George W. Bush (2l) chats with Emirati President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahayan upon arrival at Abu Dhabi International Airport, in Abu Dhabi, Jan. 13.

ABU DHABI, UAE, Jan. 13--President Bush is praising small democratic advances in Persian Gulf nations ruled by authoritarian family dynasties, while reassuring the oil-rich US allies that he does not seek confrontation with Iran in their backyard.
According to AP, midway through an eight-day Mideast trip showcasing a renewed push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact, Bush was in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday where he was to deliver a speech, gently prodding the slowly liberalizing Arab states. His address, reprising his call for democracy in the Middle East and other places where it is scarce, was planned at an opulent, gold-trimmed hotel here where a suite goes for $2,450 a night.
“He will talk about how democracy and advancing freedom is the core of our country’s foreign policy, and that he believes it is in our interest to have security through democracies,“ White House press secretary Dana Perino said.
Perino said Bush’s speech will make the point that “in a free society, elections are important, but they’re not the only thing that’s important.“ She said the speech will note the contributions of universities and other institutions to a free society.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia,
Jan. 13--French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed holding talks between Iraqi factions in France similar to those it hosted in July for Lebanon, in an interview published Sunday in the Al-Hayat daily.
Sarkozy, who begins a three-nation Persian Gulf tour Sunday in Saudi Arabia, proposed “hosting in France, far from the heat of passions and on neutral territory, inter-Iraqi roundtable talks that are as large as possible.“
“It is up to the parties involved to decide what steps to take next,“ he was quoted as saying in the London-based Saudi daily.
It is not the first time France has offered to hold such talks for Iraq.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner proposed holding such talks last August during a visit to Baghdad, according to French diplomats, and Sarkozy said the offer was made again in November in Istanbul at a ministerial meeting of countries neighboring Iraq, AFP said.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani declined the August offer.
“I do not believe that a national conference, like the one for Lebanon, is necessary for Iraq,“ he told the French daily Le Monde.
“In Lebanon, there are different parties who are unable to talk and sit at the same table. In Iraq, we talk and meet every day.“
Sarkozy also tried to reassure Iraqis that France’s decision to open a diplomatic representation in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil was “not taken from the viewpoint of a hypothetical future independence for Kurdistan.“
He added France also wants to open a diplomatic office in the southern Iraqi city of Basra when security conditions permit.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 13--Islamic militants attempted to attack a Pakistani military base close to the Afghan border, sparking fighting that killed between 40 and 50 of the insurgents, the army said Sunday.
The clashes were some of the bloodiest in weeks in the lawless region--a militant stronghold where several top Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are thought be hiding, AP reported.
Up to 300 militants staged the attack in Lhada on Wednesday and early Thursday, but were repelled by artillery and small-arms fire, the army said in a statement.
“Intelligence resources revealed the killing of (between) 40 and 50 militants,’’ it said.
On Saturday, security forces arrested 59 insurgents after they attacked police with rockets, the statement said.
It was not possible to contact the rebels for comment on either incident.
The border region emerged as a front line in the war on terror after Pakistan allied itself with the US following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Washington has given Pakistan billions of dollars in aid to help government forces battle militants.
The lawless, tribally administered area is believed to be a staging ground for Taliban fighters planning attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The United Nations said in a report last year that more than 80 percent of suicide bombers in Afghanistan are recruited and trained in the region.
Pakistan says most of the suicide bombers who have carried out scores of attacks within the country in recent months also come from its border region, including the suspected mastermind of the bomb and gun attack that killed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27.

Hugo Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan. 13--Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered Saturday to help Colombia’s government and Marxist rebels end their decades-old conflict, saying there was no military solution.
Chavez also reiterated his call for the international community to remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) from lists of terrorist groups, AFP said.
“The government of Colombia and the insurgent forces of Colombia should seek, with our help, in good faith, a regularization of the war first and then a peace agreement,“ he said in the opening session of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s inaugural congress.
“It’s been 60 years of war and it does not have a military solution. I am completely sure of that,“ said the leftist leader, who secured the release this week of two hostages held by FARC for years.
On Friday, Chavez defended the 17,000-strong FARC, which holds hundreds of hostages and finances its insurgency through cocaine trafficking, and the smaller ELN as “real armies“ with a “political project“.
Colombia refused to take the rebels off its terror list.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13--A study conducted by The New York Times has found 121 murder cases in the United States, which involve veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars following their return from the front.
The newspaper said that in many cases, combat trauma and stress from overseas deployment appear to have set the stage for the killings, along with alcohol abuse and family problems, reported AFP.
The research showed an 89 percent increase--from 184 cases to 349--in the six years following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan in the number of homicides involving active-duty military personnel and new veterans, The Times said.
About three-quarters of these cases involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
More than half the crimes involved guns while the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings, the report said.
Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.
About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them two-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that severed his foot and damaged his brain, The Times said.
However, a quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Army Specialist Richard Davis, who was stabbed and then set ablaze by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq, the paper noted.
Three-quarters of the suspects were still in the military at the time of the crimes.
To compile the list, The Times conducted a search of local news reports, examined police, court and military records and interviewed the defendants, their lawyers and families as well as the victims’ families.
It said the study most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given the fact that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 13--The death toll from Kenyan post-election violence soared to 693, officials said Sunday, amid pressure on rival leaders to acknowledge election irregularities that spurred the violence and drop all preconditions for talks.
“We have recovered 89 more bodies from the bushes in the last five days in the Rift Valley and Western provinces,“ a top police commander told AFP.
An official from the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), which last week warned that several bodies may have been devoured by animals in the bush, confirmed the figure of recovered bodies.
In fresh acts of violence two people were killed in the Rift Valley’s districts of Rongai and two others in Molo, a police commander added.
The latest deaths bring to 693 the number of victims of post-election violence as compiled by AFP from medical sources, police officials and mortuary attendants across the country.
The newly recovered bodies prompted the KRCS to increase its official toll from 486 to 575 people dead as a result of the violence following the contested December 27 election, according to its statements.
Nearly 260,000 people have been displaced--mainly in the Rift Valley region--after violence flared on December 30 when President Mwai Kibaki was declared re-elected and immediately sworn into a second term of office despite protests of irregularities in the vote count by the opposition and international observers.
The nationwide rioting rapidly degenerated into bloody tribal vendettas, raising fears that more violence could lead to events spilling out of control.
On Saturday, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer urged Kibaki and opposition chief Raila Odinga to acknowledge poll irregularities and quickly move towards talks.
Frazer, who was in the country for nearly a week to mediate, said in a statement that it was “imperative“ for Kibaki and Odinga to sit down together “directly and without preconditions.“