The New Nation - Internet Edition

Suicide bomber kills 45 in northern Iraq

AFP, Kirkuk

A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of mourners in northern Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, a police officer told AFP.

The man detonated an explosives vest in the crowd in the Sunni Arab village of Bu Mohammed, 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of the oil city of Kirkuk at around 11:00 am (0800 GMT), Captain Abdullah Jassim said.

Doctor Jawdat Abdullah from the hospital in Al-Tuz, near Bu Mohammed village, confirmed the attack, saying his facility was receiving the wounded, some of whom were seriously hurt.

Jassim said the crowd had gathered to present their condolences over the deaths of two members of a local group fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq who were killed two days ago.

Tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs have formed local groups across Iraq backed by the US military to battle Al-Qaeda militants.

These groups, mostly former allies of Al-Qaeda, have been increasingly targeted by the jihadist group in the past several months. Imad Abdullah al-Azzawi, a witness who survived the suicide attack said the bomber blew himself inside the tent where the condolence meeting was taking place.

"There are bodies and body parts scattered everywhere. There is blood everywhere," he told AFP. The latest attack came just two days after a suicide bomber killed at least 13 people in the western city of Ramadi, a former stronghold of Sunni insurgents. Several of those killed were also members of a local anti-Qaeda group in Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni Arab province of Anbar. Also on Tuesday, a car bomb killed at least 42 people and wounded dozens outside a courthouse in the central city of Baquba. The attacks in Ramadi and Baquba were blamed on Al-Qaeda by the US military.

Thursday killings come a day after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Al-Qaeda was being isolated in Iraq. "We are determined to defeat terrorism," the Iraqi leader told the European parliament's foreign affairs committee during a visit to Brussels.

He declared "we are more confident than ever that we are close to a definitive victory over Al-Qaeda and its lawless allies."

Maliki said Al-Qaeda was in a state of "total isolation" in Iraq and was seeking "refuge beyond the borders" in neighbouring nations. "We call on neighbouring countries to dry up the roots of terrorism and prevent the terrorists from filtering into Iraq," he said.

Meanwhile, Iraq on Wednesday removed the Iraqi army and police commanders in the southern city of Basra, weeks after a crackdown on Shiite militiamen set off fierce firefights across the country.

Iraqi army Lieutenant General Mohan al-Fraiji and police chief Major General Abdul Jalil Khalaf have been replaced by two other commanders, the Iraqi army spokesman in Baghdad, Major General Qassim Atta, told reporters. Atta said Fraiji has been replaced by Major General Mahmud Jawad and Khalaf has been replaced by Major General Adel Dahaam.

On March 25, Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown on Shiite militiamen in Basra which triggered intense clashes between militiamen and security forces.

The clashes spread to other Shiite regions of Iraq, killing and wounding hundreds of people.

Faiji and Khalaf are being transferred to senior staff positions in Baghdad. Their removal comes just days after Iraq sacked 1,300 army and police personnel for failing to perform during the crackdown in Basra.

Hundreds of Iraqi troops and police are reported to have either deserted or joined the other side during the government offensive against Shiite militia

US to halt greenhouse gas rise by 2025: Bush

AFP, Washington

President George W. Bush Wednesday called for US greenhouse gas emissions to be curtailed from 2025, but was roundly accused of doing too little, too late against climate change.

Despite having abandoned the Kyoto treaty on global warming, Bush said the world's biggest polluting nation had shown it was serious about reducing growth in planet-heating gases such as carbon dioxide.

"Today, I am announcing a new national goal: to stop the growth of US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025," he said in a speech, without giving specific targets by which to reduce the emissions. Bush said to reach the 2025 goal, "we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power-sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter."

But he did not detail new legal mandates on industry to bring down emissions, and warned Congress against passing new legislation that might "impose tremendous costs on our economy and American families."

Bush instead extolled the promise of new technology to clean up gas emissions, older technology like nuclear power and "clean coal," and a previously announced target to make US vehicles more fuel efficient.

The president's address, delivered in brilliant spring sunshine in the White House Rose Garden, came on the eve of a meeting of the world's major polluters in France Thursday and Friday.

Ministers from 16 economies that together account for 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are gathering in Paris for the "Major Economies Meeting," the third in a series launched last September by Bush.

Kyoto's binding commitments, which Bush has rejected, expire in 2012. The president came belatedly to the climate change cause, and now stands accused of trying to ram through a diluted new regime that will focus on voluntary action rather than mandatory cuts.

Israelis kill 20 Palestinians

Reuters, Gaza

Israeli forces killed 20 Palestinians, most of them civilians including a Reuters cameraman, in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Wednesday, medical officials and witnesses said.

The attacks came after three Israeli troops died in a Hamas ambush near a border fuel pipeline. But despite the bloodiest day's toll in more than a month, Israel allowed European-funded fuel into Gaza to keep its only power plant operational. "The fuel has started to go through," said the European Union official, referring to the Nahal Oz terminal, close to the scene of clashes in which the three soldiers died. Seventeen Palestinians, at least 11 of them civilians, were killed in Israeli assaults, Hamas and medical officials said. The dead included Fadel Shana, 23, a Reuters cameraman who was felled while trying to film in central Gaza. Footage from Shana's camera showed an Israeli tank firing a shell in his direction from several hundred meters (yards) away.

Israel struck hard against targets in Gaza on Wednesday, killing at least 20 Palestinians in a day of heavy fighting that also saw three Israeli soldiers killed in a Hamas ambush. Several civilians were among the dead - including five children and a Reuters cameraman killed while covering the conflict, according to Palestinian officials. The surge in violence came after a relatively quiet month and threatened to unravel an Egyptian effort to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Wednesday's death toll was the highest since a broad Israeli military offensive in early March killed more than 120 Gazans, including dozens of civilians. Since then, Israel and Hamas appeared to be honoring an informal truce, though punctuated with Palestinian rocket attacks, some Israeli airstrikes and minor border skirmishes.

China seals gateway into Tibet

AP, Nepal

Three lithe Chinese security men shift silently into position so they are anchored abreast exactly midway across Friendship Bridge, high above a Himalayan river gorge.

It's the only international gateway into Tibet. As a small group of foreigners approaches, the guards' unspoken message is clear: the rebellious territory behind them is off-limits.

After anti-government riots erupted March 14, Beijing closed off Tibet to foreign and domestic tourists and cracked down on Tibetans trying to escape. And China's security apparatus doesn't stop at the border.

2 US soldiers killed in Afghanistan

AFP, Kabul

A new US Marine force that began deploying in Afghanistan last month said Thursday it had suffered the first casualties since it began operations in country, losing two soldiers in a bomb blast.

The 2,300-strong US Marine Expeditionary Unit confirmed that two soldiers, whose deaths were announced on Wednesday by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), belonged to the unit.

"We lost two Marines on the 16th of April early in the morning in Kandahar," a spokeswomen for the newly deployed force, captain Kelly Frushour, told AFP, referring to southern Kandahar province. The soldiers were attached to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which began operations in southern Afghanistan on April 10.

Ahmadinejad boasts over Iran’s military power

AFP, Tehran

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday proclaimed Iran as the "most powerful nation" on earth as the country's air force showed off its prowess at a time of mounting tension with the West.

"Iran is the most powerful and independent nation in the world," Ahmadinejad told a military parade outside Tehran marking the Islamic republic's annual Army Day, reaffirming one of his favoured slogans.

Ahmadinejad said all the branches of the armed forces would react forcefully in response to any attack against Iran's soil and boasted that no one would dare to launch a strike on the country. "The army, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij (militia) will resist with force and coordination and respond strongly to the slightest aggression," he said.

"I am proud to announce today that the Iranian nation's power is of an extent that no major power can dare jeopardise the security and interests of the Iranian nation."

Iran nuclear talks in China fall short of agreement

Reuters, Shanghai

Six-nation talks looking to revive nuclear negotiations with Iran fell short on Wednesday of agreeing on a new package to present Tehran, while Iran's president said he was open to talks within limits.

The meeting in Shanghai of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany and an EU representative, was a first such meeting for China, which has kept away from the spotlight in the dispute.

But China's Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei emerged from several hours of bargaining to say the diplomats failed to fully agree on a fresh plan to offer Iran, which rejected an earlier offer of negotiating incentives put to it in 2006.

Pope blames church sex scandal on breakdown of society

AFP, Washington

Pope Benedict XVI chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fueled the church's child sex abuse scandal, ahead of an open-air mass before tens of thousands here Thursday.

Gates opened at Washington's new sports stadium before dawn so that an expected 48,000 people could trickle through stringent security measures to attend the mass at 10:00 am (1400 GMT).

Benedict received a rapturous White House welcome Wednesday and met privately with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, before addressing the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church in a speech to US Catholic bishops.

Hillary emphatically says Obama can win White House

AP, Philadelphia

Hillary Rodham Clinton said emphatically Wednesday night that Barack Obama can win the White House this fall, undercutting her efforts to deny him the Democratic presidential nomination by suggesting he would lead the party to defeat.

"Yes, yes, yes," she said when pressed about Obama's electability during a campaign debate six days before the Pennsylvania primary.

Asked a similar question about Clinton, Obama said "Absolutely and I've said so before" - a not-so-subtle dig at his rival who had previously declined to make a similar statement about him.

Sharif seeks parliament seat

AP, Islamabad

A spokesman for Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says Sharif will run for parliament in June.

Election officials barred Sharif from contesting legislative elections in February over a prior conviction.

Spokesman Sadiqul Farooq said Thursday that Sharif was wrongly disqualified and forecast that he will be able to run this time. Polling was postponed until June in several seats because of the deaths of candidates or other problems.

Sharif's party is the second-largest in Pakistan's new government. Entering parliament would give him a platform to step up his calls for President Pervez Musharraf to quit.s.