The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Beijing

Chinese President Hu Jintao was on Monday named as head of the ruling Communist Party for a second term, an endorsement for him to lead the country for five more years.

Hu, 64, was named as party general secretary and head of the elite Standing Committee of the Politburo, which is the most powerful political body in the country.

"We are keenly aware of our difficult task and grave responsibilities," Hu told reporters as the new leadership team appeared before the press.

"We will do our best to be worthy of the great trust the entire membership places in us."

Hu was also re-named by the Central Committee to a second term as chairman of the party's Central Military Commission, China's top military post.

The reappointments are seen as further institutionalising the party's leadership transition mechanism, which was often torn by in-fighting.

Since Hu's predecessor Jiang Zemin came to power following the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, the party has sought to guarantee two five-year terms for top leaders.

Following his re-appointments as head of the party and military, Hu is widely expected to receive a second term as state president when parliament meets in March next year.

AP report adds: President Hu Jintao emerged politically stronger after the Communist Party announced a new leadership lineup Monday, giving him his second five-year term. But it also promoted two potential successors, a move that could spark a disruptive battle over who takes power in five years.

China on Monday unveiled a new leadership team expected to give President Hu Jintao a stronger hand in ruling the country for five more years while a successor is groomed to take over in 2012.

Hu, 64, was given a second term as head of the ruling Communist Party and the nation's armed forces, following more than a week of closed-door meetings in Beijing during which he worked to consolidate his grip on power.

AP, Beirut

Hezbollah's deputy leader warned the U.S. on Sunday against setting up a military base in Lebanon, saying the guerrilla group would consider such a move "a hostile act."

Sheik Naim Kassem's warning came days after a senior Pentagon official said the U.S. military would like to see a "strategic partnership" with Lebanon's army to strengthen the country's forces so that Hezbollah would have no excuse to bear arms.

Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy, spoke on Lebanese television Thursday after holding talks on military cooperation with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. He did not say the U.S. government wants to build a military base in Lebanon.

But Hezbollah and Lebanon's opposition seized on Edelman's comments as subtle confirmation of a pro-opposition newspaper's claim that Washington was offering a treaty that provides for bases and training in the country.

"We consider any American military base in Lebanon a hostile act," Kassem told a group of supporters.

Since last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel, the U.S. has increased its military assistance to Lebanon to $270 million - more than five times the amount provided a year ago - in a show of support to Saniora's Western-backed government.

Hezbollah has argued that Washington's attempts to boost military ties with Lebanon are a ploy for domination and could turn the country into another Iraq. Some in Lebanon have expressed fears that a foreign military presence in the country could attract al-Qaida and other militants.

AP, Sirnak

Dozens of military vehicles headed toward the Iraq border and protesters demanded tough action against Kurdish rebels on Monday, a day after 12 soldiers were killed in an ambush. The attack has pushed Turkey closer to a possible incursion into Iraq to target insurgents hiding there.

An AP Television News cameraman saw a convoy of 50 military vehicles, loaded with soldiers and weapons, heading from the southeastern town of Sirnak toward Uludere, closer to the border with Iraq.

It was unclear whether the vehicles were being sent to reinforce troops engaged in fighting with rebels on Turkish soil, or were preparing for possible cross-border action. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are already deployed in the border area.

The pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, based in Belgium, released seven names that it said were those of Turkish soldiers allegedly abducted by separatist fighters in the ambush Sunday. It said an eighth soldier was also captive but did not release his name. Turkey's private NTV television has reported eight soldiers missing, but the government has not confirmed the report.

The guerrilla ambush that killed a dozen soldiers on Sunday outraged an already frustrated public, with nationalists staging demonstrations and opposition leaders calling for an immediate strike against rebel bases in Iraq, despite appeals for restraint from Iraq, the U.S. and European leaders.

About 2,000 protesters in Istanbul, mostly members of an opposition party, denounced the attack and urged the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resign, the private Dogan news agency reported.

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan's opposition vowed to defy a ban on rallies in the run-up to general elections, proposed in the wake of last week's suicide bombing on Benazir Bhutto's convoy that killed 139 people.

The government is drawing up a code of conduct for political campaigning during the polls set for January and seen as a key step to restoring civilian rule in the Islamic nation of 160 million people.

The code was flagged after the October 18 blasts ripped through former prime minister Bhutto's homecoming parade and shattered her planned triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile.

Bhutto's party said the code was unacceptable amid fears embattled President Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, was trying to curtail campaigning for the polls.

"Rallies are part of the election process. We cannot sit idle during the election season," Pakistan People's Party (PPP) spokesman Nazir Dhoki said.

AFP, Colombo

At least seven Sri Lankan airmen and 20 rebels were killed in an unprecedented Tamil Tiger coordinated ground and air attack, military officials said Monday.

A four-member crew of a Bell-212 helicopter gunship were killed when they crashed in bad weather while trying to help colleagues under attack at the Anuradhapura military base in the north-central region, officials said.

Three airmen wounded in ground battles died in hospital while another 16 escaped with injuries. "The military has spotted the bodies of 20 Tiger cadres killed in the military counter-attack," a military official in the area said by telephone. Officials said two Mi-24 helicopter gunships were hit by the Tiger ground force which also destroyed an anti-aircraft gun position before rebel aircraft could bomb the base.

AFP, New Delhi

Members of India's troubled coalition were to hold fresh talks Monday over a stalled nuclear deal with the United States, with left-wing parties demanding to know if the accord may still go ahead.

The dominant Congress party of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to buckle last week to opposition from its leftist allies, who had threatened to withdraw their support and force early elections if the pact went ahead.

The prime minister has argued the accord, which will bring India into the loop of global atomic energy commerce, will help meet the future energy needs of an economy steaming along with an annual growth rate of nine percent.

But the communists say the deal, which would involve India being subjected to more international inspections, could harm the country's nuclear weapons programme.

They are also opposed to closer political and strategic ties with Washington.

AFP, Jakarta

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Monday during a visit to Indonesia that he hoped to secure "a real solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis by the end of 2008. The president is on a tour of key Muslim powers in Asia to drum up support ahead of a US-sponsored meeting with Israel expected by year-end, and was speaking after meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "We are now in an intensive communication with Israel with the hope that we can form a document that can be accepted by both sides and by the international community," he told a press briefing, speaking in Arabic. He said the hope was that the document would "become a reference for future conferences, then there will be a negotiation with the Israelis and before the end of 2008 we hope there will be a real solution." Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have been trying to cobble together the document ahead of an international meeting called by US President George W. Bush expected to take place in Annapolis, Maryland by year-end.

Reuters, Paris

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday a U.S.-led conference on Palestinian statehood would not yield a peace breakthrough, a statement that appeared aimed at heading off a revolt by rightist coalition partners. Two members of Olmert's coalition have threatened to quit the government if the gathering, expected to convene in late November or early December, tackles the most sensitive issues, including control of Jerusalem and its holy sites. "The conference is not supposed to provide solutions. It can serve as a foundation for negotiations that would lead to a two-state solution," Olmert told reporters who accompanied him to France, where he meets President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday. On Tuesday, he will hold talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London before returning to Jerusalem. Olmert said Iran's nuclear program and his peace moves with the Palestinians would top the agenda of his first meetings with the two leaders since they took office.

AFP, Madrid

Nobel prize winning author Doris Lessing said in an interview published Sunday that the September 11 attacks had not been "so bad" when compared to Irish Republican Army action. "September 11 was terrible, but if one re-examines the history of the IRA, what happened in the United States wasn't so bad," Lessing, who captured this year's Nobel literature prize told Spain's leading El Pais daily. The IRA waged a lengthy armed struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland. It declared an end to its armed campaign in 2005. "Some Americans believe I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor so extraordinary as they think," Lessing said of the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington in which about 3,000 people were killed. In similarly pointed remarks in the Spanish translation, she described former prime minister Tony Blair as a "little showman" who proved disastrous for Britain and US President George W. Bush as a "world calamity."

AFP, Lansdowne

Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday the United States would not permit Iran to get nuclear weapons and warned of "serious consequences" if it refuses to stop enriching uranium. Cheney, considered the US administration's toughest hardliner on Iran, did not mention the possibility of military action amid reports that President George W. Bush could be laying the stage for war with the Islamic republic. "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences," he said in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," he said, after Bush warned last week that a nuclear-equipped Iran evoked the threat of "World War III."

AFP, Tehran

Iran's ex-president Mohammad Khatami has made a rare criticism of successor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying inflation was a growing problem which government statistics were attempting to conceal, the press reported on Monday. The reformist Khamati has until now refrained from commenting on Ahmadinejad's policies since he left office in 2005, but his stinging attack comes amid intense manoeuvring ahead of parliamentary elections in March. "Inflation exists in societyt every single person in society says that it exists and ordinary people feel it every time they purchase something," Khatami was quoted as saying by the economic daily Sarmayeh.