The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Ankara

Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq early Sunday, Turkey's military said, the first such attack since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. An Iraqi official said the planes attacked several villages, killing one woman. Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek urged Kurdish separatists to surrender and said Turkey would press ahead with operations against rebel bases in northern Iraq "with determination when necessary."

The attack came a month after the United States promised to share intelligence with Turkey about the Kurdistan Workers Party, which seeks autonomy for the Kurdish minority in southeastern Turkey and has hideouts in northern Iraq.

Reuters, Ahmedabad

With a religious divide openly on show, voters in India's Gujarat state cast their ballots on Sunday in an election that will decide the fate of a controversial leader and may influence the timing of national polls.

Amid tight security, voters queued up outside election stations in districts which were at the eye of 2002 communal riots and which swept chief minister Narendra Modi and his pro-Hindu message to power in their aftermath.

Gujarat, one of India's richest and fastest growing states but also one of its most communally divided, is being closely watched as a barometer of the fortunes of the country's two main parties ahead of national elections.

They are due by mid-2009 but could come earlier with the Congress-led ruling coalition in New Delhi wobbling under pressure from key communist allies who oppose a nuclear energy deal with the United States.

"Voting is slow but it is a holiday so people will come out at a leisurely pace. We are expecting a good turnout," said Gujarat's chief electoral officer V.K. Babbar as voters trickled into the polling stations.

Officials said there had been no reports of violence following an often angry build-up to the vote, but there had been problems with some electronic voting machines.

The religious polarisation which affects large parts of Gujarat was plain for all to see.

"Modi is our only choice. He is the star of Gujarat," said 35-year-old businessman Mayank Patel as he waited to vote on a chilly winter morning in the state's main city Ahmedabad.

"He is the saviour of Hindu religion."

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan's election campaign began in earnest on Sunday, a day after President Pervez Musharraf lifted his unpopular emergency rule and restored the constitution.

The election commission was set to release the final list of candidates for the January 8 vote for parliament, which Musharraf's critics say has been effectively rigged against them during the six weeks of the emergency.

In a televised address late Saturday, the president insisted emergency rule had saved the nation, alleging there had been a conspiracy by unnamed people to undermine the country's democracy.

"Against my will and as a last resort, I imposed emergency rule and saved Pakistan from destabilisation," he said.

"I put my own reputation at risk, but I did it because I could not allow Pakistan to be in grave danger. It was painful and a most difficult decision."

Former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were criss-crossing the country on Sunday, drumming up support for their parties. They are taking part in the election after failing to agree on a joint boycott. Bhutto alleged Saturday that there were "big plans" in the works to rig the elections, a charge the president denied in his speech to the nation.

He pledged the vote would be "absolutely fair" and invited international observers to attend the election.

In addition to lifting the emergency, however, the president also decreed that measures imposed during emergency rule could not be challenged in the courts.

Reuters, Tehran

No date has been fixed for completing Iran's first nuclear power plant but Russia is serious about finishing the long-delayed project, Iran's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

The United States has urged Russia to stop building the Bushehr power plant in southwest Iran because it believes the $1 billion project is part of Iran's bid to master technology that can be used to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charge and says its nuclear program has only peaceful goals.

Moscow has used the project as a lever in its ties with Tehran, repeatedly putting back the completion date and citing payment delays. Russia says it sees no evidence Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs.

Speaking after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov met in Moscow, the Russian contractor said on Thursday differences were resolved and a timetable agreed but he did not give a date for completion.

AFP, London

Support for an independent Scotland has risen by five percent in the last three months, according to the findings of a poll published by the Sunday Herald newspaper.

Some 40 percent of Scots support an end to the 300-year-old union with England, up from 35 percent in a similar survey in August, pollsters TNS System Three found.

Those who wanted Scotland to continue being part of the United Kingdom was still higher, at 44 percent, although down from 50 percent in August.

Just under 1,000 people were surveyed, using the exact question that Scotland's pro-independence First Minister Alex Salmond wants to use in a referendum on the issue.

AFP, Paris

Major powers and key donors meet in Paris Monday for a conference aimed at raising billions of dollars to help the emergence of a viable Palestinian state and give political impetus to the newly-relaunched peace process with Israel.

Ninety international delegations are expected at the one-day Conference of Donors for a Palestinian State, the biggest of its kind since 1996, which aims to shore up the process jumpstarted in the US city of Annapolis last month.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is seeking 5.6 billion dollars (3.85 billion euros) spread over 2008 to 2010 for an ambitious development plan to underwrite a promised state and tackle economic hardship in the Palestinian territories.

High-profile delegates gathering for the occasion include UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will represent Israel, which is under pressure to lift restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to allow the Palestinian Authority's plan to take shape.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair, peace envoy for the Middle East quartet - the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States - is co-chair of the event along with host country France, peace-broker Norway and the European Commission.

Close to 70 countries will be represented, most at ministerial level, from the EU's 27 members to the major players of the Middle East, the Group of Eight industrialised nations, and emerging powers Brazil, China and India.

International organisations present will include the Arab League, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and European and Arab financial funds.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will open the proceedings, at Abbas' side, with a speech at 9:30 am (0830 GMT) on Monday, before handing over to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for the rest of the day.

At the US-sponsored meeting in Annapolis, Maryland last month, Israel and the Palestinians pledged to seek a peace deal by the end of next year, relaunching negotiations frozen for seven years.

Abbas has said he is confident Paris will clinch the necessary aid -- 70 percent in budget support and 30 percent for development projects - sending a powerful signal of backing for the peace process.

"It is urgent to stabilise the Palestinian economy and implement measures on the ground that will improve the daily lives of Palestinians," said Sarkozy's spokesman David Martinon.

The Palestinian development plan has been drawn up by the West Bank-based government of the economist Salam Fayyad, whom Abbas appointed prime minister when the Hamas radical Islamist group seized armed control of the Gaza Strip.

"The plan projects a vision of the state we want to have. A state in the making," Fayyad told AFP in an interview.

AFP, Baghdad

British forces formally handed over responsibility Sunday for the last region in Iraq under their control, marking the start of what Britain hopes will be a transition to a mission aimed at aiding the economy and providing jobs in an oil-rich region beset by militia infighting.

The commander of British forces in Basra, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, said soldiers had successfully wrested the region from the grip of its enemies.

"I now formally hand it back to its friends," Binns said shortly before he, Basra's governor and the Iraqi commander added their signatures to the papers giving Iraq formal control of the far southern province.

Mowafaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, said Iraq was ready.

"The security improvements didn't come from nothing, but were the result of huge efforts from both the government and Iraqi people in fighting terrorism, extremism, militias and outlaws," al-Rubaie said.

But U.S. officials worry that a power vacuum could heighten the influence of Iran and threaten land routes used by the Americans to bring ammunition, food and other supplies from Kuwait to troops to the north.

AFP, Islamabad

Bird flu hit two countries Saturday as it was confirmed that a man who died culling infected birds in Pakistan became the country's first human fatality, while a seven-year-old girl became Myanmar's first human case.

Pakistan's health ministry on Saturday also confirmed that one of the dead man's brothers who took part in the cull also died, but he was not tested for the virus, a ministry spokesman told AFP. It was not immediately known why the second man was not tested.

But the spokesman ruled out any case of human-to-human transmission -- a development that could have signalled a mutation of the virus with the possibility to kill millions around the world.

Six people were confirmed to have been infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, all of them in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, the ministry said in a statement.

"Five of them have fully recovered. One of the confirmed cases died in hospital while his brother, who could not be tested, has also died," it said.

Ministry spokesman Mazhar Nisar said the confirmed victim, the brother who died, and two other brothers who were infected but survived all worked on the same cull of infected birds.

"We are not certain how (the brother) died because we could not conduct his testing," Nisar said.

Hospital officials in the provincial capital of Peshawar told AFP that the confirmed victim Muhammad Tariq died late last month, a few days before his brother, who was admitted with similar symptoms but was not tested.

The virus is usually transmitted to humans from infected birds but scientists fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.