World Scene

PAKISTAN

Rocket fire kills 10 in northwest

PESHAWAR — Assailants fired four rockets into a city in northwestern Pakistan today, killing 10 persons and wounding 35, police said.

The rockets hit two houses, a mosque and a shop in Bannu, a troubled city in North West Frontier Pro-vince, about 2 a.m., said Khwaja Mohammed, a city police official.

He said casualties included five police officers.

A doctor at the main hospital in Bannu said the bodies of nine persons killed in the attack were brought there. A resident said the death toll was higher because relatives had kept some of the bodies.

SUDAN

Britain, France drop threat of sanctions

NEW YORK — Britain and France dropped a threat of sanctions against Sudan in a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution that would authorize an expanded peacekeeping force in Darfur, according to a revised draft circulated yesterday.

Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, said the co-sponsors toned down the language in the document to try to mollify African countries that strongly opposed a previous draft.

Sudan still rejected the softened resolution, saying it was “awful” and “ugly.”

The draft resolution calls for the deployment of a joint U.N.-African Union force of up to 26,000 to try to stop the fighting between ethnic African rebels and pro-government Janjaweed militia that has killed more than 200,000 people since 2003.

EUROPEAN UNION

October deadline set for treaty talks

BRUSSELS — Foreign ministers of the European Union set mid-October as the deadline to complete negotiations on the final draft of a treaty aimed at replacing the aborted EU constitution.

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