The New Nation - Internet Edition

Agencies

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has denied having consultations with former premier Benazir Bhutto on any kind of power-sharing deal.

Musharraf has also rejected the impression that Benazir could be the next Prime Minister of the country.

"How can you say before the elections that she would be the next prime minister? Who is telling you this?" he questioned. The Daily Times further quoted Musharraf as saying that the Pakistan's rural areas would decide that who would be the country's next Prime Minister. Commenting on the reported popularity of Benazir, Musharraf said, "Only a couple of hundred people outside her residence and at barricades and rallies. This is not a test of anyone's popularity." When asked what would be the future political set up, he said, "If her (Bhutto's) party wins, then she could be the Prime Minister, but that too depends on the position of other political parties."

Musharraf went on to say that the need of hour is to give equal opportunity to all the political parties in the forthcoming general elections, adding that it was up to the people to choose their future leadership.

The President has expressed hope that general election could be held before January 9 next year.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's opposition called on Gen. Pervez Musharraf to lift a state of emergency, saying Monday that upcoming parliamentary elections would be a sham unless citizens' rights were fully restored. Several parties were mulling a boycott.

Musharraf said Sunday he would stick to a January schedule for the polls but set no time limit on emergency rule, which has resulted in the arrests of thousands of his critics, a ban on rallies and the blacking out of independent TV networks. The measures, he argued, were necessary to ensure "absolutely fair and transparent elections."

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, speaking days after she was briefly put under house arrest, argued that it would make campaigning "difficult." Other opposition parties were more strident, saying Musharraf's sweeping powers would make a mockery of the democratic process.

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, appeared defiant but bitter at rising criticism of his decision to suspend the constitution just over a week ago, a step he says was necessary to combat rising Islamic militancy that had sown "turmoil, shock and confusion" in Pakistan.

"It was the most difficult decision I have ever taken in my life," Musharraf told his first news conference since declaring the emergency Nov. 3, voicing anger at those who questioned his commitment to democracy.

"I could have preserved myself, but then it would have damaged the nation. I found myself between a rock and a hard surface. I have no personal ego and ambitions to guard.

Reuters, Kolkata

A strike to protest the killings of villagers opposed to West Bengal's communist-ruled government shut down schools, offices and businesses on Monday in a challenge to the ruling coalition's main ally.

At least 20 people were injured in clashes between police and strikers in the state capital, Kolkata. Strikers set two buses on fire and ransacked a hospital and a railway station, police said.

The strike was sparked by the killings in the last week of at least six villagers in Nandigram, a few hours drive southwest of Kolkata, as they battled communist supporters. Dozens of villagers were injured in the clashes.

Nandigram won national recognition by successfully opposing communist government plans to set up industry on farming land. But hostilities have not abated as the state's communist supporters tried to win back control of the village cluster.

"The communists are killing innocent villagers in Nandigram and have not even spared women and children," said Mamata Banerjee, chief of the Trinamul Congress, the state's main opposition party which called the strike.

The violence in Nandigram has been a political embarrassment for the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which has its stronghold in West Bengal. The party shores up the Congress-led coalition along with three minor left groups.

The conflict has resonated nationally. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government said it would send federal police to Nandigram, and the main national opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has voiced support for the strike.

Communist party leaders and police have blamed the recent violence on Maoist rebels who have set up base in Nandigram and were helping Trinamul activists with arms and training.

But the communist party's own allies have criticised the government, and some ministers in the leftist coalition threatened to resign over Nandigram.

The West Bengal government's decision to abort the project has helped galvanise nationwide opposition to similar special economic zones, aimed at encouraging industry and exports through tax incentives.

The communists returned to power for a seventh term last year, pushing a reformist programme of industrial expansion, but regular strikes and continuing violence over land reforms could hurt their effort to woo industry, analysts said.

"Industry will definitely take a backseat if the violence does not stop and the initiative to restore peace is not taken by the communists," economist Abhirup Sarkar said.

AFP, Ghazni

Three civilians and 15 militants were killed in a raid by US-led forces in Afghanistan, while Taliban rebels killed four policemen in a separate clash, security forces said Monday.

The US-led coalition said its soldiers had raided a compound in the troubled southern province of Helmand on Sunday, killing 15 militants.

A woman and two children also died, the US military said in a statement.

The troops went to the compound after intelligence reports indicated that Taliban-linked bombmakers and other allies were hiding there.

"Several militants barricaded themselves in a building on the compound and engaged coalition forces," the statement said.

"Coalition forces used a single grenade which killed the attacking militants; however, the building the militants were fighting from collapsed."

The bodies of the woman and children, along with those of several militants, were found in a search of the building.

In a separate incident overnight, the militants overnight attacked a security post four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the provincial governor's office in the city of Ghazni, about 130 kilometres south of Kabul, police said.

"Four policemen were martyred and two others were wounded in the attack last night. The enemy fled the area," deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Zaman told AFP.

Attacks on police within the city limits have been rare since the 2001 ouster of the Islamist Taliban regime in a US-led invasion.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said his group was behind the attack.

Taliban extremists, who launched a bloody insurgency after their ouster from power, often take shelter in villages and residential areas where they have support and launch attacks from there.

Reuters, Ramallah

Palestinian negotiators on their way to a session of talks in Israel on Sunday said they were blocked at an Israeli checkpoint and had called off the discussions, asking that they be moved abroad.

The two sides have been meeting regularly in preparation for a peace conference in the United States later this month. "We cannot carry out negotiations like this," chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurie said, after Israeli soldiers blocked his team near Jerusalem. Negotiators are struggling to narrow differences over a joint statement to be presented at the conference, due to take place in Annapolis, Maryland, in late November.

An aide to Qurie said his team told Israel they wanted to move the preparatory talks to another country but gave no details. "It shouldn't have happened t that's not good for peace," said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who leads the Israeli negotiating team.

AFP, Washington

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied Sunday that the United States was bent on war with Iran and renewed an offer of reconciliation talks if the Islamic republic renounces its nuclear drive. Interviewed on ABC television, Rice was pressed on a Senate resolution passed in September that labeled Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist operation -- a step that critics said had brought war nearer. She said that President George W. Bush was clear "that he's on a diplomatic path where Iran comes into focus." "Obviously, it can be the case that he will never take his options off the table, but this particular resolution has nothing to do with that from our point of view," Rice said referring to the prospect of military force on Iran.

AFP, London

Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the United States as Britain's "most important ally" and praised closer ties between France, Germany and the US in an interview broadcast Sunday. Brown, who has stepped back from the shoulder-to-shoulder relations between US President George W. Bush and former premier Tony Blair since taking office in June, added he would not rule out a nuclear strike on Iran if diplomacy failed. Brown has appointed a number of critics of the US to his cabinet, including former UN deputy chief Mark Malloch Brown, while his interactions with Bush seemed more formal than Blair's on a trip to meet the president in July. Analysts and commentators also detected cracks in the "special relationship" between the two nations over the withdrawal of some British troops from southern Iraq in September. But Brown took a warmer line in an interview with Sky News television, saying that Britain was "part of an international endeavour" over efforts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions.

AFP, Baghdad

US forces will not hand over "Chemical Ali" and two other cohorts of Saddam Hussein for execution until a legal row is settled, the US embassy said Monday, responding to a bitter attack by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. "There continue to be differences in viewpoint within the government of Iraq regarding the necessary Iraqi legal and procedural requirements for carrying out death sentences issued by the Iraqi High Tribunal," US spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo told AFP. "Coalition forces will continue to retain physical custody of the defendants until this issue is resolved," she said. On Sunday, Maliki accused the US embassy of playing an "unfortunate role" in preventing the handover of the three condemned men, who, like other members of Saddam's ousted regime, are in US military custody. He told a press conference in Baghdad that his government was "determined" that the executions be carried out. But Nantongo was adamant the condemned men would not be handed over for hanging before the legal hitches are resolved.

AP, Baghdad

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Sunday suicide attacks and other bombings in the Iraqi capital have dropped dramatically since last year's high, calling it a sign of the end of sectarian violence. A top U.S. general here said he believes the drop is sustainable, as Iraqis turn away from extremists. Al-Maliki said "terrorist acts" including car bombings and other spectacular, al-Qaida-style attacks dropped by 77 percent. He called it a sign that Sunni-Shiite violence was nearly gone from Baghdad. "We are all realizing now that what Baghdad was seeing every day - dead bodies in the streets and morgues - is ebbing remarkably," al-Maliki told reporters at his office in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone. "This is an indication that sectarianism intended as a gate of evil and fire in Iraq is now closed," he said.

AFP, Sydney

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is headed for a landslide defeat at elections next week, according to an opinion poll Monday which showed the opposition surging ahead. The centre-left Labor Party gained two percentage points over the past week to extend its lead over Howard's conservative Liberal-National coalition to 55 percent against 45 percent, the Newspoll showed. The poll was taken just days after mortgage-belt voters were hit with the sixth hike in interest rates since Howard won the last election in 2004 with a promise to keep rates low. Labor leader Kevin Rudd also increased his personal lead over Howard as preferred prime minister, winning backing from 48 percent of the 1,119 voters polled against 40 percent for Howard. The prime minister, who has been in power for more than 11 years, refused to comment directly on the poll results, but said he still believed he could win a fifth term in office.