Colombia rejects Farc talks offer

The Colombian goverment has rejected an offer for talks from the country's most powerful rebel group.

In a videotaped message released before the appointment of president Juan Manuel Santos, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) leader Alfonso Cano offered to open peace talks with the new government.

"Colombia will never talk with terrorists, that is a lesson we have already learned," Rodrigo Rivera, the defence minister, told local media on Sunday.

"There is no dialogue with those who turn to terrorism."

In a separate interview with local radio, Rivera said that government forces knew where Cano is hiding.

He is "fleeing from the security forces. He has no rest... we are not going to let up," he said.

Conditions

After taking office, Santos said he would not close the door to talks, but they would have to be "based on the unalterable premise that (the guerrillas) give up arms, kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking, and intimidation".

The Farc has an estimated 8,000 fighters. Another leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army, is believed to have some 2,000 fighters.

Colombia has been beset for years by violence involving leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary death squads, and powerful drug cartels.

Santos said on Friday that he did not believe the conditions were ripe for talks with the Farc, and ordered Rivera to press ahead with an offensive against them.

As defence minister, Rivera is in charge of both the armed forces and the national police.

Delay warning over south Sudan vote

The electoral body tasked with organising next January's referendum on south Sudan's independence has said that the vote might be delayed.

Mohamed Kahlil, who heads the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that meeting the January deadline appeared "difficult".

"Even if we had the initial voters registration records available and published today, conducting the referendum on the current deadline will still be difficult," Kahlil said.

"For now, the referendum commission wants to focus on its work and leave the deadline issue to the political decision makers."

Several unresolved disputes are threatening the planned vote.

One of them is the row between the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the south's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) over whether the contested 2,100km border must be demarcated before the referendum.

Voters not registered

Voter registration also still needs to take place and it is not yet clear if southerners living in the north can cast ballots.

On Friday, Southern Sudan cabinet refused to postpone the referendum and its chief negotiator with the NCP government on the referendum said postponement of the vote was not an option.

He said his party would pursue "other options" instead of having the referendum delayed.

Sudan is divided between the north, which is led by Omar al-Bashir's NCP, and the south which is led by the SPLM, but is still seeking full independence.

A 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the SPLM's decades-long guerrilla campaign against the Khartoum government allowed the south to have its own government and to hold a referendum for independence.

Pagan Amum, the secretary-general of the SPLM, said in an interview that his party would continue to engage the north to overcome any obstacles.

"We want to carry out the referendum on date. We do not accept any delay ... not for one hour," he told Al Jazeera.

"If there is any attempt to postpone the referendum, the people of Southern Sudan will take their own decision through their representatives based on the comprehensive peace treaty."

In 2007, the southern ministers walked out of the government in protest against what they considered to be Khartoum's foot-dragging in implementing key points of the 2005 agreement.

It took two months to resolve the differences and the SPLM accused the northern government of not sharing the country's oil wealth, not pulling troops out of southern Sudan, and remilitarising contested border zones where the main oil reserves are located.

Rising tensions

Amum said his party will "choose the mechanism through which people will express their vote" because "we want to ensure that there is peace, no war".

Tensions have been rising over the stalled preparations for the vote.

Al Jazeera's Mohamed Adow, reporting from Sudan, said: "There are so many issues to be resolved before the vote takes place. But delaying this referendum is a very big risk, because of the high expectation of the people of southern Sudan.

"If the commission makes official postponement request at the end, it would be up to the ruling National Congress Party and SPLM. [But] these two parties are highly unlikely to approve a postponement."

Troop deaths top 2000 in Afghan war

Total foreign military deaths in Afghanistan have passed 2,000 since the war began in late 2001, according to the independent icasualties.org website.

In all, 2,002 members of international forces have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2001, including 1,226 Americans and 331 from Britain, the website said on Sunday.

So far this year, 434 foreign troops have been killed, compared with a peak of 521 in 2009, it said.

June 2010 was the bloodiest month of the war with 102 killed as foreign forces pushed ahead with operations in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces.Another 88 were killed in July.

There are currently more than 140,000 US and Nato-led troops in Afghanistan aiming to to flush out remnants of Taliban fighters, who went on the offensive after being toppled from government in the 2001 invasion.

Disputes over the Afghan war have already brought down a Dutch government in February and a German president in May.

The losses in Afghanistan are less than half of those in the Iraq war, where at least 4,723 foreign troops have been killed since 2003 - 4,405 of them Americans.

But, with the US government cutting troop numbers in Iraq before the formal end of combat operations on August 31, attention is certain to be focused back on the Afghan conflict.

Civilian casualties

Just as was the case in Iraq, civilians are bearing the brunt of the conflict in Afghanistan.

Last week, a UN mid-year report showed civilian casualties had risen by 31 per cent over the first six months of 2010, compared with the same period last year.

That figure included 1,271 killed.

Civilian casualties caused by US and other foreign forces have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and its Western allies and led to a major falling-out between the two sides last year.

The UN report added that Taliban and armed groups were responsible for 76 per cent of casualties.

Deaths caused by "pro-government forces" fell to 12 per cent of the total from 30 per cent last year, due mainly to a 64 per cent fall in deaths caused by aerial attacks.

UN chief: Pakistan needs more aid

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has said that the Pakistan floods are the worst disaster he has ever seen and has issued a fresh call for international aid to help those affected by the crisis.

Speaking alongside Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, after a tour of the disaster zone, Ban said on Sunday it had been "heart-wrenching day."

"I will never forget the destruction and suffering I have witnessed today," he said. "In the past I have witnessed many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this.''

The UN has appealed for an initial $460 million to provide emergency relief, but only 20 per cent has so far been given.

"Waves of flood must be met with waves of support from the world,'' said Ban. "I'm here to urge the world to step up assistance.''

The floods began more than two weeks ago and have hit about one-quarter of the country. Huge swathes of land remain under water, and hundreds more homes
were flooded over the weekend. Twenty million people are believed to have been affected.

Ban's visit comes a day after the UN confirmed the country's first case of cholera in Mingora, in the northwestern district of Swat, raising the spectre of a disease outbreak over an already bleak situation.

Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, said at least 36,000 people were reportedly suffering from acute watery diarrhoea.

"We're not suggesting that everyone who has acute watery diarrhoea has cholera, but cholera is certainly a concern and that's why we're stepping up our efforts," he said on Saturday.

Relief effort criticised

The United Nations has appealed for $460m to deal with the immediate aftermath of the floods, but charities and officials said the figure falls far short of what is needed.

The floods began more than two weeks ago and have hit about one-quarter of the country. Huge swathes of land remain under water, and hundreds more homes
were flooded over the weekend. Twenty million people are believed to have been affected.

Ban's visit comes a day after the UN confirmed the country's first case of cholera in Mingora, in the northwestern district of Swat, raising the spectre of a disease outbreak over an already bleak situation.

Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, said at least 36,000 people were reportedly suffering from acute watery diarrhoea.

"We're not suggesting that everyone who has acute watery diarrhoea has cholera, but cholera is certainly a concern and that's why we're stepping up our efforts," he said on Saturday.

Relief effort criticised

The United Nations has appealed for $460m to deal with the immediate aftermath of the floods, but charities and officials said the figure falls far short of what is needed.