World briefs 9/9/03

Britain dispatches 1,200 more troops to Iraq

LONDON -- Britain is sending two additional battalions to Iraq, adding 1,200 troops to its forces on the ground, the Ministry of Defense said Monday.

Britain now has 11,000 troops in the country and British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon indicated that more troops were likely to be required.

"We will immediately take steps to identify and reduce notice to move for some additional headquarters and units, to allow further deployments as rapidly as possible in response to this accelerating program of work," Hoon said in a written statement to Parliament.

Eleven British troops have died in Iraq since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat operations over. Forty-nine British troops have died in the war in total.

Report: N. Korea has long-range missile

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea dismissed reports the United States was softening its stand on the communist nation's weapons program, saying it retains the option to "increase its nuclear deterrent force."

The angry rhetoric followed a report Monday in a South Korean newspaper that North Korea has developed a long-range missile capable of targeting all of Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam.

The developments came on the eve of North Korea's 55th anniversary, which is expected to be celebrated with a military parade amid speculation in Washington that North Korea might conduct a nuclear test.

El Salvador seeks U.N. review of border dispute

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- El Salvador asked the World Court on Monday to reconsider a decade-old ruling on its border with Honduras -- the source of more than a century of acrimony between the two countries.

Opening two days of hearings in The Hague, El Salvador said it had found scientific and historical material from an expedition in the 1790s that demonstrated "the unreliability of the documents that formed the backbone" of the court's original 1992 judgment.

It is the first time the court, established by the United Nations in 1945 to resolve disputes between nations, has been asked to review one of its decisions.

The initial ruling gave two-thirds of 168 square miles in dispute to Honduras and said the nations must share the Gulf of Fonseca with neighboring Nicaragua.

Director hopes play can mend Kuwait, Iraq ill will

CAIRO, Egypt -- Kuwaiti and Iraqi artists have collaborated on a play that portrays both peoples as Saddam Hussein's victims, showing that bitterness over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait may be giving way to hope for reconciliation now that he has been toppled.

"Melting the Ice" explores in Arabic and English the trauma a brutal dictator can inflict on the world.

The 85-minute play, performed this weekend at an international theater festival in Egypt, debates whether those who served the dictator to save their lives or protect their interests bear guilt.

With the U.S.-led coalition that ousted Saddam facing attacks by insurgents, the play also shows Iraqis still haunted by their past and divided over whether to see themselves as liberated or invaded.

The play's British-trained Kuwaiti director, Sulayman al-Bassam, who also wrote the script, said he hopes the collaboration will be "a bridge that both people can cross" to return to "their beautiful old days." Many Iraqi and Kuwaiti families, including his own, have roots and property in both countries, al-Bassam said.

-- From wire reports