The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Baghdad

A car bomb killed at least 13 people Wednesday in a Shiite part of Baghdad, and the US command announced the deaths of eight more American soldiers - some victims of a weapon the American command believes comes from Iran.

A woman walks past a crater after a roadside exploded in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq on Wednesday, Sept 5, 2007.

At least 44 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide Wednesday, according to police reports. The toll marked an uptick in the daily carnage as President Bush prepares for a showdown in Congress over the future of the US mission.

The deadliest atack occurred when a roadside bomb exploded along a busy highway during the morning rush hour in the eastern Baghdad district of Baladiyat A medic at a nearby hospital said 13 people died, but a police officer put the figure at 15.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.

"We heard a big explosion and I saw many people get injured - I was one of them," a man who identified himself only as Amjed told Associated Press Television News from his hospital bed. His right shoulder was bandaged and left arm in a sling.

"We're poor people, we're already suffering enough from the hardships of life - and now this," he said. "I'm fed up with those who plant bombs and target people." Three of the American soldiers were killed and two were wounded after their Humvee was hit Tuesday with an explosively formed penetrator, a type of bomb that the US alleges Iran has been supplying to Shiite militias. Iran denies the accusation. Two other US soldiers were killed and another wounded in an eastern section of Baghdad on Wednesday during combat operations, the military said. Two other Americans were mortally wounded Wednesday in a blast in Salahuddin province north of the capital. Another soldier was killed and two were wounded during fighting Tuesday in western Baghdad, the US command said. The bloodshed in mostly Shiite eastern Baghdad occurred a week after the country's most powerful Shiite militia leader, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, ordered his fighters to cease atacks for up to six months so he could restructure his Mahdi Army.

But US commanders say renegade elements within the Mahdi Army have disregarded al-Sadr's order and are continuing atacks on US and Iraqi forces.

The US believes those groups are backed by the Iranians, a charge that the Islamic Republic denies.

Early Wednesday, US forces captured an Iraqi believed to be working with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps's elite Quds Force to supply Shiite militias with Iranian-made weapons, said Maj. Winfield Danielson III.

The suspect is also believed to have helped transport Iraqis to Iran for "terrorist training," Danielson said in an e-mail. The military said it is believed that he is "closely linked to individuals at the highest levels" of the Quds Force.

The violence occurred five days before US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus report to Congress about progress since the United States sent nearly 30,000 more troops to Iraq.

Democrats are considering ways to force a drawdown of troops if Bush decides to keep forces in Iraq through spring as expected. A showdown between congressional Democrats and the White House seems all but assured.

AP, Jerusalem

In its harshest condemnation of Israel since last summer's war, Human Rights Watch charged that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties came from "indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes," according to a report to be released Thursday.

In a statement issued before the report's release, the human rights organization said there was no basis to the Israeli claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hezbollah guerrillas using civilians as shields. Israel has said it atacked civilian areas because Hezbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns.

More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict last summer, which began after Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. They are still being held.

Israeli warplanes targeted Lebanese infrastructure, including bridges and Beirut Airport, and heavily damaged a neighborhood in Beirut known as a Hezbollah stronghold, as well as atacking Hezbollah centers in villages near the border. Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, killing 119 civilians. In the fighting, 40 Israeli soldiers were killed.

Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said in the statement, "Israel wrongfully acted as if all civilians had heeded its warnings to evacuate southern Lebanon when it knew they had not, disregarding its continuing legal duty to distinguish between military targets and civilians."

He added, "Issuing warnings doesn't make indiscriminate atacks lawful."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev rejected the report's findings. "Hezbollah adopted a deliberate strategy of shielding itself behind the civilian population and turning the civilians in Lebanon into a human shield," he said, charging that Hezbollah "broke the first fundamental rule of war in that they deliberately exploited the civilian population of Lebanon as a human shield."

The full report was being released Thursday at a news conference in Jerusalem. Human Rights Watch had to cancel a similar news conference in Beirut last month because of threats of Hezbollah protests. That report accused Hezbollah of firing rockets indiscriminately at civilian areas in Israel.

Human Rights Watch said it investigated 94 cases of Israeli air, artillery and ground atacks "to discern the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 510 civilians and 51 combatants," about half the death toll in Lebanon in the conflict

The group said simple movement of vehicles or people, "such as atempting to buy bread or moving around private homes," could trigger a deadly Israeli atack. The group charged that Israeli aircraft targeted vehicles carrying fleeing civilians.

AP, Jakarta

Russia and Indonesia signed a $1 billion defense deal Thursday that will allow Indonesia to buy dozens of helicopters, tanks and submarines - part of visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to boost his country's military clout in Asia.

The two nations, which together have nearly 380 million people, also sent a pointed message to the United States: They oppose Washington on many key international issues, including the war in Iraq.

Putin, making a one-day stopover in Indonesia, gave the cash-strapped government a $1 billion loan for military hardware that can be paid back over the next 15 years.

Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono, who will buy 20 tanks, 15 helicopters, and two Kilo-class submarines, said he was happy to be able to "reduce dependence on the United States," once the country's largest supplier of weaponry. Too often, he said, Washington links military aid to human rights issues.

Putin's visit to the world's most populous Muslim nation was the first by a Russian - or Soviet - leader since Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev in 1960.

It comes amid chilling U.S.-Russia relations. The United States has criticized Russia's democracy record, while Moscow distrusts Washington's influence in global politics and has courted allies with similar deals.

AFP, Kabul

Two British soldiers were killed Wednesday and 40 more rebels reported dead in new clashes in Afghanistan, including in an area where the Taliban held 19 South Koreans hostage until last week.

The fresh bloodshed comes after days of heavy batles between Taliban fighters and international troops that has left more than 300 rebels dead in just over a week, according to an AFP count based on reports.

Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed more than 40 insurgents in a 12-hour batle in a restive southern province, taking the guerrilla death toll to nearly 200 in a fortnight, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

Suspected Islamist Taliban insurgents ambushed a coalition patrol in villages in Kandahar province's Shah Wali Kot district with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, the U.S. military said in a statement Kandahar has been the site of repeated clashes in recent months.

"The extremist fighters were visually observed firing on the patrol from compounds located within the villages," the statement said. "Throughout the engagement, insurgents reinforced their positions with an estimated 150 additional fighters. Coalition aircraft destroyed the positively identified enemy firing positions with precision guided munitions."

The Taliban said they were unaware of any ground fighting in the Shah Wali Kot district on Wednesday, but said they had downed an American helicopter in the area.

AFP, Suva

Fiji's military regime Thursday reintroduced a state of emergency for a month following the return of deposed prime minister Laisenai Qarase to Suva for the first time since December's coup.

"The public of Fiji should not be unduly concerned about this. This is not going to change anything with regards to the security situation," coup leader Voreqe Bainimamara said on commercial radio. The self-proclaimed interim prime minister said the immediate reimposition of emergency regulations was aimed at Qarase and Peceli Kinivuwai, the director of the deposed prime minister's political party. He said if the two men continued to make allegations against the military they would be returned by plane to exile on Qarase's remote home village in the Lau group of islands. He did not specify the allegations made by Qarase. Qarase returned to Suva on Saturday from exile in his home village ahead of a court case in which he wants the December 5 coup against his government declared illegal. He did not comment immediately after the imposition of martial law but reportedly told local media earlier in the day he would not bow to threats from the military and denied he had been campaigning against Bainimarama's regime.

AFP, Nicaragua

The death toll from Hurricane Felix mounted to 21 and could rise further as search-and-rescue teams spread out Wednesday along northeastern Nicaragua, where the furious storm left a trail of destruction.

One day after it slammed ashore from the Caribbean, smashing thousands of homes, Felix lost all its punch, but the rain it dumped raised fears of floods and mudslides in neighboring Honduras.

Teams deploying along Nicaragua's coast feared they would find more death and destruction as they made their way to isolated communities whose wooden shacks offered no protection from the 260 kilometer (160 mile) per hour winds the hurricane packed when it thundered onto land.

"We have 21 dead and it is possible that will increase. We must speed up (search) efforts," said Reynaldo Francis, governor of the impoverished North Atlantic Autonomous Region, the worst hit by the hurricane.

"We are geting information of bodies floating in the water," he added in a conversation with President Daniel Ortega broadcast on national television.

Among those killed by the storm's fury was a baby who died at birth, officials said.

In many areas along Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, the scene was one of desolation after the storm smashed thousands of homes, many made of wood and tin, and displaced 50,000 people.

AFP, Washington

The US military said on Wednesday it was investigating an alarming security lapse when a B-52 bomber flew the length of the country last week loaded with six nuclear-armed cruise missiles. The blunder was reported to President George W. Bush after the nuclear warheads were discovered when the aircraft landed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, a military official said on condition of anonymity. An air force official, who also asked to remain unnamed, said the B-52, which originated at Minot Air Base in North Dakota, had six cruise missiles with nuclear warheads loaded on pylons under its wings. The US Air Force has relieved the munition squadron commander at Minot Air Base in North Dakota of his duties, and launched an investigation into the August 30 incident, a Pentagon spokesman said. "At no time was there a threat to public safety," said Lieutenant Colonel Ed Thomas. "It is important to note that munitions were safe, secure and under military control at all times."

AFP, Islamabad

Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhuto told AFP Wednesday she wanted to meet President Pervez Musharraf face-to-face after making progress in talks on a power-sharing deal between them. The two-time prime minister added that she would return home from self-exile in London and Dubai in "weeks, not months," ahead of upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. "There has been progress in some areas and we are working on those areas," she told AFP in a telephone interview after the stalled negotiations resumed this week, adding that "good" progress had been made. "I prefer face-to-face negotiations between himself and myself (but) I also appreciate that he has got a country to run and that might be very difficult," she said when asked if she would meet the military ruler.

AFP, Cairo

Arab League chief Amr Mussa warned on Wednesday against what he called Israeli atempts to lower expectations and downplay the political meaning of an upcoming US-sponsored conference on Middle East peace. "We must strongly resist atempts to drain the conference of its meaning and to lower expectations, which I see signs of in Israeli statements," Mussa told the 22-member league. Otherwise, he told Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo, there would be "further deterioration in the region." In July, US President George W. Bush proposed holding an international conference to revive the faltering Middle East peace process, largely welcomed by the international community. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- who have been at odds over what exactly they want to achieve beforehand -- are scheduled to meet several times to find common ground before the summit expected in November.

Reuters, Washington

More than 25 celebrities including actors Jim Carrey, Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams on Thursday urged the United Nations to help win freedom for Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The stars signed a leter calling on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to intervene personally to win immediate freedom for the Nobel laureate, who has spent most of the past 17 years in prison or under house arrest in military-ruled former Burma. "Aung San Suu Kyi is not just a charismatic leader, she is the elected leader of the Burmese people," said the leter, whose signatories also included actors Owen Wilson, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Aniston as well as Irish singer Damien Rice. Rice is a long-time supporter of Suu Kyi. "This courageous, brave woman whom many call 'Burma's Nelson Mandela' should be released and the military regime should end its atacks on civilians," the leter said. The celebrity leter campaign was spearheaded by the Human Rights Action Center and the U.S. Campaign for Burma, both based in Washington.

AFP, Kathmandu

The name of Nepal's embatled king has been removed from the two-rupee coin, the state bank said Thursday, in the latest move ahead of polls this year that could see the country become a republic. King Gyanendra's name has been replaced on the coin with an image of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak which is on Nepal's border with China. The other side of the coin, which is worth about three cents, shows a farmer ploughing a field. "This is the first time we have removed the name of the king from coins," Manmohan Kumar Shrestha, the chief currency management official at Nepal's state bank, told AFP. The national bank had begun distribution Thursday of 100 million coins without the king's name, the official said, adding his image would soon be removed from high-denomination bills.