News from Japan, Africa, ME and India

Japan

Japan rolls back pacifist pillars.

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan's conservative government chipped away at two pillars of the country's postwar pacifism, requiring schools to teach patriotism and upgrading the Defense Agency to a full ministry for the first time since World War II. [Read the whole article.

Darfur, Sudan; Liberia

Bush adds 8 countries to anti-malaria campaign.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Declaring that malaria can be defeated, President Bush on Thursday added eight countries to a U.S. initiative aimed at combatting the disease in Africa and slashing its mortality rate by half in targeted nations. [Read the whole article.]

U.S. gives Sudan until year-end to accept UN force.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Sudan must allow a team of U.N. personnel into Darfur and formally accept an international force for the area by the end of the year or face unspecified U.S. steps next year, a U.S. special envoy said Wednesday. [Read the whole article.

Sudan's refugees in Chad beg for help as killing widens.

GOZ AMER, Chad (Reuters) -- Thousands of people who fled to Chad from Sudan's Darfur region pleaded with the U.N.'s top refugee official on Friday to either move them or protect them against cross-border raids that have killed hundreds. [Read the whole article.]

Sudan agrees to U.N. peacekeeping plan.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) -- The Sudanese government has accepted the U.N. package for Darfur, including the deployment of what is called a "hybrid" peacekeeping operation of U.N. and African Union troops, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday. [Read the whole article.]

Middle East

Pentagon considers Navy buildup in Gulf.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Defense Department is thinking about a major buildup of U.S. Navy forces in the Gulf as a show of force against Iran, a senior defense official said Tuesday. [Read the whole article.]

India

Bush signs nuclear deal with India.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President George W. Bush signed away decades of U.S. nuclear policy by agreeing to a change in U.S. law that will let India receive U.S. civilian nuclear technology and fuel. [Read the whole article.]

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