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US loses 8 more soldiers in Iraq violence

AFP, Baghdad

Eight US soldiers were killed in separate attacks in Iraq on Monday in one of the deadliest days for the US military in several months.

In one attack, insurgents killed three US soldiers and their translator in Iraq's restive province of Diyala where a massive American and Iraqi military sweep has been targeting Al-Qaeda militants for several months.

The military said another soldier was also wounded in the blast.

The Diyala attack that took place on Monday was announced by the military on Tuesday.

On Monday however the military said five US soldiers were killed and three wounded in a suicide attack earlier in the day in the once upscale neighbourhood of Mansur in Baghdad.

The Baghdad attack was the deadliest on American troops in two months.

"Five US soldiers were killed today when their dismounted patrol was struck by a suicide bomber. Three US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded as well," military spokesman Lieutenant Michael Street said on Monday.

A separate US military statement said one of the five soldiers died of wounds received from the attack that occurred at around 3:00 pm (1200 GMT).

The latest deaths bring the US military's death toll since the March 2003 invasion to 3,983, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org.

The previous major attack against US troops was on January 9 when six US soldiers were killed when they entered a booby-trapped house in Diyala.

The previous deadliest day for the military was August 22, 2007, when 14 American soldiers were killed in northern Iraq after their Blackhawk came down during a pre-dawn flight.

An Iraqi security official said two civilians were also killed in the Baghdad suicide attack on Monday while 15 others were wounded and around six shops were damaged.

An Iraqi soldier at the scene told how he and his comrades had raced to the blast area to help.

"We rushed to the spot and saw six casualtiest five Americans were killed and one translator was wounded," said the exhausted soldier, his trousers drenched in blood after helping carry the victims.

He spoke on condition of anonymity as he drank tea at a nearby stall to calm his nerves.

Witnesses said a convoy of five or six military vehicles stopped in front of Al-Jadarji building in the Mansur district and a group of soldiers walked to the opposite side of the road to buy clothes from a shop called Al-Anaka.

After around 10 minutes, the men left the shop and the bomber struck.

UN envoy fails to convince Myanmar junta

Reuters, Yangon

A U.N. envoy left Myanmar on Monday after seeing detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi twice in three days but without making major progress in convincing the military junta to implement democratic reforms.

U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari spent 50 minutes with the Nobel laureate, who was taken from the state guest house where they met on Monday back to the lakeside Yangon villa where she has been under house arrest since May 2003.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave no details of Gambari's meeting with the detained dissident but indicated he was disappointed after Gambari's visit to the country.

"There was some progress but we have not been able to achieve as much we had hoped," Ban told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York at a news conference on Africa and the global fight against poverty.

Ban said Gambari did not meet with senior general Than Shwe but was able to see "many senior people, even including the constitution drafting or review committee members."

"That was unusual," Ban said.

He said he would "continue to press the reform issue so that Myanmar will meet the expectations of the international community toward democratization."

Among the officials Gambari met was Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, the highest-ranking official he saw on the trip.

In this meeting Gambari was told the junta would not deviate from its own "roadmap to democracy" despite international pressure after last year's protests.

"To speak frankly, the road we have been taking is the correct and most suitable one for our country," Kyaw Hsan told Gambari in a meeting broadcast on state television. His words squashed hopes the generals would include Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in their much-criticized plans to restore civilian government after more than four decades of military rule.

"We are firmly convinced that it is the best way and it will ensure a smooth and peaceful transition to democracy for our country," Kyaw Hsan, a brigadier general, said. Shortly afterward, the Nigerian diplomat left for Singapore, ending his third visit to the former Burma since authorities brutally crushed pro-democracy marches in September. During his four-day visit, the generals made it clear they would not entertain any changes to the constitution they have drafted, despite Western concerns it is a blueprint for the military hanging on to power.

Russia criticises deployment of US ships off Lebanon

AP, United Nations

Russia told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that the presence of U.S. Navy warships in the Mediterranean off the coast of Lebanon was not helping resolve the political crisis in Lebanon.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said he raised the U.S. deployment at a closed council meeting on implementation of the U.N. cease-fire resolution that ended the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in August 2006.

"We pointed out the fact that basically all Lebanese political forces expressed their concern about that, including the government of Prime Minister (Fuad) Saniora, and we have said that such acts were bringing up some unwanted historical analogies," he said.

"So we did not see it as a constructive contribution to the situation in Lebanon," Churkin said. Saniora's Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition have been locked in a 15-month power struggle, with Hezbollah and its allies trying to force out Saniora's administration. The deadlock has prevented the country from electing a president since November, leaving the post empty in a dangerous power vacuum.

North Korea must stand on its own feet: Lee

Reuters, Seoul

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday urged North Korea to start standing on its own feet, stop relying on handouts and get ready for unification.

North Korea, its economy drained by the cost of supporting one of the world's largest standing armies, has for years depended on shipments of food from the South.

"We want North Korea to stand on its own feet quickly and not have to take handouts from other countries. (We want) a country that's a little bit better off," Lee, a former business executive who took office late last month, told foreign ministry officials. The conservative leader has promised to help lift North Korea out of abject poverty on condition the reclusive communist neighbor abandons nuclear weapons and opens up its economy. Lee called for more rigorous attempts to engage the North in serious dialogue to convince Pyongyang to commit to change.

"We have no desire whatsoever to set back reconciliation between the South and the North by confronting the North," Lee said, according to a text provided by his office.

Estimates in the South put North Korea's annual per capita income as low as $400, making it one of the world's poorest countries.

Many in the South fear the cost of unification with the impoverished North, which has been ruled by cult personality for the past 60 years, would shatter their own economy, the world's 13th-largest.

Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam, al Qaida

AP, Washington

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy . However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report. He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001 , terrorist attacks.

Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.

Former rebels sweep polls in eastern Sri Lanka

AFP, Batticaloa

A pro-government Tamil militia made up of Tamil Tiger defectors has swept to victory in local elections in Sri Lanka's volatile east, officials results showed Tuesday.

The armed Tamil People's Liberation Party (TMVP) secured 72 out of the 101 council seats in Monday's vote in Batticaloa district, the elections department said.

The government plans to use the poll as a curtain raiser for a larger provincial council election later this year to allow Tamils, who are a national minority but are in the majority in Batticaloa, to have greater autonomy.

"This peaceful election underlines the aim of the government to create an environment in which all our people could live in freedom and harmony," President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a statement.

The TMVP, backed by Rajapakse's ruling People's Alliance, took complete control of eight out of nine councils, with the ninth council going to TMVP proxies.

The vote had been a one-horse race for the TMVP, a breakaway militia whose defection helped government forces push the leading separatist outfit, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), out of the east last year.

Obama mocks VP talk as race heads to Mississippi

AFP, Biloxi

Democrat Barack Obama Monday ridiculed talk by his White House rival Hillary Clinton that he could run as her vice presidential nominee, as their next clash loomed in Mississippi. Obama, who is ahead in delegates after 45 Democratic contests, mocked verbal gymnastics by the Clinton camp arguing that he is unfit to be commander-in-chief, but could be the number two on a "dream ticket." "If I'm not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president? Do you understand that?" he said, drawing laughter from supporters at a rally in Columbus, Mississippi on the eve of the state's primary. The Illinois senator said the Clinton team was "trying to hoodwink you." "With all due respect, I've won twice as many states as Senator Clinton. I've won more of the popular vote than Senator Clinton. I have more delegates than Senator Clinton," he said. "So I don't know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who's in first place."

Rice seeks to maintain peace momentum despite 'unhelpful' settlements

AFP, Washington

The United States on Monday criticized new Israeli settlements as "unhelpful" but insisted the shaky peace process carry on during a visit here by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Sitting next to Livni, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged both Israelis and Palestinians to honor their obligations under the 2003 roadmap for peace, which calls for a settlement freeze and an end to Palestinian violence.

Rice will raise the settlements with Livni, but she will focus on "let's keep this process moving forward" in order to prevent disputes from bogging it down, her spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters earlier. In remarks to the media at the start of her talks with Livni, Rice referred vaguely to Israel's announcement at the weekend that it will build hundreds of new housing units in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. "US policy on this is well known," Rice said when asked whether the announcement was "unhelpful" to the peace process, as McCormack had said.

Thai court denies bail to Russian 'Merchant of Death'

AFP, Bangkok

A Thai court on Tuesday denied bail to Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, worried the man known as the "Merchant of Death" for his alleged ties to the criminal underworld would leave the country. Bout was arrested last week in an elaborate sting operation by Thai police and US agents, and held on charges of conspiring to provide arms to Colombian rebels. He is incarcerated at a maximum security prison in Bangkok. "The suspect is accused of being involved in international terrorism," said a statement from the criminal court seen by AFP. "This is a serious case and he may leave the country, so the court is not allowing the bail for the suspect." Lak Nitiwatvichan, Bout's Thai lawyer, insisted that his client was an innocent citizen and had not broken the law in any country. "We had put 500,000 baht cash (16,000 dollars) up for bail, the court denied the request," he said. "We will prove that he is not involved with any group, any gang like Al-Qaeda and (extremist organisation) Jemaah Islamiyah."

Croat General Gotovina goes on trial for war crimes

Reuters, Amsterdam

Former Croatian General Ante Gotovina goes on trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday charged with responsibility for the murder and mistreatment of Serbs in Croatia's Krajina region in 1995. Gotovina, who is accused with two other former generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac and was indicted in 2001, traveled extensively using false identities before his capture in Spain's Canary Islands in December 2005.

Prosecutors say during the 1995 "Operation Storm" to retake Krajina from Serb rebels in the last months of fighting, Gotovina's troops murdered at least 37 ethnic Serbs, torched villages and stabbed and burned those trying to flee. "Soldiers opened fire on groups of civilians. Persons were shot while fleeing their homes. Dead bodies were strewn along roads. Persons were observed being shot at point-blank range and killed execution-style, and many persons had to look on while family members were killed," the indictment states.

Space shuttle Endeavour launches with Japanese lab

AFP, Cape Canaveral

Space shuttle Endeavour soared into space Tuesday, carrying parts of a Japanese laboratory that is to become the largest and last research component of the International Space Station. With its installation Japan gains a foothold on the ISS alongside the United States, Russia and Europe, whose laboratory Columbus was delivered to the station in February. Endeavour roared into space at 0628 GMT Tuesday, in a rare night launch from the Kennedy Space Center here -- its motors and booster rockets casting a glare bright as midday along the Florida coast for about 30 seconds. In 53 seconds the shuttle had already attained a speed of about 2,425 kilometers (1,507 miles) per hour -- about twice the speed of sound. Two minutes after launch Endeavour successfully jettisoned its twin solid rocket boosters. Less than nine minutes after launch, it safely entered Earth's orbit and began its chase of the ISS, for a rendezvous expected Wednesday.