Ewen MacAskill, Chris McGreal in Jerusalem and Nick Paton-Walsh in Moscow, The Guardian
Indian-Pakistani relations deteriorated to a dangerous level yesterday after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for a massacre in Kashmir earlier this week. Early yesterday India test-fired a nuclear-capable missile and, a few hours later, Pakistan followed suit.
Leaders of North Korea pulled out of border liaison talks with US officers yesterday and a UN envoy said Pyongyang was continuing to work on a nuclear reprocessing plant at the heart of a standoff with Washington. North Korea's parliament also agreed a 2003 budget increasing military spending.
The war in the Gulf has disrupted the United States-Russian strategic arms control negotiations. Russia has delayed the ratification of a seminal US-Russian arms treaty by its parliament. Russian ministers have suggested that final legislative approval be postponed because of the unilateral military action taken against Iraq.
Before the invasion began, the White House made two appeals to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon - stay out of the war and do not do anything in the Palestinian territories to draw attention. So far, Mr Sharon has respected Washington's wishes. Israeli forces have killed 85 Palestinians this month - including at least 11 children. That is the highest monthly death toll since the tanks rolled back into West Bank cities a year ago, but only marginally up on last month.
Days ahead of the attack on Iraq, the Palestinians and human rights groups, Israeli and Palestinian, launched a joint emergency committee with flying squads to publicise and stop any attempts to forcibly remove Palestinians from areas the government wants for Jewish settlers. "There is a real fear the Sharon government will take advantage of the war on Iraq in order to implement its long-term objectives," said Jeff Halper, one of the committee's leaders. "In recent weeks the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories has already deteriorated as the media's attention is focused on the situation in Iraq. There have been more curfews and destruction of Palestinian homes. But our big concern is the mass transfer of Palestinians to force them to live behind the security wall."
"As eyes of the world focus on Iraq, the rest of the world's hotspots get hotter"
