Northern Ireland

Protestant asks IRA to accept 1998 accord

The leader of Northern Ireland’s major Protestant party appealed Saturday for the Irish Republican Army to accept the 1998 peace accord as a “full and final” settlement.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said British Protestants should resume work in a power-sharing government with the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, but only if the IRA commits to ceasing all hostile activity and disarming fully, as the Good Friday pact of 1998 proposed.

In a potentially significant sign of flexibility, Trimble told supporters at his party’s annual conference they must be willing to resume power-sharing with Sinn Fein before the IRA completes its end of any deal.

Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said he heard “some signs for encouragement” in Trimble’s speech.

Afghanistan

Canada’s prime minister won’t send more troops

Visiting Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Saturday that his country did not plan to send more troops to boost the international peacekeeping force that is gearing up to expand beyond Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Canada has provided 2,000 of the 5,000 troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, making it the largest contributor.

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to allow the 31-country ISAF coalition to fan out to key cities in some of Afghanistan’s most lawless provinces.

Chretien, who is scheduled to leave office in February, said it was unlikely that Canadian troops would leave the capital.

Vatican City

Pope says he’ll stay until God calls him

Again brushing aside any suggestion he might retire, Pope John Paul II asked cardinals on Saturday to pray for him so he could fulfill his mission “as long as the Lord wishes.”

John Paul, 83, made the comments at the end of a symposium of cardinals who had gathered in Rome to celebrate his 25th anniversary as pope.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the College of Cardinals, told the pontiff that all the prelates gathered had unanimously pledged their “faithful and total adhesion” to his teachings, as well as their “filial” attachment to him personally.