The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Baghdad

Sixty suspected al-Qaida in Iraq fighters hit national police facilities in a coordinated atack in Samarra, sparking two hours of fighting that saw three people killed and more than a dozen insurgents captured, police said Friday.

The masked atackers drove into the city at dusk Thursday in about 20 vehicles, including pickups with machine-guns, then split into small groups and assaulted four police checkpoints and a headquarters building, a Samarra police official said.

One policeman and two civilians - a woman and an 11-year-old girl - were killed in the fighting in the city 60 miles north of Baghdad, and nine others were injured including a police commando and three children. There were no details on insurgent casualties, but police arrested 14 suspects, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Lt Col. Michael Donnelly, a U.S. military spokesman in northern Iraq, said he had no details on the incident reported by Samarra police, but that an American patrol got into a firefight with gunmen in the city on Friday.

Reuters, adds: U.S. forces opened fire from helicopters during an overnight clash with Shi'ite militants in western Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 20, police said on Friday.

They said the wounded included women and children who had been sleeping on rooftops to keep cool, although the dead were believed to be gunmen. Reuters Television pictures showed cars with their windows blown out after being strafed by gunfire .

Angry mourners, chanting and raising fists, took to the streets in the Shula district of the Iraqi capital, carrying wooden coffins of those killed in the clash."We demand the Iraqi government and parliament stop the Americans interfering in Shula," local tribal elder Sabeeh al-Sharji said.

"As you can see, civilians sleep on the roofs. These random atacks terrify women and children."

A spokesman for U.S. forces said they were checking into the incident but could not immediately provide information. With just weeks to go before U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker and military commander General David Petraeus are due to report to the U.S. Congress on progress in Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies released a gloomy forecast of more violence and political stalemate.

"Levels of insurgent and sectarian violence will remain high and the Iraqi government will continue to struggle to achieve national-level political reconciliation and improved governance," declassified findings of the National Intelligence Estimate said.

Meanwhile, scores of Al-Qaeda fighters raided an Iraqi town on Thursday, clashing with rival militants and police after killing a tribal sheikh in fighting that left 23 people dead and 15 others kidnapped. Brigadier General Ali Dalayan, police chief of Diyala's provincial capital of Baquba, said more than 200 fighters from Al-Qaeda's Iraq affiliate atacked a mosque and the homes of tribal Sunni sheikhs in the town of Kanan. "The first atack was against a mosque," he told AFP. "They blew up the mosque, then they bombed houses crowded with family members."

Three houses were atacked, including those of two sheikhs who support Iraqi police and US troops in their fight against Al-Qaeda, he said.

"Sheikh Yunis al-Tae was killed in the atack" along with an unknown number of his sons in one of the homes, Dalayan said.

Police countered with the support of gunmen from the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution, a Sunni insurgent group once allied with Al-Qaeda but now one of its fiercest rivals.

He was not immediately able to say how many people died in the raids and how many in the ensuing gunbatle. At least one police officer was among the dead.

Dalayan said police had chased the atackers but had had a "difficult time as they planted roadside bombs around the town before escaping."

"We have arrested 22 Al-Qaeda suspects," he said. They were detained south of Kanan, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Baghdad, in an area known to be a stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

AP, London

Immediately after Pakistan's highest court ruled he could return, former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he would go home soon to lead his party's campaign to oust President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who exiled Sharif eight years ago.

Speaking to The Associated Press in his London office on Thursday, Sharif, who once dominated Pakistani politics, confirmed he planned to run for a third term as prime minister.

The ruling by Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday and Sharif's promise to return and run for office further complicate life for Musharraf, who as an army general overthrew Sharif in a bloodless 1999 coup.

Musharraf's recent failed atempt to fire the Supreme Court's chief justice triggered widespread pro-democracy rallies. He also faces U.S. pressure to crack down on Islamic extremists in Pakistan's volatile northwest region near the Afghan border, where atacks on soldiers have increased and the security situation has deteriorated.

Sharif and Benazir Bhuto - another banished former premier with strong popular support planning a comeback - insist Musharraf must let them compete in year-end parliamentary elections if the vote is to be considered democratic.

"If the people of Pakistan elect me to serve the country, I'll be honored to do that," he said.

Washington has made clear that its war on terrorist groups takes priority over the speed of democratic reform in Pakistan. However, it appears to be growing impatient with Musharraf and has been prodding him toward a power-sharing deal with Bhuto and her political party.

On Friday, Sadique al-Farooq, a senior leader of Sharif's party said "there is no chance for any reconciliation" with Musharraf. "It is out of question," he told the AP. "Democracy and dictatorship cannot go together."

Al-Farooq said their party will meet in the capital, Islamabad, on Saturday to consider dates for the return of Sharif.

Sharif told the AP he had a cordial relationship with the United States while he was in office, but said Washington must reconsider its relationship with Pakistan and not give its support just to Musharraf if it wants to quell religious militancy. "In any democracy you can find such menaces, but if a democracy fights terrorism, ultimately it will win the batle," he said. "But if one individual is fighting the batle (he) cannot win."

Sharif - with a full head of dark hair - appeared more vigorous during his interview than when he was forced from his homeland into exile in Saudi Arabia and London, when he looked frail, gray and nearly bald.

He said he would return to Pakistan soon, but gave no date. A commitee from his party, the Pakistan Muslim League, will meet in London in the next few days to decide on plans.

The charismatic 57-year-old conservative secularist served twice as prime minister and is known internationally for authorizing Pakistan's first nuclear bomb test in 1998.

Reuters, Mexico City

Heavy rains from Hurricane Dean pounded western Mexico on Thursday after the storm killed at least 10 people in a three-day rampage across the breadth of the country.

Dean, which has weakened to a tropical depression, caused two rivers and a reservoir to overflow in the mountains of central Hidalgo state and dumped rain as far away as Jalisco, which lies on the Pacific coast

Two people were killed in Hidalgo when their roof collapsed after a downpour, and a man sheltering under a tree was killed by lightning in Michoacan, emergency services said.

Four others were killed in a mudslide in the eastern Mexican state of Puebla and two other people were reported dead on Wednesday, local emergency services said.

One man drowned trying to cross a river in the Pacific state of Veracruz. Mexican President Felipe Calderon warned of more accidents and possible deaths even after the hurricane dissipated. "The danger is not over .. There's the risk that once the storm has passed t the earth softens and hills slide onto houses and roofs," he said during a tour of hurricane-affected areas in Hidalgo, where dozens of houses were destroyed.

Television images showed flooded towns in Veracruz state, flatened palm trees and cars floating in swollen rivers.

Dean damaged Mayan villages and beach resorts in a run across the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday, then churned through the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and slammed into Mexico's eastern coastline.

The storm was a Category 5 hurricane when it hit the Yucatan, becoming the first storm of that strength to touch land in the Atlantic basin since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

The storm killed at least 27 people in Mexico, Haiti, Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean region.

Mexico's state oil monopoly, Pemex, said oil production, 80 percent of which was cut due to the storm, would begin to return to normal on Friday.

AFP, Khartoum

Sudan has expelled European and Canadian diplomats for "interfering in its affairs," a move that could further strain relations with the West over the conflict in Darfur. The White House reacted to Sudan's announcement on Thursday saying it hoped it was not an atempt to sidetrack international efforts to end the violence in Darfur, which Washington has termed genocidal.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon is expected to travel to Khartoum early next month to thrash out details of the deployment of up to 26,000 peacekeepers to the war-wracked western region.

"Sudan has summoned the envoy of the European Commission and the Canadian charge d'affaires and informed them they were considered persona non grata because they interfered in Sudanese affairs," Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadek told the official SUNA news agency. The exact reasons for their expulsion were not immediately clear. "The Sudanese have a history of doing this sort of thing to try and thwart the will of the international community," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "I hope that that would not be the case today with these expulsions, and hope that they are still planning on complying with their obligations to the UN Security Council," Johndroe told reporters.

Canada demanded an explanation from Khartoum.

Reuters, Geneva

Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly around the globe, spreading faster and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday. In its annual World Health Report, the United Nations agency warned there was a good possibility that another major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of killing millions would appear in the coming years. "Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history," the WHO said. It said it was vital to keep watch for new threats like the emergence in 2003 of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread from China to 30 countries and killed 800 people. "It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will not be another disease like AIDS, another Ebola, or another SARS, sooner or later," the report warned. Since the 1970s, the WHO said, new threats have been identified at an "unprecedented rate" of one or more every year, meaning that nearly 40 diseases exist today which were unknown just over a generation ago.

AP, Paris

President Nicolas Sarkozy has returned from his summer vacation with a golden tan but somewhat sapped of his superstar glow. The hope he inspired with promises of changing the way France works has turned to worry amid turmoil in world markets and lackluster economic growth figures - causing his stellar support ratings to slip slightly. To make maters worse, his office has been embarrassed by the revelation that his love handles were airbrushed out of photos of the swimsuit-clad president during his vacation in the U.S. True to form, though, Sarkozy is not leting any of these setbacks slow him down. One hundred days into his presidency, Sarkozy had lunch Thursday with labor leader Francois Chereque in a bid to smooth relations with unions itching to protest Sarkozy's plans to reform state pensions and redesign France's worker-friendly employment contracts.

On Friday, Sarkozy heads to southwest France to meet anti-terrorist officers, fishermen suffering from poaching and tourism officials hurt by a cold and rainy summer.

His young presidency has been action-packed. His government pushed through income tax cuts and laws that encourage the French to work more hours to minimize the effect of strikes and tighten punishment for repeat criminal offenders.

AFP, Yangon

Myanmar's military government squashed a new protest Friday by pro-democracy supporters in downtown Yangon, as activists said the demonstrations had spread to other parts of the country. A group of 20 demonstrators, mainly women, had gathered near Yangon's city hall to rally against a massive hike in fuel prices that has sparked the most sustained protests against the junta in at least nine years. "They were arrested before they could do anything. They had just started walking," said an activist who witnessed the arrests. The protesters were taken inside city hall, which is under tight security and surrounded by barricades and transport trucks, the activist added.

Dozens of people have already been arrested over protests this week, including some of the country's most prominent pro-democracy activists.

But they are undeterred by the crackdown and have vowed to rally again.

"There will be more protests. We are trying to hold more protests in the future. But right now we have to make a plan, because we don't want to lose our strength," one activist said.

Myanmar's repressive junta keeps a tight lid on any dissent but analysts say the regime has been shaken by the protesters' persistence.

About 500 people marched through Yangon on Sunday having been angered by last week's fuel price increase, which doubled transport fares and left many workers unable to afford even the bus fare to get to their jobs.

AFP, Colombo

A media rights group Friday urged Sri Lanka to ease emergency laws that curtail freedom of expression and warned of worsening conditions in one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists. Working conditions have deteriorated in the Tamil-populated northern district of Jaffna since fighting erupted there between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels, the Free Media Movement (FMM) said in a statement "At least seven media workers including two reporters have been killed since May 2006," the statement said, adding that one journalist was missing and the offices of three media outlets had been physically atacked. "Murders, kidnappings, threats and censorship have made Jaffna one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists to work," the FMM said, referring to the government-controlled peninsula.

Dozens of reporters have also fled or abandoned their work due to a climate of fear, the rights group said.

President Mahinda Rajapakse's military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has also led to abductions and extra-judicial killings, rights groups say.

At least 835 civilians were kidnapped in Jaffna district between December 2005 and May 2007, according to Sri Lanka's independent Human Rights Commission.

Local media in Jaffna report the kidnappings, but journalists confined to their offices cannot investigate the alleged involvement of the security forces in the abductions, the FMM said.