The New Nation - Internet Edition

Abbas aide hints at declaring independent state

Reuters, Ramallah

Palestinians should declare an independent state unilaterally if peace talks with Israel continue to falter, a top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear if Abbas shared the view of Yasser Abed Rabbo, but Saeb Erekat, another senior Palestinian negotiator, voiced opposition to any unilateral declaration of independence.

Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team, made his comments a day after the latest round of top-level talks with Israel.

"If things are not going in the direction of actually halting settlement activities, if things are not going in the direction of continuous and serious negotiations, then we should take the step and announce our independence unilaterally," Abed Rabbo told Reuters.

He drew an analogy to Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia on Sunday.

"Kosovo is not better than us. We deserve independence even before Kosovo, and we ask for the backing of the United States and the European Union for our independence," Abed Rabbo said. But Erekat said the Palestine Liberation Organisation had already declared independence in 1988.

"Now we need real independence, not a declaration. We need real independence by ending the occupation. We are not Kosovo. We are under Israeli occupation and for independence we need to acquire independence," Erekat said.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met on Tuesday to accelerate U.S.-backed peace talks launched at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November, the first formal negotiations in seven years.

The negotiations, which Washington hopes will yield a statehood agreement this year, have been stalled by disputes over Israeli plans to build new homes on occupied land near Jerusalem and Olmert's insistence on putting off talks on the fate of the holy city. Abed Rabbo was the first senior Palestinian negotiator to discuss declaring independence unilaterally since a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000.

US should help Pakistan build democracy

AP, Islamabad

Sen. Joseph Biden said Tuesday that Pakistan's transition to a civilian government after eight years of military rule gives the U.S. a chance to adopt a foreign policy based on the whole nation - not just President Pervez Musharraf.

Biden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and two other senators were in Pakistan to observe Monday's parliamentary elections. The ruling pro-Musharraf party conceded defeat to opposition parties on Tuesday.

"Nothing is more important than giving the moderate majority a clear voice and a clear stake in the system," said Biden, D-Del.

Castro departure leaves Cuba in suspense

AFP, Havana

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has said he would give up power for good, but the island has been left in suspense over who will take the helm amid hopes his successor will break with the authoritarian past.

All eyes will turn to the national assembly on Sunday when the communist country's legislature picks a new head of state to replace the 81-year-old Castro, who was sidelined by gastrointestinal surgery in July 2006.

His brother, Raul Castro, 76, who has served as provisional president for the last 19 months, is widely considered the likely successor.

But analysts believe that Cuba's powerbrokers could turn to a new generation of leaders after nearly half a century of Castro rule. Vice President Carlos Lage, 56, is seen as a potential successor.

Al-Sadr threatens to lift cease-fire

AP, Baghdad

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has threatened to lift by the end of the week a six-month cease-fire widely credited with helping reduce violence in Iraq, officials said Wednesday.

Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying that the cease-fire was extended "then that means the freeze is over."

The cease fire was declared in August and due to expire at this month's end.

PM wins Armenia presidential vote

AFP, Yerevan

Armenia's Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian has won the country's presidential election, the central election commission said Wednesday, but his opponents cried foul and vowed to stage a mass protest.

A final preliminary count of the vote gave Sarkisian 52.9 percent, elections commission chairman Garegin Azarian said.

He was trailed by former president Levon Ter-Petrosian with 21.5 percent and former parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian with 16.6 percent, Azarian said.

7 killed in S Korean army copter crash

AP, Seoul

A South Korean army helicopter crashed into a mountain near Seoul early Wednesday, killing all seven people on board, an army officer said.

The UH-1H went down in Yangpyong, about 25 miles east of Seoul around 1:40 a.m., army spokesman Lt. Col. Ko Dong-hun told The Associated Press.

Two pilots, two medical officers and three soldiers died when the aircraft crashed while returning to base after transporting an emergency patient to a military hospital, he said.

The bodies were sent to a military hospital in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, after being recovered from the mountain where the chopper was broken into two.

Musharraf's days could be numbered

AP, Islamabad

Pervez Musharraf has survived combat as a career soldier and assassination attempts as president. Now the will of his own people has pushed him to the precipice. A sweeping opposition win in elections has diminished the U.S.-backed leader's political standing as never before and many predict his days in power are numbered. Musharraf has already given up his command of the army, and his rock-bottom popularity at home has diminished his effectiveness to his Western allies in the fight against Islamic extremism. "I don't see him surviving. It is just a question of time," said Shafqat Mahmood, a political analyst who is a prominent commentator in Pakistani newspapers and television. Monday's elections, in which the ruling party mustered just 15 percent of the vote, exposed how little support Musharraf has among Pakistan's 160 million people. Many are alarmed at rising Islamic militancy, weary of prolonged military rule and angry at high food prices. The parties of Bhutto and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, came close to winning the two-thirds majority needed to impeach the president.

Myanmar to bar Suu Kyi from 2010 polls

Reuters, Singapore

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed to take part in elections proposed by the country's military leaders in 2010 because she had been married to a foreigner, the Straits Times reported on Wednesday. Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said his Myanmar counterpart told a regional meeting on Tuesday that the new constitution barred Suu Kyi from the polls because of her marriage to Briton Michael Aris, who died in 1999, and because their children held foreign passports, the newspaper said. Yeo said foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) told Myanmar's representative, Nyan Win, that the move was "not in keeping with the times." "He was quite clear that in the new constitution, a Myanmar citizen who has a foreign husband or who has children not citizens of Myanmar will be disqualified, as it was in the 1974 constitution," Yeo said, according to the paper. Earlier this month, Myanmar's ruling generals announced a referendum in May on a new constitution, to be followed by an election in 2010.