Belfast (Northern Ireland), June 18
Catholic hard-liners assaulted police and Protestant marchers during a street riot that left 18 officers and at least 11 civilians injured, the police said today.

Last night’s violence in a religiously polarised part of north Belfast flared as a parade by Protestants of the Orange Order brotherhood passed a crowd of hostile Catholics. Hundreds of police in riot gear kept the two sides apart, but Catholic men and youths spent more than an hour hurling bottles, bricks and gasoline bombs into and over the police lines.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said none of its officers was seriously injured. Among the civilian casualties was a 14-year-old girl with a broken arm.

The rioting fizzled out once police deployed mammoth mobile water cannons, which doused the Catholic crowd.

The police said they arrested three persons for rioting and planned more arrests once people caught on surveillance camera footage could be formally identified.

The confrontation happened on the edge of Ardoyne, one of the most hard-line Catholic districts of north Belfast. Residents there generally loathe the Orange Order, an anti-Catholic fraternity group that mounts more than 2,000 parades annually, mostly in July. — AP

Cairo, June 18
The Sudanese Government signed a reconciliation agreement with one of its largest opposition groupings today, ending a 16-year conflict with a deal officials hope will help resolve the country’s bloody fighting in Darfur.

The accord was signed with the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella group that includes 13 political parties and other professional and trade unions. It has an armed wing that the government wants to absorb into the national army.

“We’ve put our hands together and unified our goals to compensate the people of Sudan for all what they’ve missed on during the era of conflicts,” said Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir at a signing ceremony attended by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The agreement reflects the Khartoum government’s desire to end country’s multiple political and military conflicts after reaching a peace deal in January with southern rebels. That agreement ended a 21-year civil war that killed two million people and displaced four million more from their homes.

In the civil war, southern rebels — mostly Christians and animists — had been resisting domination by the mostly Muslim north and the imposition of Islamic law. — AP

Brussels, June 18
Europe’s leaders tore into each other after an EU summit on long-term finances imploded today, ripping away a veneer of unity to expose fundamental differences over the bloc’s future.

France and Britain engaged in the most savage recriminations, reminding the European press of Trafalgar and Waterloo but also revealing the depth of the crisis facing the 50-year-old alliance.

EU leaders had hoped that the two-day summit would spur the 25-nation European Union to pull together after French and Dutch voters rejected a first-ever EU constitution.

“People will tell you next that Europe is not in a crisis,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who holds the EU presidency, said as the summit ended in acrimony.

“It is in a deep crisis.”

The gap between Britain, which clung to its long-cherished budget rebate, and most of its 24 EU partners proved impossible to bridge in a desperate, last-minute round of EU diplomacy.

Recriminations broke out as hopes for a deal on the 2007-2013 budget, worth about 100 billion euros a year, were crushed.

“I believe a deal would have been possible. The fact that there wasn’t one is solely due to the inflexible stance of the British and the Dutch,” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told reporters. The Dutch had demanded a cut in their annual budget payments.

“In reality we were close to an agreement,” added French President Jacques Chirac. “I deplore the fact that Britain refused to contribute a reasonable and equitable share of the expenses of enlargement.” — AFP

Lahore, June 18
Side-stepping the issue whether his son is engaged to the daughter of India’s most wanted man Dawood Ibrahim, former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad has rubbished media reports that the marriage is slated in Dubai next week.

Reacting to news reports about his son’s imminent wedding with Dawood’s daughter, an agitated Miandad told The News that there was no plan to get his son married soon and wondered why the news kept coming up in the Indian media.

“I have said nothing today to anyone. At this time there is no plan for my son’s marriage to anyone,” Miandad said.

“When we decide to get our son married it will not be a secret but a public announcement,” he added.

Brushing aside reports that the marriage would take place in Dubai on June 24, he said, “No I have no intentions of travelling to Dubai in the near future.” — UNI

Oslo, June 18
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has taken the rare step of making a public statement about a past Nobel Peace Prize winner, asking Myanmar’s military regime to free Aung San Suu Kyi from long-term house arrest.

The five-member Nobel Committee yesterday expressed its continuing admiration for Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in the 1990 election in but has never been allowed to rule.

“We ask that she be set free immediately. We look forward to the day that democracy again rules her country,” a statement issued by committee chairman Ole D. Mjoes said.

Britain and Denmark also joined in calls for release of the pro-democracy leader, who has spent most of the past 14 years under house arrest.

BANGKOK: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued yet another call for the release of Suu Kyi, who has spent nine of the past 16 years behind the bars or under house arrest for demanding the army honor the results of 1990 elections it lost. — AP/Reuters