The New Nation - Internet Edition

McCain, Hillary look to next White House battle

Reuters, Columbia

Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton looked on Sunday toward the next battles in a chaotic White House race after scoring tough wins in the first presidential voting in the U.S. South and West.

McCain narrowly defeated rival Mike Huckabee on Saturday in South Carolina -- a state where McCain's presidential hopes were destroyed in a bitter 2000 battle that set George W. Bush on a path to the White House.

"It took us a while, but what's eight years among friends," McCain, an Arizona senator, told cheering supporters in Charleston. "We are well on our way tonight, and I feel very good."

In Nevada's Democratic race, Clinton beat Barack Obama in a close struggle that featured voting in the state's famed casino hotels and produced heated charges of irregularities. The pair had split the first two Democratic contests.

"I guess this is how the West was won," Clinton, a New York senator, said in Las Vegas, telling reporters later: "This is one step on a long journey throughout the country."

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, won a Republican race in Nevada that his rivals largely skipped in order to concentrate on South Carolina.

No candidate in either party has claimed the front-runner's role in the race to pick the two candidates to contest the November 4 election to succeed Bush, as the first major state-by-state battles produced multiple winners. The U.S. presidential nominating battle now turns to the deep South, where the next fights will be South Carolina's Democratic primary on Saturday and Florida's Republican primary on January 29.

Then both parties turn their attention to the February 5 "Super Tuesday" round of 22 state contests, a massive shift from the intimate politics of early voting states to coast-to-coast flights and big-budget advertising campaigns.

Clinton's first stop after her Nevada victory was in St. Louis, Missouri, a state that will vote on February 5.

"Talk to your friends and neighbors. Make it clear that we're going to be picking a president on February 5 and we have to pick someone who can be ready to lead on day one," Clinton said.

Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, leads polls in South Carolina, where more than half of the primary voters are expected to be black.

The Florida Republican race will mark the debut of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has seen his once substantial lead in national opinion polls disappear as he sat on the sidelines through the first presidential nominating contests.

Giuliani has gambled that a win in Florida will propel him to a strong day on February 5 in populous states like New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois. For the victors on Saturday, the prize was a jolt of energy in a race where momentum has been short-lived.

Clinton, who would be the first U.S. woman president, won the Nevada Democratic race, 51 percent to 45 percent over Obama, with turnout reported to surpass 115,000 voters. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards finished a distant third.

NKorea suspends first inter-Korean dialogue

AFP, Seoul

North Korea has postponed the first inter-Korean dialogue of this year, citing time constraints, South Korean officials said Monday.

The two sides were to hold working-level talks Tuesday and Wednesday on repairing a cross-border railway and transporting a joint cheering squad to the Beijing Olympics this year by train.

But Pyongyang asked for a suspension, saying "It is the start of the year and there are a few things to prepare," the South's unification ministry said. "We don't know exactly why North Korea decided to suspend this week's inter-Korean meeting," a ministry spokesman told AFP.

He refused to confirm Yonhap news agency's report that the suspension was an apparent sign of uneasiness over the next South Korean government's tougher stance on Pyongyang.

The transition team of president-elect Lee Myung-Bak said last week it would shut down the unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, as part of moves to streamline the administration.

Nine die in bombings and shootings in Iraq

AFP, Ramadi

A suicide bomber Sunday detonated his explosive vest outside a tribal leader's house in Iraq's Anbar province, killing six people, while three people died in other violence, officials said.

The suicide bomber launched the attack late afternoon at a checkpoint outside the sheikh's rural homestead near the city of Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, the officials said.

At least four people were wounded in the blast.

A doctor at Fallujah hospital, Ismail al-Jumaili, said the incident occurred when tribal leaders had gathered to welcome some prisoners who had been freed a few hours earlier by the US military.

The tribal leaders are members of the so-called Awakening front against Al-Qaeda, which has been credited with largely turning around the security situation in the province, once a hotbed of insurgency.

Muslims, West divisions deepening: Survey

Reuters, Switzerland

Most people in Muslim and Western countries believe divisions between them are worsening and each side believes the other disrespects their culture, according to a poll released on Monday.

The Gallup poll, published in a report on Muslim-Western relations for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos this week, reflects "an alarmingly low level of optimism regarding dialogue between Islam and the West," WEF chairman Klaus Schwab said.

Negative perceptions were most prevalent in the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, partly because of violence in Iraq five years after the U.S.-led invasion and because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report said.

"In all but two countries surveyed t a majority believed the interaction between Western and Islamic communities is getting worse," Schwab said of the poll, which questioned around 1,000 people in each of 21 countries.

While two thirds of people in Muslim countries said Muslims respect the West, almost the same number felt the West did not respect them. Many Western respondents said they did not believe either side respected the other. Incidents like cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in European newspapers had deepened distrust, with Muslims seeing them as an assault on their religion and Westerners alarmed by Muslim protests which they saw as a threat to free speech.

But the report found that majorities in all countries surveyed do not believe military conflict is inevitable, and it said the levels of mistrust varied from country to country.

Israel lockdown plunges Gaza into darkness

AFP, Gaza City

Gaza was in darkness early Monday after its only power plant shut down for lack of fuel as Israel kept up a blockade of the Hamas-run territory in retaliation for rocket fire, despite warnings of a humanitarian crisis.

The closure of the plant, which accounts for 30 percent of the population's needs, plunged entire city blocks in Gaza City into darkness, and was set to sharply worsen power cuts already hitting the impoverished coastal strip.

"We have had to close the power plant for want of fuel," its director Rafiq Mliha told reporters, warning of "very serious consequences for residents, but also for the operation of hospitals and water treatment plants."

3 hacked to death as Kenyan political crisis persists

AFP, Nairobi

Three people were hacked to death in ethnic clashes in Nairobi slums, police said Monday, as mediators prepared a fresh bid to break the deadlock that followed President Mwai Kibaki's re-election.

The three died in the capital's Huruma and Babadogo slums where feuding tribes clashed late into the night, bringing to 48 the number of deaths over the past six days. Police said the fighting and revenge killings raged between members of pro-Kibaki tribes and those supporting opposition chief Raila Odinga, who claims he was robbed of victory in the December 27 presidential polls.

Brown calls for radical world reforms to reflect rise of Asia

AFP, New Delhi

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Monday for the radical reform of world institutions to help meet the new challenges of the 21st century, and take more account of the rise of Asia.

On a two-day visit to New Delhi, Brown told business leaders the changes should be inspired by the post-war "visionaries" who set up the United Nations and other bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. But he said the "new world order" should be more representative of what he called "the biggest shift in the balance of economic power in the world in two centuries" -- the Asian economic boom of countries like India. "Only with international institutions that promote cooperation out of shared interest and predictability and accountability can large numbers of states consistently work together for the benefit of all," he said.

Shimon Peres calls for referendum on any peace deal

Reuters, Jerusalem

Israel's President Shimon Peres said on Sunday any peace deal with the Palestinians should be put to a vote in the Jewish state either through a referendum or elections. Israel and the Palestinians re-launched peace talks after a seven-year hiatus at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November. Both Israel and the Palestinians agreed to try and reach a deal on Palestinian statehood before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in a year. "I propose either a referendum or elections but this should be at the end of negotiations," Peres told Reuters on the sidelines of Israel's annual Herzliya security and policy conference which held its opening session in parliament. Peres, who holds the largely ceremonial position, said the government, as well as Israel's opposition parties in parliament, needed to "put together its position t. so the people can decide."

India struggles with worst ever bird flu outbreak

AFP, Kolkata

Villagers in eastern India are continuing to eat chickens killed by bird flu, prompting fears the country's worst ever outbreak of the virus could worsen, an official said Monday. West Bengal animal resources development minister, Anisur Rahaman, told AFP that the situation in the affected areas was "horrible," and that authorities needed to accelerate a cull of hundreds of thousands of chickens and ducks. "The ignorance of villagers is one of the main hurdles. They are carrying the dead chickens without any protective gear," he said. "Most villagers are not aware of the disease. They are eating the dead chickens. Their children are playing with the infected chickens on the courtyards. It's horrible," Rahaman added. "Blood samples of the dead poultry have been sent for tests. We are awaiting the report," he said. Rahaman said authorities had so far killed 200,000 birds, and were planning to cull 500,000 more in the next three to four days.