BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday no security agreement with the United States could be reached unless it included a "specific deadline" for the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq.

But al-Maliki's remarks Monday suggested that the Iraqi government is still not satisfied with that arrangement. An aide to the prime minister said Monday that Iraq remained adamant that the last American soldier must leave Iraq by the end of 2011 -- regardless of conditions at the time.

The official, like others who spoke about the specifics of the debate, spoke on condition of anonymity because the text had not been approved by either government.

President Bush has long resisted a timetable for pulling out troops from Iraq, even under heavy pressure from a nation distressed by American deaths and discouraged by the length of the war that began in 2003.

TORONTO -- A push by Canadian Prime Minister Stephan Harper to call early elections picked up steam Monday, with his spokesman accusing the head of the country's main opposition party of refusing to meet or speak with the government's leader.

Dimitri Soudas told The Associated Press that Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion has been refusing to communicate with Harper before Parliament reconvenes next month.

Dion's spokesman, Mark Dunn, said that Dion was willing to meet with Harper on Sept. 9 and charged that Harper was trying to manufacture a parliamentary crisis.

The timeframe is significant for both sides -- but particularly so for Harper, whose government could be brought down should the three opposition parties who together hold the majority seek a no-confidence motion.

Harper, whose minority government must depend on opposition support to adopt budgets and legislation, has been complaining that Parliament has become dysfunctional. The conservative leader says an early election may be needed in hopes of producing a better functioning legislative lineup.

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudanese government forces attacked one of Darfur's largest refugee camps at dawn Monday, killing dozens of civilians, according to rebels and a witness in the camp. Sudan's military acknowledged the raid but said soldiers were searching for smuggled weapons.

The United Nations said it was "gravely concerned" about the situation inside the Kalma camp in southern Darfur after it received reports that Sudanese police vehicles surrounded it and subsequent attacks caused "injuries and deaths of civilians."

The U.N. did not provide a death toll. But a resident of the camp, Mandela Abdullah Mohammed, told The Associated Press by telephone that he counted 32 dead bodies, including several women and children. More than 50 vehicles "packed with armed men wearing police and security forces' uniforms ... hit us with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns," Mohammed said.

But a military spokesman said government troops were fired on first.

"They were surprised by heavy gunfire from within the camp. There was an exchange of fire and a number of victims," said spokesman Sawarmy Khaled, without elaborating. He said the fighting had stopped by Monday night.

BHUBANESHWAR, India -- Suspected Hindu hard-liners set fire Monday to an orphanage run by Christian missionaries in eastern India, killing one woman and seriously injuring a priest, police said.

Ashok Biswal, superintendent of police, said the woman was a 21-year-old teacher giving computer training to children at the orphanage. Initial reports that the woman was a nun were incorrect, he said

The attack occurred in Khuntapali, a village in Orissa state, during a strike called by the World Hindu Council to protest the killing Saturday of a Hindu religious leader and four others by suspected communist rebels in another district of the state, Biswal said.

Biswal said on Monday a group of Hindu hard-liners converged on the orphanage in Khuntapali, nearly 250 miles west of the state capital of Bhubaneshwar, and asked nearly 20 residents to leave the complex.

They then set the orphanage on fire with the woman and priest locked inside, he said.

The woman died and the priest was hospitalized with serious burns, Biswal said. He added that doctors now said the priest was "out of danger."

CHAMONIX, France -- French police found the bodies of eight climbers Monday after they went missing in an avalanche near Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest peak, officials said.

The bodies were buried beneath up to 165 feet of ice and the climbers -- four Germans, three Swiss and an Austrian -- most likely had fallen into a deep crevasse, said Regis Lavergne, commander of the High Mountain Gendarmes based in Chamonix.

A search helicopter was able to locate them after it picked up the signal of a special homing device the climbers were wearing, Lavergne said.

Because the area is prone to avalanches, rescuers will not attempt to recover the bodies, which are expected to resurface in "a few weeks or several years" due to the movement or melting of the glaciers, he said at a news conference.

TBILISI, Georgia -- Russian lawmakers on Monday urged the Kremlin to recognize the independence of two separatist Georgian regions, heightening tensions with Georgia where the government said hundreds of Russian soldiers remained at checkpoints.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev did not immediately respond to the unanimous votes in both houses of Russia's parliament, but he has said Moscow would support whatever choice the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia make about their future status.

Western countries warned Moscow that recognizing the breakaway regions of Georgia, an allied nation pressing for NATO membership, would prompt international denunciation. The U.S. said Russian recognition "would be unacceptable."

"Russia needs to respect the territorial integrity of Georgia," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood.

But Medvedev signaled the criticism was of little concern to the Kremlin.

NATO needs Russia more than Russia needs NATO, Medvedev said, and it would be "nothing frightening" if the Western alliance were to sever all ties. NATO has suspended operations of the NATO-Russia Council over the Georgia crisis, which has broadened Europe's post-Cold War fault lines.