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Sarkozy favours creation of Palestinian state

AFP, Bethlehem

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday spoke out strongly in favour of a Palestinian state after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem.

"The security of Israel is non-negotiable for France, but the creation of a viable, democratic, modern state for the Palestinians is a priority for France," he said at a news conference with Abbas in the Biblical town.

Later, preparing to head home from Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, his departure ceremony was disrupted by a security scare. A shot rang out when a member of the Israeli guard of honour killed himself in what police said was a suicide. Bodyguards rushed Sarkozy and first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to their plane. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres were taken to their armoured cars, but later boarded the plane to bid farewell to the Sarkozys.

Sarkozy, who spent three days in Israel and the occupied West Bank, pledged in Bethlehem to work toward the creation of a Palestinian state.

"We will use the same strength, the same commitment we used in ensuring Israel's security," said Sarkozy, who on Monday had addressed the Israeli parliament. He reiterated his call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank, widely seen as a major hurdle to already slowly moving peace talks. Israel in recent months announced the construction of hundreds of new settler homes in the West Bank, infuriating Palestinians and drawing sharp criticism from the international community.

"I told our Israeli friends the injustice done to the Jewish people can't be resolved by creating conditions of injustice for the Palestinian people," Sarkozy said.

The French leader, who urged Israel to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank, said "it was a pleasure to come here to Bethlehem to see what the checkpoints were like, the wall, the misunderstandings on either side. This must stop."

Israel has set up hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints and erected a barrier separating itself from the West Bank, which often protrudes well inside the Palestinian territory.

It claims the measures are vital to its security, but the World Bank says they are a major obstacle to Palestinian economic growth. Sarkozy also had sharp criticism for Hamas, the Islamist movement that seized power in the Gaza Strip last June and launched almost daily rocket attacks on Israel until a truce went into effect on June 19. "Violence cannot solve the problems. Hamas is very wrong to have acted the way it did. You do not create peace through terrorism."

As he spoke, another Palestinian faction, Islamic Jihad, claimed it had fired two rockets that slammed into southern Israel without causing any casualties. The attack from Gaza came after Israeli forces killed a senior Islamic Jihad fighter and another man in the occupied West Bank, which is not part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Abbas, who has had no control over Gaza since Hamas ousted his forces last year, praised Sarkozy, saying: "Your positions, your initiatives are those of a friend. You are a friend, you have the interests of this region at heart."

On Monday, Sarkozy had told Israeli MPs that a lasting peace would entail a future Palestinian state and Israel sharing Jerusalem as their capital.

"There can be no peace without recognising Jerusalem as the capital of two states and the guarantee of freedom of access to the holy places for all religions," he said.

Israel occupied Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it-a move unrecognised by the international community.

It has since insisted it regards the whole city as its "eternal, indivisible" capital.

Philippines inquiry opens as 800 feared dead in ferry disaster

AFP, San Fernando

Philippine investigators opened an inquiry Wednesday into a ferry disaster believed to have killed 800 as rescuers ended slim hopes of finding survivors in the stricken vessel.

More than 100 US and Filipino divers combed the wreckage of the 24,000-tonne Princess of the Stars, whose upturned bow remained jutting above waters off the the central island of Sibuyan after it capsized in a typhoon on Saturday.

"There are no signs of life," navy spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Edgard Arevalo said. Rescuers said anyone who had managed to find air pockets in the ship would have suffocated by now. Only 57 people survived the tragedy, according to civil defence figures, out of more than 850 people on board, making it one of the worst maritime disasters in the Southeast Asian country's history.

President Gloria Arroyo in a statement from Washington, where she is on an official visit, said: "We are holding the ferry company accountable."

She said in a statement that the inquiry will try to determine how the tragedy occurred "so we can take steps to make sure it never happens again."

Coastguard spokesman Lieutenant Commander Armand Balilo said ferry operator Sulpicio Lines, as well as maritime experts, have been summoned to the inquiry, which aims to determine whether the ship was seaworthy and why it was allowed to leave port during a typhoon.

"This board of marine inquiry is a fact-finding investigation," he said, adding that details gathered could be used for a criminal prosecution if needed. "Early this morning during first light we continued our diving operations," said Lieutenant Commander Rogelio Villanueva, who briefed disaster relief officials in Manila.

He said the divers hoped to penetrate deeper into the ship's dining hall and other compartments, where divers had seen many bloated bodies.

Navy ships as well as a helicopter meanwhile were scouring coastal areas where some bodies could have washed up.

"We are racing against time to save lives and retrieve bodies as soon as possible before they reach an advanced state of decomposition," he said.

He said three more bodies were recovered Wednesday, bringing the toll from the ship to 70 with 48 survivors, according to navy figures.

More than 700 others were still unaccounted for.

US divers joined the grim search for the bloated bodies of men, women and children who were on the 22-hour trip from Manila to central Cebu when Typhoon Fengshen struck.

With poor visibility and strong undercurrents hampering the operation, officials appealed for more equipment from abroad as well as relief goods for survivors of the typhoon, which left another 600 dead or missing countrywide.

Anthony Golez, a spokesman for President Arroyo, said the government welcomed any aid from international donors.

3 American troops killed in Iraq bomb blast

AP, Baghdad

A roadside bomb killed three American soldiers and an interpreter north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Wednesday, and Iraqi police reported 14 Shiite gunmen were arrested after fighting south of the capital.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, American soldiers using specially trained dogs sifted through the wreckage Wednesday of an office in Sadr City where a bomb killed 10 people, including four Americans working to restore local government in the former Shiite militia stronghold.

The roadside bombing occurred about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday in Nineveh province, where al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups remain active. The U.S. statement contained no further details.

Their deaths brought to at least 4,109 the number of U.S. military members who have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

At least 25 service members have died this month. May's death tally of 19 was the lowest monthly toll of the Iraq conflict.

The fighting in the south broke out before dawn near Nassiriyah, 200 miles south of Baghdad, as Iraqi forces were conducting house-to-house searches for Shiite militants.

Nassiriyah police chief Brig. Gen. Sabah al-Fatlawi said 14 suspects had been arrested but that sporadic clashes were continuing.

The area is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and has been plagued by power struggles between rival Shiite factions - some with close ties to the Shiite-led national government.

Internal Shiite rivalries may have been behind Tuesday's deadly blast inside the district council building in Sadr City, al-Sadr's Baghdad stronghold. The bomb went off inside a councilman's office ahead of an election to choose a new chairman of the council.

The acting head of the council, Jawad al-Itabi, said American investigators were searching the building Wednesday along with sniffer dogs looking for clues. He said 12 people were being detained for questioning, including 10 security guards.

Two of the U.S. dead were soldiers, the military said. The U.S. Embassy said the dead American civilians included one State Department and one Defense Department employee.

An Italian of Iraqi origin who was working as an interpreter for the Americans also was killed, according to the Italian Foreign Ministry.

Major powers fret over Israeli settlements, shaky Gaza truce

AFP, Berlin

The United States and other peace brokers fretted Tuesday over the fragility of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by calling for a truce in Hamas-run Gaza to last and Israel to freeze settlements.

The appeal from the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and United States followed international pledges of 242 million dollars to bolster the Palestinian police and justice system to help pave the way to a viable state. Following a series of meetings here, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters that a peace agreement could still be framed before President George W. Bush leaves office in January.

"I continue to be hopeful that we can reach the solution by the end of the year as envisioned by Annapolis," said Rice flanked by her counterparts from the other members of the so-called quartet.

At US-sponsored talks in Annapolis, Maryland last November, Israel and the Palestinians revived negotiations toward resolving core problems like the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and refugees.

But the quartet acknowledged difficulties by stressing "the urgent need for tangible progress toward" a deal this year for "an independent and viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and an end to the conflict."

A senior US official told reporters that the negotiations remained complicated by both events in Gaza-which is run by the extremist Hamas movement-and by volatile Israeli domestic politics.

"There was a recognition throughout the conversations today that the situation on the ground is very fragile because of Gaza," he said.

US Generals William Fraser and James Jones are expected to return to the West Bank and Israel to resume their roles in seeking to improve the security situation, the official said.

Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip slammed into southern Israel on Tuesday, the first such attacks since the truce came into effect on June 19.

One landed in the courtyard of a house and caused some damage and the other landed in a field.

US airstrikes kill 22 Taliban in Afghanistan

AFP, Kabul

US-led coalition airstrikes killed 22 Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday after insurgents launched the latest in a string of attacks on government buildings, the coalition said.

Rebels armed with rockets and machineguns attacked the Sarobi district centre in eastern Paktika province, which borders Pakistan, but were pushed back by Afghan forces, a coalition statement and a spokesman said.

Militants later attacked the district centre of neighboring Gomal, forcing the Afghan security forces to call in coalition warplanes for help, the spokesman said. "When coalition air support arrived, the 22 militants who attacked the (Gomal) District Centre were positively identified and killed," the coalition statement said. In the neighboring province of Paktia, Taliban fighters attacked another district centre, triggering clashes which ended with no casualties, a coalition spokesman who would not be named told AFP.

Violence from a Taliban-led insurgency has spiked in Afghanistan this month with a particular surge in activity in eastern Afghanistan in recent days. NATO warplanes killed 15 militants in Paktia on Tuesday, an Afghan official said, while the coalition said on Monday that 55 militants died in fighting in Paktika over the weekend. The US commander in the region said attacks by Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan were up 40 percent in the first five months of 2008 compared with the same period last year

Human Rights Watch urges Russia to end abuses

AP, Moscow

A New York-based rights watchdog said Wednesday that Russian security forces are responsible for widespread human rights abuses in the southern province of Ingushetia near Chechnya.

Security forces in Ingushetia have been fighting militants who staged frequent attacks on police and local authorities in a bid to promote Islamic rule in the Caucasus.

In a report released Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said it has documented dozens of summary and arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions committed by security forces combatting insurgents in Ingushetia.

There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities, who rarely comment on such allegations.

Human Rights Watch urged the Russian government to change what it called "brutal" counterinsurgency policies and punish those responsible for violations in Ingushetia, which the rights group compared to rampant rights abuses during the two wars in neighboring Chechnya.

Human Rights Watch said in the report that "dirty war" tactics against insurgents would likely further destabilize the situation in Ingushetia and beyond in the North Caucasus.

Iran may consider US diplomatic presence

AP, Tehran

Iran's official news agency says Tehran would consider any U.S. request to set up a diplomatic presence in the Islamic Republic.

A Foreign Ministry official quoted by IRNA Tuesday said "in principle, Iranian officials will consider requests they receive through formal channels."

On Monday, U.S. officials floated the idea of opening some sort of interests section in Iran.

Iran has operated an interests section in Washington for years. But the United States has not set up any diplomatic presence in Tehran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and embassy hostage crisis.

The U.S. currently relies on the Swiss Embassy in Tehran to pass messages to the Iranian Foreign Ministry and handle the affairs of U.S. citizens in the country

Sri Lanka army captures land from Tamil Tigers

AFP, Colombo

Sri Lanka's defence ministry said Wednesday that its forces have made some territorial progress in fighting with the Tamil Tigers that it said killed at least 10 guerrillas.

Security forces took a three square kilometre (1.15 square miles) area in the district of Mannar on Tuesday, the ministry said, adding that five soldiers were wounded in the fighting.

"So far 10 terrorists have been killed in these confrontations," the ministry said. "Battles continue as army troops advance further in capturing uncleared territory. Five soldiers are also reported wounded in action." There was no immediate word from the Tigers, and the government prevents independent reporting from frontline areas in the north.

In other violence, at least five Tiger rebels were killed and two soldiers were wounded in the adjoining district of Vavuniya on Tuesday, the ministry said.

The defence ministry claims raise the number of rebels reported killed by government troops since the beginning of the year to 4,412, against the loss of 412 soldiers.

The LTTE are fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils from the majority Sinhalese community.

Obama builds 12-point lead over McCain in LA Times poll

AFP, Washington

Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has built a yawning 12-point national lead over Republican John McCain, according to a new poll published by the Los Angeles Times Tuesday.

The LA Times/Bloomberg survey conducted over the weekend said that in a head-to-head contest, Obama had 49 percent support against 37 percent for McCain.

On a four-man ballot including two minor candidates-consumer champion Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr-Obama had an even bigger lead over McCain of 48 percent to 33.

It was the second major poll to give the Illinois senator a double-digit margin, after Newsweek on Friday had Obama ahead of McCain by 51 percent to 36 among registered voters nationwide.

Previous polls last week had Obama winning by four to five points, but the Democrat now appears to be enjoying a post-primary bounce after seeing off the dogged challenge of his party rival Hillary Clinton three weeks ago.

The great majority of Clinton voters have transferred their allegiance to Obama, the poll suggested, with only 11 percent of the New York senator's backers planning to defect to McCain.

The LA Times backed up other polls that find McCain is favored as the more experienced candidate to combat terrorism. But Obama led on what is now voters' top concern-the economy.

And even among voters who do plan to vote for McCain in November, the new survey said more than half were "not enthusiastic" about the Arizona senator.

"McCain is not capturing the full extent of the conservative base the way President (George W.) Bush did in 2000 and 2004," said Susan Pinkus, director of the LA Times poll.

"Among conservatives, evangelicals and voters who identify themselves as part of the religious right, he is polling less than 60 percent," she said.

"Meanwhile, Obama is doing well among a broad range of voters. He's running ahead among women, black voters and other minorities. He's running roughly even among white voters and independents."

The poll meanwhile found public approval of Bush's job performance at a new low of 23 percent. A slim majority of 51 percent had a "positive feeling" about the Democratic Party, but only 29 percent said the same about the Republicans.

India tries to break civilian nuclear deal deadlock with US

Reuters, New Delhi

India's government and its communist allies will try to break a deadlock on Wednesday over a civilian nuclear deal with the United States, with the ruling coalition split on an issue that could force snap elections.

The communists prop up the ruling coalition in parliament and say they will bring down the government if it goes ahead with a deal criticized by leftists for making India a pawn of the United States.

But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has invested much of his personal reputation in a deal seen as forging a closer trade and diplomatic ties with Washington, has appeared eager to go ahead with the deal despite opposition from within the coalition.

A meeting between the two sides will be held at 5 p.m. (7:30 a.m. EDT) on Wednesday.

"It's a deadlock at the moment and we hope there is going to be some breakthrough in the talks," Nilotpal Basu, a senior communist leader told Reuters late on Tuesday.

The deal, which gives India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and technology, is potentially worth billions of dollars to U.S. and European nuclear technology companies and would give India more energy alternatives to drive a booming trillion-dollar economy. Sonia Gandhi, the ruling Congress party head and India's most powerful politician, has been meeting non-communist allies of her coalition over the past few days to discuss the government's stance.

Many of these allies are worried a 13-year high inflation rate and signs a booming economy was slowing could destroy their re-election chances in a snap poll. They would prefer an election in early 2009.

"I do not think there will be any early election," DMK party leader T. R. Baalu, a key member of the coalition, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.

The Congress too sought to play down the crisis, saying its allies would not sacrifice the government over the agreement.

"There is no reason to press the panic button," Veerappa Moily, Congress spokesman, said. "The deal is important, but that should not be the cause for withdrawing support."

Communist and Congress leaders were locked in meetings with their allies as both sides furiously lobbied for support ahead of Wednesday's crucial meeting.

The deal still needs clearances from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. Then the deal would have to go to the U.S. Congress for final approval.

But it might already be getting too late as the United States gears up for presidential elections. U.S. Ambassador to India, David Mulford, was reported to have met top government officials on Tuesday to discuss the deal.

Pakistani court postpones Sharif by-election

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan's Supreme Court postponed on Wednesday a by-election in a constituency where former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had hoped to stand, pending a ruling on a decision by a lower court to bar him from the poll.

A high court in the city of Lahore this week barred Sharif from standing in Thursday's by-election, mainly on the basis of a criminal conviction that Sharif says was politically motivated. "The election has been stayed," Attorney General Malik Abdul Qayyum told Reuters, adding that the next hearing into the case will be on Monday. Sharif, whose government was toppled by the then army chief President Pervez Musharraf in a 1999 coup, had been expected to return to parliament in the by-election Sharif's party came second in a February election and is the second biggest in an uneasy coalition led by the party of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and his disqualification increased political tension and uncertainty.

Groups of Sharif supporters took to the streets in several cites on Tuesday, though Pakistani stocks, bruised by political worries in recent weeks, surged more than 8 percent on steps towards stabilization.

Several hundred lawyers in Lahore protested against his disqualification on Wednesday as stocks ended 2.54 percent up.

Sharif's party had refused to appeal against the disqualification, saying it will not deal with judges it sees as compliant to Musharraf, whom the party blames for the Lahore court ruling.

But the government, led by Bhutto's party, lodged an appeal in the Supreme Court earlier on Wednesday, seeking either the suspension of the Lahore court's order or the postponement of the by-election.

"He is qualified to contest the election t Our point is that an election tribunal has the right to hear such challenges, not the high court," government lawyer Raja Abdul Rehman told Reuters earlier.

The Election Commission cleared Sharif this month to contest the by-election.

Since Sharif returned from eight years in exile last November, he has been clear in his intention to drive his old enemy Musharraf from power.

The two-time prime minister, dogged by accusations of corruption during his rule, has won much public support for his uncompromising stand against the unpopular Musharraf, and for his insistence judges Musharraf dismissed last year be reinstated.

Mugabe refuses to bow to world pressure

AP, Harare

Saying the world can "shout as loud as they like," President Robert Mugabe refused to give into pressure from Africa and the West and vowed to go ahead with this week's runoff election, even though his opponent quit the race.

South Africa's ruling party issued a toughly worded statement Tuesday calling on Mugabe's government to stop "riding roughshod" over the opposition headed by Morgan Tsvangirai, who quit the presidential contest and sought shelter in the Dutch Embassy.

The African National Congress also warned against international intervention following a report in the Times of London that Britain has drawn up contingency plans for deploying troops in Zimbabwe to resolve a humanitarian crisis and to evacuate British nationals and their dependents.

"A lasting solution has to be led by the Zimbabweans and any attempts by outside players to impose regime change will merely deepen the crisis," the ANC said.

It singled out Britain, the colonial power when Zimbabwe was still Rhodesia, saying it had not followed through on pledges to help fund efforts to put more land in the hands of black Zimbabweans. Britain has cited concerns about corruption.

Campaigning Tuesday, Mugabe was defiant a day after the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to issue a strongly worded statement condemning violence against the opposition and saying it made a fair poll impossible. The statement won support from South Africa, China and Russia, which have previously blocked such moves.

Mugabe, a vigorous 84, kicked a soccer ball before thousands of cheering supporters and declared he would not back down.

Religious dialogue key to peace, says Indonesian president

AFP, Jakarta

Indonesia's president issued an appeal for more dialogue to tackle religious violence Tuesday at the start of an international inter-faith peace conference here.

Opening the conference attended by religious and community leaders from 37 countries, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said religion was too frequently used as a rallying point by belligerents in conflicts.

"The fact is that none of the world's great religions teach violence," Yudhoyono said.

Economic or political complaints usually lay at the root of conflict but "these grievances become so much more powerful when mixed with religious fervour," Yudhoyono said.

The leader of the world's most populous Muslim-majority country praised the muted response of Muslims to the release earlier this year of the anti-Islam film "Fitna" by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, but said restraint was not enough to achieve lasting peace.

"We need to foster a culture that gives a premium to moderation and tolerance," he said, adding that dialogue also required respect for other relgions' sacred traditions.

Foreign leaders who sent addresses to the conference, organised by local Muslim mass organisation Muhammadiyah, backed Yudhoyono's call for deeper understanding.

"I believe dialogue between cultures and faiths is profoundly important for harmony and peace. It's vital to building a critical mass of voices that reject violence and respect human dignity," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in a pre-recorded video.

"A religion is not a system of dogmas that can be imposed on others, let alone a justification for the use of violence. Governments must guarantee both freedom of religion and freedom of expression," Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in a speech read by the Dutch ambassador.