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.

This Story

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