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Afghan fighting kills 2 British soldiers

By TIMES WIRES
Published June 28, 2006

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Violence raged across southern Afghanistan, killing 29 suspected militants, two British soldiers and two Afghan troops, and the U.S.-led coalition pressed on with its largest military offensive here since 2001, officials said Tuesday.

Resurgent Taliban militants and their allies are waging their fiercest campaign against Afghan and coalition forces since the extremist regime was toppled after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

British forces came under attack early Tuesday in the Sangin valley of the southern Helmand province, the British Defense Ministry said.

Two British soldiers were killed and one wounded in the firefight, said Capt. Drew Gibson. Five suspected militants were killed.

Vatican moves to end dispute with China

VATICAN CITY - Two senior Vatican officials have traveled to China to sound out possibilities of re-establishing diplomatic relations, seeking to overcome a major dispute over the Vatican's tradition that the pope names his bishops.

While Pope Benedict XVI has expressed hope that the Vatican can achieve an opening with China, religious freedom has become a major theme of his papacy.

Ties with the Vatican were broken in 1951 after the communists took power in China. Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, but millions belong to unofficial congregations loyal to Rome.

State Department tells Libya: compensate families

WASHINGTON - The State Department urged Libya on Tuesday to provide fair compensation to the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Scotland.

According to published reports, Libya has concluded it no longer has a legal obligation to make final payments of $2-million to each of the families of those killed in the attack.

Libya has accepted responsibility for the bombing and agreed to pay the families of the 270 victims. Part of the $2.7-billion has been paid.

Today, Libya is due to be removed formally from the State Department's list of countries that sponsor terror.

Dutch lawmaker can retain her citizenship

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born former lawmaker can retain her Dutch citizenship after all.

The ruling Tuesday by Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk reversed a politically divisive decision of six weeks earlier, when Verdonk announced Hirsi Ali's 1997 naturalization was invalid because she lied on her asylum application. Parliament had demanded that Verdonk find a way for Hirsi Ali to remain Dutch.

On Tuesday, Verdonk did just that, stating that Hirsi Ali did not lie when she created a new identity for herself on her asylum application because she used a legitimate name - her grandfather's - under the law of her homeland.

Hirsi Ali fled an arranged marriage when she came to the Netherlands as a refugee. Hoping to evade her enraged father, she called herself by her grandfather's name, Hirsi Ali, rather than by the name she had used all her life, Hirsi Magan.

[Last modified June 28, 2006, 02:06:08]