UN Peace Operations

MOGADISHU — A suspected Al Qaeda-linked attacker disguised as a government soldier blew himself up Monday inside the presidential compound in Mogadishu, a security official told AFP.

It was not immediately clear whether any other casualties resulted from the attack, which took place as a convoy of the African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was entering the compound.

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama will deliver a "forceful" message that two referenda in Sudan must go ahead on time, at a United Nations meeting this week on votes which could split the country.

Samantha Power, a senior US national security aide, pledged Monday that the US president had decided to take part in what had been originally billed as a ministerial meeting to stress Sudan was approaching a "critical" moment.

Reporting from Cairo — Sudan is less than four months away from a vote that is expected to break it into two countries, a move that could spark another civil war and imperil the Obama administration's efforts to calm a troubled swath of East Africa marked by tribal conflict, oil wealth and gunrunning.

Editorial: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently blurted out a rather undiplomatic warning about "a ticking time bomb of enormous consequence." She was talking not about Afghanistan or Iran or Iraq, but Sudan -- a country that until recently has gotten relatively little attention from the Obama administration. She was right. In a matter of months Sudan could present the administration with a major new international crisis, one that has the potential to be even bloodier than the Darfur genocide.

KINSHASA — Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday urged the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the UN mission there to step up protection for almost two million people displaced by conflict.

"The internally displaced are among the most vulnerable people in the region, and they desperately need greater protection and assistance," Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at HRW said, presenting an 88-page report based on interviews with 146 displaced people.

The Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to extend the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Liberia for a year but called for plans to transfer responsibility for security to government authorities.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the council endorsed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's recommendation that free, fair and peaceful presidential and legislative elections next year be "a core benchmark" for further reductions in the U.N. force. It also asked Ban to continue monitoring progress on other benchmarks, including improving the capabilities of the national police.