The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bus bomb kills 26 passengers near Sri Lanka capital

AFP, Colombo

The death toll from a bus blast outside Colombo rose to 26 on Saturday as Sri Lanka warned of more indiscriminate attacks against civilians while security forces remained locked in combat against Tamil rebels.

President Mahinda Rajapakse said Friday's blast was the work of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas who are resisting a major military campaign in the north of the island.

The president in a statement warned that the rebels could resort to further indiscriminate attacks and urged residents to exercise more caution.

A powerful time-bomb ripped through an overcrowded bus, blowing off its roof, as it pulled out of the Piliyandala terminal into rush-hour traffic on Friday on the outskirts of the capital.

"Two more passengers died in hospital and the number of people remaining in hospital this morning is 64," a police spokesman said.

Grief-stricken relatives gathered outside two hospitals to claim the dead from the explosion on the bus, which was jammed with office workers and schoolchildren returning from private classes.

Among those killed were a 10-year-old boy, a Buddhist monk and eight women.

"The president deplored the LTTE bomb attack on a packed bus in Piliyandala, saying terrorists had once again resorted to killing innocent civilians in the face of heavy setbacks in the battlefield," Rajapakse's office said.

The bombing was the "latest in a series of indiscriminate attacks aimed at civilians," Rajapakse said in the statement, appealing to the public to be more vigilant and to help troops to foil the "destructive plans" of the rebels.

A police spokesman said they expected the Tigers to try to carry out more attacks against civilians as military pressure mounts against them in the north of the country.

Pakistan, Taliban to continue peace talks despite new attack

AFP, Peshawar

Pakistan's new government and Taliban militants said Friday that they would press ahead with peace talks despite American skepticism and a militant bombing that killed three people at a police station.

A spokesman for an umbrella group of Pakistani militants defended the car bombing by saying the militants maintained their right to carry out revenge killings, a glaring exception to a cease-fire declared by the group in response to the peace talks.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Maulvi Umar also insisted the group would continue to support attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, even though a senior Pakistani intelligence official said the proposed peace deal would forbid them.

A U.S. State Department spokesman compared the talks to previous deals between militants and President Pervez Musharraf, deals that broke down last year amid sharp criticism from U.S. officials that militants were only regrouping and plotting more attacks.

"We'll see what this policy proposal yields," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "There have been attempts in this regard that have not succeeded."

After the deals broke down, Musharraf used heavy firepower against Taliban militants and their al-Qaida allies. Pakistan's five-week-old civilian administration is seeking to distance itself from that U.S.-backed approach, which many here argue only fueled militancy.

Singh hopes India, Pakistan can put aside differences

AFP, Jammu

Premier Manmohan Singh Friday said he hoped that India and Pakistan would be able to put their past differences aside and make progress in peace talks set to be resumed next month.

Singh, on a two-day visit to the southern Kashmiri city of Jammu, said he had been "heartened by the very positive statements made by the new leaders (of Pakistan)," in office after elections in February.

"I hope that we (India and Pakistan) will be able to put the past behind us and that we can move forward with a sense of urgency, not inhibited by false fears or narrow agendas," Singh said.

New Delhi will continue its attempts to "deepen its dialogue with the democratically-elected government," in Islamabad, he added.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, but they launched a wide-ranging peace dialogue four years ago. The nuclear-armed rivals announced earlier this month that they would review the fourth round of talks during a visit by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to Islamabad on May 20-21.

95 killed in Sudan ethnic clashes

AFP, Khartoum

Around 95 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in south Sudan that have also targeted equipment and facilities used in a historic nationwide census, local press reports said on Friday.

Clashes broke out on Tuesday in the southern Lakes State between two rival branches of the Dinka tribe after a dispute over cattle, the daily Al-Sahafa reported, adding that dozens were left dead in the streets.

Tribal clashes, often provoked by cattle theft, are frequent in southern Sudan but rarely reach such deadly intensity in the semi-autonomous part of Africa's largest country.

Martin Manil Wol, who is supervising the nationwide census, said the attackers torched all of the census facilities, including 12 boxes of questionnaire forms.

Sudan on Tuesday began its first census in 15 years, a milestone in the peace deal that ended Africa's longest civil war, but it has been overshadowed by disputes.

The two-week census is crucial to prepare constituencies for national elections and confirm or adjust the wealth- and power-sharing ratios in central government.

Census official among 20 killed in Afghan unrest

AFP, Kabul

Taliban-style bombings killed three Afghan policemen Saturday, officials said, also reporting that 17 other people, including a population census official, died in unrest a day earlier.

Two police officers were killed when a bomb planted in a road blew up their vehicle in the southern province of Ghazni, provincial spokesman Zia Wali told AFP, blaming the attack on Taliban. Three others were wounded, he said.

A third police officer was killed and another was wounded in a similar blast in southwestern province of Farah, regional police commander Khalilullah Ziayee said, also accusing Taliban.

Insurgents led by the Taliban movement that was ousted from government seven years ago have in recent weeks stepped up attacks on police, perhaps the weakest branch of the security forces.

More than three dozen Afghan policemen have been killed in attacks this month, according to an AFP tally.

Iranian conservatives win parliamentary elections in runoff

AFP, Tehran

Conservatives consolidated their control of Iran's legislature in run-off elections, according to partial results announced Saturday by state media.

Of 82 seats included in Friday's run-off, there were final results for 56, said Iranian state television and the official news agency IRNA.

Supporters of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 12 seats, his conservative critics seven, reformists 12 and independents 25, according to partial results provided by state media.

Brazil police kill 11 in raid

AP, Sao Paulo

Police swarmed a Rio de Janeiro slum in search of a drug lord on Friday, touching off a shootout that killed 11 people including a 70-year-old woman, Brazil's government news agency said. Two bystanders were wounded.

Police said 10 of those killed were suspected criminals, the official Agencia Brasil news agency reported.

The raid was carried out by Rio's controversial Special Operations Police Battalion, heavily armed police with military-like training who are often accused by slum dwellers of shooting first and asking questions later.

Mahathir wants Iraq war leaders on war crimes charges

AFP, London

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad called here Friday for an international tribunal to try Western leaders with war crimes over the war in Iraq, a spokesman for the organisers said. In a speech at Imperial College, Mahathir called for a tribunal to try US President George W. Bush plus former prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain and John Howard of Australia for their part in the conflict, said a spokesman for the Muslim group the Ramadhan Foundation, which set up the event.

Spokesman Mohammed Shafiq told AFP that Mahathir, who was in office from 1981 to 2003, wants to see the trio tried "in absence for war crimes committed in Iraq. "It was a opportunity for students to put a range of questions about war crimes and the international situation. "He said that people have to stop killing each other and use arbitration, negotiation and discussion as an alternative to violence, war and killing."

Peace deal must fulfill Palestinian hopes: Abbas

Washington

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will not accept any peace agreement with Israel that fails to meet the demands of the Palestinian people, his spokesman said here Friday, one day after his White House visit. "No agreement will be submitted to a referendum if it does not fulfill the expectations of the Palestinian people and their leadership, led by president Abbas," spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

"We won't accept the delay of any matter under negotiation. A potential agreement must conform to international resolutions," Abu Rudeina said, warning of the risk of "missing the opportunity" to find peace. Abu Rudeina spoke one day after Abbas met with President George W. Bush, who assured him he was "confident" about reaching an agreement on creating a Palestinian state before Bush leaves office in January 2009.

ElBaradei criticises US on Syria bombing

AP, Vienna

The head of the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency angrily criticized Israel on Friday for bombing an alleged Syrian nuclear facility, and chastised the U.S. for withholding information on the site.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei also was not provided information about the site until Thursday, the same day U.S. officials briefed members of the House Intelligence Committee about evidence including dozens of photographs taken from ground level and footage of the interior of the building gathered by spy satellites after the Israeli strike seven months ago. ElBaradei was briefed by telephone by John Rood, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control.

Minister warns of poll meltdown as Brown counts cost

AFP, London

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's party faces electoral meltdown if it carries on "fighting like ferrets in a sack" instead of regrouping after a bruising week, a key minister warned Saturday.

Tessa Jowell, the minister for London and the Olympics, told The Daily Telegraph newspaper that the centre-left Labour Party might well "give up" on government if it did not stamp out internal division.

Brown was left counting the cost this weekend after a week in which his authority over the Labour Party was put on the line-amid a fuel crisis and right ahead of Thursday's bellwether local and London mayoral elections.He was forced into making concessions over abolishing the 10 percent starting rate of income tax, with Labour backbenchers planning to rebel in big enough numbers to inflict defeat on the government in a parliamentary vote.

Suu Kyi party says Myanmar junta trying to force 'Yes' vote

AFP, Yangon

Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party said Friday that Myanmar's ruling generals were doing everything in their power to force a 'Yes' vote at a referendum on their proposed constitution next month.

The junta says approval of the charter in the May 10 vote will usher in multiparty elections in 2010, but pro-democracy activists say it simply entrenches the role of the military which has ruled since 1962.

In a detailed statement attacking the charter and the process by which the generals are trying to get it approved, the National League for Democracy (NLD) said the vote would fall well below international standards.

"The authorities are trying every way to make this referendum not free and fair," said a statement from the NLD, which is headed by detained Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

"For the people who have the right to vote, we would like to encourage again all voters to go to the polling booths and make an 'X' ('No') mark without fear."

The NLD and other pro-democracy groups in Myanmar have already publicly called on people to vote "No" on May 10.