The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kabul

A suicide attack in Afghanistan this week killed 59 children and five teachers, the education ministry said, taking the death toll to 75 in the deadliest attack in the insurgency-hit country.

Six lawmakers and five bodyguards were also killed in the blast on Tuesday in the northern province of Baghlan.

"We have got 59 school children, aged from eight to 18, and five teachers killed in that blast," education ministry spokesman Zuhor Afghan told AFP.

The children had gathered to welcome a visiting delegation of parliamentarians to a sugar factory outside the town of Pul-i-Khumri, about 150 kilometres (90 miles) north of Kabul.

The Taliban, behind a wave of suicide attacks in Afghanistan as part of an extremist insurgency launched after they were ousted from power six years ago, have denied involvement in the blast.

Five of the parliamentarians and five bodyguards were buried in a state funeral in Kabul on Thursday attended by 2,500 people and 1,000 police and soldiers, after three days of national mourning were declared.

Afghan said Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar had, in the wake of the blast, reissued a ban on children being assembled to welcome visitors to functions because of concerns about their safety.

"The students were already banned from attending those kind of ceremonies," Afghan said.

"But after this attack, the minister has ordered again that no-one can force any student to participate in those kind of ceremonies any more," he said.

Special prayer services would be held in Kabul and all provinces in the next few days to remember the children and teachers, the spokesman said.

But the government had decided against ceremonies in schools because it might "spread fear", he said.

"If we have such a memorial ceremony within the schools, it will have a bad impact on the students," he said.

Top government officials were expected to attend prayer services in Kabul later Friday.

The toll from the blast has been difficult to pin down with various officials issuing different numbers.

A health ministry official in Kabul, Ahmad Shah Shokohmand, said earlier Friday that 64 people were killed, four of whom had died in hospital from their wounds.

"The latest figures are a result of our investigations based on the count of the graves in the area," Shokohmand told AFP. He said 81 people were wounded.

The police chief of Baghlan province, Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili, said however that 61 people were dead and 95 wounded. Sayedkhili said a man was arrested at the site of the attack, a day the after blast, because he was behaving suspiciously. He had been sent to Kabul for questioning.

It was Afghanistan's worst such attack, claiming more victims than a June suicide bombing that killed 35 people in the heart of Kabul.

About 700 of the mourners at Thursday's state funeral shouted slogans and waved banners after the burials, demanding arrests.

There was also a demonstration by about 150 university students in Mazar-i-Sharif who shouted slogans including, "Death to tyrants, terrorists and the Taliban."

AFP, Singapore

Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi said she is "ready to cooperate" with the ruling junta, according to a statement read by UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari here early Friday.

The pledge came after Myanmar's junta earlier announced a meeting between Aung San Suu Kyi and her pro-democracy party, hours after Gambari wrapped up a visit aimed at pushing the regime toward dialogue and reform.

"In the interest of the nation, I stand ready to cooperate with the government in order to make this process of dialogue a success," Aung San Suu Kyi said in her message.

The detained Nobel laureate also welcomed the role played by the United Nations "to help facilitate our efforts in this regard." It is the first time Aung San Suu Kyi has said she will work with the junta since she was put under house arrest in 2003. Gambari read her message to reporters at a midnight press conference in a Singapore hotel shortly after returning from his latest trip to Yangon, during which he had met with the opposition leader.

Aung San Suu Kyi welcomed the appointment last month of Labour Minister Aung Kyi as the government's go-between with the opposition. She said her meeting with Aung Kyi on October 25 was constructive and she looked forward to regular discussions. The detained democracy leader is to meet Aung Kyi again on Friday, state television reported.

"I expect that this phase of preliminary consultations will conclude soon so that a meaningful and time-bound dialogue with the (government) leadership can start as early as possible," Aung San Suu Kyi said in the message read by Gambari.

Aung San Suu Kyi said in any dialogue with the junta, she would be "guided by the policies and wishes" of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) but would also need to consult with other groups.

AP, Aboard a military plane

The longer the political turmoil in Islamabad continues, the greater the risk that it will distract the Pakistani army from battling insurgents along the border of Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

Speaking to reporters on his plane en route home from a weeklong visit to Asia, Gates voiced for the first time concerns that Gen. Pervez Musharraf's emergency declaration and the protests and arrests it spawned could impact operations in Afghanistan.

"The concern I have is that the longer the internal problems continue, the more distracted the Pakistani army and security services will be in terms of the internal situation rather than focusing on the terrorist threat in the frontier area," said Gates.

On Friday, Pakistani police detained opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at her Islamabad home and reportedly rounded up 5,000 of her supporters to block a mass protest against emergency rule.

To date, the Pentagon has said the unrest has had no effect on U.S. military operations. But Gates comments underscore the nervousness of the Bush administration, even as it continues to voice support for Musharraf as a critical ally in the war on terror.

Musharraf imposed emergency rule last weekend and suspended the constitution, triggering widespread protests in his own country, and setting off a flurry of diplomatic efforts in Washington to get him to restore democratic rule.

After nearly a week, Musharraf yielded somewhat to pressure from the United States on Thursday and said Pakistan would hold parliamentary election by mid-February - a month later than originally planned.

He still, however, has shown no sign of relinquishing his military post as chief of the army - another key demand of opposition leaders and the Bush administration.

Gates, in his meeting with reporters traveling with him, echoed White House views that Musharraf has been a staunch ally, and praised his move to set a new date for elections.

"We said from the very beginning it's important to move back to constitutional processes as quickly as possible," Gates said. "I think that there is building pressure for him to take off his uniform if he continues as president. But I think that setting the date for the elections was certainly an important first step."

Reuters, Baghdad

Iraqi and U.S. forces killed 14 suspected insurgents and detained 44 more in raids over the past 48 hours in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday.

Iraqi and U.S. soldiers also uncovered weapons caches this week in and around the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, including rocket-propelled grenades and materials used to make bombs, the U.S. military said in a statement. Helicopters were used in some of the fighting that took place in Mosul and around Nineveh province, it said. I have been actively providing information to the (Iraqi security forces) and coalition forces to assist them in securing their neighborhoods," U.S. Colonel Stephen Twitty said in the statement. The raids come as the U.S. military, which has poured an extra 30,000 troops into Iraq this year, touts declining levels of violence, especially in the capital Baghdad.

Meanwhile, the US military on Thursday released 500 Iraqi detainees at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at Camp Victory, a large military base near Baghdad airport. Maliki urged the mostly-Sunni detainees to help his government's efforts in "rebuilding the country", as they sat in rows under the hot sune minister later told reporters the prisoners had been released "on a humanitarian basis", adding that it was part of a broader national reconciliation programme his government embarked upon last year.

AFP, Mogadishu

Ethiopian troops shelled suspected Islamist hideouts Friday in Mogadishu, where some of the worst fighting in months has left more than 30 dead in two days, many of them civilians, witnesses said.

The escalating violence came as the Ethiopian army attempted to flush out pockets of insurgents in southern districts of the Somali capital, from which thousands of residents have fled in recent days.

Heavy fighting that erupted on Thursday spilled over into Friday when Ethiopian tanks fired shells on suspected hideouts in the notoriously dangerous Bakara market neighbourhood, killing six civilians. "A tank shell landed into a crowd in Bakara area and killed six people, including a woman and her son. Some of the bodies could not be identified because they were ripped to shreds," said Hanad Guled, an eyewitness.

An AFP correspondent saw tank shells being fired from the neighbouring Blacksea district, where witnesses said several Ethiopian tanks were posted.

Clashes had broken out Thursday in several southern neighbourhoods, claiming the lives of at least another 25 people, witnesses told AFP.

The toll for the latest fighting could not immediately be confirmed by hospital sources, but civilians again bore the brunt of the violence.

"Nine people were discovered in Suqaholaha area. They were killed in yesterday's fighting. All of them are civilians, including women and three children," Abdullahi Garweyne, an elder in Suqaholaha.

AFP, New Delhi

A senior Iranian official urged New Delhi not to drift too close to Washington, emphasising his country's wish to be a major energy supplier to a "friendly" India. Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi said Tehran was determined to push ahead with plans to pipe gas to India via Pakistan, despite opposition from the United States and an increasing range of sanctions.

"We hope that India's national interests will not be influenced from outside," Pour Mohammadi said, adding that he had discussed "the unilateralism of the Americans" with Indian government leaders.

"India is growing fast and needs a lot of energy, and we want to meet the needs of friendly countries," he said.

New Delhi is trying to implement a nuclear energy accord with the United States aimed at bringing India -- which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- into the global atomic fuel loop for the first time.

s India, which has nuclear weapons, to allow international monitoring of its facilities. But it has been held up due to opposition from within Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition government.

Critics of the deal argue that traditionally non-aligned India may be moving too close to Washington, and that the accord has strings attached -- including not doing business with Iran.

The United States and many Western nations claim Iran, which has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is seeking nuclear weapons. They also accuse it of being a major sponsor of anti-Israeli and anti-Western Islamic militant groups in the Middle East.

When asked for his viewpoint on the US-India deal, Pour Mohammadi said he hoped India's "interests will not be affected."

He also said he had been told by New Delhi officials that they too "do not agree with the unilateralism of the Americans."

Reuters, Johannesburg

A group of former world leaders including Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter has denounced Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf for imposing emergency rule and suspending the constitution. Army chief Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, imposed a state of emergency last Saturday, citing a hostile judiciary and rising militancy in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally. "These illegal acts have resulted in abuse and incarceration of judges, lawyers, human rights activists, journalists and other moderate and democratic opposition forces," the group, called the Elders, said in a statement issued late on Thursday. "The Elders support all those freedom-loving Pakistanis who have chosen to join in peaceful expressions of opposition to these dictatorial acts and call upon political leaders throughout the world to insist on a return to a lawful government under Pakistan's constitution," it said.

AFP, Washington

The US Senate late Thursday confirmed Michael Mukasey as the country's new attorney general, despite criticism of his refusal to say whether an interrogation method called "waterboarding" was legal.

Mukasey was confirmed on a 53 to 40 vote in the Democrat-controlled senate. President George W. Bush's pick for the country's top law enforcement officer had appeared to be in jeopardy until this week because Mukasey had declined to declare that waterboarding was torture and therefore illegal. Waterboarding, which critics say amounts to simulated drowning and torture, has been reported as having been adapted for use by US interrogators after the September 11, 2001 attacks to wrest information from "war on terror" suspects. The White House refuses to say what the United States does and does not do to detainees, and says Mukasey has not had the classified briefings needed to be able to assess alleged US interrogation practices.

AP, Washington

House Democrats are planning another veto showdown with President Bush on the Iraq war. And this time, they say they won't back down. The House planned to vote as early as next week on a $50 billion war spending bill that would require Bush to begin withdrawing troops. The measure identifies a goal of ending combat by December 2008, leaving only enough soldiers and Marines behind to fight terrorists, train Iraqi security forces and protect U.S. assets. In a private caucus meeting on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told rank-and-file Democrats the bill was their best shot at challenging Bush on the war. And if Bush rejected it, she said, she did not intend on sending him another war spending bill for the rest of the year. "It's a war without end," Pelosi, D-Calif., later told reporters. "There is no light at the end of the tunnel. We must reverse it." Similar to one rejected by Bush in May. Unable to muster the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, Democrats stripped the timetable from the bill and approved a $95 billion emergency spending bill, mostly for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

AFP, London

Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes on the east coast of England ahead of an expected flood surge, officials said Friday. The government Environment Agency has warned of "extreme danger to life and property" in parts of Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent and Essex which are near the sea and issued eight severe flood warnings. The level of the surge is expected to be around 2.7 metres, slightly lower than during serious floods in the area in 1953, one of the worst natural disasters in Britain's history in which several hundred people died. The water levels are due to peak early Friday with Great Yarmouth expected to be one of the worst hit.

AP, Rome

A US service member died overnight in a northern Italian hospital, bringing to six the number killed in the crash of a U.S. Army helicopter, officials said Friday. Eleven U.S. service members were on board the UH-60 Army Blackhawk helicopter that went down Thursday near the city of Treviso, U.S. Army Europe said in a statement released by its headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. The military said that the names of the victims were being withheld pending notification of next of kin and that the cause of the crash was not immediately known. Italian rescue services said they pulled four bodies from the wreckage and the U.S. army said a fifth person died later in hospital. The sixth person died Thursday around 10:00 p.m. local time, said an official at Treviso's hospital. "He was in serious hemorrhagic shock when he arrived," said hospital spokesman Fabio Bruno.