World in brief

Sudan backs off resolution rejection

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan stepped back Saturday from rejecting a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding it disarm Arab militias responsible for atrocities in Darfur, as France deployed troops and aid along Chad's border with Sudan to help hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said the resolution passed a day earlier did not go beyond commitments Sudan already made in early July to U.N. chief Kofi Annan to rein in the militias.

"If we look closely at this matter, we will find out that there is no reason to reject the resolution as it doesn't contain anything new, anything other than what already has been signed on in the agreement with the United Nations," Ismail said.

The resolution gives the Sudanese government 30 days to act against the militias, known as the Janjaweed. International and humanitarian officials say Sudan has failed to honor its pledges to crack down on the Janjaweed.

After the Security Council passed the resolution, Sudanese Information Minister El-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik said his country rejected the resolution, which "does not conform with the agreements signed between the government and the United Nations."

Asked about Malik's statement, Ismail said: "The Cabinet is the only body charged with responding to the resolution." After a Cabinet meeting today, the government will issue its definitive response, he said.

At least 30,000 people have been killed and more than 1-million displaced in a 17-month conflict in Darfur, where progovernment Arab militias known as Janjaweed have waged a brutal campaign to drive out black African farmers, torching villages, gunning down residents and raping women. The U.S. Congress has called the campaign genocide.

Also, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has elevated its assessment of the crisis in the Darfur region to a "genocide emergency."

It's the first time in the museum's 11-year history that it has made such a declaration, which is intended to draw world attention to the situation and to apply pressure for a response from Sudan's government.

TAKAI, Nigeria - Health workers took a polio vaccination campaign Saturday to villages in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, ending a ban on inoculations that had caused a regional outbreak and threatened global eradication efforts.

Nigeria's Kano state - where a recent epidemic of the crippling disease started and spread to 10 other African nations - allowed vaccinations to resume Saturday after an 11-month boycott.

The ban was imposed after religious leaders alleged that foreign powers were spreading AIDS and infertility among Muslims with the vaccine.

"Thank God, our children are now being immunized," said Ai Jibrin, a 38-year-old mother of three, in Dausanga village.

"My baby is 6 months old, and we have waited so long for this to happen," she said from behind a black veil that covered her face.

About a dozen health workers, trailed by groups of curious children, went door to door along the small, dusty streets of Dausanga, squeezing drops of the vaccine into children's mouths.

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