Monday, November 09, 2009 ISTANBUL: Turkish officials say Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not attend a summit of Islamic leaders in Istanbul Monday.Turkey said last week that Bashir would be present for the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit, despite the international warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges.However, Turkish government officials now say they have learned President Bashir will not be coming.The European Union had raised objections to the Sudanese president attending the summit. The International Criminal Court has indicted President Bashir on charges of masterminding a campaign of rape, murder, and other crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.Bashir has repeatedly defied the ICC by travelling abroad but only to countries that are not parties to the ICC and can guarantee his safety.
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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