In the News

WORLD

KHARTOUM, Sudan – The Sudanese government Sunday ordered the chief U.N. envoy out of the country after he wrote that Sudan’s army had suffered major losses in recent fighting in Darfur.

Jan Pronk was given 72 hours to leave – an order that is likely to complicate international efforts to halt the killings, rapes and other atrocities in the strife-torn region of western Sudan.

“The presence of the United Nations is vital to hundreds of thousands of citizens of the Darfur region,” said a European Union spokesman, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, in Brussels.

In a statement distributed by the official Sudan News Agency, the country’s Foreign Ministry accused Pronk of demonstrating “enmity to the Sudanese government and the armed forces” and of involvement in unspecified activities “that are incompatible with his mission.”

Pronk, a blunt-speaking former Dutch Cabinet minister, drew sharp criticism from the Sudanese armed forces after he wrote this month in his blog at www.janpronk.nl that Sudan’s military had suffered heavy losses in recent fighting with rebels in northern Darfur.

Violence has risen dramatically in recent weeks in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in three years of fighting.

NATION

WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday he was considering a run for president in 2008, backing off of previous statements that he would not do so.

The Illinois Democrat said he could no longer stand by the statements he made after his 2004 election and earlier this year that he would serve a full six-year term in Congress. He said he would not make a decision until after the Nov. 7 elections.

“That was how I was thinking at that time,” said Obama, when asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about his previous statements.

“Given the responses that I’ve been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility” although not with the seriousness or depth required, he said. “After November 7, I’ll sit down, I’ll sit down and consider, and if at some point I change my mind, I will make a public announcement and everybody will be able to go at me.”

Obama was largely unknown outside Illinois when he burst onto the national scene with a widely acclaimed address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

His political stock has been rising as a potentially viable centrist candidate for president in 2008 since former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner announced earlier this month that he was bowing out of the race.

STATE & LOCAL

CHESTERFIELD – The Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is asking federal officials to monitor the Nov. 7 elections in Chesterfield County because of what the ACLU called a pattern of minority voter intimidation.

“My request stems from several recent incidents in Chesterfield, indicating that officials there may implement voting procedures that will have an adverse impact on minority voters,” the ACLU’s Kent Willis wrote to John Tanner, chief of voting rights for the U.S. Justice Department. The letter was sent Friday.

Willis cited several actions since 2004, such as an incidence in November 2004 when ACLU officials received complaints that county poll workers were restricting voters lacking identification. Willis said Virginia law allows voters to cast ballots without identification, provided they sign an affirmation of identity.

The county’s general registrar, Lawrence Haake III, called the claims baseless and insisted he has followed state laws.