World in brief

U.S. troops sought for Liberia

MONROVIA, Liberia - U.N. Security Council members and West African leaders Sunday started trying to assemble a peace force for warring Liberia, renewing calls for the United States to contribute troops.

Ambassadors from the 15-nation council were in Nigeria, discussing that nation's possible participation in such a force. Nigeria, whose military is the region's largest and best trained, would be expected to play a key role in any peacekeeping mission in Liberia.

West Africa has said it is prepared to take the lead in solving Liberia's crisis, but it would like help from the United States, which has strong ties to Liberia, a West African nation founded by freed American slaves.

"It's their baby, and they have a responsibility there," Cameroon U.N. Ambassador Martin Chungong Ayafor said.

Washington has shown no inclination to contribute Americans for an international peace force.

HONG KONG - China and Hong Kong signed a free-trade agreement Sunday that will open parts of the booming mainland to Hong Kong companies more quickly than for other competitors.

In the next few days, Hong Kong is expected to enact a tough new national security bill that outlaws subversion, sedition, treason and other crimes against the state, with more power for police and life prison sentences for many offenses.

Six years after Hong Kong returned to China, the two steps integrate the former British colony much more closely with the Chinese motherland.

TEHRAN, Iran - Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, Sunday urged Iran to sign "quickly and unconditionally" an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that would open the way to more aggressive U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites.

Iran has come under increasing pressure since the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report earlier this month saying that Iran had secretly processed nuclear material.

So far, however, Iran has refused to sign the protocol and argues that it is seeking nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

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