NEW YORK -- The U.N. Security Council voted to renew the peacekeeping mission to Western Sahara late last night, barely making the deadline to extend the mission to the disputed North African territory after sharp disagreements over the final text. A rift in the council hardened after the U.N. mediator in talks between the Moroccan government and the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi rebel group, said last week that independence for the territory was no longer realistically possible.
The vote to renew the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (commonly referred to by the French acronym MINURSO) was originally scheduled to take place the previous day, but it was pushed back as the Council could not agree on whether references to human rights and "realism" should be included in the resolution. ...
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