Reuters - The U.N. Security Council
authorized on Tuesday up to 26,000 troops and police for Darfur
in an effort to protect civilians and quell violence in Sudan's
vast arid western region.
AP - At least 14,000 people have evacuated homes, hotels and campgrounds on the Canary Islands as firefighters struggled Tuesday to extinguish fires on two of the archipelago’s popular tourist spots.
AP - Cuba passed the one-year anniversary of Fidel Castro’s withdrawal from power without official mention of the fact on Tuesday — but Castro published an essay proclaiming Cuba’s victories at the Pan American games were a triumph for the revolution.
AFP - Afghanistan's Taliban set the government a new deadline of noon (0730 GMT) Wednesday to meet its demands in order to save 21 South Koreans, a day after a second hostage was killed and as a German one reportedly pleaded for his life.
AP - The leader of Iraq’s Kurdish region warned Tuesday of a “real civil war” if the central government does not implement a constitutional clause on the future of Kirkuk, the oil-rich city claimed by the Kurds.
AP - A former schoolteacher who presided over a torture center was charged Tuesday with crimes against humanity, becoming the first top figure of Cambodia’s notorious Khmer Rouge to be indicted for atrocities that led to an estimated 1.7 million deaths.
AP - The U.S. military said Tuesday that a Marine was killed in fighting west of the capital, bringing the American death toll for July to at least 73 — still the lowest in eight months.
AP - A video that remained secret for nearly three years after the horrific Beslan hostage crisis has cast new doubt on official conclusions about what led to the deaths of 334 people, more than half of them children, during one of Russia’s worst terrorist attacks.
AP - Army helicopter gunships and troops repelled a guerrilla raid on a military checkpoint Tuesday, killing at least 15 Islamic militants amid escalated fighting in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
AP - The British army marked a milestone of peacemaking Tuesday as it formally ended its 38-year mission to bolster security in Northern Ireland.
