UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council adopted a presidential statement on Monday calling for "renewed and urgent efforts" to achieve "a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East" on the basis of the two-state solution.Drafted by Russia, the statement --a step short of a resolution, which is mandatory -- was approved at the end of an open council debate. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country holds the rotating council presidency for the month of May, was in the chair. "The Security Council reiterates its call for renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on the vision of a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders," the statement said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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