Worldwatch

Darfur Dilemma
Debate over the slaughter in Darfur is moving into the crunch phase. As the U.N. Security Council struggles to decide what to do next about the murders and abuse engulfing the western Sudan province, the U.S. is circulating a draft resolution that calls for more peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur; imposes an arms embargo on all parties to the violence, including the Khartoum government; freezes the assets of, and bans travel by, individuals suspected of war crimes; and restricts offensive military flights. “We want a strong resolution with the widest possible support but which also makes a real difference on the ground for the Sudanese people,” says a State Department spokesman. “We want to identify perpetrators and have them brought to justice by internationally accepted means.”

And therein lies a dilemma. While European nations and human-rights groups broadly support a U.N. commission’s recommendation that Sudanese war-crimes cases be referred to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the U.S. remains vehemently opposed. Washington prefers that a new, hybrid court be impaneled by the U.N. and the African Union. But with the I.C.C.

BRYAN & CHERRY ALEXANDER PHOTOGRAPHY

set up and already analyzing other African cases, human-rights officials are urging the U.S. not to stand in the way of a Security Council referral. Could the U.S. turn a blind eye to jurisdiction by the I.C.C., which is, after all, an “internationally accepted means”? “You can dovetail that, but I can’t,” says the U.S. spokesman. While the U.N. debates, hundreds die in the region every day. — By Maryann Bird

Food Fright
BRITAIN A U.K. food scare involving the banned dye Sudan 1 — shown to be carcinogenic in rats — spread to 15 other, mostly European, countries. Britain issued an alert on Feb. 18 when Premier Foods reported that it found traces of Sudan 1 in a batch of chili powder in its Worcester Sauce. The alert led to the recall of more than 400 products. The other countries affected are importers of foodstuffs from Britain.

Tarnished Temple
GREECE Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of Greece’s Orthodox Church, rejected calls by several senior clergymen to step down amid a corruption scandal that has seen a number of clerics facing allegations of bribing judges, drug dealing and theft. Christodoulos did announce the suspension of two close aides, but said he was “called upon to lead a cleanup of the church.”

Apportioning Blame
RUSSIA The Prosecutor General’s office formally charged Muslim Ibragimov, a Chechen native, with “a murder conspired and conducted by a group of people” in connection with the death of Forbes Russia journalist Paul Klebnikov who was gunned down last summer outside his Moscow office. A number of suspects — all from Chechnya — have been detained since September, but Ibragimov is the first to be indicted.

Backward, March
SYRIA Officials announced the planned redeployment of some of the 14,000 Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon to positions closer to the Syrian border. International pressure on Damascus to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon has increased since the Feb. 14 car bomb in Beirut that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and which the Lebanese opposition has blamed on Syria; Damascus denies involvement.

A Fresh Start
SOMALIA Hundreds of cheering Somalis in the northern town of Jowhar greeted President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi as they arrived on a six-town visit from exile in Kenya, their first since the formation of a power-sharing government last year. Yusuf and Gedi are assessing conditions for the permanent relocation of the transitional government to Mogadishu.