7 Darfur peacekeepers killed, dozens wounded

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Hundreds of heavily armed fighters riding horses and SUVs launched a brazen attack on a U.N.-African Union patrol in Darfur, killing seven peacekeepers and wounding nearly a dozen others, the U.N. said Wednesday.

The ambush was the deadliest attack on the international mission since it deployed this year and highlighted the vulnerability of the short-staffed and under-equipped force.

About 200 gunmen on horseback and in SUVs mounted with anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons exchanged gunfire for more than two hours on Tuesday with the peacekeeping force that included 61 soldiers from Rwanda, the U.N. said.

Five Rwandan soldiers and two police officers, one from Ghana, the other from Uganda, were killed. Twenty-two peacekeepers were wounded, including at seven who were in serious condition, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's said.

"We are outraged by the attack," Shereen Zorba, deputy spokeswoman of the U.N.-AU mission known as UNAMID, told The Associated Press. "We are not part of the conflict, but a tool to alleviate the suffering of civilians. We try to establish some level of peace and security in the ground. But to drag us in to be part of the conflict is unjustifiable."

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7 Darfur peacekeepers killed, dozens wounded

Can you name the 3 most useless things on the face of the earth??

Tits on a nun...

Balls on a priest...

A U.N. peace mission anywhere in the world...

UN condemns Somalia slaying of aid official

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The U.N. has condemned the slaying of a senior staff member in Somalia but says there are no plans to halt operations.

Officials say unidentified gunmen shot Osman Ali Ahmed as he was leaving a mosque in Mogadishu on Sunday night. Ahmed - who was head of the U.N. Development Program in Somalia - died on way to the hospital. His brother was seriously wounded in the attack and his son suffered minor injuries.

The U.N.'s aid chief for Somalia praised Osman's "great courage and commitment over the past 14 years."

Mark Bowden says it is unclear whether the killing was part of a wider pattern of attacks on U.N. officials. He says the organization will continue its humanitarian work in Somalia.

SOURCE:
UN condemns Somalia slaying of aid official

Yeah, that oughta do it, condemnation by the U.N., that'll make everything OK...

UN sends top envoy to plead with Myanmar over aid

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A senior U.N. envoy went to Myanmar Sunday to urge its military junta to accept more international aid for cyclone survivors, as a British minister suggested the isolationist regime may be relenting.

John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, was greeted by Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu at the start of a three-day trip that will include a tour of the Irrawaddy delta, the area most severely hit by Cyclone Nargis on May 2-3.

Holmes also will meet with high government leaders, said Daniel Baker, a senior U.N. official.

He did not elaborate but other officials have said Holmes' mission is to assess the needs of survivors and urge the isolationist junta to open its doors to more international aid before people begin dying from starvation and diseases.

Full Story Here:
UN sends top envoy to plead with Myanmar over aid

Burma has many people dying, and I mean right now dying and they already have tens of thousands dead because of the cyclone that hit them, and the U.N. is going to BEG the rulers of Burma to accept aid?? Beg them?? You would think it should be the other way around wouldn't you?? The leaders of Burma being the ones pleading for help for their people??

Sorry folks, my sympathies only extend so far, what's going on in Burma right now is wrong, I know it, you know it, most reasonable and sane people know it, but it's Burma, short of going in and taking over there's not too much we can do to change their lot in life, it's their leaders that are keeping massive aid from reaching the people, and yes, I know they seized leadership, but if the people of Burma can't re-take their nation, then they are going to have to suffer that which fate has in store for them...

Very similar to that which faces us here in the USA right now, a people can make a government do the right thing, they can hold their leaders feet to the fire, but 1st there has to be a willingness to do so, and an acceptance that you may die trying...

I would much prefer to die standing and fighting than lying on my back starving at the hands of a tyrannical dictatorship...

Cross Posted at: TexasFred's

UN secretary-general calls food price rise a global crisis

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A sharp rise in food prices has developed into a global crisis, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday.

Ban said the U.N and all members of the international community were very concerned and immediate action was needed.

He spoke to reporters at U.N. offices in Austria, where he was meeting with the nation's top leaders for talks on how the United Nations and European Union can forge closer ties.

"This steeply rising price of food - it has developed into a real global crisis," Ban said, adding that the World Food Program has made an urgent appeal for additional $755 million.

"The United Nations is very much concerned, as (are) all other members of the international community," Ban said. "We must take immediate action in a concerted way."

Ban urged leaders of the international community to sit down together on an "urgent basis" to discuss how to improve economic distribution systems and promote the production of agricultural products.

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UN secretary-general calls food price rise a global crisis

The U.N. cries about global warming and encourages the production and use of E85 ethanol, and that is a crock, Algore and his global warming crowd have urged the world to turn foodstuffs into fuel...

Food needs to be just that, food, stop the nonsense and allow the drilling for oil, use corn to make cornbread and not some BS gas additive that doesn't do any good to anyone...

People like Gore, the U.N. and even George Bush have got to make a decision, and soon, are we going to feed the world and develop alternative energy or do we starve the world by touting the useless??

United Nations Condemns Hamas - Gotcha!

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

How many times has the United Nations condemned Hamas?

I found this at snapped shot.
Try this fun little exercise:

Copy and paste these lines of text into Google (separately, that is):

"United Nations condemns Israel"
"United Nations condemned Israel"

Lots of links, right?

Then try these:

"United Nations condemns Hamas"
"United Nations condemned Hamas"

"United Nations condemns Fatah"
"United Nations condemned Fatah"

Enjoy the "No Results Found" hilarity.

So, I decided to try it by randomly selecting "United Nations condemned Hamas".... My search resulted in many links. Just see for yourself:

See more at snapped shot

Technorati Tags:U.N., United Nations, Israel, Hamas, Palestine, Human Rights

U.N. Says Darfur Conflict Getting Worse

UNITED NATIONS — The conflict in Darfur is deteriorating, with full deployment of a new peacekeeping force delayed until 2009 and no prospect of a political settlement for a war that has killed perhaps 300,000 people in five years, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

In grim reports to the Security Council, the United Nations aid chief and the representative of the peacekeeping mission said suffering in the Sudanese region is worsening. Tens of thousands more have been uprooted from their homes and food rations to the needy are about to be cut in half, they said.

"We continue to see the goal posts receding, to the point where peace in Darfur seems further away today than ever," said John Holmes, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

The conflict began in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Many of the worst atrocities in the war have been blamed on the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads allied with the government.

A joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force took over duties in Darfur in January from a beleaguered 7,000-man AU mission. But only about 9,000 soldiers and police officers of the authorized 26,000 have deployed.

Full Story Here:
U.N. Says Darfur Conflict Getting Worse

And the beat goes on...

As the U.N. continues to prove that is nothing more than a useless, and basically powerless organization, I have to ask, WHY do we keep on supporting this travesty?? This stain on the human race?? This bunch of crooks and liars??

Why??

U.N.: Up to 300,000 dead in 5-year Darfur conflict

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. officials say the five-year conflict in Darfur is getting worse.

They point to a rising death toll of perhaps 300,000 and a delay in fully deploying a new peacekeeping force until next year.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes and Rodolphe Adada, the joint representative for the U.N. and African Union in Darfur, gave the grim reports to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

They say the suffering in Sudan's Darfur region is getter even bleaker with thousands of additional people uprooted from their homes and food rations to the needy about to be cut in half.

SOURCE:
U.N.: Up to 300,000 dead in 5-year Darfur conflict

It's pretty amazing to me, the U.N. can keep all kinds of statistics but they can't do a damned thing to actually stop the violence...

Useless Nutjobs, it suits them well...

The U.S., the U.N. and World Hunger

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) - The U.N. chief warned Sunday that the world must urgently increase food production to ease skyrocketing prices and pledged to set up a task force on a crisis threatening to destabilize developing nations.

The cost of food has increased by around 40 percent since mid-2007 worldwide, and the strain has caused riots and protests in countries like Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Egypt.

"We must make no mistake, the problem is big. If we offer the right aid, the solutions will come," Ban said at the opening of a a five-day U.N. conference on trade and development in Ghana's capital, Accra.

"One thing is certain, the world has consumed more than it has produced" over the last three years, he said.

Full Story Here:
UN chief warns world must urgently increase food production

DES MOINES, Iowa - At a time of record agricultural profits, concerns are mounting that American farmers could be edging toward a financial crisis not seen since the 1980s farm-economy collapse.

Soaring land values, increasing debt and a reliance on government subsidies for ethanol production have prompted economists to warn that what some describe as a golden age of agriculture could come to a sudden end. At risk are the livelihoods of thousands of farmers, the health of hundreds of banks and the vitality of an agricultural industry that has been one of the nation's few economic bright spots in recent months.

"We're in a very risky time, and yet we don't seem concerned about that risk nearly as much as we should be," said Barry L. Flinchbaugh, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University.

Full Story Here:
Crisis looming for U.S. farmers?

The USA has been the bread basket of the world for many years but it appears that could soon become a thing of the past...

Many 3rd world nations are hungry, and that is a sad situation, but those 3rd world countries aren't producers, they are consumers, and their consumption is not accomplished through buying foodstuffs, they are not contributing to any economy, they are leeching off of other, more prosperous nations, they are the recipients of charity, donations, food surpluses from other nations, but those surplus food supplies are rapidly drying up, and U.S. production is on the verge of a serious crisis that may leave the USA with no choice other than to take care of her own, and that would be a real change of attitude I think, for America to actually place Americans 1st as we feed, clothe and house all of OUR people before we worry about the well being of others...

In many cases, those others that we take care of are more than able to help themselves, if only they would, they could stop their warring factions from fighting and have them begin farming, they could feed their own instead of wiping them out in tribal genocide...

I know that the USA can't engage in total isolationism, but we are fast approaching a time when we will be faced with some really tough decisions, not tough for me, but certainly difficult for those that put the welfare of other nations ahead of our own...

Cross Posted @ TexasFred’s

Violent Kosovo clashes spark U.N. police retreat

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Kosovo - U.N. police were ordered to pull out of northern Kosovo on Monday as hundreds of Serbs opposed to Kosovo's independence rioted in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica.

NATO troops also under automatic weapons fire during the clashes, according to a French NATO spokesman.

The rioting was a challenge to the authority of NATO, the United Nations and European Union, underscoring fears that Kosovo could be heading for partition one month after breaking away from Serbia.

The riots came after Serbs attacked a U.N. convoy carrying Serb detainees from a raid on Monday, enabling several detainees to escape, witnesses said.

Full Story Here:
U.N. police flee N. Kosovo

And even more evidence that the U.N. is useless, they run at the 1st sign of a fight...

There's got to be something about the make up of U.N. troops, we finance them but they have got to be mostly a bunch of Euroweenies, cowards to the last man, and when the Islamic hordes go ape-shit in Europe, what do you suppose the next thing we'll hear will be??

Where are the Americans?? They ALWAYS saved us in the past...

Yeah, well, THAT was the past...

U.N.: Half of world's population will live in cities before '09

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Half the world's population will live in urban areas by the end of this year and about 70% will be city dwellers by 2050, with cities and towns in Asia and Africa registering the biggest growth, according to new U.N. projections released Tuesday.

The report predicts that there will be 27 "megacities" with at least 10 million population by mid-century compared to 19 today, but it forecasts that at least half the urban growth in the coming decades will be in the many smaller cities with less than 500,000 people.

According to the latest U.N. estimate last year, world population is expected to increase from 6.7 billion in 2007 to 9.2 billion in 2050. During the same time period, the new report said, the population living in urban areas is projected to rise from 3.3 billion to 6.4 billion.

"Thus, the urban areas of the world are expected to absorb all the population growth expected over the next four decades while at the same time drawing in some of the rural population," the report said. "As a result, the world rural population is projected to start decreasing in about a decade, and 600 million fewer rural inhabitants are expected in 2050 than today."

The report stresses that these projections will take place only if the number of children in families in the developing world continues to decline, especially in Africa and Asia.

Full Story Here:
U.N.: Half of world's population will live in cities before '09

And half of the world's population won't live in the cities before '09?? This is a huge issue just how??

That should make farming a much more lucrative endeavor I would think...

UN to US: Do More Against Racism

GENEVA (AP) - U.N. human rights experts told the United States on Thursday to step up efforts to combat racial discrimination in the detention of African-Americans and Hispanics and questioned the treatment of illegal immigrants.

U.S. Ambassador Warren W. Tichenor said United States had made great strides toward equality but he conceded that "we still have significant work to do."

The United States was making its first appearance since 2001 before the experts of the U.N. panel on the elimination of racial discrimination. The 18 independent experts, who are unpaid, periodically review the performance of countries that have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Linos-Alexander Sicilianos, who led the questioning, said there was overwhelming evidence of police brutality against African-Americans, Arabs and Muslims, Hispanics and other minority groups.

Full Story Here:
UN to US: Do More Against Racism

1st, let me say to the U.N., you seriously need to sweep your own doorstep before you sweep ours...

2nd, the U.N., in it's entirety, collectively or 1 at a time, can all, each and every one, kiss my ass, try taking a ride on the midnight shift in most any town in the USA and you'll see more racial abuse perpetrated AGAINST the police than you ever will against the citizens, in most cases, so-called police abuse and racism is usually just a matter of self defense and the cop won...

3rd, you have not yet begun to see the likes of racial abuse and discrimination that WILL be a certainty in this nation if the American people ever find out where they put their balls...

We, the American people, are being over-run by these so called minorities, and when the rounds start going off the U.N. will be powerless to stop the insurrection, much like they are in damned near every other place on earth...

Woman's Body Found Behind UN Building

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The body of a 45-year-old Australian woman who worked at the United Nations Secretariat Building was found Sunday on the rear lawn.

There were no apparent signs of foul play, but an investigation was ongoing, said New York Police Detective Martin Speechley.

Several police and U.N. security officers at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media said the woman showed up at work Sunday morning and apparently jumped from the 19th floor.

The official cause of death was to be determined by the medical examiner.

U.N. staff rushed to the scene and escorted investigators to the rear area of the building shortly after 8 a.m., authorities said. Security guards and investigators put up yellow tape around the body and blocked some staff from leaving the building.

Later, the body lay draped under a white sheet on the lawn behind the 39-story building overlooking the East River.

In 1982, a 57-year-old senior U.N. official who had just resigned from the Office of Financial Services and was reported to have been upset about his failing health plunged to his death from the 18th floor of the Secretariat building.

SOURCE:
Woman's Body Found Behind UN Building

Well, that can't be a good thing...

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out...

U.N. chief to meet Bush on Friday

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President Bush will hold talks at the White House Friday on a range of global issues including Darfur, Kenya, Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.N. and the U.S. said Monday.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban will head to Washington Thursday and hold talks Thursday evening with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

On Friday, she said, the president and the U.N. chief will discuss issues of common interest that also include climate change and the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals to fight poverty.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said "the president looks forward to discussing with secretary-general Ban important U.N. issues including human rights, counterterrorism, and international peace and security."

"We expect the president and the secretary-general to address the situation in Kosovo, Burma, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, and Kenya; the recent attacks on the leaders of East Timor; as well as international support for Iraq and Afghanistan," Perino said.

SOURCE:
U.N. chief to meet Bush on Friday

Address this, look at that, talk about the other and Ban will be begging for more U.S. dollars so the U.N. can continue it's mission of rape, robbery and corruption...

U.N. chief calls for climate change action

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged all nations to join private companies, civic groups and individuals this year in sustaining "the unprecedented momentum" to fight global warming.

"If 2007 was the year when climate change rose to the top of the global agenda, 2008 is the time we must take concerted action," Ban said at the start of a two-day U.N. General Assembly debate to generate support for a new treaty by 2009 to fight global warming.

General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim invited U.N. member states, government officials and business and civic leaders to the United Nations to follow up December's international climate conference on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. There, delegates from nearly 190 nations agreed to adopt a blueprint to control global warming gases before the end of next year.

"The conference delivered what it set out to do," Ban said. "Now the real work begins. The challenge is huge. We have less than two years to craft an agreement on action that measures up to what the science tells us."

In key reports last year, a U.N. network of climate and other scientists warned of severe consequences — from rising seas, droughts, severe weather, species extinction and other effects — without sharp cutbacks in emissions of the industrial, transportation and agricultural gases blamed for global warming.

Full Story Here:
U.N. chief calls for climate change action

If the U.N. really wanted to help out with the global warming that they love to promote, they would stop the hot air that spews from the U.N. itself, not to mention the methane from the bullshit they are always talking...

UN: 12,000 Flee Darfur for Chad

GENEVA (AP) - Up to 12,000 refugees fled Sudan's Darfur region to neighboring Chad over the weekend following air strikes by the Sudanese military and thousands more may be coming, the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday.

The agency was bringing emergency assistance to the Chad border where the Darfur refugees were giving detailed descriptions of air attacks Friday on three West Darfur towns.

The refugees are "destitute and terrified," said Helene Caux, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees headquartered in Geneva. "They told of their villages being looted and burned, and encircled by militia." Most of the new refugees in Chad are men and they told the U.N. that thousands of women and children are on their way, Caux added.

U.N. officials say the worsening situation in Darfur has been exacerbated by a recent rebel attack on the capital of neighboring Chad. Chad has accused Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir of backing those rebels in a bid to prevent deployment of a European peacekeeping force in the Chad-Sudan border region where some 400,000 refugees are living.

Sudan's Arab-dominated government has been accused of unleashing more attacks by its allied janjaweed militias, which are accused of committing the worst atrocities against Darfur's ethnic African communities. At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced since the violence began five years ago.

Full Story Here:
UN: 12,000 Flee Darfur for Chad

But I thought the U.N. was the end all, do all BE all?? I thought they could fix everything??

How long have they been 'trying' to bring peace to this region of the world??

The U.N., a failure on every level...

UN Powers Agree on More Iran Sanctions

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Major U.N. Security Council powers have agreed on an incremental increase in sanctions on Iran, including a new restriction on exporters doing business with the country, diplomats said Thursday.

A draft resolution also calls for more monitoring of Iran's military and financial institutions, broader travel bans on Iranian nuclear scientists and other key officials, and freezing the assets of people and banks linked to weapons proliferation, Security Council diplomats told The Associated Press.

Diplomats from the five nations with veto power on the council - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France - spent a third day negotiating a final agreement on principles that would form the basis for a third round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. They were joined by Germany, which has long been involved in efforts to resolve the Iran nuclear dispute.

The general terms were hammered out in Berlin earlier this week, chiefly through negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Those elements have been closely held, though they have begun circulating among the rest of the 15-member council.

Russia and China, which have strong business ties with Iran, resisted earlier British and French draft principles pushing for harsher sanctions if Iran keeps refusing to stop enriching uranium - a process that can provide fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a bomb.

Full Story Here:
UN Powers Agree on More Iran Sanctions

More U.N. sanctions huh??

Well, that should do the trick, U.N. sanctions work every time...

Just look at how successful they were in Iraq...

Cross posted at TexasFred’s

Truck Hijackings Imperil Darfur Food Aid

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - A surge of truck hijackings threatens to cut off food rations for more than 2 million people in Darfur, the World Food Program said Wednesday, after 22 of its vehicles were attacked and stolen this month alone.

With 18 drivers still missing, the U.N. agency said its main contracting companies refuse to send more food convoys into Darfur.

"If the situation continues, we'll be forced to cut rations in parts of Darfur by mid-February," Kenro Oshidari, the head of WFP operations in Sudan, said in a statement.

The increase in violence comes barely three weeks after the United Nations took over peacekeeping in the remote region of western Sudan where 2.5 million people have been chased into refugee camps by five years of war.

Five separate attacks targeted aid workers throughout Darfur just on Tuesday, officials said. Among those were ambushes of two WFP convoys in West Darfur and the detention of five WFP staff when their cars were stolen near the North Darfur state capital of El Fasher.

Full Story Here:
Truck Hijackings Imperil Darfur Food Aid

OK, correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't the U.N. an ARMED force?? Aren't they capable of providing protection to their own convoys??

And people wonder why some of us call for the abolishion of the U.N.

2 Nations Opt Out of UN Force for Darfur

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Sweden and Norway dropped plans Wednesday to send about 400 troops to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur because of opposition from Sudan's government.

The two Scandinavian countries had planned to send a joint engineering unit to the peacekeeping force in the troubled region, but their foreign ministers said in a joint statement that "Sudan's opposition makes it impossible to maintain the offer of a Norwegian-Swedish contribution."

The U.N. mission known as UNAMID is the latest international attempt to quell fighting in the western Sudanese region, where more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million were chased from their homes since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in 2003, accusing it of discrimination.

For months, Khartoum resisted a U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur. Under a compromise deal reached earlier this year, the hybrid U.N. and African Union force must be predominantly African.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir reiterated warnings in November that he would not allow some European nations to take part in the force. He singled out Scandinavian countries, where some media had reproduced caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

"Anyone who spoke blasphemously about the Prophet will not set a foot on Sudanese soil," he said.

Full Story Here:
2 Nations Opt Out of UN Force for Darfur

Tell me again, WHY do we even care about Darfur or any other Muslim nation??

Bhutto's Husband Calls for UN Probe

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Benazir Bhutto's widowed husband accused members of Pakistan's ruling regime of involvement in his wife's killing and called Saturday for a U.N. investigation, as British officers aiding Pakistan's own probe pored over the crime scene.

"An investigation conducted by the government of Pakistan will have no credibility, in my country or anywhere else," Asif Ali Zardari, the effective leader of Bhutto's opposition party, said in a commentary published in The Washington Post. "One does not put the fox in charge of the hen house."

Calls for an independent, international investigation have intensified since the former prime minister was killed Dec. 27 in a shooting and bombing attack after a campaign rally. Opposition activists denounced the government's initial assessment that an Islamic militant was behind the attack and that Bhutto died, not from gunshot wounds, but from the force of the blast.

President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that investigators may have drawn conclusions too quickly and mishandled evidence, including hosing down the site hours after the attack. But he insisted the government was competent to run the investigation with the help of forensic experts from Britain's Scotland Yard. The United States said it did not believe a U.N. investigation was needed.

Full Story Here:
Bhutto's Husband Calls for UN Probe

I am sitting here LMAO... Seriously, LMAO...

The Paki people need to rely on MI-6, Scotland Yard, the FBI or CIA, hell, Inspector Clouseau even, they'll ALL get to the bottom of this before the U.N. does...

US Withdraws Mideast Resolution at UN

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - In an about face, the United States on Friday withdrew a U.N. resolution endorsing this week's agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008, apparently after Israel objected.

Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff informed the Security Council that the United States was pulling the resolution from consideration less than 24 hours after Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had introduced it and welcomed the "very positive" response from council members.

Khalilzad had said he needed to consult with the Israelis and Palestinians overnight on the text of the resolution to ensure it was what they wanted.

Well-informed diplomats said Israel, a close U.S. ally, did not want a resolution, which would bring the Security Council into the fledgling negeotiations with the Palestinians. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Friday in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, that while he didn't know the details of the draft resolution it was a sign of the seriousness of the United States, which he also perceived at this week's Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md.

"This means, if what we have learned is verified, that there are serious steps that speak to the existence of an American position supporting the negotiations," Abbas said.

Wolff told reporters the U.S. had held intensive consultations in the past few days "and the upshot was that there were some unease with the idea" of a resolution.

"The focus, we all realized again, should be placed and remain on Annapolis and the understanding that was reached there," Wolff said. "It's a momentous decision ... and rather than dilute from that and in respect to both parties in terms of what they thought would be most helpful, we reached a conclusion that it would be best to withdraw it."

The Annapolis conference drew 44 nations, including Israel's neighboring Arab states whose support is considered vital to any peace agreement. A joint understanding between the Israelis and Palestinians, in doubt until the last minute, was salvaged and Abbas and Olmert reiterated their desire to reach a peace settlement by the end of next year.

SOURCE:
US Withdraws Mideast Resolution at UN

Confusion reigns supreme...