The New Nation - Internet Edition

China evacuates 200,000 as quake rivers swell

AFP, Mianyang

Chinese authorities had evacuated nearly 200,000 people by early Saturday and warned more than 1 million others to be ready to leave quickly as a lake formed by a devastating earthquake threatened to breach its dam.

The confirmed death toll from China's worst quake in three decades was raised Saturday to 68,977, an increase of about 120 people from a day earlier. Another 17,974 people were still missing, the State Council said. The increase was the smallest since the government started issuing a daily death toll shortly after the quake hit.

Hundreds of Chinese troops have been working around the clock to drain Tangjiashan lake in Sichuan province. The lake formed above Beichuan town in the Mianyang region when a hillside plunged into a river valley during the May 12 quake that killed more than 68,000 people.

The official Xinhua News Agency said work on a runoff channel had been completed. It quoted Yue Xi, deputy chief of the water and electricity section of the People's Armed Police, as saying water was expected to be discharged between Sunday and Tuesday.

Xinhua said 197,477 people were evacuated to safe ground by Saturday morning. It did not say how the exact number was arrived at, and many of the people may have moved just short distances to higher areas.

The news agency said Tan Li, the Communist Party chief of Mianyang, had issued another order that calling for all 1.3 million people in the area to be evacuated if "the barrier of the quake lake fully opens" and floods the area.

An official with the press office of Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters, who would give only her surname of Chen, said Saturday's drill would involve testing the command system of various levels of government officials to ensure that any order to evacuate - if it comes - would be passed on quickly to everyone in the valley.

No public broadcast of the evacuation order would take place.

There was no sign that the dam was about to burst. Troops have sealed off Beichuan to the public.

Tangjiashan is the largest of more than 30 lakes that have formed behind landslides caused by the quake, which also weakened man-made dams in the mountainous parts of the disaster zone.

Millions of people in Sichuan are already living in tent camps and prefabricated housing, which have taken on the tone of new villages.

In Mianyang, about 200 families left their camps in flood-prone areas of the city and moved to higher ground in a wooded park on Fule Mountain. Most had camping tents and shelters made of tarp pitched under trees amid ornate gazebos and tea houses with tradition sloping yellow tiled roofs. Red signs on the buildings said, "Dangerous building, don't come near."

One woman, who only gave her surname, Wang, said life was uncomfortable but fine under the circumstances. "We've got all the basics. Those who are out of work are being given food, but my company is taking care of me," said Wang, who was living in a camouflaged camping tent set above the ground on wood planks.

A man who also only gave his surname, Zhang, said his family of three has received no food or shelter since they followed orders to move to the camp two days ago.

"I had to rig this up myself," he said, pointing to the simple structure of tarps they were living under. "We've just been eating instant noodles and bread that we brought ourselves."

Nearby, a woman selling tomatoes, green peppers and eggplants along the narrow park road was loading the vegetables back on her three-wheel motorcycle cart. "I'm packing things up because no one is buying," she said.

"They have no pots or pans. No way to cook the food."

Xinhua also reported that President Hu Jintao arrived Saturday to check on relief efforts in Shaanxi province. Just to the north of Sichuan, Shaanxi also suffered damage in the May 12 earthquake.

Bush assures Musharraf of US support for Pakistan

Reuters, Washington

President George W. Bush offered renewed backing on Friday for Pakistan during a telephone call he made to its president, Pervez Musharraf, who was trying to quash rumors that he plans to leave office.

"The president reiterated the United States' strong support for Pakistan and he indicated he looked forward to President Musharraf's continuing role in further strengthening U.S.-Pakistani relations," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

Late on Thursday, Musharraf denied a story in a Pakistani newspaper that said he had decided to quit. It was the latest speculation that Musharraf might resign since an election in February brought to power a coalition that would like to see him leave office sooner or later.

Bush met with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in Egypt earlier this month where the two pledged George W. Bush to fight terrorism. Pakistan has been a key U.S. ally as American forces try to hunt down al Qaeda leaders and Taliban militants along the country's border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan asks UN to probe Benazir assassination

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan has formally requested a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, her widower said on Friday.

"We have already sent the request," Asif Ali Zardari told reporters after a meeting of the Socialist International Asia-Pacific Committee in Islamabad.

Zardari took over leadership of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) after his wife was killed by a suicide gun and bomb attack while campaigning in the city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27.

Thanks in part to a sympathy wave, the PPP won an election in February and forged a coalition with three other parties after defeating political allies of President Pervez Musharraf.

Zardari, who took over leadership of the PPP, said Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will travel to New York to personally discuss the issue with the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Musharraf has opposed a U.N. investigation of Bhutto's killing, and the previous government blamed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud of being behind the conspiracy to kill Bhutto.

Mehsud has issued a denial from his stronghold in the South Waziristan tribal lands close to the Afghan border.

The government earlier invited help from Britain's Scotland Yard to determine how Bhutto was killed, though the British police were not asked to investigate who killed her.

Scotland Yard backed up the government's earlier conclusion that Bhutto smashed her head against her vehicle during the attack.

The PPP harbours deep suspicions over the government's findings and doubts whether Mehsud was the real culprit.

Bhutto had long feared members of the Pakistani establishment would plot to kill her after she returned from years of self-exile in October.

Police have arrested at least four Islamist militants suspected of involvement in Bhutto's killing.

Myanmar junta under new pressure over cyclone victims

AFP, Yangon

Myanmar's junta Saturday came under renewed international pressure from rights groups and the US defence chief who said its slow response to the cyclone disaster had cost "tens of thousands of lives."

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates criticised the military regime's delay in allowing in foreign aid, saying US ships and aircraft could have swiftly brought much-needed relief to the cyclone-hit nation.

"Our ships and aircraft awaited country approval so they could act promptly to save thousands of lives-approval of the kind granted by Indonesia immediately after the 2004 tsunami and by Bangladesh after a fierce cyclone just last November," Gates told a top-level security forum in Singapore.

"With Burma, the situation has been very different-at a cost of tens of thousands of lives."

Rights groups also accused the junta of forcing victims out of emergency shelters and back to their devastated villages-even if they have no homes left after the May 2-3 storm.

With tens of thousands of people now living in schools, Buddhist monasteries and tented camps, advocacy groups said they had received reports the regime was forcing people to leave the shelters.

An AFP reporter travelling into the delta said security had been tightened, with armed riot police stationed along the road linking the devastated towns of Kungyangon and Dedaye.

The United Nations says it so far has not been able to verify whether people are being forced out, but the charges added to international frustration at the difficulties faced in delivering aid to 2.4 million victims.

Cyclone Nargis left 133,000 people dead or missing when it pounded into Myanmar, destroying entire villages and laying waste to the country's most important rice-growing region.

Nearly one month after the storm, only 40 percent of people in need have received any help, according to the United Nations.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited here one week ago, announcing that the junta had agreed to allow foreign aid workers into the hardest-hit regions. Since then, relief workers have had some successes in delivering assistance.

The United Nations says all the visas for foreign workers it has requested have been granted, and the head of the World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran, visited Myanmar on Saturday to assess the relief operation.

The regime announced in state media Saturday that a new coordinating body-comprising officials from the regime, the United Nations, and neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia-had officially begun working.

But Human Rights Watch and Refugees International said they had received alarming reports of people being forced out of government-run emergency camps and left to fend for themselves amid the storm's rubble.

"It's unconscionable for Burma's generals to force cyclone victims back to their devastated homes," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

"Without shelter, food, and clean water, the government's suggestion amounts to sending people to their deaths and is courting a greater disaster," he said.

The regional head of the UN's disaster response arm, Terje Skavdal, said that he could not confirm those reports but that the UN opposed any forced resettlement.

"It is not only a question of putting people back into their villages, it is also a question of being able to service them with relief," he said.

The military has ruled the country, formerly known as Burma, since 1962. The reclusive generals are deeply suspicious of the outside world, and have only reluctantly allowed in foreign aid workers.

The junta has flatly refused to accept American, British and French naval ships laden with relief supplies.

French Defence Minister Herve Morin told AFP in an interview in Bangkok that the refusal of the French ship Mistral "was the reaction of a regime that by its nature fears foreign influence. We did what we could."

"A country that experiences this kind of drama and refuses help from countries which first and foremost want to join in humanitarian relief-that's a surprising thing, to put it mildly," Morin said.

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Myanmar's response to the cyclone was "regrettable," saying a speedier relief effort could have minimised the suffering of the victims.

111 nations, but not US, adopt cluster bomb treaty

AFP, Dublin

Chief negotiators of a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs predicted Friday that the United States will never again use the weapons, a critical component of American air and artillery power.

The treaty formally adopted Friday by 111 nations, including many of America's major NATO partners, would outlaw all current designs of cluster munitions and require destruction of stockpiles within eight years. It also opens the possibility that European allies could order U.S. bases located in their countries to remove cluster bombs from their stocks.

The United States and other leading cluster bomb makers - Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - boycotted the talks, emphasized they would not sign the treaty and publicly shrugged off its value. All defended the overriding military value of cluster bombs, which carpet a battlefield with dozens to hundreds of explosions.

But treaty backers - who long have sought a ban because cluster bombs leave behind "duds" that later maim or kill civilians - insisted they had made it too politically painful for any country to use the weapons again.

"The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad," said Espen Barth Eide, Deputy Defense Minister of Norway, which began the negotiations last year and will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3.

"We're certain that nations thinking of using cluster munitions won't want to face the international condemnation that will rain down upon them, because the weapons have been stigmatized now," said Steve Goose, arms control director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, who was involved in the talks.

However, the treaty envisions their future use - and offers legal protection to any signatory nation that finds itself operating alongside U.S. forces deploying cluster bombs, shells and rockets.

The treaty specifies - in what backers immediately dubbed "the American clause" - that members "may engage in military cooperation and operations" with a nation that rejects the treaty and "engages in activities prohibited" by the treaty.

It suggests that a treaty member could call in support from U.S. air power or artillery using cluster munitions, so long as the caller does not "expressly request the use of cluster munitions."

The treaty also contains promises to mobilize international aid to cluster bomb-scarred lands such as southern Lebanon, where a 2006 war between the militant group Hezbollah and Israel left behind an estimated 1 million unexploded "bomblets."

The pact requires treaty members to aid explosives-clearance work and provide medical, training and other support to blast victims, their families and communities.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the treaty would not change U.S. policy and cluster munitions remain "absolutely critical and essential" to U.S. military operations.

He said U.S. officials in the State and Defense departments were studying whether the treaty would eventually oblige American bases in Europe to withdraw cluster munitions.

Goose said this decision would be up to individual U.S. allies. The treaty, he noted, requires nations that ratify it to eliminate all cluster weapons within their "jurisdiction or control."

He said most NATO members were likely to conclude that U.S. bases were operating under their jurisdiction and order U.S. cluster munitions to be removed or destroyed, while Germany and Japan were most likely to permit the weapons stocks to remain.

U.S. defense analysts said the treaty drafters do not appreciate the importance that the world's most powerful militaries place on cluster munitions. They doubted that the treaty would force any American retreat on the matter, noting that a majority of U.S. artillery shells use cluster technology.

"This is a treaty drafted largely by countries which do not fight wars," said John Pike, a defense analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org.

"Treaties like this make me want to barf. It's so irrelevant. Completely feel-good," he said.

Asked whether U.S. forces would ever ban or restrict cluster-bomb technology, Pike said, "It's not gonna happen. Our military is in the business of winning wars and using the most effective weapons to do so."

Ivan Oelrich, vice president for strategic security programs at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said he expected U.S. forces to keep using shells, rockets and bombs that break apart into smaller explosive objects because they have 10 times or more killing power than traditional munitions, particularly against troops in exposed terrain or in foxholes.

Government and military spokesmen in other cluster bomb-defending nations were similarly dismissive of the treaty.

"Russia will not ban cluster bombs and land mines," Lt. Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky said earlier this week in Moscow. "We stand for evolutionary development of these weapons. Russia's Defense Ministry objects to radical and prohibitive measures of this kind."

The treaty spells out future requirements for legal cluster weapons.

Each would have to contain no more than nine weapons inside, known formally as "submunitions." Each submunition must weigh at least 8.8 pounds, or four kilograms, have technology that allows it to identify a specific human or armored target, and contain electronic fail-safes to ensure that any duds cannot detonate later.

Patricia Lewis, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, said the weight rule represented "a very neat and clever way of closing off a loophole."

"In the future, things weighing less than four kilograms could be designed that would give a large explosive impact, so the idea is to prevent future developments," Lewis told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.

But U.S. analysts derided the conditions as illogical.

Both Oelrich and Pike said it would be technically possible to design new cluster munitions that meet all of the treaty's criteria - but questioned why the treaty sought to limit the number of devices per shell, rocket or bomb.

Oelrich said the treaty's insistence on electronic fail-safes ignored the possibility of producing submunitions encased in metals that rapidly deteriorate when exposed to sun or moisture, depending on the theater of war.

"I don't see the point of the 'nine' thing," Oelrich said. "What difference does it make how you package the submunition? What matters is the performance of the submunition on the ground. And nobody in any military wants duds."

Pike said if other countries insist on shells, rockets and bombs that contain no more than nine submunitions each, the military logic would be inescapable.

"It would just mean I'm going to have to shoot more of them!" he said with a laugh.

NKorea fires short-range missiles

AFP, Seoul

Nuclear-armed North Korea has fired three short-range missiles off its west coast, Yonhap news agency reported Saturday, threatening new military tensions with its neighbours.

The South Korean agency, quoting a government source, said the missiles were fired on Friday into the Yellow Sea off Jeungsan County, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Pyongyang.

The second test by the hardline Communist country in two months was part of a training exercise involving Russian-designed Styx ship-to-ship missiles with a range of 46 kilometres, the report said.

"The missile launch, like the test-firing conducted on March 28, is part of normal military training aimed at testing the performance of the missiles and improving operational readiness," the unnamed source was quoted as saying.

A South Korean defence ministry spokesman refused to comment on the missile launches, which coincide with rising cross-border tensions following this year's change of government in Seoul.

"We don't comment on any matter of intelligence," the spokesman said.

The source quoted by Yonhap said the missiles were fired toward the northeast from a ship in the Yellow Sea as North Korea prepares for annual military exercises in August, adding they were not directed at the South.

"And they were short-ranged. Therefore, we don't think they were aimed at threatening the South. We believe it was part of preparations for the summer military exercise," the source was quoted as saying.

North Korean military usually carries out inspections of its equipment in May and June ahead of the summer exercises by test-firing short-range missiles and ammunition and carrying out drills, Yonhap said.

The latest launch coincided with a warning from the North's military that inter-Korean relations could fall into an "uncontrollable catastrophic phase" if the South continued scattering anti-Pyongyang leaflets on its territory.

It accused Seoul of using balloons to send propaganda leaflets across the heavily fortified inter-Korean border.

The South's defence ministry said it stopped sending leaflets in 2004 but individual groups including Christians and North Korean defectors continued the practice.

Inter-Korean relations have soured after President Lee Myung-Bak took office in February, replacing 10 years of liberal rule with a conservative government.

North Korea fired three or four missiles of the same type on March 28 in what was described then by the South Korean government as "part of a regular military exercise."

North Korean military tests have shaken the region previously, particularly in 1998 when Pyongyang fired over Japan's main island prompting Tokyo and Washington to start work on an advanced missile shield.

North Korea staged a nuclear test in October 2006. Last year, it struck a landmark six-party deal last year with the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea aimed at dismantling its atomic arsenal.

Under the deal, it agreed to disable nuclear plants at its key Yongbyon facility in exchange for aid and diplomatic recognition.

As part of that agreement, Pyongyang was to hand over a full declaration of all its nuclear activities by December 31 last year.

But disputes over the declaration have blocked the start of the final phase of the process-the permanent dismantling of the plants and the handover of all atomic material.

'Last stand' for Hillary at Democratic meeting

AFP, Washington

Hillary Clinton Saturday makes a last stand in her ebbing White House bid, as the Democratic Party tries to defuse a unity-sapping row over voided primary votes in Michigan and Florida.

The legal wranglings of the Democratic National Committee's rules panel in a Washington hotel will mark the latest twist in Clinton's epic coast-to-coast nominating duel with Barack Obama, now drawing to a close.

The former first lady won elections in both Florida and Michigan which gatecrashed the party's set-in-stone nominating calendar-but the states were punished and were stripped of their nominating convention delegates.

But now she needs both states to count in order to cut her delegate gap with the overwhelming front-runner Obama, and to claim she won the popular vote nationwide.

The rules committee must decide whether Clinton is right to argue that ignoring the states and cutting their delegates out of August's convention in Denver would disenfranchise 2.3 million people in vital battleground states.

Even in the unlikely event that Clinton gets both delegations seated, she would likely still lag more than 100 delegates behind Obama, after the last primaries, Puerto Rico on Sunday, and Montana and South Dakota Tuesday.

Going into Saturday's meeting, the Clinton campaign has laid out an uncompromising position.

"The first (point) is that the January results should count," said Tina Flournoy, a senior Clinton advisor on Friday.

"The second point is that the preferences expressed by those votes in that primary should be used to allocate the delegates to the candidates.

"The third thing we want, and we believe it is important, that the full delegations from both states be seated."

Obama has offered a compromise, and can afford to be generous as he leads every count of the Democratic race and would not be affected by a net delegate loss to Clinton over the Michigan and Florida imbroglio.

But Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said on Thursday that his camp was not willing to give all of the delegates to Clinton-not least because his candidate was not even on the ballot in Michigan.

Clinton's camp has not yet said whether they could prolong the marathon Democratic race, and even take their fight all the way to Denver if they do not get what they want this weekend.

Nepal king vows to leave palace quietly

AFP, Kathmandu

Nepal's deposed monarch is willing to leave his pink-hued palace quietly to begin life as a commoner but wants help with housing and protection for his family, state-run media reported Saturday. "The king has expressed his wish to respect the constituent assembly's historic decision and make a peaceful exit," said Pradeep Aryal, secretary at the now-dissolved Narayanhiti Palace secretariat, The Rising Nepal reported.

Aryal made the comment after the palace received a letter Friday formally asking the unpopular ex-monarch to leave for a private residence within two weeks, in line with the newly-elected assembly's vote Wednesday. The body, which will rewrite the Himalayan country's constitution, abolished the 240-year-old Hindu monarchy in a near-unanimous vote and transformed Nepal into a republic-capping a peace process that ended a decade-long civil war.

Some 13,000 people were killed in the insurgency launched by the Maoists in 1996 to install a communist republic in the world's only Hindu kingdom. All eyes have been on the king since then, who is still holed up in his heavily-guarded palace in the heart of the city.

The government has asked the king to coordinate his departure with its officials so they can take "appropriate measures" for his security, the report said.

But the king is apparently being hampered in his move by worries over what to do with his mother Ratna and 94-year-old great-grandmother Sarala, the state-run daily said.

He has suggested it would be easier for him to leave if they were provided with security and housing, the paper said.

The royal palace is still guarded by some 1,500 soldiers but Nepal's army-seen as a bastion of royalists-has said it will comply with any government orders to withdraw the security cover.

The king may also have to look for housing for himself, with his private residence occupied by former crown prince Paras, who is said to be on poor terms with his deposed father.

Nepal has been brimming for weeks with rumours over the king's plans, with his every movement-including a weekend trip to his summer home and a drive to his sister's house for tea-watched with bated breath.

Many ordinary Nepalese say they are delighted to see the back of the dour king as well as his son Paras and would-be heir, widely loathed for his apparent playboy lifestyle in one of the world's poorest countries.

Nepal on Friday began auditing property in the now nationalised palace, where the royal flag has been replaced by a new banner.

"A high-level committee has been formed to prepare the details of the property inside the palace. All the property will be transferred to national property," Information Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara told AFP.

The building will later open to the public as a museum.

Gyanendra ascended the throne in 2001 after most of the royal family were slain by a drugged and drunk prince, but he failed to win the affectation of the public, many of whom believed he was linked to the killings.

His unpopularity deepened when he dismissed the government in a royal coup in early 2005. Mass protests led to a peace agreement in 2006 that saw the king increasingly sidelined.