Annan appointed former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy as his envoy to Ethiopia and Eritrea.

FRANKFURT – Three German border police appeared in court on Monday, accused of negligent homicide over the death of a Sudanese immigrant as he was being deported on board a plane. Aamir Ageeb was put in a helmet and his hands and feet were bound together, because he was violent. Prosecutors said he was restrained so forcibly that he suffocated.

ADDIS ABABA – Three members of the Eritrean defense forces and two civilians defected to Ethiopia on Monday, after crossing the Mereb river on the closed border between the two countries. In the past five months, 28 Eritreans, including soldiers and civilians, have defected to Ethiopia.

THE HAGUE – Experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, basedin The Hague, arrived in Libya this week to oversee Tripoli’s compliance with the international convention banning chemical weapons. A team of UN nuclear weapons experts is in Libya to verify efforts to dismantle nuclear programs.

ADDIS ABABA – Thirty-three former government officials on trial for genocide have asked the people of Ethiopia to forgive them for crimes they committed during the former regime of exiled dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, in a letter to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi published last weekend by Ethiopia’s Reporter. The letter was dated last August 13.

MOSCOW – The head of security for Chechnya’s pro-Moscow President Akhmad Kadyrov this week offered a $200,000 reward for information after gunmen shot dead one of his top lieutenants in a nighttime raid last Saturday. Ramzan Kadyrov said gunmen had burst into the home of Sultan Dadayev, presidential security chief in the southeastern villageof Allenroi, and shot him and four bodyguards.

ATHENS – Greek foreign minister George Papandreou this week told UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that preliminary negotiations aimed at an eventual reunification of the divided island of Cyprus must be restarted. Their telephone conversation came amid growing international pressure for a Cyprus peace deal before the Mediterranean island joins the European Union in May.

BAGHDAD – At least 101 people were killed in twin suicide bombings at the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the Kurdish city of Arbil in northern Iraq last Sunday, US officials announced this week.

Ariel, Israel – Orthodox Jews in the Gaza settlement of Ariel have protested against a beauty pageant that is being organized by an Israeli entrepreneur, Avner Auster, owner of a local photography shop. The Miss Samaria pageant offers a prize of a two-year modeling contract with a Tel Aviv agency, with the bikini finals pageant scheduled for Saturday.

TEL AVIV – Israel’s opposition Labor party voted for former prime minister Shimon Peres to continue as leader for another two years at a convention in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

JERUSALEM – The head of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Avner Shalev, this week urged UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to investigate a report that North Korea routinely tests chemical weapons on political prisoners held in concentration camps.

DAMASCUS – Syria freed 92 political prisoners last Saturday – making a total of 122 released in three days. Most were members of Islamist groups or of Iraq’s former ruling Baath party.

MANAMA – A Bahraini held in Saudi Arabia for six months without being formally charged has suffered a major heart attack. Sheikh Muhammad Saleh was arrested by Saudi authorities in July 2003.

WASHINGTON – The US has determined that a potential threat to Western military interests in Oman is “not credible,” revoking a terror warning for the country issued last week.

ISTANBUL – Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Talat met Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and foreign minister Abdullah Gul in Ankara on Thursday, to discuss the future of Cyprus.

AMMAN – Three Jordanians participating in the annual Hajj were killed in a road accident between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina on Tuesday. A plane was sent from Jordan to repatriate the bodies.

JERUSALEM – Israeli police said they had arrested two men who allegedly bilked thousands of dollars from two charitable associations by pretending to be victims of suicide bombings. The criminal gang was undone when it tried to take advantage of the January 29 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 10 people.

WASHINGTON – The United States is seeking to interrogate and extradite Mullah Krekar from Norway as a suspect in the recent suicide attacks on Iraqi Kurds. Various European countries were also seeking access to Krekar, the reputed founder of Ansar Al Islam, the group suspected of carrying out the Irbil attack on February 1.

WASHINGTON – US secretary of state Colin Powell has expressed doubts about the decision to go to war against Iraq. Powell said he might not have recommended war if he had known Iraq had no stockpiles of banned weapons. However, he said that history will ultimately judge that the war “was the right thing to do.”

BAGHDAD – Iraqi security officials say loyalists to deposed dictator Saddam Hussein’s Baath party have split into at least three factions. Sources said the factions are fighting for control over the Sunni Triangle as well as the remnants of Saddam’s finances.

DOHA – Qatar is now the wealthiest nation among the oil-rich countries of the Gulf, according to Arab League statistics. With a per capita income of $29,948, Qatar had one of the highest income levels in the world.

WASHINGTON – The US State Department said US and British officials were due to meet with a Libyan delegation in London on Friday. A US/UK team, working with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, was in Libya last month and a similar team will soon return to continue the work.

UNITED NATIONS – The head of the UN Mission in Eritrea-Ethiopia said while there may be a stalemate over boundary demarcation, he does not foresee a war. Ethiopia has rejected the border proposed by the jointly-appointed Border Commission.

KHARTOUM – The Sudanese government and the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army will resume peace negotiations in Naivasha, Kenya, on February 17. Negotiations were adjourned on January 26 for Eid Al Adha.

KHARTOUM – Sudanese President Omar Al Beshir has ordered the government refugees commission to persuade tens of thousands of refugees in Chad to return to Sudan’s western Darfur region.

WASHINGTON – A member of the US House of Representatives, Frank Wolf, this week told the House that US President George W. Bush should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize if his efforts to promote a resolution to Sudan’s long-running civil war are successful.

KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia this week denied involvement in producing nuclear components for Libya. But a spokesman said a Sri Lankan businessman identified by US and British intelligence as an alleged middleman was under investigation by the Malaysian authorities.

ALGIERS – The Algerian foreign ministry called on Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to explain why the leader of the banned Islamic Salvation Front, Abassi Madani, was invited to attend a traditional reception given this week by King Fahd to mark Eid Al Adha.

MOSCOW – Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, told him during talks this week that Russia was ready to have a “European representation” in war-torn Chechnya. 

MOSCOW – An official from Russia’s defense ministry said 263 Russian soldiers were killed in Chechnya last year, compared to 463 in 2002. A further 971 soldiers died in Russia in 2003.

ROME – Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will visit Tripoli on Tuesday for talks with Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.

ALGIERS – Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika this week asked the United Nations and the European Union to send observers to presidential elections in April.