The New Nation - Internet Edition

Suicide bombing, fighting claim 38 lives in Sri Lanka

AFP, Colombo

At least 38 people were killed in suicide bombing and fighting in Sri Lanka.

At least nine people were killed and 90 others wounded Friday in a Tamil Tiger suicide bombing near the official residence of Sri Lanka's president in the capital Colombo, officials said.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said seven police officers and two civilians-plus the attacker-died in the massive blast, which was heard across the city.

"Many civilians" were among those hurt and some were in a critical condition, he added.

"A motorbike carrying an LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) suicide bomber rammed into a bus carrying police personnel," Nanayakkara said.

The attack occurred outside a Buddhist temple in the Fort area of Colombo's commercial district, a high security zone surrounded by military and police checkposts.

The area is home to the official residence of the island's hawkish President Mahinda Rajapakse, the five-star Hilton Hotel and the twin-tower World Trade Centre office complex-a previous target of the LTTE. Security forces quickly sealed off the area. The attack came amid a mounting government offensive against the Tamil Tigers' de facto mini-state in the north of the island.

The government pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce in January, and has claimed to have inflicted massive casualties on the rebels so far this year. Rajapakse's government was scheduled later Friday to swear in the winners of last weekend's key council elections in the east of the island, which were won by the president's ruling coalition and an allied party made up of LTTE defectors.

The polls were heralded by the government as a sign they were establishing firm control over the multi-ethnic east, which prior to heavy fighting last year was home to several LTTE enclaves. The island's opposition, however, has contested the polls as marred by intimidation and ballot box stuffing by the Tamil Tiger defectors, known as the Tamil People's Liberation Tigers (TMVP). There was no immediate comment from the LTTE on the bombing, although the pro-rebel TamilNet.com website said it targetted police travelling to provide security for the swearing-in ceremony.

TamilNet.com also said the TMVP's leader, who goes by the nom de guerre of Pillaiyan, was also scheduled to have been sworn in as the new chief minister of the east. Sources said the ceremony would likely be postponed.

Earlier this week Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake ruled out returning to a ceasefire with the LTTE, and said "victory is within the grasp of our heroic security forces." Wickremanayake also said Tiger rebel chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's days were "numbered."

Colombo has poured a record 1.5 billion dollars into the war effort this year, hoping for a quick end to a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead since 1972.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan fighter jets pounded two Tamil Tiger rebel bases deep in the northern jungles, and infantry clashes killed 27 rebels and two government soldiers, the military said Friday.

The planes bombed a base of the Sea Tigers, the rebels' naval wing, in their de facto state in the north early Friday, said air force spokesman Wing Commander Andy Wijesuriya. Another airstrike on a rebel military base in the guerrilla stronghold of Mullaitivu took place overnight, he said.

Wijesuriya did not give details of casualties or damage, but said "pilots have confirmed they hit the target accurately."

The latest infantry clashes erupted Thursday in the Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna regions, bordering the rebels' turf, said a Defense Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

The worst fighting was reported in Vavuniya, where 18 rebels and one soldier were killed. Six guerrillas were killed in the nearby Mannar district while other fighting in Jaffna and Welioya killed three rebels and one soldier, he said.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan was not available for immediate comment.

It was not possible to independently verify the military's claims because reporters are not allowed in the war zone. The two sides are known to exaggerate their enemies' casualties while underreporting their own.

The Tamil Tigers have fought since 1983 to create an independent homeland for minority ethnic Tamils, who have been marginalized by successive governments controlled by majority Sinhalese. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.

Hope fades for trapped survivors in China quake: Rescuer

AP, Hong Kong

The chances of rescuing survivors trapped by rubble and landslides caused by a devastating earthquake in southwest China will drop after Thursday, a rescue expert said.

"Most people are saved in the first three or four days," said Willie McMartin, director of British-based charity International Rescue Corps, which has helped save people's lives in disasters across the world.

"People can survive up to 15 days, but that is when you are talking about miracles and miracles do not happen very often," McMartin said.

"We would normally slow down our rescue operations a week after the earthquake happened," he told Agence France-Presse in Hong Kong, where his 10-strong team are trying to secure permission to enter China to help find survivors in areas destroyed by Monday's quake.

The 7.9-magnitude earthquake has left more than 40,000 dead or missing in southwestern Sichuan province, many buried under collapsed buildings or landslides. One girl was pulled from the rubble 50 hours after her school was destroyed, state media said. China said Thursday it would allow emergency rescue teams from Japan to aid earthquake relief efforts, the first country from which it has accepted help.

Australia earlier said that China had declined its offer.

"Quake relief work has entered into the most crucial phase," President Hu Jintao said after flying to Mianyang, one of the cities worst hit in Monday's 7.9-magnitude quake.

"The challenge is still severe, the task is still arduous and the time is pressing," he said, quoted by China's state-run Xinhua news agency.

New storm deepens misery in cyclone-hit Myanmar

Reuters, Yangon

Torrential tropical downpours lashed Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Friday, deepening the misery of an estimated 2.5 million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis and further hampering the military government's aid efforts.

In the storm-struck town of Kunyangon, around 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Yangon, thousands of men, women and children stood in mud and rain, their hands clasped together in supplication at the occasional passing aid vehicle.

Children mobbed any car that stopped, grimy hands reaching through a window in search of bits of bread or a t-shirt. Despite such scenes and the latest storm, likely to turn already damaged roads to mud, the former Burma's ruling generals insist their relief operations are running smoothly.

However, they issued an edict in state-run newspapers on Friday saying legal action would be taken against anybody found hoarding or selling relief supplies, amid rumors of local military units expropriating trucks of food, blankets and water.

If emergency supplies do not get through in much greater quantities, foreign governments and aid groups say starvation and disease are very real threats. Some cholera has been confirmed among survivors, but the number was in line with case levels in previous years, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. "We don't have an explosion of cholera," Maureen Birmingham, acting WHO representative in Thailand, told reporters in Bangkok. Diarrhea, dysentery and skin infections have afflicted some cyclone refugees crammed into monasteries, schools and other temporary shelters after the devastating May 2 storm.

The WHO, which has sent health kits, bleach and chlorine tablets to treat dirty water, said the peak threat from disease was 10 days to one month after a natural disaster.

The European Union's top aid official, Louis Michel, met ministers in Yangon on Thursday and urged them to admit foreign aid workers and essential equipment to keep the death toll, which the Red Cross says could be as high as 128,000, from rising.

Russia accuses Georgia of aiding rebels

Reuters, Moscow

Russia's domestic spy service on Friday accused Georgia of supporting armed rebels in southern Russia, an accusation that could further damage the strained relations between the two countries.

A source in the Federal Security Service (FSB) told Interfax news agency that a Chechen man working for Georgian intelligence had been giving cash to fighters across the turbulent North Caucasus.

"This confirms that Georgian special forces have participated in subversive terrorist activities in the North Caucasus," Interfax quoted the FSB source as saying. Russia and Georgia are locked in a row over Georgia's two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia supports. Georgia says war was only narrowly averted earlier this month.

The FSB's claim surfaced just as a Georgian minister was to meet officials from Russia's Foreign Ministry in Moscow to discuss how to repair relations.

Militants kill soldier in Pak tribal area

AP, Khar

Suspected Islamic militants have killed a Pakistani soldier in revenge for an alleged U.S. missile strike near the Afghan border, an official said Friday.

Authorities found the bullet-riddled body of the paramilitary soldier early Friday about 6 miles north of Damadola, a village in the northwestern tribal region of Bajur.

An explosion destroyed a house in the village on Wednesday, killing about a dozen people. Residents and the provincial governor said it was caused by a missile.

Mawaz Khan, a government official in Bajur, said a letter found near the soldier's body said the soldier was killed by militants to avenge the alleged strike. The note included a warning for tribal elders that they would meet the same fate if they cooperate with Pakistani authorities.

"The killing of this soldier is our revenge for the American missile attack," Khan said, quoting from the letter.

McCain believes Iraq war can be won by 2013

AP, Columbus

Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals.

The Republican presidential contender, in a mystical speech that also envisioned Osama bin Laden dead or captured, and Americans with the choice of paying a simple flat tax or following their standard 1040 form, said only a small number of troops would remain in Iraq by the end of a prospective first term because al-Qaida will have been defeated and Iraq's government will be functioning on its own.

Palestinian cause fuels holy war: Osama

AP, Cairo

Osama bin Laden says in a new message that al-Qaida will continue its holy war against Israel and its allies until it liberates Palestine.

Friday's message comes as President Bush wraps up his visit to Israel to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.

Bin Laden says the fight for the Palestinian cause is the most important factor driving al-Qaida's war with the West and fueled the Sept. 11 attacks. The authenticity of the close to 10 minute message could not be verified, but it was posted on a Web site commonly used by al-Qaida.

Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden slammed Western leaders for taking part in Israel's 60th birthday celebrations and vowed that Muslims would not give up "one inch of Palestine," in an audio message Friday. "The participation of Western leaders with the Jews in this celebration confirms that the West supports this ugly Jewish occupation of our lands and that they stand in the Israelis' trench against us," Bin Laden said in the "message to Western peoples" posted on the Internet. "We will continue the fight against the Israelis and their alliest and we will not give up one inch of Palestine, God willing, as long as there is one sincere Muslim on this earth," the message added.