Former U.S. envoy asks Bush not to meet Mahathir:Washington's

Former U.S. envoy asks Bush not to meet Mahathir:Washington's ambassador to Malaysia at the height of the Anwar crisis implored President George W. Bush on Wednesday to withdraw his invitation to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to visit the White House next month. Former ambassador John Mallot's three-year stint in Malaysia covered the period when Mahathir sacked his Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was then jailed. --Reuters

Dutch army chief resigns over Srebrenica report:Dutch army chief Gen. Ad van Baal resigned on Wednesday, a day after the government quit following a report critical of the failure of Dutch peacekeepers to stop the 1995 massacre in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. --AFP

U.S. making same mistakes as Soviets did: The United States is making the same mistakes in Afghanistan as the Soviet Union during its disastrous decade-long occupation of the war-torn country, a senior Russian envoy warned on Wednesday. Russian Duma member Dmitry Rogozin told a press conference in Pakistan that by maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan the United States would only create further instability rather than secure peace. --AFP

Egypt suspends agricultural ties with Israel:Scientific, research and guidance cooperation between Egypt and Israel in the field of agriculture has stopped completely immediately after the cabinet's decision to halt all contacts with Israel except those that serve the Palestinian cause," Egyptian Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Youssef Waly told the Egyptian Parliament. --AP

Pakistan accuses India of abducting, torturing diplomat:The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Ali Abbas, an official of the High Commission of Pakistan, was abducted in New Delhi by at least 12 Indian intelligence officers on Tuesday. Indian External Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao said Abbas was in Indian custody on a spying charge and said there had been "no maltreatment." --AP

Mubarak cancels meeting with Powell: President Hosni Mubarak canceled a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell hours before the U.S. envoy arrived on Wednesday to wrap up a Mideast peacemaking tour Arabs have called a failure. Officials in the Egyptian president's did not say why the meeting, announced a day earlier, was canceled. Many were likely to see it as a snub. --AP