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Advisory brigades to be deployed to Iraq

WASHINGTON, July 16 (UPI) -- Four new advisory and assistance brigades will be sent to Iraq beginning in the fall during the next scheduled U.S. troop deployment, the Pentagon said.

The brigades are configured Army units that focus on the training and mentoring of Iraqi special forces, the Department of Defense said Wednesday in a news release.

Unlike traditional brigade combat teams, the advisory and assistance brigades would focus more on advising, assisting and developing capabilities within the Iraqi security forces, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. However, the brigades also would conduct coordinated counterterrorism missions and protect the ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq.

Besides working with Iraqi forces, the brigades also would support the U.S. State Department's provisional reconstruction teams, Pentagon officials said.

U.N. worker killed in ambush in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 16 (UPI) -- A United Nations worker was killed and another U.N. employee was injured during a kidnapping attempt in northwestern Pakistan Thursday, officials said.

Local police said the U.N. employees, who worked for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, were ambushed as their vehicle approached camp Katcha Ghari near Peshawar in the country's volatile North West Frontier province, CNN reported.

Reports from the area indicate four people got out of another vehicle and tried to kidnap the agency's senior field officer. When met with resistance, the attackers opened fire and killed the U.N. employee, said Amina Kamal, a spokeswoman for the refugee agency. A security guard sustained a leg wound.

One of the attackers was injured, but he was taken away by his accomplices, CNN reported.

Black boxes 'damaged' in Iran plane crash

TEHRAN, July 16 (UPI) -- Aviation officials were at the site of an Iranian passenger plane crash, in which all 168 people on board died, working to determine what caused the crash.

Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 slammed to the ground in northern Iran Wednesday about 15 minutes after departing Tehran for Yerevan, Albania.

Flight data recorders from the Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154M were recovered from the crash site, but Iranian media reported the "black boxes" sustained damage, CNN said.

"If efforts to retrieve data from the boxes fail, they will be sent back to the country that has produced them so that they could be repaired in order to find the reason behind the crash," the government-supported Press TV reported Transport Ministry official Ahmad Majidi as saying.

Investigators from the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee were expected to join the crash scene investigation working alongside Iranian aviation authorities, the agency said.

Britain supports Blair for EU president

STRASBOURG, France, July 16 (UPI) -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has British government support to become the first permanent president of the European Union, a spokeswoman said.

"The UK government is supporting Tony Blair's candidature," Glenys Kinnock, Britain's Minister for Europe, told journalists at the European Union's Strasbourg, France, Parliament.

She said that Blair had the "strength of character" and "status" to take on the job and that London supported him for the post "without asking him."

Blair has not publicly said he was interested in the EU presidency.

"There is nothing to be a candidate for since the job doesn't actually exist," a spokesman told the BBC.

The job will be created if all 27 EU member countries ratify the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, which would change EU workings. Twenty-six countries have ratified the treaty. Ireland is to hold a second referendum Oct. 2 after voters rejected the treaty in June 2008.

Some analysts see Blair -- currently a special Middle East envoy -- as a long shot because he might overshadow national leaders, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Smaller EU countries also worry about the risks of having someone from a big EU power take the spot, the Journal said.

Blair also comes from a country resented in parts of the EU for opting out of some core bloc projects, including the euro common currency.

Blair also is remembered with bitterness in parts of continental Europe for siding with Washington in launching the Iraq war in 2003, EUobserver.com said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy supports Blair, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel strongly opposes him.

A candidate thought to have broader support is Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who was the European Council president in 1997 and 2005, EUobserver said. The council is the EU's highest political body.

Opposition disputes Congo Republic results

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of the Congo, July 16 (UPI) -- Opposition parties and a human rights group Thursday disputed election results that returned Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou-Nguesso to power.

Sassou-Nguesso, who has been in and out of power since a 1979 coup in Africa's fifth biggest oil producer, won 78.6 percent of the vote, the country's Electoral Commission said.

Independent candidate Joseph Kignoumbi Kia Mboungou came in a distant second with 7.46 percent of the ballot.

Turnout Sunday was more than 66 percent, Interior Minister Raymond Mboulou said but some Sassou-Nguesso opponents said only about 10 percent of voters cast ballots.

Six of 12 challengers had called for a boycott of the polls, saying they were rigged -- a charge Sassou-Nguesso denied.

Monitors from the 53-country African Union and the 10-nation Economic Community of Central African States said the election was clean.

The BBC said money was handed out at a polling station to people who later said they had been asked to vote for Sassou-Nguesso. Other voters said hired hands had confiscated ballot boxes in some districts.

About 2,000 opposition supporters protested the election results in Brazzaville but were dispersed by riot police firing tear gas, the BBC reported.

Police also confiscated and destroyed a BBC correspondent's recording equipment and that of a French TV crew, the BBC said.

Foreclosed Watergate Hotel to be auctioned

WASHINGTON, July 16 (UPI) -- A Washington complex that was the site of a burglary that led to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon is to be auctioned.

The Watergate, made famous by the 1972 burglary, will be auctioned Tuesday after owners Monument Realty, a Washington real estate developer, defaulted on a $40 million loan balance, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

A 30-day city foreclosure notice, sent to Monument last month after the company defaulted on its loan, expired Thursday.

Monument officials said two weeks ago they hoped New York lender PB Capital Corp. would agree to new terms, the Post said.

Monument had sought to restore the Watergate -- located across from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts -- to its glory days as a Washington icon, the Post said.

It tried in 2004 to turn the 1967 office-apartment-hotel complex into luxury co-ops, but had a legal battle with neighbors. Last year, it was ready redevelop the Watergate as a luxury hotel, but Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., a partner and equity investor in the property, declared bankruptcy.

A Monument spokeswoman would not comment to the Post on the auction by Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc.

The winning bidder will be required to put down $1 million, the Post said.

The Watergate scandal began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate June 17, 1972.

The scandal resulted in the indictment and conviction of several of Nixon's closest advisers and ultimately Nixon's own resignation Aug. 9, 1974.