The New Nation - Internet Edition

North Korea blows up cooling tower at nuke plant

AP, Seoul

North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program Friday, according to a news report, in a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.

The reported demolition of the 60-foot-tall cooling tower at its main reactor complex was a gesture in response to U.S. concessions granted after the North delivered a declaration Thursday of its nuclear programs under an agreement at international arms talks.

South Korean TV network MBC said the reactor blast occurred shortly after 4 p.m. local time before an audience of international TV cameras. There were no other immediate details.

The symbolic explosion came just 20 months after Pyongyang shocked the world by detonating a nuclear bomb in an underground test to confirm its status as an atomic power. The nuclear blast spurred an about-face in the U.S. hard-line policy against Pyongyang, leading to the North's first steps to scale back its nuclear weapons development since the reactor became operational in 1986.

Last year, the North switched off the reactor at Yongbyon, some 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang, and it has already begun disabling the facility under the watch of U.S. experts so that it cannot easily be restarted.

The destruction of the cooling tower, which carries off waste heat to the atmosphere, is another step forward but not the most technically significant, because it is a simple piece of equipment that would be easy to rebuild.

Still, the demolition offers the most photogenic moment yet in the disarmament negotiations that have dragged on for more than five years and suffered repeated deadlocks and delays. Those attending the event include the top U.S. State Department expert on the Koreas, Sung Kim, along with broadcasters from the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

North Korea's nuclear declaration, which was delivered six months later than the country promised and has not yet been released publicly, is said to only give the overall figure for how much plutonium was produced at Yongbyon, but no details of bombs that may have been made.

The declaration was being distributed Friday by China, the chair of the arms talks, to the other countries involved, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said in Kyoto, Japan.

"We'll have to study it very carefully and then we'll have to work on verification," Hill said.

The chief negotiators from the six-party talks will seek some answers as they meet in Beijing, possibly as early as Monday, to discuss specifics on how the North's declaration will be verified. And possibly in July, the highest-level contact between the U.S. and the North since 2000 may take place at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the six nations, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her North Korean counterpart.

The declaration does not include information on the North's alleged uranium enrichment program or its possible nuclear proliferation to other countries, such as Syria.

Experts believe the North has as much as 110 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for as many as 10 nuclear bombs.

To verify the claim of how much radioactive material it has produced, the U.S. says the North will open access to its reactor for inspectors to pore over the aging equipment and come to their own conclusions. However, there will be no wide-ranging inspections to survey secret nuclear facilities, some of which are believed hidden in underground tunnels.

US Senate approves Iraq, Afghanistan war funding

AFP, Washington

The US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a much-disputed bill alloting 162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill gives funding for the conflicts through to mid-2009 after President George W. Bush, who must now sign the bill into law, has left office.

The legislation passed 92 votes to six in the Senate after its approval by the House of Representatives June 19 topped weeks of haggling between Democrats and Republicans.

Bush has indicated he will sign the legislation despite opposing some of the measures included in it.

The deal was reached after Democrats agreed to drop a withdrawal timetable from the bill. The majority party has repeatedly failed to force Bush's hand on Iraq since taking over Congress in 2006 elections.

Democrats insisted on inserting a modern version of the post-World War II GI Bill in order to expand education benefits to veterans, a plan that Senate Republicans and the White House had opposed.

The House passed the war funding section of the bill by a 268-155 vote, with only 80 Democrats voting in favor along with 188 Republicans.

The veterans' benefits part of the legislation, which also included a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits and aid for Midwest flood victims, was overwhelmingly approved, 416 to 12.

The legislation calls on the Iraqi government to spend as much money as US taxpayers for reconstruction and bars the Bush administration from using the funding to establish permanent bases in Iraq.

Democratic Senator Robert Byrd noted that with this new funding, Congress will have approved over 656 billion dollars for the war in Iraq.

But he expressed frustration that Bush repeatedly threatened to veto the measure unless a troops withdrawal timetable was removed.

"Despite the positive measures for struggling Americans, our veterans, and their families included in this amendment, I deeply regret that this legislation will go to President Bush without the necessary checks to ensure that the war in Iraq is not open-ended," Byrd said in a statement to the Senate.

"The majority of the American people have come to see this war as a costly mistake that needs to be brought to a close. This legislation brings us no closer to that goal.

"However, with this legislation, we will once again take care of our troops. We also invest in America here at home."

40 killed in Iraq bombings: Judge assassinated in eastern Baghdad

Reuters, Baghdad

Bombs killed at least 40 people in Iraq on Thursday, including 20 at a tribal council meeting in Anbar province just days before the U.S. military transfers control of security for the vast western region to Iraqi forces.

The U.S. military said three Marines and two interpreters were among the dead in Anbar. That took to 11 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq this week.

In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb on a crowded street killed 18 people and wounded 80 near the office of the governor of surrounding Nineveh province, U.S. forces said. Nineveh Governor Duraid Kashmula had just left his office to investigate damage caused by two rocket-propelled grenades when the car bomb went off. The governor was unhurt. Officials said the bomb may have been an assassination attempt. Dramatic television pictures showed the bomb exploding near an old woman on the side of a street. A hail of gunfire burst out as security guards opened fire.

Violence in Iraq fell to a four-year low last month, but there has been a spate of attacks in the past week, especially in and around Mosul, which the U.S. military has called Sunni Islamist al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

The attacks suggest al Qaeda, significantly weakened after a wave of U.S. offensives in the past year, is not a spent force. A U.S. military spokesman said the Mosul attack fitted a pattern of al Qaeda attacking Iraqis and Iraqi security forces.

The American military said al Qaeda was likely behind the suicide bombing against U.S.-backed Sunni Arab tribal leaders in the Anbar town of Garma, 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Baghdad. A police spokesman in the nearby city of Falluja said 20 people had been killed and 12 wounded.

AP report adds: Iraq's Higher Judicial Council says a senior judge has been assassinated while he was headed home in Baghdad.

Spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar says masked drive-by shooters shot and killed Judge Kamil al-Showaili Thursday afternoon on eastern Baghdad's Canal Highway.

Bayrkdar says al-Showaili was the head of one of Baghdad's two appeals courts. The spokesman has not identified any particular group as responsible for the slaying.

Afghan attack kills 3 US coalition members

AP, Kabul

Militants attacked troops from the U.S.-led coalition patrolling south of the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing three of them and an Afghan interpreter.

The nationality of the troops was not released, though the coalition is dominated by American forces. International and Afghan forces were searching for the attackers, a coalition statement said.

The convoy was attacked as it passed through Saydabad, a district of Wardak province, which borders the capital of Kabul.

A freelance television cameraman filmed what he said was the aftermath of the Thursday attack, about 40 miles from Kabul.

The footage showed the burning wreckage of a vehicle on a bend in a mountain road. Militants held up what looked like an M-16 rifle and dragged away a belt of ammunition.

It was not possible to independently verify whether the footage was from the same incident reported by the coalition. The cameraman's name was withheld for his own security.

Fighting between Taliban-led insurgents and security forces continues unabated, despite a nearly seven-year international effort to stabilize the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

More than 2,000 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally, including at least 114 foreign soldiers. The comparable total for Iraq stands at 211.

In response to an increase in militant activity, foreign troops have established a base and reinforced their patrols in Wardak, an area that could provide a launch pad for strikes against the capital.

Still, much of the fighting has taken place in the eastern and southern provinces bordering Pakistan.

Afghan leaders accuse Pakistan of secretly supporting the insurgents and harboring their leaders - a charge Pakistan civilian and military leaders deny.

In the latest and most serious allegation, an Afghan official on Wednesday blamed Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency for an attempt to assassinate Karzai during a military parade in April.

Saeed Ansari, spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, said the confessions and cell phone records of detained suspects and other unspecified evidence proved the ISI was the "main organizer" of the assassination attempt.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected the allegation as "baseless and irresponsible."

Ministry spokesman Muhammad Sadiq suggested Kabul was trying to divert attention from a "massive intelligence and security failure" of its own.

Confidence in Afghan security forces was further shaken by a June 13 Taliban attack on the prison in the southern city of Kandahar, which freed 400 Taliban fighters.

The Interior Ministry said Thursday it had fired three senior police officials including Kandahar provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib and referred his case to the prosecutor's office.

A ministry statement said Saqib was "negligent in his duties," but it did not mention the jail break or what charges he might face.

Israel allows fuel into Gaza but no goods

Reuters, Jerusalem

Israel allowed fuel to reach the Gaza Strip's sole power station on Friday, but kept border crossings used to bring in humanitarian and commercial supplies closed for a third consecutive day, Israeli officials said.

A European Union official said an estimated 600,000 liters of industrial fuel would be pumped through the Nahal Oz border terminal to Gaza's power station, enough to keep the plant running for several days.

The EU funds fuel deliveries to the power station.

Israeli military liaison official Peter Lerner confirmed the delivery of fuel but said other border crossings used to bring in supplies remained closed.

Israel closed those crossings on Wednesday, one day after Palestinian militants fired rockets into the Jewish state.

The Islamic Jihad militant group said Tuesday's rocket attack was in retaliation for the Israeli army's killing of one of its commanders in the occupied West Bank. Both sides have been trading blame for breaching a ceasefire agreement, brokered by Egypt and backed by the West, with the aim of advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The ceasefire deal, which took effect on June 19, calls for Hamas to stop cross-border rocket fire and for Israel to gradually ease its embargo on the Gaza Israel says industrial fuel was transferred Friday into Gaza to run power stations. But Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner says most crossings remain closed.

Lerner says Israel last let food into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. On that day, the Islamic Jihad group fired three rockets at Israel, injuring two Israelis. The army says at least five rockets and mortars have landed in Israel since the truce began.

Toxic pesticide on Philippine ferry halts search

Reuters, Sibuyan Island

The Philippines stopped the search for hundreds of bodies feared trapped on a capsized passenger ferry on Friday after authorities learnt that 10 metric tons of toxic pesticide were on board.

Angry officials said Sulpicio Lines, the owner of Princess of the Stars, would be held accountable for not alerting them to the 400 boxes of endosulfan.

Exposure to the deadly chemical, which is highly restricted, can cause nausea, convulsions and death. The United States' Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as highly toxic. Philippines Vice President Noli de Castro said had the ferry disaster task force been told earlier about the toxic cargo, divers would not have been sent to the vessel in search of bodies.

"This should not even be aboard a passenger ship," he said at a news conference.

The taskforce was told by the Philippines' Fertiliser and Pesticides Authority (FPA) on Thursday that the toxic cargo was bound for a Del Monte plantation in the southern Philippines.

Sulpicio Lines, already under fire for allowing the ferry to sail when a typhoon had hit the archipelago, said it did not know about the cargo.

"We were not aware of any pesticide on board," said Ryan Go, a company executive.

According to officials, Del Monte wrote to the Fertiliser and Pesticides Authority (FPA) on Tuesday about the shipment. The FDA did not alert a taskforce dealing with the ferry disaster till Thursday.

The police sealed off the area around the capsized vessel and banned fishing in the waters off Sibuyan island.

"We will be affected badly. This makes us even worse off," said Juanito Reyes, a local fisherman.

The discovery of the chemical was a grim reminder of how standards are flouted in the Philippines, an archipelago of over 7,000 islands with a woeful track record in maritime safety.

Princess of the Stars ran aground during a typhoon and then overturned in around 15 minutes off the central island of Sibuyan on Saturday with 865 passengers and crew.

The incident is likely to be the Philippines' worst sea accident since the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker in 1987 killing more than 4,000 people.

Thai PM survives no-confidence motion

Reuters, Bangkok

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundavarej survived a no-confidence motion on Friday, as expected, after three days of fiery debate that questioned his handling of the economy at a time of stuttering growth.

However, leaders of the street protest laying siege to Government House shrugged off the result, insisting they would disperse only after the resignation of the cabinet, which they say is a proxy for ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra. "The only way to end this crisis is for the government, which has no legitimacy under the dictatorial parliamentary system, to go," said Pipob Thongchai of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), a motley group of businessmen, academics and royalists united in their hatred of Thaksin.

The PAD's month-long street campaign has upset investors, triggering concerns about everything from policy paralysis at a precarious time for the economy to a military coup less than two years after the army's removal of Thaksin.

The stock market, which has fallen more than 10 percent since the PAD launched its campaign on May 25, did not react to the government's victory in the no-confidence vote, which had been widely expected.

Samak received 280 votes from MPs in his People Power Party and its five coalition partners, versus 162 from the opposition Democrats, who used the debate to whip up a nationalist frenzy over a disputed 900-year-old temple on the Cambodian border.

Seven other cabinet ministers facing censure also won similar support, though Thai media are speculating Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama might be axed to appease critics of the temple saga.

Noppadon, Thaksin's lawyer before becoming Foreign Minister after December's election, was accused of ceding a small plot of land to Cambodia next to the Preah Vihear temple in exchange for business concessions for Thaksin-an allegation he denies.

Commerce Minister Mingkwan Sangsuban could be another possible cabinet victim after fierce criticism of his handling of a government scheme to support domestic rice farmers.

However, Finance Minister Surapong Subewonglee denied rumors of an imminent cabinet reshuffle, saying the vote had lifted the five-month coalition's spirits and increased its chances of completing a full four-year term in office.

"Today's vote has given the government more confidence to complete its four-year term," he told reporters.

Indonesian plane carrying 18 people missing

AP, Jakarta

Search teams combed the dense jungle Friday for a missing Indonesian air force plane carrying 18 people, a military spokesman said Friday.

The 1984 Casa-212 military aircraft disappeared during an aerial surveillance mission Thursday after taking off from an airstrip just east of the capital, Jakarta, air force spokesman Chaeruddin Ray said.

On board were five crew members and 13 passengers. An Indian, Singaporean and Briton working for Singapore-based Credent Technology were on the flight testing new camera equipment, he said.

On Friday, hundreds of police and soldiers searched the jungle at the base of Salak Mountain, about 60 miles south of Jakarta.

"The aircraft has not been found yet. The area is too large," said police spokesman Yusuf, who like many Indonesian goes by a single name.

Indonesia has seen a spate of airline accidents in recent years, including an Adam Air crash that killed 102 and another by national carrier Garuda that killed 21, leading the European Union to ban all Indonesian airlines.

It was the second incident involving a Casa-212 plane this year in Indonesia after a flight operated by the private Dirgantara Air Service crashed in January with three people aboard.

Taliban slit throats of 'US spies’ in Pakistan

Reuters, Damadola

Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan publicly slit the throats of two Afghans on Friday after they were accused of spying for U.S. forces suspected of launching a missile strike in May. The two men, one of them a former Taliban fighter, were brought blindfolded before a crowd of several thousand people near the village of Damadola in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border before they were executed.

"They were spies. Whoever spies for the Americans will meet the same fate," Qari Zia-ur-Rehman, a Taliban leader in the area, told the crowd before another man slit the throats of the two with a sword.

Tony Blair urges action on climate change

AP, Tokyo

The world already knows that global warming is a serious problem and the time has come for politicians and experts to come together to map out a practical solution, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday.

Urging the Group of Eight industrialized nations to stand behind his initiative, Blair said he gave Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, host of the G-8 meeting next month, a report by The Climate Group, a nonprofit organization Blair is part of, on how to forge a global deal on fighting global warming.

"Now is the time to get serious about the solution," Blair told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. "The whole world has woken up. What it needs to know is what to do."

He acknowledged that the challenges to come up with a solution were complex because technologies to fight global warming were constantly changing, and the scientific information about climate change also was evolving.

And so instead of trying to set short-term targets right away, what needs to be done is set a direction and come up with answers on what needs to be done.

"The point I'm making is: The challenge is truly profound," said Blair.

UN to press G8 on food crisis, climate change, poverty

AFP, United Nations

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he would press Group of Eight (G8) leaders at their summit in Japan next month to tackle the world food crisis, climate change and the flagging fight against global poverty.

On the eve of his departure on a two-week, three-nation Asian tour, the secretary general said the July 7-9 summit in the northern Japanese resort town of Toyako must face the three inter-related crises which demand "our immediate action."

He said that before departing, he would write to each of the G8 leaders to lay out his concerns about the global food crisis, the need "to act now" on climate change if a deal to cut greenhouse gases is to be reached by the end of next year, and the emergency of development.

"If ever there were a time to act, together as one, it is now," he told a press conference.

Ban said he would appeal to world leaders in Toyako "to deliver on the measures agreed to in Rome earlier this month to end the current food crisis and prevent a recurrence".

These measures include a commitment by nations to remove export restrictions and levies on food commodities and cut agricultural subsidies, particularly in developed countries.

Ban said he would also propose tripling the proportion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) from wealthy nations to developing countries for farm production and rural development.

"To overcome this crisis, we need nothing less than a second, green revolution," he said.

And noting that the international community was falling behind in its goal of achieving the poverty-reduction Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, he said: "If we are to deliver on this promised future, we must take steps today."

Obama, Hillary take first public step toward unity

AP, Manchester

When Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton step onstage in their first joint campaign appearance in New Hampshire, it will be the first public display of a rapprochement between former rivals hoping to set aside differences and unify the party while helping each other.

Following a private fundraiser with Clinton's top donors in Washington on Thursday, the two were to fly together Friday aboard Obama's campaign plane to a rally in Unity, N.H., population 1,700 - a carefully chosen venue in a key general election battleground state.

Aside from the symbolism of its name, Unity awarded exactly 107 votes to each candidate in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary in January.

Clinton narrowly won the state's contest, setting in motion an epic coast-to-coast war of attrition between the two candidates that ended June 3, when Obama clinched the nomination. Clinton suspended her campaign four days later.

The Unity gathering was the latest and most visible event in a series of gestures the two senators have made in the past two days in hopes of settling the hard feelings of the long primary season. Clinton also praised Obama before two major interest groups Thursday - the American Nurses Association, which endorsed her during the primaries, and NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.

Both Democrats badly need one another right now as they move to the next phase of the campaign.

Obama is depending on former first lady to give her voters and donors a clear signal that she doesn't consider it a betrayal for them to shift their loyalty his way. Clinton won convincingly among several voter groups during the primaries, including working class voters and older women - groups that Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain has actively courted since she left the race.

Zimbabwe votes in Mugabe’s one-man election

AFP, Harare

Zimbabwe voted Friday in an election which was virtually certain to end in victory for President Robert Mugabe, but dismissed by the opposition as meaningless after it boycotted the poll.

Amid accusations that voters were being forced to cast their ballots for Mugabe, his long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai urged supporters of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party not to put their lives in danger.

Mugabe was also set to be denied international legitimacy with the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations saying only a government which reflected the will of the people would be recognised. Despite state media predictions of a "massive" turnout, the number of voters queuing when polling stations opened at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) represented only a fraction of those seen in the first round which was won by Tsvangirai.

One of the first to vote was Danger Zvembabvu, a 50-year-old veteran of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war, but he cut a lonely figure as he waited for election officers to open the doors of a station in central Harare.

"I have been queuing since 3:00 am but I was the only one," he said.

"This is an exercise I feel I have to be part of because I love my country."

Tsvangirai said the election, which he decided to boycott after a wave of deadly attacks against his supporters, was shameful.

"Today's results will be meaningless because they do not reflect the will of the people of Zimbabwe," he wrote in a letter to supporters.

"If possible, we ask you not to vote today. But if you must vote for Mr Mugabe because of threats to your life, then do so."

In some areas of the country, there were allegations officials were inspecting ballot papers before they were deposited in boxes.

A senior MDC activist in Mapanda, near the Mozambique border, said he had intended to spoil his paper but was confronted by an official from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party who demanded to see his voting slip.

Pakistan FM in India to push peace process

AFP, New Delhi

Pakistan's foreign minister and his Indian counterpart began talks in New Delhi Friday to boost a slow-moving peace process between the rivals still at odds over the 60-year-old Kashmir dispute.

"The ongoing peace process is central to peace, security and prosperity in our region," said Pakistan's Shah Mehmood Qureshi on his arrival in New Delhi.

"It is in our common interest to deepen this process through partnership in peace and development. It is therefore important that both countries now move from conflict management to conflict resolution," he said in a statement.

Qureshi and Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee will "review the peace talks and discuss fresh steps" to anchor the process, a senior Indian foreign ministry official said.

A proposal to start a truck service to promote trade between Indian and Pakistani-administered zones of Kashmir has been languishing for months, the official said, adding "this could get a push" at the talks. Other measures to improve confidence, including new bus and rail links, would also be considered, he said.

Reports said India would raise the issue of alleged infiltrations from Pakistan by Islamic militants battling Indian-rule over part of Kashmir.

India says Pakistan supports the Muslim insurgency in its region of Kashmir, helping rebels to cross under the cover of fire from Pakistani border guards, a charge Islamabad denies.

Violence in the revolt-hit region has declined considerably since the neighbours launched peace talks in 2004, but India's defence minister said last week he feared an upsurge in the run-up to state polls later this year.

The warning came after several clashes in recent weeks along the Line of Control separating Indian and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

The insurgency has left more than 43,000 people dead since it started in 1989.

Qureshi's visit comes a month after a visit by his Indian counterpart to Islamabad.

Aid urgently needed to avert serious famine in Ethiopia: Unicef

AFP, Geneva

Humanitarian aid is urgently needed in Ethiopia, where drought and soaring food prices have led to a crisis that could match a severe famine that hit five years ago, a Unicef official said Thursday. "At the moment it's not 2003 all over again. At the moment it is very, very serious, but we need to prevent it from escalating into a situation which will be much worse and getting closer to the situation which we've seen five years ago," said Hilde Johnsson, who is Unicef deputy executive director.

In 2003, over 12 million people in Ethiopia needed food aid due to a severe famine as crops were destroyed by drought and flash floods. Johnsson, who had just returned from a four-day trip to the drought-hit African nation, said that 4.6 million people including 75,000 children are now hit by severe acute malnutrition.

"I witnessed children die when I was present at the stabilisation centre. Government officials reported that children were already dying in villages where there was no access to therapeutic feeding," she said.

In the worst affected areas, children were "at risk of dying in numbers just now as we are sitting here," she added.

Unicef said it needed 49.2 million dollars (31.3 million euros) to provide emergency aid that should get the country through the two to three immediate months. Only 5.6 million dollars of that has been received.

"The rains are now starting, but we don't know whether they would be adequate, whether they would last. It all depends on the situation, it's dynamically changing all the time," she said.