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DOHA/KHARTOUM – Khartoum will offer Darfur’s most powerful rebel group government posts as part of a future peace deal to end conflict in Sudan’s west, according to documents setting out the terms of negotiations seen by Reuters.

The documents were the first concrete sign that Khartoum is prepared to share power with its bitter foe in the western region — a development that could alienate existing allies there and complicate preparations for April elections.

But rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) played down chances of reaching a final peace pact by March 15, as outlined in a framework deal for peace talks that will be signed later on Tuesday in the Qatari capital Doha.

“We are working to meet the March 15 deadline, but that itself is not a requirement,” chief JEM negotiator Ahmed Tugud told Reuters.

“We are trying to move forward, at least. It has been a long time since we’ve had a direct dialogue (with the government). We believe it is the right time to start,” he added.

Another rebel official said the deadline was unrealistic, and rebels reported fresh violence in Darfur two days after an initial version of the framework peace deal was inked in Chad.

The initial framework included a ceasefire, plans to integrate the JEM into Sudan’s army and a promise to reach a final peace deal by March 15. Tuesday’s event has been billed as the “official signing”.

“Peace will prevail in Darfur before the coming elections,” Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was quoted as saying by State news agency Suna late on Monday.

According to a French-language copy of the framework agreement, the JEM and Khartoum agreed to “the participation of the Justice and Equality Movement at all levels of government … in a manner to be agreed subsequently between the two parties”.

The deal comes a year after Khartoum and the JEM met in Doha to agree to confidence-building measures designed to pave the way for the framework agreement and then full peace talks.

That process stalled after the JEM accused Khartoum of attacking its positions days after the ceasefire and of failing to carry out agreed measures, including freeing JEM captives.

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The fields of Marjah are bright green with poppy shoots, while the “poppy palaces” of drug lords stand out a mile. The US Marines leading Operation Moshtarak, however, insist that the drugs are not their problem.

“We haven’t declared war on opium,” the taskforce’s political adviser, John Weston, said on a recent tour. “We’re here to bring in security.”

Nato’s mandate does not include counter-narcotics operations unless there is a clear link to the insurgency. In Marjah those links are all around them. Soldiers have already seized large quantities of opium and heroin alongside bomb-making materials and weapons.

However, Nato forces know that they must tread a delicate line between enforcing the rule of law and appeasing the local people. Under the government rule that it has promised to install, opium-growing is illegal — but many tenant farmers depend on income from the crop.

Read more on timesonline.co.uk

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SAO PAULO: Nine of the 11 people on board a plane that went missing over the Amazon survived when it made an emergency river landing in a remote part of the rainforest, says the Brazilian Air Force.

Members of the Matis Indian tribe found the plane and the survivors in a jungle reservation.

One civilian and an Air Force warrant officer have been missing since the single-prop Cessna Caravan went down on Friday, and a team of divers is looking for them.

Military helicopters picked up the survivors yesterday afternoon near several Indian villages close to the Peruvian border. They were being flown to a hospital for evaluation. None had life-threatening injuries and all were expected to be treated and released.

Read more on nzherald.co.nz

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THE Obama administration’s pay tsar says he doesn’t want his authority to set pay standards, which currently covers seven US firms, to expand to a broader range of companies that have received government aid.

Kenneth Feinberg, who last week slashed the average compensation for 25 employees at the seven firms by about 50 per cent, told a House committee that additional oversight of pay practices at the hundreds of other firms that have received government aid isn’t warranted.
"I believe the final compensation determinations I make and discuss in my report are a useful model to guide others in the private marketplace. But that is where my authority should end," Mr Feinberg said in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Darrell Issa of California, the committee’s ranking Republican, assailed "corporate greed and corruption" but said he was wary of Mr Feinberg’s role of having say over any corporation’s pay.
"Just as government bailouts of failed firms are misguided, so too are efforts to place a cap on the rewards of true innovation and success," Mr Issa said.
Mr Feinberg said he too was wary of acting outside his mandate from Congress, but said the seven firms are exceptions to the government’s broader reluctance to get involved in compensation issues and were covered by legislation passed earlier this year. In this case, the government is acting as a major shareholder in a firm it owns a significant stake in.
"These seven companies are owned by the taxpayer and the taxpayers are acting as creditors," Mr Feinberg said.

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Associated Press Writer= DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AP) — President Barack Obama made an overnight dash to Dover Air Force Base on Wednesday to honor the return of fallen soldiers, absorbing the ultimate cost of war as the United States endures its deadliest month of the Afghanistan campaign.

On a clear fall night, Obama flew by Marine One helicopter directly to Delaware to greet the flag-draped caskets of 18 Americans killed in action this week.

Upon arrival, the president got into a motorcade to a base chapel, where he was to meet privately with families of the fallen Americans.

The unannounced trip began around midnight and was expected to have the president back at the White House before dawn on Thursday.

A wartime president of two inherited conflicts, Obama is winding down U.S. involvement in Iraq, but the troubled war in Afghanistan is only widening. His dramatic visit to witness remains of the fallen comes as he weighs whether to send more troops into the Afghan war zone.

The White House kept Obama’s plans off his schedule, informing a small group of traveling reporters in advance on condition of secrecy.

Obama was expected to observe a somber moment on the tarmac of the base without public comment.

Read more on guardian.co.uk

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A former member of the Waffen SS went on trial yesterday on three counts of murder for the killings of three civilians in the Netherlands during the Second World War.

Heinrich Boere, 88, admitted to the killings to Dutch authorities when he was in captivity after the war, but has managed to avoid prosecution for decades – first escaping from the Netherlands before he could be brought to trial, then successfully eluding the courts in Germany.

Outside the Aachen court building in Germany, a handful of protesters held up a pair of black banners that read "No peace for Nazi criminals", and "Don’t forgive, Don’t forget". Just before proceedings opened, cries of "Nazis get out! No fascists here!" broke out in the courtroom as two skinheads in black clothes took seats at the back.

Read more on indepedent.co.uk

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Nasa will try again Wednesday to launch its newest rocket for a test flight after bad weather and other factors thwarted attempts today.

The Ares I-X rocket test is the first step in the space agency’s tentative back-to-the-moon program.

Besides poor weather, launch controllers had to deal with an odd assortment of technical trouble, everything from a snagged cover for the rocket’s tiptop probe to a cargo ship that strayed into an ocean danger zone under the flight path.

Launch director Ed Mango and his team came within two minutes and 39 seconds of sending the rocket on its short test flight. But a big cloud moved over the pad, and the flip-flopping weather was just too much to overcome for the remainder of the four-hour launch window.

Mango finally halted the countdown for good and ordered everyone back Wednesday morning for another try. The weather was expected to be a little better.

"We’re not going to be ‘go’ today," Mango announced, thanking everyone for their hard effort.

Read more on independent.co.uk

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Two pilots who allowed their passenger jet to overshoot its destination by 150 miles last week have told investigators that they lost concentration because they were using their laptop computers in the cockpit.

In an admission that will strike fear into the heart of frequent flyers everywhere, the men in charge of Northwest Airlines flight 188 from San Diego to Minneapolis revealed that they were operating the machines during a discussion about crew scheduling.

As a result, the plane, which was carrying 147 passengers, lost contact with air traffic control for over an hour. It had passed Minnesota and was drifting over Wisconsin at 37,000 feet before anyone on the flight deck noticed.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is compiling a report into the incident, said both pilots vehemently denied speculation that they fell asleep, and instead insisted that they had simply "lost track of time" while working out their new work timetables.

"There was a concentrated period of discussion where they did not monitor the airplane or calls from [air traffic controllers] even though both stated they heard conversation on the radio," said the Board, after interviewing the pair for five hours on Sunday.

Homeland Security was closely tracking the Airbus A320 during the incident amid fears that it had been hijacked, and four National Guard jets were put on standby to shoot it down should it venture near to a major conurbation.

However the two pilots, who are both said to have been in the job for many years, only realised they had overshot their final destination when an air hostess knocked on the cockpit door and asked what the flight’s estimated arrival time was.

Realising the extent of their mistake, the men immediately contacted air-traffic controllers for permission to turn around, saying during radio conversation that they had suffered "cockpit distraction". The plane then landed without further incident in Minneapolis.

Read more on indepedent.co.uk

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WASHINGTON — Just as Congressional leaders are calling to extend a popular tax credit for first-time homebuyers, government investigators are reporting new findings that point to widespread fraud in the program.

A previously undisclosed report from the Treasury Department’s inspector general said that as of Sept. 30, the Internal Revenue Service had identified 167 suspected criminal schemes and opened nearly 107,000 examinations of potential civil violations. In late July, the I.R.S. announced its first successful prosecution.

The report will be the focus of a hearing on Thursday by the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.

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DEAUVILLE, FRANCE — “It’s the 21st century,” said Arielle Dombasle, the French actress and singer who had written a song for the three-day women’s forum that ended here this weekend. “Our mothers and grandmothers have fought for so many things. It’s time to enjoy those things and take power.”

The 880 or so high-powered women gathered for the fifth year in this chic beach resort — the “Davos for Women” — spurned talk of taking over the world (although, impatient with the eternal queues for the female facilities, they did appropriate the men’s toilets).

But there was a sense in dozens of sessions that the economic crisis, and the soul-searching it has sparked, represent an opportunity for a new female leap forward. While women are often hit hardest by recession, the argument went, they bring much to the table in terms of rethinking economic leadership, investment behavior and entrepreneurship.

Even men agreed. “We are in a moment in time when we have to make not just important short-term decisions but also shape the long-term,” said Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of the carmaker Renault and one of the 120 men invited to the forum. “Women are extremely important for this.”

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