The New Nation - Internet Edition

Japan turns away Taiwan boats in sea spat: Taipei recalls envoy to Tokyo over Diaoyutai Islands incident

Reuters, Taipei

Japan on Monday turned back a Taiwan activist boat which approached a group of disputed islands in protest against a ship collision last week, the latest drama in a fast-escalating political dispute, officials said.

Japanese coastguard ships sprayed water into the air in front of the boat and nine accompanying Taiwan coastguard vessels 80 km (50 miles) from land, warning them to leave the area 2,000 km southwest of Tokyo, authorities from Taiwan and Japan said.

The vessel, with about 12 activists on board and many more media representatives, left the area after a peaceful standoff of several hours and are likely to be received well at home.

"This spontaneous action by the people, we can understand and support," said Hsieh Hsiu-chi, spokeswoman for Taipei County, from where the activists set out on Sunday. "The people here are very angry."

Japan outraged Taiwan by detaining the captain of a Taiwanese fishing boat that hit a Japanese coastguard ship on Tuesday.

The collision ignited a rare spat between two governments that normally get along but whose relations are in focus with the election of new Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou.

The collision took place near what Japan calls the Senkaku isles and what China calls the Diaoyutai and Taiwan the Tiaoyutai. China also claims the eight uninhabited isles, which boast rich fisheries may lie near undersea oil and gas reserves.

"This is an opportunity to enhance Taiwan's bargaining position in order to negotiate fishery rights," said Andrew Yang, secretary general of the China Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a Taipei think tank. "In the past, the Japanese government was reluctant to negotiate this issue with Taiwan."

Meanwhile, Taiwan said Saturday that it will recall its envoy to Japan to protest a Japanese coast guard vessel's rammming and sinking of a Taiwanese trawler near the Diaoyutai Islands. Foreign Minister Francisco Ou said Taiwan will recall Hsu Shih-kai, Taipei's representative to Japan, over Tuesday's incident in which 13 Taiwan fishermen and 3 crew fell into the sea but were rescued by the Japanese crew.

Hsu is Taiwan's de facto ambassador to Japan. He heads the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan, which handles bilateral ties in the absence of diplomatic ties.

Taiwan has demanded apology from Japan and insists the Diaoyutai Islands have been China and Taiwan's territory since ancient times.

But Tokyo claims the Diaoyutai Islands, called Senkaku Islands by the Japanese, as being a territory of Japan and hase deployed coastguard ships to guard the islets.

Suicide blast kills 12 in Lankan police complex

AFP, Colombo

A suspected Tamil Tiger rebel detonated explosives on his motorcycle outside a police station in northern Sri Lanka Monday, killing at least 12 officers and wounding 40 others, officials said.

The blast occurred during morning rush hour directly in front of the police building in Vavuniya town, 258 kilometres (160 miles) north of Colombo, military and police officials said.

The wounded, who included school children, were rushed to the main hospital.

"It was a Tiger suicide bomber who rammed his (explosives-packed) motorcycle as policemen were leaving for duty," military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said. Nine policemen and three female constables were killed while another 17 policemen were wounded, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekara said.

"All those killed in the attack were police personnel," Gunasekara said adding, however, that civilians were among the wounded.

The most senior police official was not in the building at the time of the blast, a policeman in Vavuniya said when contacted by telephone.

Officials at the Vavuniya hospital said they had received the bodies of 12 people killed in the blast, and a further 40 were rushed in for treatment.

Vavuniya borders territory further north of the country held by the rebels, who are fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in the majority Sinhalese island.

The drawnout conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The latest attack came as security forces stepped up pressure on the guerrillas inside their territory with air attacks and ground offensives.

The defence ministry reported that 19 rebels and five security personnel were killed in weekend battles in the north.

The government insists it now has the upper hand in the 36-year-old conflict with the Tigers, who are seeking a homeland in the north and east.

However, the guerrillas have been accused of stepping up bomb attacks against civilians and security authorities across the island in recent months.

Sri Lanka has poured a record 1.5 billion dollars into the war effort this year, hoping for a quick end to the conflict which started in 1972.

Air force fighter jets pounded a "logistics base and combat vehicle conversion plant" in Mullaitivu district, further north of Vavuniya, on Sunday, the defence ministry said.

However, the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said Sri Lankan jets had killed two civilians and wounded 11 more in the Sunday morning attack.

"Two civilians were killed by an aerial bombing of the Sri Lankan air force on Sunday in Puthukkuriruppu town centre (in Mullaitivu district)," the Tigers said in a statement on Saturday night.

In the island's eastern district of Batticaloa, Tiger gunmen shot dead two police constables while a trooper from the paramilitary homeguard unit was shot dead elsewhere in the region on Sunday, the ministry said.

It said troops also killed four more Tiger rebels in a fresh confrontation in the north on Sunday.

No timetable for Iraq withdrawals: Bush

AP, London

US President George W. Bush said there should be no definitive timetable for the withdrawal of Coalition forces from Iraq, according to a British Sunday newspaper.

Asked by the Observer newspaper about reports that Britain was preparing plans for the reduction of its forces in Iraq, Bush said he did not want the issue tied to a formal schedule.

"There should be no definitive timetable," Bush was quoted as saying. "I am confident that (British Prime Minister Brown), like me, will listen to our commanders to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward won't be unraveled by drawdowns that may not be warranted at this point in time."

The Observer said Bush was interviewed in Rome, where the president spent Thursday and Friday as part of his weeklong tour of Europe.

The trip has largely focused on shoring up support for the NATO mission in Afghanistan and a tough line on Iran's nuclear program. However, Bush is also addressing climate change, trade and the situation in Iraq - which Bush said he would discuss with Brown in London.

The British Broadcasting Corp. has reported that Britain could set a date for the withdrawal of its soldiers from Iraq within months, although officials have dismissed the report as speculation.

Britain currently has some 4,000 troops serving in southern Iraq confined to a base on the outskirts of the city of Basra. The military planned to withdraw an additional 1,500 troops from the country, but those plans were shelved after the city was rocked by an upsurge in violence in Basra in March, a point noted by Bush in his interview.

The Observer newspaper cast its interview with Bush as a warning to Brown over further British troop reductions, but the White House insisted that the two leaders - who are due to meet for dinner Sunday evening - were in complete accord.

"There is no daylight between the United States and the United Kingdom on the strategy for Iraq," Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said Sunday in Paris where he was traveling with Bush.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record about this issue, said Bush didn't give Brown any kind of warning.

Brown's Downing Street office concurred, saying it was not British policy to set "arbitrary timetables."

Bush and Brown are due to hold talks Monday morning before the president visits Northern Ireland, the last stop on his European tour.

Newly independent Kosovo’s constitution enters force

AFP, Pristina

Kosovo's constitution entered into force Sunday, four months after it split from Serbia, opening the way for majority Albanians take over from a nine-year-old UN mission under European guidance.

President Fatmir Sejdiu marked the imposition of the newly independent state's first charter by signing a set of laws for the first time, in the presence of European Union special representative Peter Feith.

"The coming into force today of the constitution marks the completion of the cycle of building the state," said Sejdiu.

"The constitution is the main compass t which will present the main orientation for our path," the president said, adding it would help Kosovo with its EU and NATO integration.

"Adopting the constitution represents the second historic moment for Kosovo after the proclamation of independence" from Serbia on February 17, said Sejdiu.

But responding to the move, Belgrade, which still regards Kosovo as an integral part of its territory and medieval heartland, said it considered the constitution as illegal and dangerous.

"Serbia does not accept the proclamation of Kosovo's constitution as a legal fact," President Boris Tadic told reporters in the Serbian capital, adding the move was "a political event with t harmful consequences."

UN chief Ban Ki-moon this week gave Sejdiu and Tadic his plans to restructure the UN mission in Kosovo-UNMIK-by transferring many of its powers to local institutions and the European Union.

The power shake-up is based on a blueprint for Kosovo's "supervised independence" put forth by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, after status talks between Kosovo Albanian and Serbian leaders collapsed at the end of 2006.

The constitution, unanimously approved by Kosovo's parliament on April 9, paves the way for the introduction of EULEX, a 2,000-strong European Union police and justice mission.

In line with the Ahtisaari settlement, it enshrines principles of a multi-ethnic society governing itself democratically with full respect for the rule of law and international human rights standards.

As part of moves to implement the charter, Kosovo this week passed laws on a national anthem and the creation of a security force to be trained by NATO, which still has 15,000 troops in the volatile territory.

According to the law, the force of 2,500 will be professional, multi-ethnic, civilian-controlled and possess no heavy weapons.

But it remains unclear how the constitution will be imposed in areas populated by Serbs, particularly in the ethnically divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, where violence has repeatedly flared since independence.

In the latest clash at the weekend, a police officer and a man suffered wounds during a gun battle in the southern Albanian-populated half of the flashpoint town.

"For Albanians, (the constitution) probably means something, but for Serbs, it (means) absolutely nothing," Oliver Ivanovic, a moderate Kosovo Serb leader, said on Sunday.

"It has lessened the possibility that Serbs and Albanians converge in the future.

"Serbs will be more inclined to turn to their parallel institutions, which could lead to more conflict," said Ivanovic, expressing regret at the lost opportunity for a settlement agreed by both sides.

UNMIK has run Kosovo since 1999, when NATO forces took control of it after ousting forces loyal to late autocratic Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

The independence of Kosovo, whose Albanians outnumber Serbs and other minorities by more than nine-to-one, has been recognised by around 40 nations including the United States and most EU members.

But Russia, a traditional ally of Serbia, effectively blocked UN approval of the Ahtisaari plan before the UN Security Council where it is a veto-wielding permanent member.

Flash floods, mudslides kill 25 in Assam

AFP, Guwahati

Flash floods and mudslides unleashed by heavy monsoon rains have claimed 25 lives and displaced 200,000 people in northeastern India, officials said Monday.

Six people drowned overnight in Assam state as they tried to escape gushing floodwaters in bamboo rafts, state relief and rehabilitation minister Bhumidhar Barman said. "We have reports of six deaths so far and about 200,000 people displaced from their homes in the two districts of Lakhimpur and Sonitpur with the flood situation turning critical," Barman told AFP.

The death toll in a series of mudslides on the weekend in the neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh has mounted to 19. "Rescue work is still on and you never know, there could be more bodies trapped under the debris with at least 30 houses caving in," district magistrate Bidul Payeng said.

Army and paramilitary soldiers were called out Monday in Assam's Sonitpur and Lakhimpur districts to rescue marooned villagers.

Hundreds of people trapped in their houses were brought to safety and at least 50 makeshift camps have been set up for displaced villagers.

A Central Water Commission bulletin Monday said the main Brahmaputra river and its tributaries were flowing above the danger level in at least six places, with the trend likely to increase.

The Regional Meteorological Centre warned of more rains and thundery showers in the next 24 hours.

The 2,906-kilometer (1,816-mile) river-one of Asia's longest-traverses China's Tibet region, India and Bangladesh before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

Every year the monsoon causes the river to flood, submerging paddy fields, washing away villages, drowning livestock and killing people in Assam, a remote state of 26 million people.

Southern China flooding kills 57, more rain ahead

GUANGZHOU, China

Massive flooding across a broad stretch of southern China killed almost 60 people and forced 1.3 million others from their homes, state media reported Monday.

People were forced to flee their homes across nine provinces, including Sichuan, still reeling from last month's earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people, the official Xinhua News Agency said. At least 57 people died and eight were missing, Xinhua reported.

Heavy rain is expected to pummel the southern region over the next few days, said a spokesman at the China Meteorological Administration who refused to give his name, which is customary.

Water levels on the swollen Wujiang River in Guangdong province rose to nearly 79 feet, far surpassing the "dangerous level" of 20 feet, he said.

Heavy rain in Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces will further raise water levels downstream, especially in the coastal manufacturing powerhouse of Guangdong, Xinhua reported. Most of those areas are expected to receive more heavy rain over the next 10 days.

The worst-hit province was Guangdong, where 20 people died and eight were missing, and nearly 5.8 million people in 17 cities were affected, Xinhua said.

Thousands evacuated as rains lash China quake region

AFP, Beijing

Tens of thousands of victims of China's Sichuan earthquake were evacuated Monday as torrential rain lashed the region, triggering flood warnings on rivers including the Yangtze and the Pearl.

Heavy downpours have battered large parts of eastern and southern China, leaving at least 65 dead or missing, and adding to the misery in the quake-ravaged southwestern province.

Up to 70,000 people in Wenchuan township at the epicentre of the May 12 earthquake were being removed due to the risk of rock and mudslides brought on with the onset of the rainy season in Sichuan, the Beijing News said.

"Wenchuan has already entered the rainy season and the rain will weaken even more the already brittle mountain sides, making the situation even worse," the paper said.

Last month's magnitude-8.0 earthquake has left up to 87,000 dead or missing and up to five million homeless in Sichuan.

Wenchuan was flattened during the quake with early rescue and relief efforts mostly flown in due to impassable roads in the mountainous area.

According to local weather reports, the Wenchuan area was expecting thunder showers for the next three days.

Local officials contacted by AFP were not immediately available to comment on the thousands of people being evacuated.

In China as a whole, massive rains have left at least 57 people dead and eight missing across nine provinces over the past 10 days, the government said. More than 1.27 million people have been evacuated in the hardest-hit areas, with large swathes of farmland submerged and economic losses already totalling more than 10 billion yuan (1.4 billion dollars), it said.

Rising waters on China's major rivers prompted the government to issue emergency orders on Sunday as the affected provinces and regions scrambled to prepare for more torrential rains.

"We must fully deploy flood prevention and control work on the Yangtze and Pearl rivers," E Jingping, head of the state's flood prevention headquarters, said in an emergency order posted on its website.

The situation on the Pearl river in southern China's Guangdong and Guangxi provinces was the most pressing with water levels at a 20-year high, E said.

On a tributary of the Pearl in Guangxi they had surpassed warning levels by 6.8 metres (22 feet), he said.

Waters on a Yangtze river tributary in central China's Henan province were up to 4.7 metres over warning levels, he said in transcripts of the meeting posted on the headquarters website Monday.

Almost 18 million people had been affected by flooding while more than 141,000 homes had been wrecked or damaged, the government said.

Rains were expected to further pound southern China in the coming days, with rising river levels threatening towns in Jiangxi, Guangxi and Guangdong provinces, the state meteorological bureau said.

EU vows treaty not dead after Irish 'No'

Reuters, Luxembourg

European Union foreign ministers insisted on Monday that the EU reform treaty was alive despite Ireland's "No" vote but conceded they had no quick fixes for rescuing it.

Their monthly meeting in Luxembourg was a first opportunity for EU officials to start picking up the pieces after Thursday's Irish referendum cast doubt over the survival of a pact meant to bolster the EU's economic and political weight in the world.

EU leaders will want to hear from Prime Minister Brian Cowen at a summit in Brussels later this week whether he sees any hope of winning a new referendum, a step Irish officials have not ruled out but which they believe is a high-risk strategy.

"The people's decision has to be respected and we have to chart a way through t It is far too early for proffering any solutions or proposals," Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said on arrival. "There are no quick fix solutions."

But for the moment, Dublin's 26 partners in the bloc are not taking "No" for an answer and most insist that ratification of the project should continue elsewhere in the bloc.

"The treaty is not dead. The EU is in constant crisis management-we go from one crisis to another and finally we find a solution," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb told reporters, noting the bloc had always pushed ahead with integration despite past rebuffs from voters.

"I believe the European spirit is strong t and we'll see more ratifications," said Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

He stressed it was up to Ireland to propose ways out of the impasse: "I don't have any solutions."

"Life has to continue," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, whose role was to have been beefed up with a real foreign service under the Lisbon Treaty, which will not now come into force as planned next January 1.

Israeli forces kill three: Palestinians in Gaza raid

AP, Gaza City

Israeli strikes in southern Gaza killed three Palestinian gunmen Monday and injured three others, militants said.

Three Islamic Jihad men were killed by Israeli fire when they were planting explosives along the Gaza-Israel border, according to Abu Ahmad, a spokesman for the group.

The military confirmed that troops crossed into Gaza and shot the militants.

In a separate incident, an Israeli airstrike injured three Hamas militants, one of them critically, Hamas said. The military confirmed the attack.

Israel's military frequently clashes with militants who fire rockets and mortars into Israel and attack troops along the border.

Edwards not ruling out new VP bid under Obama

AFP, Washington

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said Sunday he would have to "seriously" consider another shot at the job if asked by White House hopeful Barack Obama.

But the former North Carolina senator, who unsuccessfully ran for the party's nomination this year and was on John Kerry's ticket in 2004, reaffirmed that he was not actively seeking to be Obama's running mate. Two prominent Republicans also denied they were in the hunt to be the VP candidate of Senator John McCain, Obama's opponent in the November election. Edwards told ABC News: "I'd take anything he asks me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something that I've done and it's not a job I'm seeking." The comments of the anti-poverty crusader appeared to leave open some wiggle room, after he had told Spanish newspaper Vanguardia earlier this month that "the vice presidency is not a position that I desire."

Obama has been stepping up a discreet search for a running mate, although the process has been hampered by the departure of his chief vetter, Jim Johnson, in a controversy over favorable mortgage terms.

Others tipped for the Democratic VP job include senators Joseph Biden and Jim Webb, along with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

Obama's primary foe, Hillary Clinton, says she is not in the running.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the 37-year-old son of Indian immigrants, said media speculation touting him as a potential running mate for McCain was "flattering."

"The reality is, I've got the job that I want," the Republican rising star told CBS News. "We've got the chance to make once-in-a-lifetime changes and reforms in our state. I want to be a part of turning Louisiana around."

Other names in the Republican frame include former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the Republican White House race in February, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Obama spent a rare day with his family in Chicago, and addressed parishioners in the largely African-American Apostolic Church of God to demand greater responsibility from absentee fathers.

In a Father's Day speech at the church, Obama also pressed for government action to help struggling parents, through tax breaks, job training and family-friendly employment laws.

The African-American Illinois senator amplified one of his campaign themes in condemning missing fathers who have "abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men."

"You and I know how true this is in the African-American community," Obama said, recapping government statistics showing more than half of all black children live in single-parent households.

Such children are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison, he said.

"And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it," said Obama, who dwelt on his own challenges growing up with a single mother from the age of two after his Kenyan father abandoned them.

Israel and Syria resume indirect talks

AFP, Jerusalem

Israel and Syria resumed over the weekend indirect peace talks under Turkish mediation, Israeli military radio reported on Monday. Two close advisors to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Shalom Turjeman and Yoram Turbowitz, traveled to the Turkish capital Ankara for the latest round of the talks that began Sunday and were set to wrap up on Monday, the radio station said. Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday publicly called upon Syria to enter into direct talks, citing the example of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who forged a peace deal with the Jewish state. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said earlier this month that direct peace talks with Israel were unlikely before 2009, and added that they also depended on the fate of Olmert, who has been dogged by calls for his resignation over a graft scandal.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the Israeli envoys assured their Syrian counterparts the political crisis surrounding Olmert will not affect the talks.

The two countries announced last month they had resumed indirect peace talks under Turkish mediation, after an eight-year freeze.

The last round of peace talks broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.

Britain says high risk of attack in UAE

AFP, Dubai

Britain has warned that there is a high risk of a terror attack in the United Arab Emirates, according to a statement posted on its embassy website.

"There is a high threat from terrorism. We believe terrorists may be planning to carry out attacks in the UAE," said a travel advice posted online on Saturday.

"Attacks could be indiscriminate and could happen at any time, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers such as residential compounds, military, oil, transport and aviation interests," it said.

It informed Britons in the oil-rich Gulf state that they should "maintain a high level of security awareness, particularly in public places."

The embassy said that over a million British visitors travelled to the UAE in 2006, and more than 100,000 British nationals are resident there.

Pakistan summons Afghan envoy over Karzai comments

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan summoned Afghanistan's ambassador to the foreign office to receive a strong protest on Monday after Afghan leader Hamid Karzai threatened cross-border attacks on militants, an official said. Karzai threatened on Sunday to attack Taliban insurgents on the soil of his supposed ally in the US-led "war on terror", saying his war-torn country had a right to do so in self-defence. "The Afghan ambassador has been summoned to the foreign office and a strong protest was lodged over President Karzai's statement," Pakistani foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told AFP. The spokesman refused to give further details of what was said at the meeting. In his toughest comments yet on stamping out militancy along the frontier, Karzai said Afghanistan "has the right to destroy terrorist nests on the other side of the border in self-defence." He sent a specific warning to Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, whom the previous Pakistani government has blamed for the December assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

'Chemical Ali' on trial denies killing civilians

AP, Baghdad

A cousin and top deputy of Saddam Hussein on Sunday denied opening fire on Iraqi civilians during a Shiite uprising in 1991 but acknowledged executing an Iranian national accused of sabotage.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, known by the nickname of "Chemical Ali" for ordering poison gas attacks on the Kurds, is among 15 Saddam-era officials on trial for the 1991 crackdown that led to the killing of tens of thousands of Shiites.

During his defense statement, al-Majid disputed witness accounts that he and Iraqi soldiers opened fire on peaceful Iraqi Shiite protesters in the southern city of Basra following Iraq's defeat in the first Gulf War.

Iraqi Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north sought to take advantage of that defeat, launching separate uprisings and briefly seizing control of 14 of the country's 18 provinces.

"There were no peaceful demonstrations in Basra. The rioters started to set up fake checkpoints and attack soldiers. t I did not target any civilian protests. My only task was to eliminate the gunmen," he said.

After the trial began last August, a witness spoke of random shooting deaths of a teenage girl and three other people in a square packed with detainees as Saddam's troops rounded up Shiites during the uprising.

"I did not shoot the teenage girl or any other civilian in that square in Basra. Such stories are fabricated," al-Majid told the chief judge, Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa.

But al-Majid acknowledged killing an Iranian national accused of leading sabotage attacks in Basra during the uprising.