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224 dead, 374 missing in Philippines typhoon: Hopes fade for ferry victims

AFP, Manila

Some 598 people are dead or missing after Typhoon Fengshen roared through the Philippines, the Red Cross and civil defence said Monday, dramatically raising the number unaccounted for.

Landslides, severe flooding and the loss of dozens of fishing boats had left at least 224 dead and 374 missing, they said, mostly in central areas which bore the brunt of the storm.

The figures, up from just six confirmed missing on Sunday while the death toll has been slightly lowered, do not include passengers and crew from a ferry which sank carrying 747 people. So far, only 32 survivors have been found. More than 200 people were still missing in the central island of Negros, while 63,000 people are still in evacuation centers after flash floods and landslides forced them to flee their homes, the civil defence agency said. Flooding had not yet receded in many parts of Bulacan province, just outside the capital of Manila, it added.

Power was fully restored in Manila but had not yet returned in some areas outside the capital where lines had been toppled.

Typhoon Fengshen slammed into the central Philippines late Saturday before changing course and moving north across much of the archipelago.

It left through the northwestern side of the main island of Luzon before dawn Monday, moving northwest at 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) per hour towards southern China, the government weather station said.

As of 10:00 am (0200 GMT) Monday, the typhoon was charted 300 kilometres northwest of the country, packing maximum winds of 110 kilometres near the center.

Reuters report adds: Rescuers held little hope on Monday of finding some 800 people missing from a capsized ferry in the Philippines, as divers prepared to drill into the ship's hull in the hope of finding survivors in air pockets. Coast guard boats searched the area around the ferry, which capsized during a typhoon with gusts up of to 195 kph (120 mph) on Saturday afternoon. By Monday only 33 people had been found alive.

A spokesman for the navy said a team approached the ship on Sunday afternoon to check for possible survivors. "We just approached the hull of the ship, we got near and then banged, knocked in order for us to give a sign if ever there are still people inside," Lieutenant-Colonel Edgard Arevalo said.

"Unfortunately there was no response." Typhoon Fengshen pounded the archipelago at the weekend, washing away houses and roads and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate. Aside from the ferry disaster, a further 155 people were killed, according to the Red Cross.

A U.S. vessel was en route to help with search efforts and was expected to reach the site in around 15 hours, Jesus Dureza, a spokesman from the presidential palace said.

Nine male corpses believed to be passengers from the MV Princess of Stars washed ashore on the central island of Masbate on Monday.

"The bodies were bloated and decomposing. What we did was just to wrap them up and buried them right away," a local mayor told radio.

Photographs showed only the tip of the ship's bow visible above the waves.

In the worst-hit province of Iloilo, damage to agriculture and infrastructure was pegged at 1.7 billion pesos ($38 million).

The Department of Agriculture said in a statement nearly 250,000 ha of farmland was damaged, mostly paddy fields, at a cost of nearly 555 million pesos.

Disaster officials were worried about food supplies for evacuees, crammed into schools, churches and townhalls.

"I don't think they have enough rice to tide them over," Richard Gordon, the chairman of the Philippines' Red Cross, told local television.

The typhoon is currently over the South China Sea and is expected to weaken to a tropical storm as it moves northwards.

Iran warns of 'limitless’ response to any military strike

AFP, Tehran

Iran on Sunday dismissed reports that Israel had been practising for air strikes against its nuclear drive as "psychological operations" but warned of a limitless response to any attack.

The New York Times on Friday cited US officials as saying that a major Israeli military exercise over Greece earlier this month appeared to be a dry run for a potential strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

"It seems that a series of psychological operations have been taken to intimidate the Islamic republic and force it to renounce its absolute and legitimate right" to nuclear power, Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said. "But Iran will not be intimidated by these threats and will not renounce its right," he added, quoted by the Fars news agency.

The United States and its ally Israel fear that Iran could use its programme of uranium enrichment to make an atomic weapon, and have never explicitly ruled out launching a military strike against it.

An official with the Greek air force's central command confirmed the substance of the report, stating that it had taken part in "joint training exercises" with Israel off the Mediterranean island of Crete.

"Iran will not begin any conflict but will punish any aggressor with force. With determination and using all the options-without limit in time and space-we will give a destructive response to any hostile action," Najar said.

Gorkhas recruit hundreds in Darjeeling hills

Reuters, Kolkata

Hundreds of people queued up in the Darjeeling hills on Monday as the Gorkha community, pressing its demand for autonomy, began a massive recruitment drive.

Gorkhas, who are ethnic Nepalis, called an indefinite strike in the region on June 10 and are demanding a separate state of "Gorkhaland" be carved out of West Bengal to protect their culture and heritage. The strike has badly hit the tourism and the tea industry, two mainstays of the local economy. A tea industry official has warned exports of premium Darjeeling tea could fall 20-25 percent this year.

On Sunday the Gorkhas relaxed the strike for two days to allow people to stock up rations and join the enlisting drive.

Hundreds have so far braved a steady drizzle and cold weather to throng a stadium and get their names registered.

"I have come to join the force because we want Gorkhaland," Gitika Gurung, a 23-year-old woman said.

"I am not here for money, but for a separate state which we will realise at any cost," said Gurung, who queued up with others.

Female suicide bomber in Iraq kills 16, wounds 40

AP, Baghdad

A female suicide bomber concealing explosives beneath her black robe struck outside a government complex northeast of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 40, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

It was the 21st suicide mission carried out by a woman in Iraq this year, the U.S. military said, as al-Qaida and other Sunni militant groups try to regroup from major losses suffered at the hands of U.S. and Iraqi forces. The blast occurred about 1 p.m. as dozens of people were leaving a walled compound that includes a courthouse and the provincial governor's office in Baqouba, capital of Diyala province and a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

A car bomb across the street from the same compound killed at least 40 people in April.

It appeared that the latest attack was timed to maximize casualties since many people were leaving the compound because the government offices there were to close soon for the day.

33 rebels, 6 soldiers killed in Sri Lanka fighting

AP, Colombo

Government forces captured six Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers on the front lines in war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka and infantry killed 33 rebels and six soldiers in clashes, the military said Monday.

Fighting has escalated in recent months in the area separating government-controlled territory and the rebels' de facto state in the north.

The military has stepped up land and air attacks on rebels as the government has pledged to capture rebel-held territory and to crush the insurgents by the end of the year. Diplomats and other observers say the army has faced more resistance than expected.

The latest battles broke out Sunday in the Vavuniya, Mannar, Welioya and Jaffna areas, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Army troops captured six rebel bunkers near the front lines in Vavuniya after a battle that killed 10 rebels and five soldiers, he said. The same fighting wounded 30 rebels and seven soldiers and one soldier was missing, said Nanayakkara.

Sarkozy to tell Knesset of need for Palestinian state

AFP, Jerusalem

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was expected to stress solidarity with Israel and press for the creation of a Palestinian state in an address to the parliament in Jerusalem Monday.

Sarkozy has repeated the two messages since the start on Sunday of his three-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

He underlined that Israel needed to make concessions to the Palestinians in order to guarantee its own security, and singled out the continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank for criticism. "As I have said on several occasions, freezing settlements which are the main obstacle to peace, is crucial," Sarkozy said in an interview with the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper published on Monday.

More than 10,000 UK troops unfit for frontline

AFP, London

More than 10,000 British soldiers are unfit for frontline duty as the pressure of supplying troops for years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan takes its toll on the army, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The newspaper said the Ministry of Defence admits that 8,500 soldiers from the 59,000-strong "Field Army"-units such as tank, artillery and infantry regiments --- are classified as unfit to serve at the front.

When other soldiers classified as unfit from the overall 101,800-strong army are taken into account, the total figure is likely to exceed 10,000, said the newspaper, which is traditionally close to the armed forces. The figure of one in 10 soldiers classified as unfit for operations is the highest since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.

World powers sound alarm over Zimbabwe poll violence

AFP, London

Britain led international cries of alarm over Zimbabwe's violent electoral crisis after the main opposition leader all but handed victory to President Robert Mugabe by quitting the run-off race.

Both London and Washington said they were prepared to raise their concerns in the United Nations Security Council on Monday. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Zimbabwe would lack "legitimate" leadership if Mugabe stayed in charge, and accused him of using violence to cling to power.

"A government which violates the constitution in Zimbabwet cannot be held as the legitimate representative of the Zimbabwean people," Miliband said, referring to Mugabe's slowness to hold a run-off after the March 29 election. Miliband described the violence as "state-sponsored on a very large scale with one very clear motivation"-to keep Mugabe in power.

China demolishes mosque for not supporting Olympics: Group

Reuters, Beijing

Chinese authorities in the restive far western region of Xinjiang have demolished a mosque for refusing to put up signs in support of this August's Beijing Olympics, an exiled group said on Monday.

The mosque was in Kalpin county near Aksu city in Xinjiang's rugged southwest, the World Uyghur Congress said.

The spokesman's office of the Xinjiang government said it had no immediate comment, while telephone calls to the county government went answered.

"China is forcing mosques in East Turkistan to publicize the Beijing Olympics to get the Uighur people to support the Games (but) this has been resisted by the Uighurs," World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement. Beijing says al Qaeda is working with militants in Xinjiang to use terror to establish an independent state called East Turkistan. Oil-rich Xinjiang is home to 8 million Turkic-speaking Uighurs, many of whom resent the growing economic and cultural influence of the Han Chinese.

Talk of cross-border action by Afghanistan 'not wise’: Rice

AFP, Washington

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview that threats by Afghanistan to pursue Taliban insurgents across the border into Pakistan were "not wise." Rice instead called for cooperation between the two nations after Afghan President Hamid Karzai had angered Pakistan when he threatened cross-border action as a right of "self-defense" against Taliban forces.

"I think it's probably not wise to talk about Afghan cross-border operations," Rice said in the interview with CNN on Sunday.

"I think it's better that Pakistan and Afghanistan cooperate on their respective sides of the border," she said.

"There are Taliban operating in Afghanistan who have to be defeated. And there are Taliban who are operating in Pakistan, and they have to be defeated, too.

"But I think it's probably better that the respective governments deal with their own problems." Karzai sent relations between the two allies in the US-led "war on terror" plummeting to a new low a week ago when he said that his war-torn country would be justified in striking Taliban rebels based on Pakistani soil.