The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, is due to visit violence-racked Central African Republic on Thursday, where she will feel the shadow of Rwanda's 1994 genocide looming over this latest challenge to the world's conscience and capacity to stop slaughter. Central African Republic, a former French colony with a population of only around 5 million and a turbulent history, has long been ignored as a remote African backwater on the global policy agenda, watched mostly by its former colonial master, human rights rapporteurs and development experts. But waves of massacres and reprisals by Muslim and Christian militias have killed hundreds there since rebels seized power in March, waking the world up to the fact that it might be witnessing the prelude to another Rwanda, where 800,000 were hacked, shot or clubbed to death in 100 days. Speaking from Abuja, Nigeria, on Wednesday, Power said that while the world had seen great atrocities before, each situation was unique and direct comparisons between Central African Republic and past crises were "inevitably flawed." "But it is worth noting that Somalia taught us what can happen in a failed state, and Rwanda showed us what can occur in a deeply divided one," she said.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The acting chief of Iran's air force says his pilots will hold a military drill over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the waterway for one-fifth of the world's oil tanker traffic.