The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, United Nations

Because of Israeli objections, the United States suddenly withdrew a U.N. resolution endorsing this week's agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement - even though the measure had overwhelming Security Council support.

The U.S. about-face in less than 24 hours on Friday surprised many U.N. diplomats and highlighted Israel's difficult relations with the United Nations, which it contends is anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian. But what surprised U.N. diplomats most was that the U.S. didn't consult Israel, one of its closest allies, before introducing the draft resolution on Thursday afternoon.

With virtually every other Mideast resolution, the U.S. has consulted Israel in advance, but on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad first presented it at a closed council meeting.

As he left, he welcomed the "very positive" response from council members but told reporters he needed to consult with the Israelis and Palestinians on the text to ensure that the resolution was what they wanted.

It clearly was not what Israel wanted as a first step to support the agreement that emerged at the U.S.-sponsored Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to try to reach a peace settlement by the end of 2008.

Well-informed diplomats said Israel didn't want a resolution because it would bring the Security Council, which it distrusts, into the fledgling negotiations with the Palestinians.

The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Khalilzad introduced the draft resolution not only without consulting the Israelis and Palestinians but without getting broad support from President Bush's administration.

"It's not the proper venue," Israel's deputy ambassador Daniel Carmon told reporters after Friday's council meeting. "We feel that the appreciation of Annapolis has other means of being expressed than in a resolution."

"We were not the only ones to object," Carmon added, saying the Americans had told the Israelis that the Palestinians also objected. Arab diplomats confirmed the Palestinians were not consulted but said they supported the draft.

Abbas told reporters in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, on Friday, that while he didn't know the details of the draft resolution it was a sign of the United States' seriousness, which he also perceived at the Annapolis conference.

Reuters, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia has told India not to meddle in its internal affairs after New Delhi expressed concerns over the treatment of ethnic Indians in Muslim-majority Malaysia.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the government would deal with citizens according to its own laws and no other country should interfere, the Star newspaper reported on Saturday.

Last Sunday, more than 10,000 Malaysian Indians staged the community's biggest anti-government protest, sparked by anger over policies they say prevent them from getting decent jobs or a good education for their children.

Police used tear gas and water canons to disperse the protesters, many of them Tamils with their roots in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, sparking outrage and demands from Tamil politicians that New Delhi intervene.

"If they break any law, it is our right to deal with them in accordance with Malaysian laws," Syed Hamid was quoted as saying.

India said on Friday it was concerned about the treatment of ethnic Indians in Malaysia and had taken up with Kuala Lumpur accusations that protesters from the community had been harassed.

"The government remains deeply solicitous for the welfare of people of Indian origin living abroad," Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told parliament.

"We have friendly relations with Malaysia and we are in touch with the Malaysian authorities in the related matter."

Multi-racial Malaysia has denied claims it mistreated ethnic Indians, saying that they were better off than those in India.

Ethnic Indians form 7 percent of Malaysia's 26 million people.

New Delhi's expression of solidarity came as the Hindu rights group behind Sunday's protest said its leader had left for India before heading to London, Geneva, Brussels and Washington to lobby for international support.

The Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) said its chairman, P. Waythamoorthy, left Malaysia on Wednesday "in the light of the crackdown and threats of detention without trial".

He is expected to meet Indian leaders including the foreign minister and chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Separately, one private immigration agency in Malaysia said an unusually large number of Malaysian Indians had inquired about migrating to Australia after Sunday's protest.

AFP, Baghdad

Dozens of suspected al-Qaida militants raided a Shiite village north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 13 people and torching homes, police said.

The attack on the predominantly Shiite village of Dwelah, about 45 miles north of Baghdad in Diyala province, began at about 6:30 a.m., a police officer said. The village was bombarded with mortar rounds, then 50 to 60 armed militants streamed in and opened fire, forcing families to flee. They burned homes and killed at least 13 villagers, including three children and two women, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information about the attack. Fourteen villagers were wounded.

The villagers apparently also fought back, and three gunmen were killed in the attack in one of Iraq's most violent regions, police said. The U.S. military has courted both Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders in Diyala, hoping to drive out al-Qaida after a similar effort saw some success in Iraq's westernmost province, Anbar, where Sunni tribes rose up against the organization's brutal tactics and austere version of Islam.

In the same area in the town of Duluiyah, a suicide attacker cornered in his home by local volunteers in the U.S.-backed program blew himself up on Friday, killing one of the fighters and wounding two, a police officer said.

And just a few miles north of that attack, insurgents killed another of the local guards, members of a so-called Awakening Council, another security official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the attack. About 30 miles south of the capital, militants stormed a Sunni village just outside Iskandariyah, killing three of the Awakening members and abducting five on Friday, including the village's tribal chief, according to Ahmed al-Azawi, spokesman for the Awakening Council and an Iskandariyah police officer.

AFP, Gaza City

An Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinian militants early Saturday in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses and officials said.

Moaiya Hassanain, of the Gaza Health Ministry, said nine others were wounded in he strike, including two who were in critical condition.

Hamas officials said the dead included two of its men and two from another militant group who were on a night patrol east of Khan Younis, a town in the southern Gaza Strip.

The army said it carried out the strike after identifying armed men near its border with Gaza.

Israel carries out regular military operations in Gaza, targeting militants launching near-daily rocket barrages into Israel.

Israel began reducing fuel supplies to Gaza last month in response to ongoing rocket fire from Palestinian militants, and planned to begin scaling back electricity beginning Sunday.

AFP, Moscow

Final preparations were underway in Russia on Saturday for parliamentary elections expected to hand a sweeping victory to President Vladimir Putin's party, just three months before presidential polls.

From Kamchatka to Kaliningrad, some 109 million voters are eligible to cast ballots on Sunday in Russia's fifth parliamentary elections since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin is standing as the lead candidate of the United Russia party and has said that a convincing victory would give him a mandate to continue playing a role in politics after he steps down in March of next year. A former KGB officer in power since 2000, Putin has cast the elections as a referendum on his rule, saying that a vote for United Russia would safeguard the country's oil-driven economic boom and stability. "The result of the parliamentary elections will, without a doubt, set the tone for the elections for a new president," Putin said in a televised address on Thursday that was aired again on Friday. In his final pitch to voters, Putin urged them to turn out at the polls and vote for United Russia, warning that a vote for his opponents could return the country to the "humiliation, dependency and disintegration" of the early post-Soviet years.

Reuters, Caracas

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened on Friday to halt the OPEC nation's oil sales to the United States, seeking to fire up his leftist supporters for a weekend referendum on expanding his powers. The former soldier faces a tight vote on Sunday over proposed constitutional reforms that would allow him to stay in office for decades if he keeps winning elections. Chavez has tried to rally his followers in the last days of the campaign with fiery rhetoric against opponents at home and abroad, and he warned at a huge rally on Friday that he would retaliate if the U.S. government interferes in the referendum. "There will not be a single drop of oil for the United States," Chavez bellowed to hundreds of thousands of cheering supporters in downtown Caracas. "And if they want to come and take our oil they will face 100 years of war in Venezuela." Most polls show a statistical tie for the "Yes" and "No" votes in Sunday's referendum.