stalled Mideast peace efforts, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday won promises from the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to meet with her next month for their first discussion of a final peace deal in more than six years.

Nepal's former communist guerrillas began handing over weapons to U.N. monitors Wednesday under a landmark peace deal calling for thousands of fighters to disarm and stay in camps, officials said. United Nations monitors began registering the ex-fighters and their weapons at a camp in Chitwan, about 100 miles southwest of the capital, Katmandu, said a spokesman for the rebel unit there. The spokesman, who goes by the single name Abiral, said by telephone that the process was going smoothly.

The rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah announced Thursday that they have agreed in principle to share power in hopes of easing months of deadly factional fighting and breaking a damaging international aid embargo. The tentative accord was announced in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where leaders of the two groups met for two days under the auspices of King Abdullah.

Fresh from a meeting with rebel commanders in the western Sudanese bush, leaders of a new joint United Nations and African Union peace effort expressed optimism Thursday about bringing warring parties in Darfur back to the negotiating table. In the latest diplomatic offensive to jump-start stalled peace talks, special envoys from the two organizations are wrapping up a weeklong series of meetings with Sudanese government officials, rebel fighters, civilians and tribal leaders.

Pakistan's top envoy arrived in India's capital Tuesday to nudge along a fitful peace process in the aftermath of a deadly firebombing aboard a train connecting the rival nations. The attack on the Samjhauta Express, in which at least 68 people burned to death, lent a greater sense of urgency to a previously scheduled visit here by Pakistani Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri.

South Asian rivals India and Pakistan signed an agreement to reduce the risk of accidentally triggering a nuclear war between them. Details of the pact, which was signed in New Delhi, have been kept secret, but officials say it includes confidence-building measures related to the countries' nuclear arsenals. The move is part of peace efforts aimed at ending more than half a century of hostilities.

Arab leaders urged Israel to accept a 5-year-old peace plan that they say could end the decades-old Middle East conflict, calling for negotiations with the Jewish state as the annual Arab League summit drew to a close here Thursday. But key elements of the plan raise doubts about its chances for success.