2 strong undersea earthquakes rattle Asia

TOKYO, Japan (AP) — Two strong earthquakes rattled Asia on Thursday, triggering alerts for a tsunami that harmlessly lapped Japan's northern coast and another in Indonesia that didn't materialize but briefly sent residents fleeing to high ground.

The more powerful of the quakes, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 hit at 9:21 a.m. off Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido at a depth of about 19 miles (30 kilometers), the country's meteorological agency said.

A 4-inch (10-centimeter) tsunami rippled to shore 35 minutes later, but there were no signs of damage.

"There was some light shaking, but it was nothing major," said Yukio Yoshida, a police spokesman in Hokkaido.

Authorities temporarily advised about 10,600 residents of Ofunato in Iwate Prefecture (state), about 125 miles (200 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, to evacuate their homes and ordered people to stay away from beaches.

An hour earlier, northeastern Indonesia was hit by a 6.6-magnitude quake that struck 55 miles (90 kilometers) beneath the Molucca Sea, the U.S. Geological Survey. Though on the same tectonic plate, the temblors were unrelated, local officials said.

A tsunami alert was briefly issued over the radio and television and people in the Maluku capital of Ternate, which was closest to the epicenter, fled from houses and buildings as the earth rumbled beneath them.

The feared wave never came, however, and there were no reports of casualties or damage.

"I ran out of the hotel with other guests and we fled to high ground," Benyamin Otte said. "I could see people on the beach, checking to see if the were any signs of a tsunami, but everything looked normal. Within a half hour, we were heading back down."

Indonesia and Japan are both prone to seismic upheaval due to their location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

In December 2004, a massive earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra island triggered a tsunami that battered much of the Indian Ocean coastline and killed more than 230,000 people — 131,000 of them in Aceh province alone.

A tsunami off Java island last year killed nearly 5,000.

Japan also is one of the world's most earthquake prone nations.

In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people and experts believe Tokyo has a 90 percent chance of being hit by a major quake over the next 50 years.

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Russia 'backs US on terror fight'

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has pledged full co-operation with the US on anti-terrorism, on the anniversary of the 11 September attacks.

But he said the US should reconsider its ties with "rotten regimes" that "conduct military adventures", in a reference to Georgia's government.

Mr Medvedev also said Russia would focus on rearming, following the brief war it fought with Georgia last month.

They clashed over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

After five days of fighting a ceasefire was agreed - but each side has accused the other of breaching the accord.

'No imperial ambitions'

Russia, which has backed self-declared governments in the nominally Georgian regions for years, recently infuriated the West by recognising their independence.

Kremlin officials have been involved in a bitter war of words with the US throughout the crisis.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Washington of arming Georgia. The US says Russia is violating Georgia's sovereignty.

The Georgian government, meanwhile, has accused Moscow of attempting to annex the two provinces.

Some critics have even suggested that Russia wanted to re-establish its spheres of influence from the Cold War era, and planned to target Ukraine's pro-Western government next.

But Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has once again angrily denied those claims.

"We do not have and will not have any of the imperial ambitions that people accuse us of," Mr Putin said from the southern resort of Sochi.

War claims

At a Kremlin meeting Mr Medvedev said the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was a "sorrowful day for the USA and for all the other countries which suffer from terrorism".

He said that Russia was ready for "co-ordinated, fully-fledged co-operation with the USA and other states on issues of the fight against terrorism".

But he added: "We consider this our primary task and we believe that it is much more useful to the USA than developing relations with rotten regimes which undertake military adventures."

Mr Medvedev's remarks come a day after Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov accused the US of attempting to start a war in the Caucasus.

Mr Kadyrov, a Moscow supporter, accused the US of using the Caucasus as a testing ground to challenge Russia's resolve.

Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia by force.

Russian forces launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

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N.Korea celebrates 60th anniversary since founding

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea marked the 60th anniversary of its founding Tuesday amid international doubts over its commitment to denuclearization, speculation about the health of its leader and a worsening food crisis.

The centerpiece of the celebration was to be a massive military parade through Pyongyang's central Kim Il Sung Square — named after the communist country's founding figure — expected to take place later Tuesday.

But attention was focused on whether Kim Jong Il, the country's current leader and son of the founder, would attend given his absence from public view since mid-August which has sparked speculation he could be ill.

South Korean media have speculated that the 66-year-old Kim's health has worsened. South Korea's intelligence service has previously said Kim has chronic heart disease and diabetes — denied by Kim himself.

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Tuesday that Kim collapsed on Aug. 22, citing an unnamed South Korean diplomat in Beijing. The diplomat got the information from a Chinese source, the paper said.

Kim's health has been a focus of intense interest because his fate is believed to be closely tied to that of the totalitarian state that he inherited in 1994 from his father in communism's first hereditary transfer of power.

North Korea's state news agency had made no mention of the military parade by late Tuesday afternoon, though it carried an exhortation from the main Rodong Sinmun newspaper calling on the population to remain united around Kim.

"One-minded unity around the revolutionary leadership is a source of all the DPRK's victories and miracles," the paper said in a lengthy editorial marking the anniversary, using the acronym for the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It also called for a stronger military, describing the armed forces as "the foundation of a strong nation."

South Korea's main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said it had no information as to whether the parade had taken place.

The 60th anniversary comes amid an impasse in international efforts to disable North Korea's nuclear programs. South Korea said last week the North has begun restoring its atomic facilities in apparent anger over not being removed from a U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

North Korea — which conducted an underground nuclear test blast in October 2006 — began disabling its main nuclear facilities late last year in exchange for international energy aid and other benefits.

The United States has insisted Pyongyang must first agree to a full inspection system of its nuclear programs if it wants to be taken off the terrorism list.

In Washington, the U.S. said that North Korea appears to be preparing to reverse the process of disabling its nuclear facilities.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Monday, he could not confirm that the North has removed international seals from some of its nuclear equipment. But he said the U.S. assessment is that the North is "taking some of the equipment out of storage where it had been, perhaps taking off some of those seals."

Meantime, the World Food Program says North Korea's food shortage, an endemic problem, has worsened this year after devastating floods in 2007.

The North has relied on foreign assistance to help feed its 23 million people since its state-controlled economy collapsed due to mismanagement and natural disasters in the mid-1990s.

On Tuesday, South Korea's top minister in charge of relations with the North said Seoul plans to help North Korea overcome food shortages, and will provide greater assistance if Pyongyang resumes reconciliation talks with the South.

"The North Korean people suffer from food shortages," Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong told an international seminar. "We will not ignore such reality. We will assist the North."

The remark came as South Korea considers a WFP appeal for food contributions to aid the U.N. agency's efforts to alleviate the North's shortages.

Relations between the two sides have frozen since new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in February with a pledge to get tough on Pyongyang. North Korea protested Lee's hard-line stance and suspended dialogue with Seoul.

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Bhutto’s Widower Takes Office in Pakistan

the widower of slain leader Benazir Bhutto and a relative political novice, was sworn in as president of Pakistan on Tuesday at an indoor ceremony in the presidential palace here.

The new president, whose reputation is marked by allegations of corruption, follows the path to power of his father-in-law, Zulfikar Bhutto, who was prime minister in the 1970s — he was hanged in 1979 — and his wife, who served two terms.

Mr. Zardari, 53, took the oath of office from Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, a controversial start to his rule since Mr. Dogar was appointed under an emergency decree by the former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, and has remained in office with Mr. Zardari’s support.

Accompanying Mr. Zardari at the ceremony were his two daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, and his son, Bilawal, who has been named to succeed Mr. Zardari as head of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai — the only significant international figure at the ceremony — was invited by Mr. Zardari as a peacemaking gesture of conciliation. Mr. Karzai has blamed Pakistan for not controlling the Taliban who have attacked Afghan targets and attempted to assassinate Mr. Karzai in April.

Mr. Zardari showed skill and toughness in the last month as he engineered the resignation of Mr. Musharraf, and pushed his closest rival, Nawaz Sharif, out of the coalition government, a move that cleared the way for his ascension to the most powerful job in Pakistan.

He takes office as Pakistan, a nuclear power with 165 million people, faces two grave crises: an emboldened insurgency from the Taliban that is backed by Al Qaeda, and an unraveling economy that needs urgent assistance to avert default.

Like Ms. Bhutto, Mr. Zardari has courted the United States and Washington has responded warmly, saying that it welcomes the arrival of democratic government in Pakistan. The Bush administration has gone out of its way in the last few days to praise the new political alignment, saying that it offers the opportunity for increased cooperation in the campaign on terror.

Washington has taken a more overt role in trying to quash the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan’s tribal areas since it became clear that Mr. Zardari would become president. For the first time, helicopter-borne American Special Forces troops landed in the region last week and fought militants there.

Mr. Zardari has been outspoken about Pakistan’s ineffectiveness against the insurgents. “I think at the moment they definitely have the upper hand,” he said in an interview with the BBC earlier this month.

But exactly how he would go about reversing Pakistan’s fortunes against the Taliban, and how he would work with the Pakistani Army, the main instrument in the campaign against the terrorists, remained to be seen.

Historically, the Pakistan Peoples Party, founded by Zulfikar Bhutto, has had fraught relations with the army, and the Inter-Services Intelligence, the nation’s premier spy agency.

The chief of staff of the army, General Asfaq Parvez Kayani, sat in a prominent position at Tuesday’s inauguration.

Mr. Zardari begins his five-year term with mixed reviews from the public. He, as well as Ms. Bhutto and other politicians, received an amnesty on corruption allegations from Mr. Musharraf, but a cloud of suspicion remains over Mr. Zardari.

Referring to his 11 years in jail, the Daily Times, an English-language newspaper, ran the headline “Prison to Presidency” when Mr. Zardari won the election on Saturday.

A survey by Gallup Pakistan showed a lack of enthusiasm for any of the three presidential candidates contesting the electoral college vote last Saturday. The survey said 44 percent of the respondents did not approve of any of the candidates.

Mr. Zardari received a 26-percent approval rating in the poll, compared with 18 percent for Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, the candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.

Gallup said that the nationwide survey was taken Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 among approximately 2,000 men and women. There was a margin of error of 3.5 points, Gallup said.

Mr. Zardari, whose previous government experience was as investment minister in his wife’s second government — some of the corruption charges stemmed from that period — faces daunting challenges, commentators have said in the past few days.

His supporters said Mr. Zardari, who spent three years in New York City after being released from jail in December 2003, had changed and would prove the skeptics wrong.

He will be a valuable asset to the United States and will be able to stave off strong anti-American sentiment and opposition to American strikes against the Taliban in the tribal areas, they said.

Others predicted that though he won the presidency by a handsome margin — 481 votes out of 702 — the coalition of smaller parties that supported the Pakistan Peoples Party in the Parliament could turn out to be fragile.

“His past and the fact that he has never held office are the main concerns of most Pakistanis,” said Ahmed Rashid, the author of Descent Into Chaos, a study of Pakistan since 9/11.

“But his presidency could determine nothing less than the future of his nuclear-armed state and the West’s war on terror.”

A major balancing act for Mr. Zardari will be how to allow the Americans to increase the attacks against the Taliban in the tribal areas — something Washington appears intent on doing — and while keeping public opinion in check. Anti-American sentiment is strong in Pakistan, especially concerning what is seen as American infringement on Pakistani sovereignty in the tribal areas.

“How long can he keep up this two-faced war: the Americans continuing to intrude into the tribal areas but the foreign minister saying: ‘We won’t tolerate it,’” said Babar Sattar, a constitutional lawyer who writes a column in the daily newspaper, The News.

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Hong Kong Votes for Democracy

Hong Kongers have suffered one delay after another on their path to full democracy since the territory's return to China in 1997. But that hasn't snuffed out their democratic spirit. Witness the results of Sunday's legislative elections.

Pro-democracy parties won 23 seats in the 60-member Legislative Council elections. That's down from 25 after the last election in 2004. But that's not the number that matters. Half of the legislature is appointed by special interest groups loyal to Beijing. The other half is directly elected by the people. In those seats, the democrats won 19 of 30, gaining a seat from the 2004 results. The democrats' losses came only from the ranks of special-interest legislators.

The result maintains the crucial veto pro-democracy parties have wielded over constitutional reforms by denying the pro-Beijing parties a 40-seat supermajority. This won't force Government House to push ahead with democracy faster, but it will keep Beijing from pushing any antidemocratic electoral "reforms."

Within the democratic movement, this election also marks a changing of the guard of sorts. Its best-known figureheads have left -- Democratic Party founder Martin Lee and former bureaucrat Anson Chan, both of whom announced their retirements before the election. Sunday's results thus give a mandate to a new generation of democratic voices in the legislature, like Kam Nai-wai, a 47-year-old social worker and member of the Democratic Party just elected to represent Hong Kong Island.

The result is also a slap in the face to the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the largest pro-Beijing group that campaigned for seats. The DAB is better funded and better organized than the pro-democracy crowd. In the run-up to Sunday's vote, the DAB blanketed the territory with advertisements. Chief Executive Donald Tsang did his part, too, rolling out a package of largesse including expanded electricity discounts, and hosting a star tour by China's Olympic athletes. Yet those efforts yielded only eight directly elected seats.

Voters clearly were frustrated with the government's economic record. Ahead of Sunday's polls, a Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme poll found 87% of voters said their decision would be driven by "livelihood" issues like housing and education, while 77% said they were "focusing" on economic policies. Little wonder: inflation is running 6.3% and GDP growth slowed to 4.2% in the second quarter, from 7.3% in the first.

On their face, the pro-Beijing and democratic policy platforms weren't that far apart. Unfortunately, both favor imposing a minimum wage and enacting a competition law. The key difference was that democrats also campaigned on holding Mr. Tsang's administration accountable for its perceived policy blunders. This suggests that Hong Kongers understand better than some of their leaders the relationship between democracy and prosperity.

Skeptics will note that turnout, at about 45%, was 10 percentage points lower than in the last general election, in 2004. But Hong Kong's turnout was still high by the standards of some other democracies. In 2006 in the U.S., when a very unpopular executive faced a legislative election, only 41% of voters turned out. So it's hard to argue that Hong Kongers are not interested in democracy now.

Sunday's election is another reminder that the territory deserves a democratic system worthy of its voters.

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China rushes troops to quake zone as toll rises

China deployed more than 8,000 soldiers and military reservists to help search and rescue efforts in the southwest Monday after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake that left 40 people dead, state press said.

The weekend quake, in a mountainous region spanning the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, destroyed or damaged more than 392,000 homes and injured nearly 675 people, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Xinhua was quoting figures announced by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The China News Services said earlier Monday the military were rushed to the scene to beef up search and rescue efforts as more people were being located and pulled out from the rubble.

Some 2,000 troops, police and firefighters already in the area have rescued more than 130 injured victims from collapsed buildings since the quake struck on Saturday afternoon, it added.

An inter-ministerial command post was set up on Monday in the quake zone to coordinate communications and the rescue and relief work, the China Earthquake Administration said.

Food, water, medical supplies and tents were being rushed to the scene, it said on its website.

Besides searching for survivors, rescue workers were also rushing supplies to those in need, evacuating people from dangerous buildings, and setting up refugee camps, it added.

The administration said two of the fatalities were attributed to a 5.6-magnitude aftershock that shook the region around Panzhihua city on Sunday afternoon.

Panzhihua is near the epicentre of the main quake and about 500 kilometres (300 miles) south of where an 8.0 earthquake devastated a swathe of Sichuan on May 12, leaving nearly 88,000 people dead or missing.

According to the government in Sichuan, aftershocks continued to rattle the region Monday, shaking the city of Dujiangyan which was also badly damaged in May.

Most of Saturday's damage was in the county of Huili.

source : afp.google.com

Indian homes torched in Christian-Hindu violence

Protesters set fire to several houses in eastern India on Monday in an area where recent clashes between Hindus and Christians have left at least 11 people dead, police said.

No one was injured in the latest attack in Orissa state, but police feared the arson will increase tension in a region with a history of violence along religious lines.

Senior police official Gopal Chandra Nanda would not say whether the burned homes belonged to Hindus or Christians, but said an investigation was under way. The attacks took place in Tikabali, a town in Kandhamal district that has been the center of the unrest. Police have imposed a strict curfew across the district for the past week.

The violence began late last month with the killing of a Hindu leader, which police blamed on Maoist rebels but Hindu activists blamed on Christian militants.

In apparent retaliation, Hindu hard-liners set fire to a Christian orphanage, killing a Christian woman and seriously injuring a priest. The violence has spread to include mob attacks on churches, shops and homes.

Orissa has a history of Hindu-Christian clashes generally fueled by Hindu suspicions about Christian missionary work among the rural poor.

On Sunday, four small churches were burned in a village in southern Orissa, an area that had not seen recent Christian-Hindu violence. No one was injured in those attacks, Nanda said.

Thousands of poor and lower-caste Hindus have converted to other religions, including Christianity, often in an attempt to escape the rigid confines of Hinduism's complex caste system.

That has long embittered Hindu groups who say Christian missionaries try to lure the poor and those on the lowest rungs away with promises of money and jobs. Churches deny that the converts were pressured or bribed.

Last year, four people were killed and nearly 20 churches destroyed in similar clashes in Orissa. An Australian missionary and his two sons, aged 8 and 10, were burned to death in their car in Orissa following a Bible study class in 1999.

source : www.iht.com

US Says North Korean Nuclear Move 'Step Backward'

The United States Tuesday called North Korea's announced decision to suspend the disablement of its nuclear facilities a "step backward" in the six-party disarmament process. North Korea said it took the step because it has not been taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

U.S. officials say the North Korean announcement is of great concern and they are expressing hope it does not signal any intention on the part of Pyongyang to roll back progress made in the six-party process.

North Korea said it was halting the disabling of its Yongbyon nuclear complex, and would consider restoring the main reactor there, because of the United States refusal to remove it from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

President Bush, in late June, announced his intention to take North Korea off the blacklist, dependent on Pyongyang providing an acceptable verification program for the declaration of its nuclear holdings it made at that time.

In a talk with reporters, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said North Korea is well-aware of what it needs to do to be taken off the terrorism list and that it should provide the long-awaited verification plan.

Wood said stopping the disabling process at Yongbyon would be a step backward and certainly a violation of the principle of "action-for-action" that has guided disarmament process.

"Its obviously something we view with great concern. It's in violation of commitments they've made in the six-party framework, and its clearly a step backward," he said. "And we'll be having discussions with our other partners in the six-party talk to see how things play out in the coming weeks."

North Korea shut down the Yongbyon reactor and committed to permanently disabling the facility in exchange for energy aid in the first phase of the Chinese-sponsored six-party accord finalized in 2007.

The provision of a verification program for the North Korean declaration would open the way to the next phase of the accord, in which Pyongyang is to scrap its nuclear program in exchange for, among other things, and end to terrorism-related U.S. sanctions and various diplomatic benefits.

Wood declined to say how the North Korea decision was communicated to the United States, but said the U.S. understanding is that that the move is "temporary."

He expressed hope the decision would not lead to resumed operations at the Yongbyon reactor, which produced the plutonium for North Korea's presumed small arsenal of nuclear weapons.

He noted that there have been "ups and downs" in the disarmament deal and that he wouldn't preclude further complications before the intricate process is complete.

source : www.voanews.com

Mugabe heckled in Zimbabwean Parliament

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe opened Parliament in the capital, Harare, on Tuesday to rambunctious heckling from opposition members of Parliament just hours after the police arrested three more of them, bringing the total in custody to five.

Mugabe, who has ruled the country during 28 increasingly repressive years, declared that he had "every expectation" of striking a power-sharing deal with the opposition, but by locking up a growing roster of political rivals his government was further embittering its rivals and complicating the prospects for negotiations.

The police had sought to arrest eight members of Parliament before they were able to vote on Monday for the powerful speaker of the lower house of Parliament, opposition officials said, but backed off when legislators summoned reporters, wanting to avoid a public scene. The opposition's candidate was victorious on Monday by a margin of 12 votes. For the first time since the country's independence in 1980, it gained majority control of Parliament.

But between 1 and 3 a.m., the legislators on the police's wanted list heard knocks on the doors of their hotel rooms. Their lawyer, Alec Muchadehama, who said he feared for their lives, counseled them not to let anyone in until he could get there. More than 100 opposition supporters have been killed since the disputed March elections, according to human rights groups.

The government said in the state newspaper Tuesday that the legislators were being sought on charges ranging from rape to kidnapping to incitement of political violence, but the opposition charged that their real motive is to try to regain control of Parliament. The governing party, ZANU-PF, has 99 seats, to 100 for the main opposition party, with 10 more held by a opposition faction.

The Movement for Democratic Change, which challenges Mugabe's right to rule after a violence-prone electoral season, sought to shout him down in the Parliament chamber, calling the president's ZANU-PF party "rotten."

"People should fear there will be more violence, more unlawful arrests, more disappearances, more harassment," said Muchadehama, the attorney representing the arrested opposition leaders. "That is where we are heading."

The nation's long political crisis came to a head with presidential elections in March and June this year. The opposition claimed ascendancy in the first round of voting, but Mugabe insisted on a runoff vote, which the Movement for Democratic Change boycotted. Since then, the two sides have held inconclusive power-sharing talks, stalled on what the opposition maintains is Mugabe's refusal to abandon executive power.

Mugabe's party still controls the Senate, which can block legislation approved by the lower house.

The opposition had initially indicated that it would boycott the opening of Parliament on Tuesday, news reports said. But its decision to attend and heckle offered an unusual situation for Mugabe, who is more used to being obeyed than challenged.

source : www.iht.com

Afghan Opium Production Falls, U.N. Reports

Opium production in Afghanistan declined by 6 percent this year, the sharpest decline since the United States toppled the Taliban rulers there, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday.

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Afghan opium production was down about 500 tons, according to the U.N. 2008 Afghanistan Opium Survey. The amount of land dedicated to opium poppies fell even more dramatically, dropping 19 percent because of severe drought and the efforts of a handful of Afghan governors, tribal and religious leaders to persuade local farmers to abandon the elicit crop.

The U.N. report cautioned that Afghanistan remains the world's top source of opium, producing more of the illicit drug than the world consumes. It expressed caution that Afghan growers had stockpiled massive stores of opium that will guarantee large supplies on the international market even if new supplies dwindle.

Still, U.N. officials characterized the decline as a watershed that showed that internationally backed Afghan efforts to curb the trade were not doomed to failure. "The opium flood waters in Afghanistan have started to recede," Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the Vienna-based UN Office of Drugs and Crime, wrote in the report. "This year, the historic high-water mark of 193,000 hectares of opium cultivated in 2007 has dropped by 19 percent to 157,000 hectares."

The Bush administration welcomed the findings, saying the report provided vindication for its much-criticized counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan. But a State Department spokesman said "the drug threat in Afghanistan remains unacceptably high. We are particularly concerned by the deterioration in security conditions in the south, where the insurgency dominates."

The number of Afghan provinces where opium cultivation has ceased increased last year by fifty percent, from 13 to 18, including Badakshan, Balkh and Nangarhar. The most significant turnaround occurred in Nangarhar, Afghanistan's second highest opium producing province in 2007. This year, Costa wrote, Nangarhar, "has become poppy free."

Today, more than fifty percent of Afghanistan's 34 provinces are opium free, according to the report. Most of the country's opium cultivation --about 98 percent-- is now concentrated in seven provinces in south-west Afghanistan that house permanent Taliban settlements and provide organized crimes groups that pay taxes to the Islamic movement in exchange for a free hand in running their illicit trade.

"The most glaring example is Hilmand province, where 103,00 hectares of opium were cultivated this year -- two thirds of all opium in Afghanistan," Costa wrote. "If Hilmand were a country, it would once again be the world's biggest producer of illicit drugs."

The Taliban earned $200 million to $400 million last year through a 10 percent tax on poppy growers and drug traffickers in areas under its control, Costa said in an interview in June. He estimates that Afghan poppy farmers and drug traffickers last year earned about $4 billion, half of the country's national income.

Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan Sherard Cowper-Coles told the BBC that "we're not satisfied and we will never be satisfied until we really start squeezing poppy cultivation out of the Hilmand economy."

"We have an extremely competent governor in Helmand who has a plan . . . for getting farmers to switch from poppy cultivation in the coming season," Cowper-Coles said.

source : www.washingtonpost.com

Bombings in Algeria Kill 11

PARIS — Two car bombs killed at least 11 people and wounded 31 others on Wednesday in the Algerian town of Bouira, a day after a suicide bombing killed 43 people and wounded 45 others in a neighboring region, according to the Algerian Interior Ministry.

he bombs on Wednesday were aimed at the military command in Bouira and the nearby Hotel Sophie, the town’s largest, witnesses told The Associated Press. The car bombs went off around 6 a.m. and appeared to be powerful, badly damaging the military compound and barracks in Bouira, about 60 miles southeast of Algiers.

The bomb near the hotel exploded as a bus drove by transporting workers to a dam construction site, according to the Algerian press agency APS. Most of those killed Wednesday were on the bus, it said.

There has been a string of bombings since December 2006, when the largest remaining insurgent group in Algeria, dating from the 1990s, changed its name to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and swore allegiance to Al Qaeda. It had been known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. The insurgency began in 1992, when the military-backed government canceled elections that an Islamic party was poised to win.

No group has yet taken responsibility for the bombings this week.

The bomb on Tuesday, which targeted a police training school at Issers, 35 miles east of the capital, was one of the deadliest attacks in years in Algeria, which supplies oil and gas to Europe and is trying to end the 15 years of conflict with the Islamic rebels. Last Sunday, 12 people were killed in an ambush of a military commander and his escort.

On Tuesday, all the dead except one were young male civilians who had been lining up outside the police academy to take tests for recruitment. One member of the gendarmerie, the national police force, died. Of the wounded, some 32 were civilians and 13 gendarmes, the military said.

source : www.nytimes.com

Philippines peace in tatters after rebel attack

KAUSWAGAN, Philippines (AP) — Police special forces with orders to kill headed into the hinterlands of the southern Philippines on Wednesday, seeking Muslim rebels responsible for shooting and hacking 37 people to death in a brutal rampage that has left peace prospects in tatters.

Just weeks ago, a peace deal to end a decades-long insurgency in the troubled south had seemed within reach after the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front initialed an agreement on the crucial point of ancestral domain — the size of an expanded Muslim autonomous area.

But Christian politicians in areas that would be affected challenged the deal in the Supreme Court. Two rebel commanders — described as frustrated with yet another delay in the peace process — then led their men on pre-dawn raids Monday on five coastal towns, killing 37 people and sending another 44,000 fleeing their homes in Lanao del Norte province.

Since then, the military and police have poured forces into the region. They were initially told to avoid clashes that could squelch peace prospects, but it appeared the gloves were coming off Wednesday.

"If you want peace, prepare for war," police Deputy Director General Jesus A. Verzosa told about 300 commandos from the national police's elite Special Action Force. "These terrorist invaders want war. Go and give death to the invaders."

Press Secretary Jesus Dureza has also said that officials are concerned that the rebel leadership may not be able to control all its forces.

Last month's accord, forged after years of negotiations between the government and the 11,000-strong rebel front, called for adding more than 700 villages to an existing Muslim autonomous region in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera told the Supreme Court Wednesday "circumstances have changed" after the recent attacks.

But chief rebel negotiator Mohagher Iqbal countered that resuming talks was "like opening a can of worms." He hinted the impasse could set off an escalation in fighting.

In a meeting with Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, local officials and residents angrily demand all-out war against the rebels, complaining that security has deteriorated while President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's government has pursued peace.

"Whenever something goes wrong, they don't threaten the soldiers or President Arroyo," one unidentified town councilor said. "We are the ones who are threatened, shot or set on fire."

Underscoring the unstable situation, about 30 rebels attacked an army patrol base Wednesday at Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao province, wounding a lieutenant, regional military spokesman Maj. Armand Rico said, adding that the military responded with mortar and howitzer fire.

Asked if troops have the authority to attack rebel camps, army Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna said the government has told commanders to consider that option as long as civilians won't get hurt. "The problem is these are not ordinary camps. They are communities. Rebels stay with their families. If we are going to do action, we don't want any collateral damage to the civilians."

Even as the government walked a fine line between pursuing killers and avoiding a complete collapse of the peace process, Teodoro noted the rebel leadership faces its own problems: It must clearly distance itself from the attackers and their tactics.

"The best thing to do for them is to surrender these people to us so that we can prosecute them," he said in a phone interview with defense reporters.

In a statement on their Web site, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front warned the government against launching an all-out offensive, saying it would be "the most serious blunder that this sitting regime could commit."

source : www.google.com

Russia Sends Mixed Signs on Pullout From Georgia

Georgia — Russia showed small signs of moving a few troops away from Georgia on Tuesday. But Russia retained its grip on the country, and Russian forces bound and blindfolded 21 Georgian soldiers at the Black Sea port of Poti, parading them with five seized Humvees belonging to Georgia’s backers — the United States.

Two days after President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia promised that the pullout would begin, there were signs of movement, however minor. A platoon of armored infantry moved away from Georgia through the narrow mountain passes on the Russian side of the border. Near the central city of Gori, Russia and Georgia exchanged prisoners, including two Russian pilots who had been shot down by Georgian forces.

Yet a Russian engineering platoon was also building reinforced trenches for a checkpoint just north of Gori, suggesting that Russian troops expected to be in Georgian territory for some time.

Russian armored vehicles held high ground overlooking Gori and Igoeti, and a network of Russian forces took up positions along Georgia’s main highway. Some of the troops who on Monday packed their equipment and said they were ready to leave Gori had unpacked and moved back to checkpoints at the city’s edge.

A large part of the conflict area remained lawless and in need of water and food, several residents remaining in four villages said.

In Tkviavi, a Georgian village near Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, most of the remaining Georgian residents were in hiding, fearful of looters. The foul smell of bodies decomposing in the heat emanated from several houses on the main thoroughfare, and residents had buried several victims in basements and courtyard gardens.

Perhaps the most telling image of the day came from Poti, where, after a four-hour blockade of the port, the Russians transported Georgian soldiers in white blindfolds on top of armored personnel carriers. They drove their captives in a show of force past a crowd of residents, some of whom shouted “Swine! Swine!” at the Russians.

They went to the Georgian military base they had occupied in Senaki with a caravan of seized American Humvees, which later appeared to move down the road toward Abkhazia, deep in Russian-held territory. A local priest in black Eastern Orthodox robes entered the base, seeking to negotiate the soldiers’ release.

In the west of Georgia, far from the center of the conflict in South Ossetia, Russian forces have maintained an overt presence. Russian soldiers patrol villages daily with tanks and armored personnel carriers and have deployed artillery along major highways between Abkhazia and Poti, where a Russian bomb attack about a week ago killed seven civilians.

“They want everything — our bases, our ports, our roads,” said Shalba Kuchava, a driver for the port, who waited outside in the hope that the men would be freed.

A top Russian military official said the Georgians had been detained at a checkpoint, armed and driving the Humvees, in what he contended was a violation of the six-point cease-fire agreement brokered last week by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

But the Georgians said that the soldiers were guarding the port against looters, and that the Humvees were United States property that had been used in a joint exercise this year. They said the vehicles had been packed in a container at the port, ready to be shipped back to the United States.

Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the Russian general staff, said that Russia would lay claim to whatever Georgian armaments it considered useful.

“We will not leave a single barrel, a single cartridge for Georgia, which initiated this bloodshed,” General Nogovitsyn said in an interview with the Interfax-AVN news agency.

“Part of these arsenals, especially ammunition, will be destroyed and are already being destroyed,” he said. “And as for the rest of the war trophies, we will use them as we please, in particular will take for ourselves part of the tanks and other armored vehicles that are in good condition.”

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said his country was “very disappointed” that Russia had not withdrawn its troops from Georgia, as agreed in the cease-fire he helped negotiate.

“Three times Medvedev has said they are starting the withdrawal, and they have not,” he said Tuesday. “We cannot accept this kind of blindness, not accepting international law and their own words.”

General Nogovitsyn said that Russian troops would be pulled out from the rear, beginning with heavy combat equipment, and that movement out of Georgia would speed up Friday. But Russian forces were building new checkpoints on Tuesday a few miles north of Gori, using backhoes to cut deep trenches and cranes to stack concrete blocks into barricades at the edge of the town of Karaleti.

The new Russian checkpoints seemed to be consistent with information the Russian Foreign Ministry released on Monday, which clarified the scope of its pullback.

A 1999 document written by the Joint Control Commission, an international body that monitored tensions in South Ossetia, the breakaway enclave over which hostilities between Russia and Georgia flared this month, gives peacekeepers access to a “security corridor” that extends about five miles in each direction from the enclave’s perimeter.

Under that document, the corridor reaches into Georgian-held territory, including portions of the country’s main east-west highway, and right through Karaleti.

Mr. Medvedev has said Russian peacekeepers will pull back from other Georgian territory but remain inside the security corridor.

Mr. Sarkozy amended the cease-fire agreement to state that Russia was not permitted to occupy urban areas or block main roads.

Even so, this interpretation would grant Russian forces an unprecedented position in central Georgia, said Sabine Freizer, who has monitored events in Georgia for the International Crisis Group, an organization that seeks to stop deadly conflicts.

“It’s a complete shift, because in practice, Russian troops have never crossed into Georgia,” said Ms. Freizer, the organization’s Europe director.

At the United Nations on Tuesday the Security Council considered a new, abbreviated resolution demanding that Russia withdraw all of its troops from Georgia.

But during the acrimonious session, Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, declared that his nation could not support a resolution that did not endorse all six points of the cease-fire agreement, which he said should be included “verbatim.”

Momentum on an earlier resolution stalled, also over Russian objections, the diplomat said. As one of the five permanent Council members, Russia wields veto power over resolutions.

In Moscow, the leader of Russia’s Federal Security Service said Tuesday that he had received intelligence about Georgian-planned terrorist attacks on Russian soil, and had tightened security at transportation hubs, industrial plants and densely populated areas in Russia’s southernmost district, Interfax reported.

Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agreed to immediately add 20 international monitors to the 8 already in place in South Ossetia.

The new monitors will be allowed in the region adjacent to South Ossetia, and could begin to arrive Thursday, said Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for the organization.

source : www.nytimes.com

Zimbabwe's neighbors vow to help resolve crisis

Zimbabwe's bitter factions are close to a power-sharing agreement in talks mediated by South Africa, an aide to South African President Thabo Mbeki said Saturday.

Mbeki, speaking Saturday at the opening of a regional summit, has spent much of the past week in Zimbabwe trying to push Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai to strike a deal to resolve the country's protracted political crisis.

Chances that Mbeki would be able to present an agreement at the summit appeared slim after Tsvangirai walked out of talks in Harare on Tuesday, but an opposition official said the negotiations were back on track.

"We're talking, here," Tendai Biti, Tsvangirai's top negotiator, said after attending the opening session of the summit of the Southern African Development Community, or SADC.

Biti sat with Tsvangirai just behind Cabinet ministers from the region during the opening session, while Mugabe sat at the front table with other heads of state.

Tsvangirai and Mugabe both claim the mandate to lead Zimbabwe, stalling power-sharing talks over the issue of who should have the main role in any unity government. But a South African Cabinet minister closely involved in the talks was optimistic of a deal.

"We're close," Sydney Mufamadi said. "We're now relying on the collective wisdom of this leadership."

The regional summit was drawing the world's attention. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in a statement from London that the meeting offers Africans an important opportunity to support the negotiations, saying: "The outside world continues to watch developments in Zimbabwe closely and with concern, not least given the deteriorating humanitarian situation. We will do all we can to help."

German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul called on Zimbabwe's neighbors "finally to make fully clear to Robert Mugabe that a new government in Zimbabwe that must reflect the will of the Zimbabwean population is necessary."

The South Africans, appointed mediators by SADC, helped guide Mugabe and Tsvangirai to sign a memorandum of understanding July 21 establishing a framework for negotiations. Mbeki praised that agreement Saturday and said the SADC would continue working "to help put Zimbabwe on the right road to its recovery.

"We are towards them their brothers' and sisters' keepers," Mbeki said.

Mbeki has insisted on quiet diplomacy, and some have portrayed his refusal to publicly condemn Mugabe as appeasing a leader seen as increasingly autocratic.

Botswana's President Seretse Ian Khama refused to attend the summit to protest Mugabe's welcome as a head of state.

President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia also has been sharply critical of Mugabe but remained hospitalized in Paris because of a stroke. But in a speech read aloud by his foreign minister, he called events in Zimbabwe a "serious blot on the culture of democracy in our subregion," singling out for criticism Zimbabwe's presidential runoff.

Tsvangirai came first in a field of four in the first round of presidential voting in March, but did not win by the margin necessary to avoid a runoff against second-place finisher Mugabe. Tsvangirai withdrew from the June 27 runoff because of attacks on his supporters blamed on Mugabe's party militants and security forces.

Mugabe held the runoff and was declared the overwhelming winner, though the exercise was widely denounced.

In the streets of Johannesburg, several hundred protesters marched peacefully outside the summit to protest Mugabe's presence. Some held up red soccer penalty cards that read: "Mugabe must go."

Tensions over Zimbabwe come at a time when southern Africa is struggling to unify to fight poverty. SADC was to launch a free trade agreement Sunday scrapping tariffs on 85 percent of goods traded among member nations.

Mbeki said soaring food and fuel prices and global economic decline make greater regional economic cooperation "more urgent," and expressed concern about threats to "unity and cohesion."

source : Google.com

Thousands Rally in Indian-Kashmir to Mourn Separatist Leader

Kashmiri Muslims shout pro-freedom slogans as an Indian Army vehicle passes by during a protest rally in Pampur, some 15 kilometers south of Srinagar, 16 Aug 2008

Tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets of Indian Kashmir Saturday to mourn the death of a separatist leader.

Protesters traveled from Kashmir's main town Srinagar to the hometown Pampur of Sheikh Abdul Aziz who, along with 21 others, was killed by police this week during violent protests. Aziz was the leader of an alliance of Muslim separatist groups, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.

Police kept their distance during Saturday's march, as demonstrators hoisted black protest and green Islamic flags. Protesters chanted slogans demanding Kashmir's independence from India.

At least 500 people have been wounded in clashes this week between Muslim separatists and Indian security forces.

The unrest was triggered by the state government's June decision to donate land to a Hindu shrine. Muslims staged mass protests, forcing the government to revoke the transfer, which angered Hindus who sparked fresh protests this week with a roadblock.

In India's capital, New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Friday for an end to the violence, saying divisive politics will lead the country nowhere. He said it is his conviction that all issues can be resolved only through dialogue and peaceful means.

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, and claimed by both. The dispute has led to two of the three wars between the nuclear-armed rivals. Islamic separatists have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, or for the region's merger with Muslim-dominated Pakistan.

source : www.voanews.com

Fighting in northern Sri Lanka kills 25

Air force jets pounded Tamil Tiger fortifications in northern Sri Lanka on Saturday, destroying a rebel bunker line as fighting intensified in the country's civil war, the military said.

Heavy battles Friday and Saturday across the front lines surrounding the dwindling area controlled by the rebels killed 23 guerrilla fighters and two soldiers, the military said.

In recent weeks, troops have broken through the rebels' defenses and seized a series of key towns and bases. Government officials have reiterated their pledge to route the Tamil Tigers by the end of the year and end the nation's 25-year-old civil war.

Raging battles in the Kilinochchi region killed nine rebel fighters, the military said. Fighting in Vavuniya, Welioya, Mullaittivu and Jaffna killed another 14, the military said.

As the troops advanced on the rebels' main power base in Kilinochchi on Saturday morning, air force jets supported them by striking and destroying a line of rebel bunkers east of the town of Nachchikuda, said air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara.

The rebels also struck, exploding a bomb Saturday morning near a bus filled with soldiers in Vavuniya district as they prepared to go on leave, the military said. Two soldiers were killed in the attack, it said.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer calls for comment.

Both sides routinely exaggerate enemy casualties and underreport their own. Independent verification of the fighting is not possible because most journalists are barred from the war zone.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting for an independent state in the north and east since 1983, following decades of marginalization of ethnic Tamils by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.

The government has vowed to crush the group by the end of the year and win the war that has already killed more than 70,000 people.

International aid groups have said the recent fighting forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes and warned that their basic needs and safety needed to be heeded.

Ministers and other top government officials met Friday to discuss plans to provide the displaced with food and shelter, the state-owned Daily News reported Saturday.

source : www.iht.com