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US, allies stress diplomacy in Iran nuclear row

Reuters, Washington

US President George W. Bush believes the Iran nuclear issue can be solved diplomatically and that U.S. allies including Israel favor the same approach, the White House said on Wednesday.

The U.S. position was set out after The New York Times reported last week Israel had practiced a possible military strike against Iran.

The European Union's top diplomat also stressed the diplomatic track, saying Western powers would continue a twin policy of sanctions and diplomacy toward Iran over its nuclear program, despite Tehran's warnings it could backfire. Asked whether Israeli officials were pressuring the U.S. administration to take military action against Iran before Bush leaves office, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States and its allies, including Israel, wanted a diplomatic solution.

"President Bush believes that we can solve this issue diplomatically, and that everyone's preference is to solve it diplomatically, not just here in the United States but with our allies and certainly with Israel," Perino said.

The dispute between the West and Tehran over Iran's atomic program has sparked fears of a military confrontation that would disrupt vital oil supplies. The New York Times Friday quoted U.S. officials as saying Israel had carried out a big military exercise in an apparent rehearsal for a potential strike at Iran's nuclear sites.

Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, has described Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its existence.

Britain told Iran it would suffer growing economic and political isolation if it made the "wrong choice" and failed to comply with U.N. demands to curb sensitive atomic activities.

Bush discussed Iran with representatives of U.N. Security Council members at the White House on Wednesday. "We talked a little bit about Iran and how the United Nations Security Council is sending a focused message that the world really offers Iran a better way forward than isolation if they will verifiably suspend their enrichment programs," he said.

But Tehran remained defiant in the long-running standoff over nuclear work it says is designed to generate electricity but which the West fears is aimed at making bombs.

Its deputy foreign minister was quoted as saying the world's fourth-largest oil producer would withdraw assets from Europe in the face of tightening sanctions against the country.

Another senior official, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, warned the West against "provoking" the Islamic Republic. Tehran said Tuesday that new punitive measures imposed on it this week by the 27-nation European Union over its nuclear plans could damage diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana handed Iran an offer on June 14 of trade and other benefits proposed by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France in a new bid to end a row that has helped push oil prices to record highs.

Solana told Reuters Wednesday Iran had still not replied to the incentives offer aimed at coaxing it into halting uranium enrichment, which can have both civilian and military uses, but hoped for an answer soon.

"That is what we were told, that they would think about it and they would give us an answer soon," Solana said in Geneva.

US soldier, 3 Iraqis killed in spike of Iraq violence

AP, Baghdad

One US soldier has been killed in an attack in eastern Baghdad, the US military said Thursday, while three Iraqi bank employees were killed by US troops near the city airport in a disputed attack. The US military said one of its soldiers was killed by an armour- piercing charge in the predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, the latest in a surge of violence that saw at least nine soldiers killed this week.

The US military says the charges come from Iran. The fatality pushes the number of soldiers who died in June to at least 26.

This figure is higher than the death toll of 19 in May.

Separately, the US military said its troops killed three "criminals" after they were attacked by small arms fire near Baghdad International Airport about 8:40 am on Wednesday.

The three people, who were travelling in a car, fired on the soldiers while their military convoy was stopped on the side of the road, according to the military. The soldiers returned fire, causing the vehicle to run off the road and strike a wall. The vehicle eventually exploded and all three occupants were killed, the military said.

The attack left bullet holes in the convoy vehicle, the statement said, adding that a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.

Iraqi officials were quoted as saying that the bodies were identified as those of employees at a bank at the airport. One of them was a woman.

The incident is one of several recent episodes in which US and Iraqi officials have given contradictory accounts of how incidents occurred.

Israel keeps Gaza crossings closed for second day

Reuters, Jerusalem

Israel said it would keep its border crossings with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip closed for a second day on Thursday, prompting the Islamist group to warn that the move could wreck a week-old ceasefire agreement.

Israel closed the crossings on Wednesday in what it said was a response to rockets fired by Islamic Jihad militants. Islamic Jihad said the attack was retaliation for the Israeli army's killing of one of its commanders in the occupied West Bank.

The truce, brokered by Egypt, does not cover the West Bank.

Israeli military liaison official Peter Lerner told Reuters the crossings would remain closed on Thursday and no date had been set for their reopening. "It depends on the assessment of the situation following Tuesday's rocket attack," Lerner said.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire that began a week ago.

"If this closure continues it will render the deal for calm meaningless," Abu Zuhri said.

"Securing the continuation of the Palestinian factions' commitment to the deal hinges on the Occupation's lifting of the siege and the opening of all the crossings in the first 10 days," he said, referring to Israel.

Israel tightened restrictions at its frontier crossings with the Gaza Strip a year ago, sharply cutting back on the supply of goods into the territory, after the Islamist group took over the impoverished coastal enclave.

124 bodies recovered so far from Philippine ferry

AP, San Fernando

Divers having difficulty removing bodies from a capsized ferry were forced to use heavy weights to help pull the dead out of the upside-down vessel, Philippine officials said Thursday.

The bodies had floated to the top of the submerged cabins and compartments on the seven-story ferry, Coast Guard Commodore Luis Tuason said. Divers were struggling to pull the bloated bodies through narrow, debris-filled corridors to exit the vessel. It remains unclear how many of the 850-plus passengers and crew were trapped when the 23,824-ton Princess of the Stars suddenly listed and went belly up in a half-hour or less during a powerful typhoon Saturday, leaving just the tip of the bow jutting from the water. Only 56 survivors have been found, while 124 bodies have been recovered after washing ashore or spotted floating in the sea, some in life jackets, Coast Guard Commander Danilo Avila said.

The ferry disaster could raise Typhoon Fengshen's death toll to more than 1,300, with 329 people confirmed dead from flooding and landslides and more than 200 missing.

The aftermath of the storm kept rescue workers away until calm conditions Tuesday allowed divers to slither inside the ferry for the first time.

More than 100 divers, including eight U.S. military frogmen, were at the site, some working through the night Wednesday in the hope that some passengers could have found an air pocket and survived.

Fuel strike shuts down Nepal

AP, Katmandu

A general strike to protest an increase in fuel prices shut down the Nepalese capital on Thursday, with schools, businesses and markets closed and streets empty of vehicles.

Government workers had to walk to their offices.

Four small political parties called the strike to demand the government immediately withdraw fuel price increases, which went into effect June 10.

Party supporters set up road blocks in several points in Katmandu and vandalized some buses that defied their strike call. Nepal Oil Corp., a state-owned company with a monopoly on importing and distributing oil, said the price rise was necessary to reduce its losses and increase supplies.

The pump price of gasoline has jumped 25 percent to 100 rupees per liter (US$5.70 per gallon), while diesel shot up 25 percent to 70 rupees a liter (US$3.80 a gallon).

Nepal imports all its oil products from neighboring India. Nepal Oil in recent weeks has struggled to pay Indian Oil Corp.

World outrage over Zimbabwe’s 'sham’ elections boils over

AFP, Harare

Nelson Mandela and US President George W. Bush on Wednesday led mounting world outrage over Zimbabwe, where veteran leader Robert Mugabe is pressing on with what is seen as a "sham" presidential run-off vote.

As pressure on the octogenarian Mugabe ratcheted, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai called for armed peacekeepers to be sent to the country to stop terror attacks on his supporters.

The world's favourite elder statesman Mandela, an African liberation icon like Mugabe , spoke of a "tragic failure of leadership in our neighbouring Zimbabwe" during a celebrity fundraising dinner in London to mark his 90th birthday. "We look back at much human progress, but we sadly note so much failing as well," Mandela lamented.

"Friday's elections, you know, appear to be a sham," Bush said, referring to Mugabe's insistence to press on with the vote despite Tsvangirai's withdrawal due to attacks on his supporters and intimidation.

"You can't have free elections if a candidate is not allowed to campaign freely and his supporters aren't allowed to campaign without fear of intimidation," Bush said.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's neighbours from the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) held an emergency summit in Swaziland and urged for the vote to be postponed.

Tomaz Augusto Salomao, SADC chief, told reporters after the meeting that "elections under the current environment undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the outcome."

He asked that the country "consider postponing the vote until a later day."

Tsvangirai called for peacekeepers and emerged briefly from the Dutch embassy, where he has been holed up since Sunday after announcing his ballot withdrawal, to appeal for fresh regional efforts to resolve the crisis.

He said a negotiated settlement provides the best answer, but warned he was open to talks only if Friday's run-off election did not go ahead with Mugabe as the sole candidate.

Reiterating his call for peacekeepers, Tsvangirai referred to his earlier comments in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the UN had to go further than verbal condemnation of Mugabe and move to "active isolation" which required "a force to protect the people."

"I didn't ask for any military intervention, but for armed peacekeepers," he told reporters.

"The people in the country can wait no longer."

Anti-India protests paralyse Kashmir

AP, Srinagar

Tens of thousands of Kashmiris filled the streets for a fourth day of protests Thursday, their anger inflamed over the transfer of land to a Hindu shrine in this Muslim-majority region.

Protesters clashed with riot police in several parts of Srinagar, the main city of India's portion of Kashmir. Police responded to rock-throwers by firing live ammunition and tear gas into the air in an attempt to disperse the mobs, said police officer Sajjad Ahmed. More than twenty thousand people were protesting in towns across the Himalayan state, Ahmed said.

Thousands of police and paramilitary soldiers were spread out across Srinagar and the rest of the state to control the angry mobs, he said.

No injuries were immediately reported Thursday.

Three people have been killed and dozens wounded since Monday as police tried to quell the protests that erupted over the transfer of 99 acres of land by the state government to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running a popular Hindu shrine.

Protesters accuse the Indian government of planning to build Hindu settlements in India's only Muslim majority state in order to change the demographic balance in the region.

Across Kashmir, shops and offices were shut down in strikes and public transport was squeezed off the roads by marchers who filled the streets chanting, "Down with India," and "We want freedom!"

The state government canceled ongoing school and college exams across the region.

"We are protesting against the land transfer, which is one of India's grand designs to consolidate the occupation of Kashmir," said Mohammad Iqbal, who was marching in Srinagar's main business district.

On Wednesday, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the chief minister of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, promised that there would be no construction on the transferred land and pledged to meet members of the state's political parties to address the protesters' grievances.

The Amarnath shrine is a cave that housed a large icicle revered by Hindus as an incarnation of the Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus, who consider the cave sacred, are currently on an annual pilgrimage to visit the cave.

Thousands of soldiers have been deployed along the pilgrims' route.

In the past, Islamic separatists have targeted the pilgrimage, claiming that Hindu-majority India uses the annual religious event as a political statement to bolster its claim over the region, which is divided between Pakistan and India but claimed by both.

About a dozen militant groups have been fighting since 1989 for the independence of Kashmir or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. At least 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Syria opens site to UN atom probe

Reuters, Vienna

Syria gave U.N. investigators a good look at the site of what Washington says was a secret nuclear reactor before Israel destroyed it, but initial checks were inconclusive and more are needed, they said on Wednesday.

Chief U.N. inspector Olli Heinonen said his team was able to take extensive environmental samples at the remote desert location and the sensitive inquiry was off to "a good start," with Syria's cooperation generally satisfactory at this stage.

Heinonen, speaking to reporters on his return to Vienna after four days in Syria, said it was "too early" to draw conclusions about the nature of the site, bombed by Israel last September, and follow-up investigations could take some time.

Syria denies hiding anything from U.N. inspectors, saying Israel destroyed an ordinary military building and accusing the United States of spreading disinformation.

Heinonen said his team gathered environmental samples of "quite a lot of things" in search of traces of material that might point to what Washington said was a nascent, plutonium-making reactor before it was flattened.

"To a great extent, we achieved what we wanted t and agreed to do t on this first trip," said Heinonen, the International Atomic Energy Agency's deputy director-general in charge of non-proliferation inspections worldwide.

Hundreds die of torture in India every year, says report

Reuters, New Delhi

About four people have died or been killed in police custody every day in India between 2002 and last year, a large number tortured to death, the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) said on Wednesday.

An equal number of people are killed in the custody of the army in insurgency-hit areas, many cases go unreported and the guilty go unpunished, the ACHR said in its report, "Torture in India 2008: A State of Denial."

"Hundreds are killed, dozens are paid compensation but only three to four persons are convicted each year," Suhas Chakma of the ACHR said on Wednesday.

"India is in a worrying state of denial about torture."

In India, the police and security forces are often accused of using violence to extract confessions from suspects, a charge denied by the government.

The home ministry says most deaths in custody are caused by illness, suicides and accidents.

The ACHR says India needs to probe all suspected deaths of torture.

The ACHR also accused the Maoists, who say they are fighting for poor farmers in the country, of a poor human rights record.

AIDS a growing global 'disaster’

Reuters, Geneva

HIV/AIDS infection rates are growing among intravenous drug users, prostitutes and gay men around the globe but they are often viewed as outcasts and refused treatment, according to a report issued on Thursday.

The report, from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, also called on governments and humanitarian agencies to pay more attention to AIDS in their response to natural disasters and armed conflicts.

"HIV is a long-term and complex disaster on many levels t For marginalized groups across the world-injecting drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men-rates are on the increase," said the Geneva-based humanitarian agency.

Those groups, living on the fringes of society in many countries and especially in the developing world, "often face stigma, criminalization and little, if any, access to prevention and treatment services," it added.

The 248-page study, an annual World Disasters Report, gave no new figures for AIDS sufferers but cited United Nations statistics that 2.1 million died from the disease last year.

The Federation said the HIV virus was at the root of a rolling social crisis across southern Africa.

Merkel 'concerned’ about Russia’s actions in Abkhazia

AFP, Berlin

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday Berlin shares Georgia's concern about Russia's actions in the breakaway region of Abkhazia where tensions between the two ex-Soviet states have soared.

"Like Georgia, Germany is concerned about the steps that have been taken by Russia," Merkel said after talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

She said Germany was ready to help negotiate an end to the standoff and called on Tblisi and Moscow "to remain calm".

Saakashvili told reporters that he was ready to work with Moscow to defuse the crisis and wanted to forge "a partnership" with Russia, whom he accuses of seeking to annex Abkhazia.

Iran says 'enemies’ won’t stop nuclear work

Reuters, Tehran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday the country's "enemies" will never succeed in stopping Iran's nuclear activities, the official IRNA news agency reported.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana handed Iran an offer on June 14 of trade and other benefits designed to persuade Tehran to curb its nuclear work and end a row that has helped push oil prices to record highs.

"On the nuclear issue t the enemies were not able to stop our nation and will never succeed in stopping our program," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the western city of Kermanshah. Iranian officials usually refer to the United States and its European allies as enemies.

Cambodia kicks off general election campaign

AFP, Phnom Penh

Cambodian political parties on Thursday kicked off month-long campaigning for a general election that Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) is expected to dominate.

Thousands of supporters of various parties took to the capital's streets for raucous marches, while motorscooters adorned with political banners and the national flag roared up and down the roads.

CPP president Chea Sim told about 10,000 supporters at their Phnom Penh headquarters that the ruling party was committed to economic growth.

The CPP supporters, dressed in T-shirts adorned with the party logo, cheered when Chea Sim took a swipe at rival parties. "Those ill-willed people always elevate themselves while blaming others. They have done nothing in the interest of the people except tell lies, deceive, insult and agitate for conflict in the society," Chea Sim said.

Myanmar confirms detention of 14 Suu Kyi supporters

AFP, Naypyidaw

Myanmar's police chief Thursday confirmed that 14 supporters of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been detained for nearly one month after protesting against the extension of her house arrest.

Brigadier General Khin Yee, the police chief, also told AFP that six journalists had been deported for entering the country on tourist visas to report on deadly Cyclone Nargis. He did not identify the journalists.

The activists were detained on May 27 after leading a small protest against the military's decision to confine the Nobel Peace Prize winner for another year.

She has already spent more than 12 years inside her Yangon home, where she is kept in total isolation. The group tried to march from the headquarters of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), but were stopped just minutes after beginning their protest.

"We told them they can hold a ceremony without harming the state's peace and tranquility," Khin Yee told AFP on the sidelines of a ceremony in the capital Naypyidaw, marking the UN's international day against drugs.

Hundreds arrested in major US child prostitution raid

AFP, Washington

US police arrested 389 people on child sex trafficking charges in a major sweep across several states, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The five-day operation spanned 16 cities and involved hundreds of local, state and federal agencies dealing with missing children, many of them runaways, and identifying networks behind child trafficking for the sex trade, the report said.

Twenty-one sexually exploited children were rescued from the street, it added.

So far 433 exploited children have been rescued as a result of the initiative, the report quoted federal officials as saying.

Part of the rise in child sex trafficking is linked to the use of the Internet in advertising, authorities say.