The New Nation - Internet Edition

90 killed in heavy fighting in Lanka

AFP, Colombo

At least 90 rebels and soldiers were killed and hundreds wounded when Sri Lankan security forces launched an offensive against Tiger guerrillas on Wednesday, the defence ministry said.

A ministry spokesman said 38 soldiers were killed and 84 seriously wounded when they tried to advance into territory held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northern Jaffna peninsula. The spokesman said the guerrillas lost 52 of their fighters. There was no immediate word from the rebels about their casualties.

The spokesman said 52 Tiger rebels and 15 government soldiers were killed in the clashes. However a military source told AFP that the security force casualties were 20 dead and 160 wounded.

There was no immediate word from the Tigers about casualties.

Both sides announced that heavy fighting broke out under the cover of darkness and raged for several hours.

Meanwhile, security forces killed at least nine rebels in the north of the island on Tuesday, the defence ministry said, placing its own casualties at 10 soldiers injured on that day.

The LTTE have been fighting since 1972 to carve out an independent homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east. Tens of thousands have died on both sides.

Security forces have killed at least 3,025 rebels since the beginning of January, according to defence ministry figures, while 195 government soldiers have died in action during the same period.

Both sides offer wildly fluctuating casualty figures which cannot be independently verified as Colombo bars media workers and rights groups from entering frontline areas.

Nepal’s Maoists seek government allies after poll win

AFP, Kathmandu

Nepal's ex-rebel Maoists were working to form a coalition government with their defeated rivals on Wednesday following victory in landmark elections as vote counting neared completion.

"We will lead the government, there is not doubt about that, but we want other parties to join us in the government," senior Maoist leader Dinanath Sharma told AFP.

The Maoists are comfortably ahead in the vote for a 601-member constituent assembly, whose first job will be to abolish the 240-year-old monarchy.

With counting expected to finish late Wednesday, the Maoists have already won 120 seats of 240 up for grabs in the first-past-the-post part of the election.

Another 335 seats will be chosen by proportional representation, under which the Maoists have garnered around 30 per cent of the vote, or more than 100 more seats, according to poll officials.

Their nearest rivals, the Nepali Congress (NC), have won just 37 seats in the first-past-the-post system, and look set to gain around 74 more from proportional representation. "By Wednesday evening, we will get the results of all the votes in proportional representation but we might declare the final numbers on Thursday," election commission spokesman Laxman Bhattarai told AFP.

The Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist, or CPN UML) have unexpectedly lost their domination of Nepal's politics. Both are now considering whether to join the coalition government.

"We have asked them to join us, but there are factions within both the NC and UML who are against it," said senior Maoist Sharma.

The polls were a central strand of the 2006 peace deal reached between the former insurgents and mainstream parties after 10 years of civil war that left at least 13,000 people dead. The fate of King Gyanendra looks sealed following the victory of the ultra-republican Maoists, who launched a "people's war" aimed at toppling the monarchy in 1996.

US air strike kills 10 in Baghdad

AFP, Baghdad

A US air strike Tuesday killed 10 people in Baghdad, Iraqi officials said, as the American military announced the deaths of five troops and a female suicide bomber slaughtered six Iraqis north of the capital.

The US military initially denied there had been an air strike but later reported an "air weapons team engagement" in Sadr City, an east Baghdad Shiite bastion where militiamen are fighting street battles with Iraqi and US forces.

Iraqi security officials said 10 people were killed and 17 hurt in the air strike, which they said took place around 7.00 pm (1600 GMT) in the embattled district's Al-Nasr neighbourhood.

US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover confirmed the air strike.

"The Hellfire missile struck a car being used to transport rockets and then the same air weapons team (AWT) used 30mm to destroy a rocket rail in an open field," Stover said, adding that his was a preliminary report. He gave no casualty figures.

Meanwhile, A bomb-rigged truck exploded at a checkpoint Tuesday near the western city of Ramadi, killing two U.S. Marines and wounding three others in an apparent strike by al-Qaida in Iraq in one of its former strongholds.

At least one civilian also died and two dozen were injured in the blast, the latest in a string of recent strikes in areas where local Sunnis have joined U.S. forces to battle al-Qaida.

Ramadi is the capital of Anbar province, which was once held by insurgents. But it has been relatively peaceful since local Sunni tribal leaders joined forces with the U.S. military against the terror movement. Iraqi police said the suicide attacker drove a small water tanker packed with explosives to the checkpoint and detonated them when he reached the guards.

Up to 300,000 dead in 5-year Darfur conflict: UN

AP, United Nations

UN officials say the five-year conflict in Darfur is getting worse. They point to a rising death toll of perhaps 300,000 and a delay in fully deploying a new peacekeeping force until next year.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes and Rodolphe Adada, the joint representative for the U.N. and African Union in Darfur, gave the grim reports to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

They say the suffering in Sudan's Darfur region is getter even bleaker with thousands of additional people uprooted from their homes and food rations to the needy about to be cut in half.

Suicide bombings, attacks in Afghanistan kill 13

AP, Kandahar

A spate of suicide bombings and other attacks on security forces in southern Afghanistan Wednesday left 13 people dead and 24 others wounded, officials said.

In Kandahar province, a suicide bomber blew himself up next to a vehicle carrying intelligence agents in the border town of Spin Boldak, killing three civilians, Kandahar Gov. Assadullah Khalid said.

Two children and three intelligence agents were among the 14 hurt, Khalid said. He blamed the Taliban for the attack.

Dogs find abandoned baby girl in India

AP, New Delhi

Stray dogs located a baby girl abandoned under mud and leaves in northeastern India and their barking alerted rescuers, a government official said Tuesday.

The newborn was discovered Sunday when the dogs' yelps and howls drew villagers to a fruit orchard, district magistrate Asangba Chuba Ao told The Associated Press.

Bits of mud and dry leaves had been scattered on top of the child, he said.

The girl was placed in the care of a farm couple in the village of Narhan, in the Nepal-bordering state of Bihar. Local officials had no information about her birth parents.

Iran ready to discuss nuclear dispute: Ahmadinejad

Reuters, Tehran

Iran is ready to discuss its nuclear issue with any country but will not yield to international pressure to halt the atomic work, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech on Wednesday.

"The Iranian nation is in favor of talks to resolve the (nuclear) issue with any of you (countries). We will slap those who want Iran to abandon its right (to nuclear technology) on the mouth," Ahmadinejad said in a televised address in the western city of Hamedan. Ahmadinejad had earlier ruled out any talks with the West over its disputed nuclear program, saying Iran will only discuss the issue with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Japan, EU leaders call for 'highly ambitious’ climate goals

AFP, Tokyo

Leaders of Japan and the European Union called Wednesday for "highly ambitious and binding" global targets to fight climate change, seeking a breakthrough at July's Group of Eight summit. In an annual meeting, the two sides also called for urgent action to cope with rising global food prices, warning that they could worsen poverty in developing countries and drag down the world economy.

The talks come ahead of the July 7-9 summit of the Group of Eight rich nations in Japan, which the host nation hopes will shape the course of negotiations to reach a post-Kyoto Protocol deal by the end of 2009 on curbing global warming.

Mother’s diet can help determine sex of child: Study

AFP, Paris

Oysters may excite the libido, but there is nothing like a hearty breakfast laced with sugar to boost a woman's chances of conceiving a son, according to a study released Wednesday.

Likewise, a low-energy diet that skimps on calories, minerals and nutrients is more likely to yield a female of the human species, says the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Britain's de facto academy of sciences.

Fiona Mathews of the University of Exeter in Britain and colleagues wanted to find out if a woman's diet has an impact on the sex of her offspring.