The New Nation - Internet Edition

Hamas ready to accept Israel as its neighbour: Carter

AP, Jerusalem

Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbour next door in peace," former President Jimmy Carter said Monday.

Carter said the group promised it wouldn't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas, a militant Islamic group that both the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist organization, calls in its charter for Israel's destruction. It has also traditionally opposed peace negotiations with the Jewish state. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, later said Carter's comments "do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum." Carter's comments came after his much criticized meetings with the top Hamas leaders in Syria in last week.

The Nobel laureate also urged Israel to engage in direct negotiations with the Islamic militant group, saying it was a "problem" that Israel and the U.S. refuse to meet with Hamas. Both governments consider it a terrorist organization. "The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria," he said. "The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved." "There's no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel's right to exist in peace within 1967 borders," he said, referring to Israel's frontiers before it captured large swaths of Arab lands in the 1967 Mideast war. Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he decided not to meet with Carter in Israel because he does not wish to be seen as participating in any negotiations with Hamas.

In his comments Monday, Carter said Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking has "regressed" since a U.S.-hosted Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md., in November. Israel has been negotiating directly with Abbas, who heads a moderate government based in the West Bank.

Abbas lost control of the Gaza Strip last June, when Hamas violently seized control of that territory. Carter said Hamas has promised to let a captured Israeli soldier send a letter to his parents, and said the militants "made clear to us that they would accept an interim cease-fire in the Gaza Strip."

However, Carter said Hamas rejected his specific proposal for a monthlong unilateral cease-fire.

8 Palestinians killed in Israeli raids

AFP, Gaza City

At least eight Palestinians were killed Sunday after Israeli forces launched air strikes across the Gaza Strip, a day after Hamas militants detonated explosives-laden vehicles at a border crossing.

Two more Palestinians were killed and three wounded during a raid late Sunday in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza strip, bringing the total number of dead to eight, according to medical sources and witnesses.

They were killed in an air-to-ground missile strike, the sources said. An Israeli military source confirmed the attack, saying it was aimed at a "group of armed men."

But Palestinian medical sources said one of the dead was a civilian.

Six Palestinian fighters, all members of Hamas, the Islamist movement that violently seized Gaza last year and that refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist, were killed in air raids early Sunday. Israel began air attacks against militants on Saturday after they detonated two booby-trapped vehicles disguised as Israeli military jeeps at the Kerem Shalom border crossing used to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza, whose economy is crippled by an Israeli blockade.

Thirteen Israeli soldiers were wounded in Saturday's attack, which Israeli Major General Yoav Galant described as the "most ambitious launched against our troops" since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

The jeeps and an armoured vehicle approached the border under the cover of fog and mortar fire.

Rice in Iraq, violence surges after Sadr threat

Reuters, Baghdad

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed Iraq's crackdown on militias in a visit on Sunday to Baghdad, where the worst fighting in weeks killed 23 after Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened all-out war.

Rockets blasted the fortified Green Zone compound where Rice met Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other officials and praised their month-old campaign against Sadr's followers.

She had harsh words for the reclusive cleric, who on the eve of Rice's visit vowed "open war" if the crackdown continues. Sadr has not appeared in public in Iraq in nearly a year.

"He is still living in Iran. I guess it's all out war for anybody but him," Rice told reporters. "His followers can go to their death and he will still be in Iran."

Sadr's reply came in a statement sent to reporters, condemning Rice's visit and saying the government should not admit such "occupier terrorists into our pure land."

The U.S. military described a night of gunbattles and helicopter missile strikes that killed 23 fighters in east Baghdad's Sadr City slum and other militia strongholds.

"I would say it's been the hottest night in a couple of weeks," spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover said.

Fighting leaves 81 dead in Mogadishu

Reuters, Mogadishu

Corpses lay on the streets of Mogadishu on Monday after at least 81 people were killed in battles over the weekend between Islamist-led insurgents and Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia's interim government.

Northern districts of the coastal capital suffered the worst of the most intense fighting for months, with both sides exchanging barrages of mortar rounds and heavy machinegun fire. The city was quiet early on Monday.

"This morning as I was trying to escape the fighting which I feared might restart, I saw four dead men I knew lying in the neighborhood," resident Hussein Abdulle said by telephone.

Another resident, Abdulahi Mohamud, told Reuters that at least 20 people-mostly women and children-were trapped in a mosque where Ethiopian tank crews had dug deep defensive trenches.

Pakistan tests nuclear capable ballistic missile

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan's army test-fired a long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Monday, the military said, the second test since the weekend.

The launch marked the culmination of a field training exercise for the Hatf-VI (Shaheen-II), which included a test firing on Saturday. "It validated the operational readiness of a strategic missile group equipped with (the) Shaheen-II missile," the military said in a statement, referring to Monday's test.

The missile, with a range of 1,200 miles, is a two-stage solid fuel weapon which can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads, the military said.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India routinely carry out missile tests despite a peace process they launched in early 2004.

The South Asian neighbors, who conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 1998, inform each other of missile tests in advance.

Ahmadinejad to visit India next week

AFP, New Delhi

Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will stop in New Delhi next week on a brief "working visit" to be topped by talks on two multi-billion dollar energy deals, an official said Monday.

Ahmadinejad will arrive here on April 29 after a two-day state visit to India's southern neighbour Sri Lanka, and leave later that day, the foreign ministry official said.

33 killed in fresh Lankan fighting

AFP, Colombo

Sri Lanka's military said Monday it had smashed at least 10 Tamil Tiger bunker positions in an offensive in the far north of the island that left 28 rebels and five government soldiers dead.

The fighting occurred Sunday on the Jaffna peninsula, the government-held northern tip of the island, as well as elsewhere in the north along frontlines with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a defence official said.

UN chief warns world must urgently increase food production

AP, Accra

The U.N. chief warned Sunday that the world must urgently increase food production to ease skyrocketing prices and pledged to set up a task force on a crisis threatening to destabilize developing nations. The cost of food has increased by around 40 percent since mid-2007 worldwide, and the strain has caused riots and protests in countries like Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Egypt. "We must make no mistake, the problem is big. If we offer the right aid, the solutions will come," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the opening of a five-day U.N. conference on trade and development in Ghana's capital, Accra. "One thing is certain, the world has consumed more than it has produced" over the last three years, he said. Ban blamed a host of causes for the soaring cost of food, including rising oil prices, the fall of the U.S. dollar and natural disasters. He said he would put together a special task force to help deal with the problem and called on the international community to help. He said the U.N. World Food Program plans to raise $750 million per year to help feed 73 million people in 80 countries.

Obama says McCain would be better president than Bush

AP, Reading

Democrat Barack Obama, who often argues that John McCain is the same as President Bush, said Sunday that the Republican presidential candidate would be an improvement over Bush's eight-year reign. "You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain. And all three of us would be better than George Bush," Obama said. "But what you have to ask yourself is, who has the chance to actually, really change things in a fundamental way?" Obama asked as he wrapped up a town-hall style event at Reading High School in central Pennsylvania. The Illinois senator was trying to argue that he is the stronger choice over Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in Tuesday's primary in Pennsylvania. But Obama ended up mixing in praise for McCain at the same time - and giving Clinton an opening to criticize. "We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain," the New York senator said in Johnstown. She said the Arizona senator would follow "the same failed policies that have been so wrong for our country the last seven years."

NKorea must disclose nuclear programmes: Fukuda

Reuters, Tokyo

Japan and South Korea agreed on Monday that North Korea needs to swiftly give a full account of its nuclear programs, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said. Speaking after meeting South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Tokyo, Fukuda also welcomed Lee's stance on North Korea, which is tougher than what Pyongyang has seen from Seoul over the past decade and more in line with Tokyo's position. Lee is visiting Tokyo after a trip to the United States, resuming summit diplomacy that had been suspended under his predecessor, who complained Japan had not offered proper contrition for its 1910-1945 rule of the Korean peninsula. "On the nuclear issue, we confirmed the need for North Korea to swiftly make a correct and full declaration," Fukuda told a joint news conference with Lee after their meeting. "We agreed that Japan and South Korea would work together and that Japan, South Korea and the United States would cooperate more closely than before." A U.S. team will have talks in Pyongyang on Tuesday and Wednesday on how to verify any declaration North Korea may make about its nuclear programs, the U.S. State Department said last week. North Korea, which tested a nuclear device in 2006, failed to meet a December 31 deadline to reveal its nuclear weapons programs, as stipulated in a deal struck under the six-party talks process with the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. A Japanese newspaper reported on Monday that North Korea told the United States in December it has produced a total of around 30 kg (66 lbs) of plutonium, about 20 kg less than what the United States estimates.

Ex-bishop wins Paraguayan election; 6-decade rulers dumped

AP, Asuncion

The world's longest-ruling political party is about to lose its six-decade grasp on power in Paraguay after a former Roman Catholic bishop won the country's presidential election. The Colorado Party's reign - which began in 1947 and was marked by the right-wing dictatorship of the late Gen. Alfredo Stroessner until his ouster in 1989 - was halted by Fernando Lugo, a charismatic 56-year-old who advocated for the end of political corruption and economic disarray. He beat Colorado Party rival Blanca Ovelar, a 50-year-old protege of President Nicanor Duarte who had sought to become Paraguay's first woman president in Sunday's election. The triumph of Lugo's eclectic opposition coalition - the Patriotic Alliance for Change - is the latest in a series of electoral wins by leftist, or center-left, leaders in South America. Mark Weisbrot, at the Washington think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research, said Lugo's election is a sign of "deep and irreversible t changes sweeping Latin America." But Lugo faces many challenges: 43 percent of the country's 6.5 million people live in poverty, illiteracy is high, 300,000 landless peasant farmers are clamoring for help and Paraguay's corruption is notorious. Lugo himself is a political newcomer, forging his anti-Colorado coalition just eight months ago. For now, the opposition is basking in its victory, holding gleeful celebrations in the Paraguayan capital and outlying cities.