The New Nation - Internet Edition

Over 100 killed in Basra fighting, curfew imposed

Reuters, Basra

Explosions could be heard every 10 or 15 minutes in Basra, epicenter of an Iraqi government crackdown on followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on Thursday.

Authorities imposed curfews across southern Iraq in an effort to halt the spread of violence after the largest military offensive carried out by Iraqi forces without major backing from U.S. or British combat units.

More than 100 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in clashes which have divided Iraq's majority Shi'ite community and wrecked a ceasefire declared last year by Sadr.

Residents of Basra, Iraq's second largest city and main oil centre, have described the fighting as the worst since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Clashes have spread to the southern cities of Kut, Hilla, Diwaniya, Amara and Kerbala, as well as Shi'ite neighborhoods of Baghdad.

"We have been living for the last hours in hell. We have spent most of the time hiding under the staircase," said Basra resident Faris Hayder, 28. "We haven't seen anything like this since the foreign troops arrived in 2003."

Basra's police chief survived an assassination attempt overnight. A roadside bomb killed three of his bodyguards.

Hundreds of Sadr followers were gathering in Baghdad neighborhoods for demonstrations to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Sadr's aides say the ceasefire is still formally in place despite the fighting. He has called on his followers to stage a campaign of "civil disobedience," forcing schools, universities and shops to shut, and has threatened to declare a countrywide "civil revolt" if the two-day-old crackdown is not halted.

Ali Bustan, head of the health directorate for eastern Baghdad, said 39 bodies and more than 200 wounded had been brought to two hospitals in Sadr City, the vast Shi'ite slum named for Sadr's slain father and the cleric's main power base.

Mortar bombs, most apparently fired from the Sadr City area, have exploded across Baghdad for days. Mortars killed at least nine people on Tuesday and wounded dozens, including four inside the Green Zone fortified diplomatic and government compound.

Maliki, who has traveled to Basra to oversee the crackdown, has given the militants an ultimatum to surrender within three days or be declared outlaws. He has cancelled plans to attend an Arab summit in Damascus on Saturday.

U.S. and British assistance for the campaign in the south has been limited to air support and small teams of mentors.

Most of the Shi'ite areas where the fighting is taking place have virtually no foreign troops. The 160,000-strong U.S. force is mainly concentrated on Sunni and mixed areas near Baghdad and in the north. British troops who patrolled Basra pulled out of the city in December and are confined to an air base nearby.

With Washington planning to reduce its force by 20,000 over the next four months and U.S. Democratic presidential candidates calling for faster withdrawal from an unpopular war, the Iraqi government is under pressure to show it can impose its will.

The fighting exposes the deep divide within the Shi'ite community between the parties in Maliki's government who have control over the security forces and many southern governates, and Sadr's followers who in many Shi'ite areas rule the streets.

US envoys' visit to Pakistan draws fire

AP, Islamabad

Pakistanis expressed growing outrage Thursday over the timing of a visit by two senior U.S. envoys who landed even before foes of U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf could name a new Cabinet, decrying the visit as American "meddling."

Meanwhile, an American newspaper reported that a recent increase in U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan's tribal areas was because of U.S. worries that the new government would scale back military operations in the area.

Such strikes have killed at least 25 people this month, sparking anger over civilian casualties in the region, where Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida operatives could be hiding.

Washington has been scrambling to build bridges with Pakistan's new leaders, who routed Musharraf loyalists in parliamentary elections last month partly because of popular anger over the president's alliance with the U.S. in the war on terror. The new government has pledged to slash Musharraf's powers and review his American-backed counterterrorism policies. Already, partners in the new government have said they would negotiate with some militant groups - an approach that has drawn criticism from Washington, which has provided about $10 billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001.

The U.S. envoys, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, began meetings in Islamabad just as newly elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was taking his oath of office Tuesday.

Monks defy China crackdown to protest in Lhasa

AFP, Beijing

Monks from one of Tibetan Buddhism's most sacred temples defied China's crackdown to protest in front of visiting foreign reporters in Lhasa on Thursday, voicing their support for the Dalai Lama.

The embarrassing protest came as China again refused to hold talks with the exiled spiritual leader, after US President George W. Bush added his voice to calls for dialogue in an effort to solve the Tibetan crisis.

Two weeks of deadly demonstrations by Tibetans against China's rule of the remote Himalayan region have angered authorities in Beijing and put them under international pressure as they prepare to host the Olympics in August. China has insisted its response to the protests, the biggest challenge to its rule of Tibet in decades, has been restrained and that it has brought the situation under control.

S Korea pulls its officials from North Korea

AP, Seoul

South Korea withdrew officials from a joint economic office with North Korea at Pyongyang's request Thursday in a diplomatic spat stemming from Seoul's new tougher stance on the North's nuclear disarmament.

The North made the demand Monday after South Korea's unification minister said Seoul would hold off on expanding the joint-Korean industrial zone in a North Korean border city until the dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear programs was resolved, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said. South Korea's conservative new president, Lee Myung-bak, has pledged to review rapprochement projects.

US, China press NKorea over nuclear arms declaration

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao pressed North Korea Wednesday to come clean over its nuclear arms program, as South Korea warned that time and patience were wearing out on Pyongyang.

In a day of intensive diplomacy, the White House said Bush telephoned Hu to help get North Korea to make a full declaration of its nuclear arms program, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her South Korean counterpart to keep up the heat on the Stalinist state.

"The two presidents pledged to continue to work closely with the other six-party partners in urging North Korea to deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs, and nuclear proliferation activities and to complete the agreed disablement," a statement said.

"Bush expressed appreciation to President Hu for the important role China has played within" the six-party talks, which it chairs and are aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive, added the statement.

North Korea has refused to make a "complete and correct" declaration of its nuclear weapons program and alleged proliferation activities as part of an aid-for-disarmament deal agreed to by the six parties -- the United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia. "It's time to bring this to a conclusion," Bush's National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said of the ongoing effort by the parties to get North Korea to come forward with a full declaration.

Bush tells Hu shipment of warhead fuse to Taiwan a 'mistake'

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush told his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao Wednesday that the Pentagon made a "mistake" by sending Taiwan four nuclear warhead fuses in 2006, a top White House official said. Bush told Hu in a telephone calls "that a mistake had been made," national security advisor Stephen Hadley told reporters. Hadley said the issue "came up very briefly" and that "there was very little discussion about it." The erroneous shipment of the fuses, which can be used to trigger warheads on ballistic missiles, was only discovered last week, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. China on Wednesday expressed "grave concern" over the revelation. "We express our serious concern and strong dissatisfaction and demand the US side investigate this incident," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement. "We urge the US to cease selling military hardware to Taiwan and end US-Taiwan military ties, or risk harming stability in the Taiwan Strait and the healthy and stable development of China-US ties." Nose cone assemblies containing the fuses were recovered on Monday from Taiwan where they had been held in storage after being shipped there as helicopter batteries, senior Pentagon officials said.

Australia plans 'middle power' role in global affairs: PM

AFP, Sydney

Australia's new government aims to take a more activist "middle power" role in global affairs, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said ahead of his first major trip abroad Thursday. In his maiden foreign policy address since sweeping to power in a November election landslide, the centre-left former diplomat outlined the thinking behind his 18-day trip to the United States, Europe and China. "The truth is that Australia's voice has been too quiet for too long across the various councils of the world," Rudd told the Australia National University's East Asia Forum on Wednesday night. "That is why during the course of the next three years, the world will see an increasingly activist Australian international policy in areas where we believe we may be able to make a positive difference. "The new Australian government is committed to the principle of creative middle power diplomacy as the best means of enhancing Australia's national interests," he said.

Pakistan PM calls for political solution to terror fight

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan's new premier told US President George W. Bush that a broader approach to the "war on terror" is necessary, including political solutions and development programmes, a statement said. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, a senior official from the party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, made the call for a rethink in policy when Bush telephoned him on Tuesday to congratulate him on taking office. His comments came after former premier Nawaz Sharif told two US envoys on Tuesday that the new government would review President Pervez Musharraf's "one-man" anti-terror strategy and focus on Pakistan's needs. Gilani told Bush "that Pakistan would continue to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations since it is in Pakistan's own national interest," said a statement issued late Tuesday by his office.

Iran wants compensation for UN sanctions

AP, United Nations

Iran is demanding compensation for what it says are unlawful sanctions imposed by the U.N. for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, the Mideast nation's foreign minister said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. In the 20-page letter, Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran rejects the sanctions resolutions because the U.N. Security Council went beyond its powers, and its actions are inconsistent with the U.N. Charter. The United States, the European Union, Israel and others suspect Iran's goal is to produce nuclear weapons. But Iran insists its program is aimed solely at producing nuclear energy and has defied the council by stepping up its enrichment activities. Mottaki said repeatedly in the letter that Tehran has answered all outstanding questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the IAEA "has repeatedly stated that there is no evidence to prove any diversion of the Iranian nuclear program towards military purposes."

Myanmar junta chief promises democracy

AFP, Naypyidaw

Myanmar's junta chief Than Shwe said Thursday that civilians would take the reins of government after elections in 2010, once a constitution is approved giving broad powers to the military. But he did not say when the public would be allowed to see the final version of the proposed constitution, nor did he announce an exact date for a planned referendum to approve it.

"As the new constitution has already been drafted, it will be put to a national referendum in forthcoming May, and subsequently the multiparty general elections will follow in 2010 in line with the provisions of the constitution," he said to 13,000 soldiers at a military parade in the new capital Naypyidaw. The 74-year-old general said his military government did not "crave for power," insisting on the junta's "ultimate aim to hand over the state power to the people." Foreign journalists were denied visas to report on the event, which came six months after a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks.