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Bomb kills 4 US troops in Afghanistan: Hundreds escape in Taliban prison attack

AP, Kabul

A U.S. military spokesman says a roadside bomb has killed four troops in Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. David Johnson said the bomb targeted a vehicle used by U.S. personnel in the country to help train the Afghan police. One U.S. personnel was wounded in the Saturday attack.

The bombing comes a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told his counterparts in Europe that for the first time, the monthly total of American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan had exceeded the toll in Iraq during May.

The four deaths bring to at least 44 the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count.

Meanwhile, more than 1100 prisoners escaped during a brazen Taliban bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan that knocked down the front gate and demolished a prison floor, officials said Saturday. At least nine police officers were killed.

The complex attack late Friday included a truck bombing at the main gate, a suicide bomber who struck a back wall and rockets fired from inside the prison courtyard, setting off a series of explosions that rattled Kandahar, the country's second biggest city.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked Sarposa Prison and freed about 400 Taliban members.

One of the militants who escaped, Abdul Nafai, called an Associated Press reporter and said the insurgents had minibuses waiting outside the prison during the attack and that dozens of militants fled the scene in the vehicles.

Police official Mohammad Jamal Khan said more than 600 prisoners escaped. Nine police officers and eight prisoners were killed, he said, and another 12 police officers were wounded. More than 30 nearby shops were damaged.

Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai, a deputy minister at the Justice Ministry, said Saturday the Kandahar prison housed nearly 1,000 prisoners and that more than half escaped. He said officials couldn't yet offer a precise figure.

Hashimzai said there was no advance intelligence to indicate a large-scale attack was imminent, but he said as a precaution, the prison's chief official, Abdul Qabir, was under investigation for possible involvement.

Wali Karzai, the president of Kandahar's provincial council and the brother of President Hamid Karzai, earlier said the prison held about 350 suspected Taliban fighters. He said all the prisoners escaped, but had no specific number. "There is no one left," he said.

Hashimzai said the prison did not meet international minimum standards for a prison. The Kandahar facility was not built as a prison but had been modified into one, he said.

A delegation of deputy ministers from the Justice and Interior Ministries left for Kandahar early Saturday.

"Plans are under way to renovate all the prisons around the country," Hashimzai said. "Kandahar was one of them, but unfortunately, what happened last night is cause for concern."

Kandahar was the Taliban's former stronghold and its province has been the scene of fierce fighting the past two years between insurgents and NATO troops, primarily from Canada and the United States.

Qabir, the chief of Sarposa, said the assault began when a tanker truck full of explosives detonated at the prison's main entrance, wrecking the gate and a police post, killing all the officers inside. He couldn't say how many police were killed.

Soon after, a suicide bomber on foot blasted a hole in the back of the prison, Qabir said.

A shopkeeper who sells vegetables near the prison, Mohammad Hiqmatullah, said he saw prisoners run out and disappear into nearby pomegranate and grape groves.

Ahmadi, the Taliban spokesman, said militants had been planning the assault for two months. "Today we succeeded," he said, adding the escaped prisoners were "going to their homes."

Soldiers with NATO's International Security Assistance Force helped provide a security cordon after the attack.

Last month, some 200 Taliban suspects at the prison ended a weeklong hunger strike after a parliamentary delegation promised their cases would be reviewed.

Mideast peace deal possible in 2008: Bush

AFP, Paris

US President George W. Bush said Friday he was confident that a Middle East peace deal was possible in 2008, as he delivered the keynote speech of a farewell trip to Europe.

"I firmly believe that, with leadership and courage, a peace agreement is possible this year," Bush said at the Paris headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

CNN report adds: President Bush on Friday urged Europeans to stand firm with the United States as it seeks to transform the Middle East.

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Bush delivers his speech in France in front of images of Paris landmarks.

He compared the Middle Eastern transition Bush seeks to the one the U.S. helped engineer in Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II.

"There are moments today when the situation in places like the Middle East can look as daunting as it did in Europe six decades ago. Yet we can have confidence that liberty will once again prevail," Bush said in the keynote speech of his European farewell tour.

"We can have confidence because men and women in the Middle East and beyond are determined to claim their liberty-just as the people of Europe did in the last century," Bush said.

Earlier in the day, Bush visited Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican, touring the gardens through which the leader of the Roman Catholic Church walks each night.

It was the second time this year the two men met, after Benedict's visit to the United States in April.

Bush, on what is expected to be his last European visit as president, has been pushing tough rhetoric on Iran.

During previous stops in Italy, Germany and Slovenia, he has warned Iran it faces further isolation unless it suspends its nuclear program which the U.S. believes is geared to developing weapons rather than energy.

Four Indian soldiers killed in Kashmir ambush

Reuters, Jammu

Separatist rebels killed four Indian soldiers, including two senior officers, and their driver in an ambush in Indian Kashmir on Friday, an army official said.

"They were returning to their base camp when their vehicle was ambushed by the militants," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

"All of them were killed on the spot after militants opened heavy and indiscriminate fire," he said. No militant has claimed responsibility for the ambush.

Those killed were a lieutenant colonel, a major, two soldiers and a driver, he said. An army spokesman said the attack took place 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Jammu, the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state.

Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since shortly after independence from Britain and is claimed in full by both.

Indian Kashmir has seen widespread violence since an anti-India insurgency broke out in 1989, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed.

Violence involving Indian troops and separatist militants has declined since India and Pakistan began a peace process in 2004. But people are still killed in daily shootouts and occasional bomb attacks.

Iran rules out nuclear halt after powers offer deal

Reuters, Tehran

Top EU diplomat Javier Solana handed Iran an offer by six major powers of trade and other incentives on Saturday to try to coax it into halting sensitive nuclear work, but Tehran again ruled out any such suspension.

"If the package (from the six powers) includes suspension it is not debatable at all," Iran's government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told reporters.

"Iran's view is clear: any precondition is unacceptable."

He was speaking shortly after Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, presented the incentives package from the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

The offer, including civilian nuclear cooperation, is a revised version of one rejected by Iran two years ago and diplomats have played down any hopes of a breakthrough in a dispute that has helped push up oil prices to record highs.

The world's fourth-largest crude producer is refusing to stop activities it says are for generating electricity but which the West suspects are aimed at making bombs.

"Mr Solana handed (Mottaki) the letter of six (foreign) ministers and the EU and also the package," Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach told Reuters by telephone. "The conversation continues."

Rising flood waters swamp Iowa city, 20 dead in US Midwest

AFP, Cedar Rapids

Rising flood waters swamped this central US river city on Friday, forcing residents to flee their homes and officials to abandon city hall amid a wider crisis that has left 20 dead.

"We've been in a major flood fight for about 10 days now," Bret Voorhees, spokesman for the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management, told AFP.

"Nine of our major rivers are at record or new record levels. We're designating it a 500-year flood."

The state capital Des Moines, population 200,000, urged residents living within the "500-year flood zone" to evacuate as the Des Moines River was expected to rise to near the top of the levee.

A total of 15 lives have been lost in Iowa and thousands were left homeless, Voorhees said, while 10 counties are under evacuation orders and 83 of the state's 99 counties have been declared disaster areas.

Two people were killed by floodwaters in Indiana and two delivery people drowned Sunday when their car fell off a washed out road into a flooded creek, the National Weather Service said.

Another person was killed Wednesday when a tornado ripped through the town of Chapman, Kansas.

The disaster began when a major tornado struck on May 25. It was followed by heavy rains, with more thunderstorms expected this weekend, and on Wednesday another twister touched ground in western Iowa, killing four boy scouts.

Serious flooding has hit the entire region, including parts of South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas and was expected to continue through next week.

3 dead, 7 missing in Japan’s quake

AP, Tokyo

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake ripped across mountains and rice fields in northern Japan on Saturday, killing at least three people as it sheared off hillsides, jolted buildings and shook nuclear power plants. At least seven people were missing.

Military helicopters swarmed the quake zone 250 miles north of Tokyo, ferrying in supplies and flying injured to hospital. Officials said at least 94 people were injured, and landslides trapped 100 bathers at a hot spring resort.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said the government was mobilizing troops, police and "everybody we possibly can" to find the missing and rescue and treat the injured.

"Our most important task is to save as many lives as possible, and we are doing the best we can," he said.

The force of the quake, which was followed by some 40 aftershocks, buckled countless roads, including one highway that was severed when a stretch of land collapsed, creating a cliffside. Electricity was cut to about 29,000 households.

At a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, the jolt splashed 5 gallons of radioactive water from two pools storing spent fuel, operators said. Trade and Industry Ministry official Yoshinori Moriyama, however, said there was no leakage outside the plant.

The three dead included a man who ran out of a building in fear and was hit by a passing truck, another man buried in a landslide while fishing, and a construction worker who was hit by a falling rock at a dam, officials said.

The 8:43 a.m. quake was centered in the northern prefecture (state) of Iwate, and was located about 5 miles underground - revised from an initially estimated depth of 6.2 miles 10 kilometers. It was felt as far away as Tokyo.

"It shook so violently that I couldn't stand still. I had to lean on the wall," said Masanori Oikawa, an Oshu city official who was at home near the epicenter when the quake struck. "When I rushed to the office, cabinets had been thrown onto the floor and things on the desks were scattered all over the place."

Sharif stirs call for Musharraf to be hanged

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif stepped up his attack on President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday, suggesting he could be hanged while addressing thousands of protesters outside the presidency. "We asked you to quit with honor after the election but you didn't," Sharif told the crowd, referring to U.S. ally Musharraf, who overthrew him in a 1999 coup. "Now people have given a new judgment for you t they want you to be held accountable," he said in the early hours of Saturday.

The crowd, officially estimated at up to 20,000, chanted "hang Musharraf" as it listened to the two time former prime minister's fiery speech.

"Is hanging only for politicians?" asked Sharif, referring to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, hanged by a military dictator in 1979.

"These blood-sucking dictators must be held accountable."

The demonstration, a few hundred meters from the presidency and parliament buildings, marked the climax of an almost week-long rolling protest across the country led by lawyers, though by the end they were easily outnumbered by Sharif party activists.

The United States and other Western allies fear prolonged political instability in the turbulent nuclear-armed Muslim nation will play into the hands of Islamist militants and undermine the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

Sharif has called for Musharraf to be tried for treason for tearing up the constitution during a brief spell of emergency rule late last year and for the coup nearly nine years ago. Helped by Saudi Arabia, Sharif was allowed back from exile late last year as Musharraf's grip on power slipped following a clash with the judiciary.

His party came second in an election in February that resulted in defeat for pro-Musharraf parties, and brought to power a coalition government led by the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

China mine blast leaves 27 dead

AP, Beijing

Twenty-seven miners were found dead Saturday following an explosion at a Chinese coal mine, and rescuers were working to free seven more who remain trapped, state media reported.

Miners were trapped when explosives went off accidentally Friday deep in the pit of the mine located on the outskirts of Xiaoyi city in the northern province of Shanxi, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Fifteen workers made it to the surface following the blast, which ripped through the mine's main shaft shortly after 1 p.m. Another nine miners were rescued Friday evening.

Sri Lanka fighting leaves 18 dead

AP, Colombo

Battles between government troops and Tamil Tiger separatists in Sri Lanka's north left 11 rebels and seven soldiers dead, the military said Saturday.

The fighting broke out in the Mannar, Welioya and Vavuniya regions bordering the rebels' de-facto state in the north on Friday, a defense ministry statement said. In the Welioya area, separate clashes killed seven rebels and four soldiers, while three confrontations in Vavuniya and Mannar killed four rebels and three soldiers, the ministry said. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan could not immediately be reached for comment.

It was not possible to independently verify the military's claims because journalists are banned from the northern jungles where much of the fighting takes place

New armed group to fight US forces: Moqtada al-Sadr

AFP, Kufa

Hardline Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Friday he plans to form a new wing of his powerful movement to battle US forces, allowing other members to focus on social issues.

In a statement issued to his nearly 60,000 strong Mahdi Army militia, he said the fight against US troops will now be waged only by the new group, while other members will "take on a social and religious role."

"The resistance will be carried out exclusively by a special group which I will announce later," Sadr said in a statement read out at mosques in the holy Shiite town of Kufa. "We will keep resisting the occupier until the liberation (of Iraq) or (our) martyrdom."

Press urge Brown to hold EU treaty vote after Irish 'no'

AFP, London

Prime Minister Gordon Brown should halt ratification of a key European Union reform treaty and hold a referendum, newspapers said Saturday after Irish voters rejected the document in a vote. Britain is pushing ahead with ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, despite the resounding "no" vote from Ireland by 53 percent to 47, which plunged the EU into a fresh crisis as all 27 member states have to approve it.

The treaty, designed to streamline EU institutions after recent expansion eastwards but feared by much of the media here as an erosion of national sovereignty by stealth, is nearing the end of its course in parliament. But a number of Britain's mainly eurosceptic press urged Brown to put the treaty to a popular vote, arguing that he had reneged on a pledge made by his governing Labour Party at the last general election in 2005 to hold one.

Mugabe warns of violence if he loses vote

AP, Harare

President Robert Mugabe said Friday that his supporters are ready to fight if the opposition wins an upcoming presidential runoff election, hardening the rhetoric of a campaign that already has seen widespread violence against government opponents. "I'm even prepared to join the fight," the 84-year-old Mugabe told a conference of his party's youth wing.

Mugabe said the veterans of the war of independence in 1980 had approached him after the first round of voting in March and threatened to take up arms again if opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai wins the June 27 runoff.

Tsvangirai finished first in a field of four in the first round but failed to win the majority needed to avoid a runoff.

Maliki says talks on Iraq-US security pact deadlocked

AFP, Amman

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Friday that negotiations with the United States on a long-term security pact are deadlocked because of concern the deal infringes Iraqi sovereignty.

"We have reached an impasse because when we opened these negotiations we did not realise that the US demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty and this is something we can never accept," he said in Amman.

"We cannot allow US forces to have the right to jail Iraqis or assume, alone, the responsibility of fighting against terrorism," Maliki told Jordanian newspaper editors, according to a journalist present at the meeting. The White House, meanwhile, vowed to pursue the talks while respecting Iraq's sovereignty.

"We are not sure of the exact words he (Maliki) used, we intend to continue to work with the Iraqis on the negotiations," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

US space shuttle to land after successful mission

AFP, Cape Canaveral

The US shuttle Discovery was to return to Earth Saturday after a successful mission to deliver and open Japan's first space laboratory at the International Space Station. NASA gave the shuttle the green light to wrap up its 15-day journey after it determined that the loss of a small clip from its rudder speed break posed no risk during landing, which is scheduled for 11:15 am (1515 GMT). The V-shaped thermal barrier clip, measuring 6.5-by-2.5 centimeters (2.5 inches by one inch), is only needed during the shuttle's ascent, the US space agency said. "It's not an issue whatsoever," deputy shuttle program manager LeRoy Cain told reporters. NASA also determined that Discovery's heat shield was in "very good shape" and the shuttle was "safe for re-entry," Cain said. The agency has kept a close eye on the shuttle's protective thermal layer since a crack in Columbia's heat shield caused the orbiter to explode as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere in February 2003, killing its seven astronauts. Discovery commander Mark Kelly, speaking on NASA TV from the shuttle, admitted the seven-person crew had initial concerns when they saw an object floating past them but were reassured by news that it was a clip.