The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Islamabad

Up to 30 more militants loyal to a pro-Taliban cleric were killed in clashes with Pakistani security forces in a remote northwest tourist valley, the army said Tuesday.

The latest deaths take the toll reported by the army from a week of fighting in the scenic Swat Valley to around 150.

"Our offensive against militants has been continuing since last night and there are reports that 20 to 30 more militants have been killed," chief military spokesman major general Waheed Arshad told AFP.

The army said at the weekend that it would imminently launch a major offensive to retake Swat from followers of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who runs his own jihadi radio station.

Arshad said that troops were now controlling a key road in Swat's Shangla district, which leads to the militant-held main town of Alpuri.

Residents in different areas of Swat valley said that gunfire continued and helicopters hovered in the sky as scores of people abandoned their homes in Dagai and Akhund Kalai areas.

The military had asked the residents to vacate the area on Monday so that during operations against militants there would be no civilian casualties.

Witnesses said that people were moving towards safer areas with their belongings packed in cars, pick-up vans and even in rickshaws.

Meanwhile, tribal elders launched efforts on Tuesday to end bloody sectarian clashes in a Pakistani tribal area which have claimed at least 112 lives, officials and residents said.

A 16-member tribal peace delegation arrived Monday in Parachinar, the town at the centre of the violence, to mediate between rival Sunni and Shiite tribes, a tribal administration official said.

Chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said the situation was "stable" in Parachinar, the main town in the troubled Kurram tribal agency bordering Afghanistan.

"Parachinar is calm. Troops are patrolling the streets and have set up pickets in several parts of the town, while armed groups have left their positions," a local shopkeeper told AFP.

"There is still a curfew in place while there is no electricity and also a water shortage. We are helping each other and neighbours are sharing whatever food stocks they have left," he said.

But three more people died in clashes that continued Tuesday in villages around Parachinar, residents and local officials said.

Rival Sunni and Shiite groups were firing at each other with light cannons and mortars in Upper Kurram, Sadda, Tehwar and Trimanga villages.

Officials have put the latest death toll at 112 with 300 injured. Health officials said they faced a shortage of medicines.

The Pentagon plans to train and equip an expanded paramilitary force in Pakistan's tribal areas in a major effort to counter the growing strength of Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, officials said Monday.

US Army troops will be used to train the Pakistani Frontier Corps at a new center in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan, said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

The efforts come amid political instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf and mounting US concerns over the spread of Islamic militancy.

It was unclear how many military trainers will be required, but any increase would significantly boost the US military presence in Pakistan, which currently numbers only about 50 military personnel, including embassy guards.

It also marks a shift in favor of a locally recruited paramilitary force that many have considered unreliable because it is drawn from Pashtun tribes sympathetic to the Taliban.

"We believe that, particularly in this part of Pakistan, it is more effective to work with a force raised from locals than it is to work with the Pak army," Morrell said.

The Pakistani army, he said, "is not viewed with the same kind of respect in that part of the country as is the Frontier Corps, which is comprised of people who know the language and who have grown up in the area, and have relations with tribal leaders there."

The scale of the unrest has exposed the deep tribal and religious tensions in this mountainous region where guns and weaponry -- including rocket-launchers and mortars -- are in plentiful supply.

Shiites account for 20 percent of Pakistan's 160 million, Sunni-dominated population but are the majority in Parachinar.

The two sides usually co-exist peacefully, but outbreaks of sectarian violence have claimed more than 4,000 lives across Pakistan since the late 1980s.

AP, Islamabad

More than 3,000 people jailed under emergency rule have been released, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday, the latest sign that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was rolling back some of the harsher measures taken against his opponents.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema would not say how many opposition members were still behind bars, though the number was still believed to be in the hundreds or thousands.

Meanwhile, authorities said Tuesday they have begun releasing some of the thousands of opposition supporters detained since emergency rule was imposed earlier this month, while Pakistan's military leader departed for a visit to Saudi Arabia. The releases came hours after judges hand-picked by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf quashed legal challenges to his disputed re-election as president. The decision enraged his most bitter opponents, but others said it could lead to an easing of restrictions and make it easier for politicians to campaign for Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.

Most of the few hundred people set free overnight were lawyers and ordinary opposition supporters. Many high-ranking party activists and leaders, such as former cricket star Imran Khan, remained in prison. Khan began a hunger strike Monday to protest emergency rule.

Reuters, Patna

Maoist insurgents blew up a railway track in Bihar on Tuesday, severely disrupting the rail network on the second day of protests over the killing of villagers in a land row.

Dozens of trains were held up or cancelled after the attack in Lakhisarai district, railway officials and police said.

"We are rushing to the spot with a large force to stop more such attacks," Shivashwar Prasad Shukla, a police officer said. The rebels also shut down shops and blocked roads in eastern rural strongholds to protest against the violence in neighbouring West Bengal's Nandigram area, which they blame on the communist-ruled state government.

The communists, who are allies of India's central coalition government, lost control of Nandigram earlier this year after trying, unsuccessfully, to turf villagers off their land to make way for a chemicals complex. Local opposition parties and Maoist rebels moved in, and the area became a no-go zone for communists and police alike.

This month, communist party cadres forced their way back in. At least six villagers were killed in the violence, bringing the death toll to at least 34 so far this year. Several women have alleged they were raped by communist cadres.

Reuters, Singapore

Ten Southeast Asian leaders signed a historic charter on Tuesday that aims to create an economic bloc encompassing a half-billion people, but controversy over Myanmar threatened to spoil the ASEAN party.

Under the crystal chandeliers of the Shangri La hotel ballroom, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was first to sign the charter that speaks of democracy and human rights.

He was followed by the leaders of the young democracies of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines; the leaders of one-party states Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam; the absolute monarch of Brunei and the head of the Thai military junta that overthrew a democratically elected Thai government. "The new charter will be of benefit to all members. It is a historic moment, because the new charter will address ongoing challenges and opportunities," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told Reuters as he walked the red carpet to the signing stage.

Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein stood stiff and stern throughout the ceremony of the 13th ASEAN summit. Of the other leaders, only Philippine President Gloria Arroyo managed a smile.

AFP, Baghdad

Bombings and shootings in Baghdad on Tuesday killed five people, including a senior government official, and wounded nine, Iraqi security officials said.

The official from the Geological Survey and a person accompanying him were shot dead when their car was raked with gunfire by unidentified attackers in Buratha, in the centre of Baghdad, a security official said.

In a similar incident, two civilians were killed when their car was attacked by gunmen in Drag neighbourhood of western Baghdad, he said.

One person was killed and six wounded when a bomb exploded at Al-Shariqa crossroads in southwestern Al-Bayaa neighbourhood, another official said.

Separately, three people were injured in a roadside bomb in Al-Baladiyat in southeastern Baghdad.

US military commanders say that there has been a sharp decline in the levels of violence across Iraq, including in Baghdad.

But they caution progress is "fragile" and "far from irreversible."

AP, Tehran

Venezuela's outspoken president joined with Iran's leader Monday in boasting that they are "united like a single fist" in challenging American influence, saying the fall of the dollar is a sign that "the U.S. empire is coming down." Hugo Chavez also joked about the most serious issue the U.S. is confronting regarding Iran - nuclear weapons - during his get-together with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The visit came after a failed attempt by the firebrand duo to move OPEC away from pricing its oil in dollars. OPEC's weekend summit displayed the limits of their alliance - their proposal was overruled by other members, led by Saudi Arabia - but it also showed their potential for stirring up problems for the U.S. and its allies. Making his fourth trip to Tehran in two years, Chavez has built a strong bond with Ahmadinejad that has produced a string of business agreements as well as a torrent of rhetoric presenting their two countries as an example of how smaller nations can stand up to the U.S.

AP, Yangon

Detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met Monday for a third time with the Cabinet minister designated to handle relations with her in the latest effort to nudge along political reconciliation in Myanmar. Suu Kyi met for an hour with Relations Minister Aung Kyi at a government guest house near her lakeside home where she is held under house arrest, said officials and nearby residents, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release official information. Details of the meeting were not made available. Their talk came as Myanmar's military government was defending itself at a meeting in Singapore of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - ASEAN - for its violent crackdown in September on pro-democracy demonstrations. Aung Kyi was appointed on Oct. 8 at the urging of U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari after the U.N. Security Council expressed concern at the junta's actions and urged it to open talks with the country's pro-democracy movement. Aung Kyi is tasked with coordinating contacts with Suu Kyi, who has been in detention for 12 of the last 18 years.

AFP, Lima

Peru's Supreme Court on Monday postponed until December 10 the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori on charges of human rights violations. Justice authorities said the decision will give Fujimori's lawyers the additional time they requested to prepare for the trial, which was initially scheduled for November 26. Fujimori is accused of human rights violations for his alleged role in two death squad massacres in Lima, in which 25 people were killed in 1991 and 1992. He is also charged in a case over the illegal detention of a journalist and a businessman at the headquarters of his feared intelligence agency. He also faces separate trials on charges of corruption and abuse of power. Prosecutor Jose Pelaez is seeking a 30-year prison sentence and 33 million dollars on reparations on the human rights violation charges, insisting Fujimori directed a "dirty war" against leftist opponents of his 1990-2000 government.