The New Nation - Internet Edition

Protests over Hindu settlements in Kashmir continue

AP, SRINAGAR

Police used batons in an attempt to clear protesters from the streets of Indian Kashmir on Monday, the eighth day of rioting against what critics call a government plan to build Hindu settlements in the Muslim-majority region.

But the thousands of police and paramilitary soldiers patrolling the streets in cities across most of Jammu-Kashmir state had little success in damping the protests, with businesses, shops and schools remaining closed.

Prabhakar Tripathi, a spokesman for the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force, said nearly 300 protesters took to the streets in downtown Srinagar, the state's main city, and clashed with police.

Over the past week, police have used live ammunition, tear gas and bamboo batons to disperse the crowds. At least four people have been killed and hundreds more wounded, said Tripathi.

Protesters have burned vehicles and tires, blocked roads and marched in what have become some of the largest protests against Indian rule since a separatist rebellion broke out in the Himalayan region nearly two decades ago.

The protests were sparked by the recent transfer of 99 acres of land by the state government to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running a Hindu shrine, to build facilities for the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who flock there every year.

The pilgrims come to see a large icicle in a cave that devout Hindus revere as an incarnation of the Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration.

Protesters believe Indian authorities plan to turn the structures into a permanent settlement for Hindus to change the religious balance in the Muslim-majority region.

Indian officials dismiss the allegations, saying India has never tried to encourage Hindu migration to the region, India's only Muslim-majority state. The Indian Constitution also prohibits outsiders from buying land in Kashmir.

On Sunday, the state's top elected official said authorities would revoke the controversial land transfer in the next cabinet meeting. But Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad did not say when the meeting would be held.

Mirwaiz Omer Farooq, head of the moderate faction of the separatist alliance All Parties Hurriyat Conference, said the protests would continue "until we see the revocation order in writing."

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India but claimed by both. About a dozen militant groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir's independence or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. At least 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

8 killed in Pakistani tribal region

AP, Peshawar

A powerful explosion destroyed a militant compound and killed up to eight people Monday in a volatile tribal region where Pakistan security forces are waging an offensive against pro-Taliban militants, residents said.

A militant spokesman claimed it was a missile strike launched from neighboring Afghanistan where U.S. and NATO forces are based, but there was no official confirmation of such an attack.

The blast in Khyber tribal agency hit a compound owned by a supporter of Haji Namdar, a local militant leader whose Vice and Virtue Movement is suspected of cross-border assaults.

Pakistani paramilitary forces launched an offensive in the region three days ago against militants threatening the main northwestern city of Peshawar and a key supply line for the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani show of force comes amid U.S. concern that the newly elected government's efforts to negotiate peace deals with militants have given Taliban and al-Qaida-linked extremists more space to operate along the lawless border.

Khyber resident Nawaz Khan Afridi said he was awakened by a loud explosion before dawn, rushed out of his house in Bar Qambarkhel village and joined dozens of other residents in helping rescue survivors from rubble. He said he saw eight dead bodies.

Two rooms at the compound had been shattered by the explosion, he said, adding that he did not know what caused it.

Munsif Khan, a spokesman for Namdar's group, claimed it was a missile strike that killed at least six supporters of the Vice and Virtue Movement and wounded 20. He said the village, in the Bara area, lies at least 25 miles from the Afghan border.

"Maybe this was done by NATO forces in Afghanistan," Khan said. "Our friends saw a flash of light coming from the direction of Afghanistan" before the explosion, he said.

Pakistani officials and U.S. military officials in Afghanistan could not immediately be reached for comment.

The offensive in Khyber tribal area appears to be a shift for Pakistan's government, which has sought to reduce violence through the peace deals since it took power after February elections. It coincides with a three-day visit to Islamabad by senior U.S. State Department official Richard Boucher that began Monday. A five-member congressional delegation also is visiting the country.

The operation was launched to secure Peshawar from threats by "law breakers and militant groups," the Ministry of Interior said in a statement late Sunday. It would continue until "all the objectives are achieved," it said.

Three groups operating in Khyber - Lashkar-e-Islam, Ansarul Islam and Haji Namdar's group - have been outlawed and the "government is determined to end their nefarious activities," the ministry said. Officials accused the militants of setting up a parallel administration and of crimes including kidnapping.

Officials said Sunday that paramilitary forces destroyed four militant centers, including a radio station, and unearthed alleged torture rooms. But troops have encountered little resistance and have reporting killing just one militant.

In response to the operation, Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's top militant leader, said he was suspending talks between his allies and the government - although the offensive has not been widened to include his strongholds in the Waziristan region to the south.

His spokesman, Maulvi Umar, on Sunday demanded that the operation be halted.

"The government should not ruin the country just to please the Western world and should immediately halt the operation in Khyber agency," Umar told The Associated Press. "If it is not stopped, it will bear very grave results."

Two large explosions heard in the Pakistani capital and nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday added to jitters that militants could take revenge for the operation in Khyber.

But police said they could trace no blast in either city, and officials said it was likely caused by a sonic boom from an aircraft, although Pakistan's air force said none of its jets were flying in the area at the time.

Iraq occupation was understaffed, US Army study

AP, Denver

A nearly 700-page study released Sunday by the Army found that "in the euphoria of early 2003," U.S.-based commanders prematurely believed their goals in Iraq had been reached and did not send enough troops to handle the occupation.

President George W. Bush's statement on May 1, 2003, that major combat operations were over reinforced that view, the study said. It was written by Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese of the Contemporary Operations Study Team at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., who said that planners who requested more troops were ignored and that commanders in Baghdad were replaced without enough of a transition and lacked enough staff.

Gen. William S. Wallace, commanding general of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, said in a foreword that it's no surprise that a report with these conclusions was written.

"One of the great and least understood qualities of the United States Army is its culture of introspection and self-examination," he wrote. The report said that the civilian and military planning for a post-Saddam Iraq was inadequate, and that the Army should have pushed the Joint Chiefs of Staff for better planning and preparation.

Retired military leaders, members of Congress, think tanks and others have already concluded that the occupation was understaffed. At least 4,113 U.S. military members have died in Iraq, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Hundreds of commanders and other soldiers and officials were interviewed for the report released Sunday. The Army ordered the study to review what happened in the 18 months after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime. A report on the invasion was released earlier.

The report said that after Saddam's regime was removed from power, most commanders and units expected to transition to stability and support operations, similar to what was seen in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Commanders with the mindset that victory had already been achieved believed that a post-combat Iraq would require "only a limited commitment by the U.S. military and would be relatively peaceful and short as Iraqis quickly assumed responsibility," the study said.

"Few commanders foresaw that full spectrum operations in Iraq would entail the simultaneous employment of offense, defense, stability, and support operations by units at all echelons of command to defeat new, vicious, and effective enemies," it added.

The report said the first Bush administration and its advisers had assumed incorrectly that the Saddam regime would collapse after the first Gulf War.

When Saddam was so quickly defeated in 2003, there was an absence of authority that led to widespread looting and violence, the report said. Soldiers initially had no plan to deal with that. The administration's decision to remove Saddam's followers entirely from power caused governmental services to collapse, "fostering a huge unemployment problem," it said.

Planners in the Iraq headquarters said 300,000 troops would be needed for the occupation. Even before the invasion, some planners had called for 300,000 troops to be sent for the invasion and occupation.

During an April 16, 2003, visit to Baghdad, coalition commander Gen. Tommy Franks told his subordinate leaders to prepare to move most of their forces out of Iraq by September of that year, the report noted.

"In line with the prewar planning and general euphoria at the rapid crumbling of the Saddam regime, Franks continued to plan for a very limited role for U.S. ground forces in Iraq," the report said.

The report said it wasn't until July 16, 2003, that Franks' successor, Gen. John Abizaid, said coalition forces were facing a classic guerrilla insurgency.

Even so, the coalition made some progress, only to have its optimism dashed after the insurgency boiled over in April 2004, when Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite militias launched violent assaults in many parts of Iraq, the report said.

The authors said the Army had considerable experience and training for guerrilla wars but had not been in one like Iraq since 1992 in Somalia. They said former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Franks "that he thought too few troops were envisioned in the (invasion) plan."

Some commanders told the authors they asked about plans for making the country stable and got no answers.

The "post-war situation in Iraq was severely out of line with the suppositions made at nearly every level before the war," the report said.

Its writers said it was clear in January 2005 that the Army would remain in Iraq for some time, the writers concluded. The report covered the period from May 2003 to January 2005.

Israel has a year to stop Iran bomb, warns ex-spy: Iran digging 320,000 graves 'for invaders'

AFP, Tehran

Iran is to dig 320,000 graves in border districts to allow for the burial of enemy soldiers in the event of any attack on its territory, a top commander said on Sunday.

"In implementation of the Geneva Conventionst the necessary measures are being taken to provide for the burial of enemy soldiers," the Mehr news agency quoted General Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh as saying.

"We have plans to dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves in each of the border provinces or a total of 320,000," the general said, some of them mass graves if necessary.

Bagherzadeh said Iran was keen to "reduce the suffering of the families of the fallen in any attack against our countryt and prevent any repetition of the long and bitter experience of the Vietnam War."

His comments came as the United States continued to refuse to rule out an eventual resort to force against Iran over its contested nuclear programme, which the West fears is cover for a drive to build an atomic weapon.

They also came as Israeli officials spoke of their determination to prevent Iran developing a nuclear capability at all costs.

A former head of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency said in comments published on Sunday that the Jewish state had one year to destroy Iran's nuclear programme or face the risk of coming under nuclear attack.

Shabtai Shavit told a London weekly that the "worst-case scenario" was that Tehran would have a nuclear weapon within "somewhere around a year".

"The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time," he told the Sunday Telegraph.

Israel is the only, if undeclared, nuclear armed power in the Middle East.

AP report from Washington: A former head of Mossad has warned that Israel has 12 months in which to destroy Iran's nuclear programme or risk coming under nuclear attack itself. He also hinted that Israel might have to act sooner if Barack Obama wins the US presidential election.

A satellite image of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility

A satellite image of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility

Shabtai Shavit, an influential adviser to the Israeli parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee, told The Sunday Telegraph that time was running out to prevent Iran's leaders getting the bomb.

Mr Shavit, who retired from the Israeli intelligence agency in 1996, warned that he had no doubt Iran intended to use a nuclear weapon once it had the capability, and that Israel must conduct itself accordingly.

"The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time," he said in an interview.

Article continues

advertisement

Mr Shavit, 69, who was deputy director of Mossad when Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981, added: "As an intelligence officer working with the worst-case scenario, I can tell you we should be prepared. We should do whatever necessary on the defensive side, on the offensive side, on the public opinion side for the West, in case sanctions don't work. What's left is a military action."

The "worst-case scenario, he said, is that Iran may have a nuclear weapon within "somewhere around a year".

As speculation grew that Israel was contemplating its own air strikes, Iran's military said it might hit the Jewish state with missiles and stop Gulf oil exports if it came under attack. Israel "is completely within the range of the Islamic republic's missiles," said Mohammed Ali Jafari, head of the feared Revolutionary Guard. "Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime cannot confront it."

More than 40 per cent of all globally traded oil passes through the 35-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, putting tankers entering or leaving the Gulf at risk from Iranian mines, rockets and artillery, and Mr Jafari's comments were the clearest signal yet that Iran intends to use this leverage in the nuclear dispute.

Despite offering incentives, the West has failed to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium. Israeli officials believe the diplomatic process is useless and have been pressing President Bush to launch air strikes before he leaves office on January 20 next year.

They apparently fear that the chances of winning American approval for an air attack will be drastically reduced if the Democratic nominee wins the election. Mr Obama advocates talks with the regime in Tehran rather than military action.

That view was echoed by Mr Shavit, who said: "If [Republican candidate John] McCain gets elected, he could really easily make a decision to go for it. If it's Obama: no. My prediction is that he won't go for it, at least not in his first term in the White House."

He warned that while it would be preferable to have American support and participation in a strike on Iran, Israel will not be afraid to go it alone.

"When it comes to decisions that have to do with our national security and our own survival, at best we may update the Americans that we are intending or planning or going to do something. It's not a precondition, [getting] an American agreement," he said.

Israeli Cabinet approves Hezbollah prisoner deal

AP, Jerusalem

The Israeli government agreed Sunday to free a Lebanese gunman convicted in one of the grisliest attacks in the country's history in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed by Hezbollah guerrillas.

The German-mediated deal was a rare political victory for embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and closed a chapter from Israel's inconclusive war against the Lebanese militant group two years ago. But critics warned that the deal's heavy price for Israel could offer militant groups an even greater incentive to kill captive soldiers. In Lebanon Sunday, Hezbollah declared victory and planned celebrations.

Israel's Cabinet voted 22-3 to OK the deal to return the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, captured by Hezbollah in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a vicious monthlong war.

Before a six-hour Cabinet debate, Olmert announced for the first time that the soldiers were dead. He nevertheless pushed for the deal to be approved, citing the country's deep moral commitment to its dead and captive soldiers. "Since we were children, we have been taught that we don't leave wounded in the field and we don't leave soldiers in captivity without doing all we can to free them," he said.

Israel will also receive the remaining body parts of its soldiers from the Lebanon war and a thorough Hezbollah report about Ron Arad, a missing Israeli airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986.

The most difficult part for Israel was the release of Samir Kantar. He is serving multiple life sentences for infiltrating northern Israel in 1979 and killing three Israelis - a 28-year-old man, his 4-year-old daughter and an Israeli police officer.

Witnesses said Kantar smashed the little girl's head against a rock and crushed her skull with a rifle butt. The attack has been etched in the Israeli psyche as one of the cruelest in the nation's history. Kantar denied killing the girl or smashing her skull.

Her mother, while trying to silence the cries of her other daughter as Kantar and three others rampaged through the apartment, accidentally smothered the 2-year-old.

On Sunday, the mother, Smadar Haran Kaiser, said she was devastated by the decision but understood it.

"The despicable murderer Kantar was never my own personal prisoner, but the state's prisoner," she told a news conference. "Even if my soul should be torn, and it is torn, my heart is whole."

Israel also agreed to release four other Lebanese prisoners, dozens of bodies and an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners.

Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On, who voted against the deal, told The Associated Press that he objected to the deal because "it included releasing Palestinian prisoners."

Dovish lawmaker Yossi Beilin told Channel 10 TV he would have backed the deal if the soldiers were still alive.

"There is tremendous difference in my view between saving someone's life and receiving coffins," he said. "I pray that we didn't give these people ideas that they can carry out more kidnappings and then ask for whatever they want."

Israel was also negotiating a trade with Palestinian Hamas militants for the release of an Israeli soldier captured in a June 2006 cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip.

Unlike his comrades in Lebanon, the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, has sent letters and an audio tape to his parents and is believed to be alive, though he has not been seen since his capture and the Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him either.

In Beirut, Hezbollah said the Israeli approval of the deal reflected the guerrilla group's strength.

"What happened in the prisoners issue is a proof that the word of the resistance is the most faithful, strongest and supreme," the group's Al-Manar TV quoted Hezbollah's Executive Council chief Hashem Safieddine as saying.

In the southern city of Sidon, members of the Popular Democratic Party were decorating the central Martyrs Square with pictures of Kantar and hanging banners such as "Freedom to the hero, prisoner Samir Kantar" and "freedom comes with blood not tears."

Hezbollah had offered no sign that Goldwasser and Regev were alive, and the Red Cross was never allowed to see them. Ahead of the vote, Olmert said for the first time that Israel has concluded the two soldiers were killed during the raid or shortly after.

"We know what happened to them," Olmert told the Cabinet, according to comments released by his office. "As far as we know, the soldiers Regev and Goldwasser are not alive."

Goldwasser's wife, Karnit, praised Olmert for pushing for the trade, while still trying to come to terms with his declaration.

"My heart aches. It is very difficult for me. I am very tired, drained inside," she told reporters. "All I want to do is to digest things, try to understand what happened t to rest a bit t to have my pain."

Israeli officials said the deal could take place as early as next week. The trade will likely take place in Germany.

Ofer Regev, brother of kidnapped soldier Eldad Regev, said he hadn't given up hope yet.

"Until we see otherwise, we will continue hoping for a miracle to happen to us," he said.

Palestinian PM cancels Tokyo peace talks trip

AFP, Tokyo

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad has cancelled his attendance at Middle East peace talks this week in Tokyo due to domestic issues, a Japanese official said Monday.

Japan is hosting a one-day session on Wednesday with officials from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Syria, largely to discuss a Japanese initiative to boost the Palestinian economy by building an agro-industrial park.

Fayyad, originally due to attend, cancelled "due to domestic political uncertainties," a Japanese foreign ministry official said.

The Palestinian delegation will instead by headed by the planning minister, Samir Abdullah, who will meet with Gideon Ezra, Israel's environmental protection minister, and Jordanian Foreign Minister Salah Bashir.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was invited to participate but also said she could not attend.

Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura will meet separately with the three ministers before four-way talks. The officials are also expected to meet with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Japan wanted the meeting before it hosts next week's summit of the Group of Eight rich nations, where the Middle East is expected to be among the topics of discussion.

Japan has sought to expand its diplomatic strength by playing a greater role in the Middle East peace process.

Japan hosted its first Middle East peace meeting in March 2007 which included Israel's then deputy prime minister Shimon Peres, who is now the Jewish state's president.

India's Congress party told to prepare for elections

AFP, New Delhi

The leader of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, has asked senior members to prepare for elections, her party said Sunday, in a fresh indication the country is headed for early polls.

Gandhi discussed preparations for a string of local and national elections at a meeting with senior party leaders in New Delhi over the weekend, a Congress spokesman said.

General elections are due by May 2009 at the latest, but there has been widespread speculation that the party may be forced to hold them in the winter months around the end of the year.

The comments also came as the party's communist allies continued to pile pressure on the government not to press ahead with a controversial nuclear accord with the United States. "This meeting was about poll preparations. The Lok Sabha (parliament's lower house) elections were also discussed," said Congress official Janardan Dwivedi.

The Congress said members were asked to work on campaign strategies and launch programmes to create awareness about the government's welfare schemes.

Local elections are due this year in several key states, including Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has so far failed to win support for the nuclear agreement from his left-wing coalition partners, who have threatened to bring down the government over the issue.

On Wednesday, the two sides met but the talks failed to end the deadlock.

The main leftwing Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Sunday reiterated its threat and launched a fresh attack on the government over rising prices. Inflation is currently at a 13-year high of over 11 percent.

The nuclear pact, concluded in 2006, aims to bring India into the loop of global atomic commerce. But the communists say it will draw New Delhi too close to Washington.

"In case the government decides to go ahead with such a harmful agreement, which has no majority support in parliament, the CPI-M will withdraw support to the government in concert with the Left parties," party general secretary Prakash Karat said.

Mugabe sworn in after discredited vote

AP, Harare

Zimbabwe's longtime ruler Robert Mugabe was sworn in as president for a sixth term Sunday after a widely discredited runoff in which he was the only candidate. His main rival dismissed the inauguration as "an exercise in self-delusion."

Just hours after electoral officials said Mugabe won Friday's presidential runoff, which observers said was marred by violence and intimidation, the 84-year-old leader sounded a conciliatory note.

"Sooner or later, as diverse political parties, we shall start serious talks," he said in a speech following his swearing-in. He also had promised talks on the eve of the vote.

Mugabe, Zimbabwe's leader since independence from Britain in 1980, left later Sunday for an African Union summit that opens Monday in Egypt, The Herald, a government mouthpiece, reported. In Egypt, he was to face fellow African leaders who want him to share power with his main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. The Herald said Mugabe "was prepared to face any of his AU counterparts disparaging Zimbabwe's electoral conduct because some of their countries had (a) worse elections record."

Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, told Associated Press Television News that Sunday's inauguration was "meaningless."

"The world has said so, Zimbabwe has said so. So it's an exercise in self-delusion," he said.

Tsvangirai said he believed members of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party were ready for talks.

"I think that the reality has dawned on all the elites in ZANU-PF," Tsvangirai said. "Without negotiating with the MDC this is a dead-end."

African and other world leaders have condemned Friday's vote. Human rights groups said opposition supporters were the targets of brutal state-sponsored violence during the campaign, leaving more than 80 dead and forcing some 200,000 to flee their homes.

Residents said they were forced to vote by threats of violence or arson from Mugabe supporters who searched for anyone without an ink-stained finger - the telltale sign that they had cast a ballot.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch said in a statement that Mugabe supporters beat people who couldn't prove they voted.

Tsvangirai withdrew from the race because of the violence, though his name remained on the ballot and his supporters may have spoiled their ballots rather than vote for Mugabe.

The electoral commission said total results showed more than 2 million votes for Mugabe, and 233,000 for opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai. Turnout was put at about 42 percent, and 131,000 ballots had been defaced or otherwise spoiled, apparently as an act of protest. Neither candidate got credit for the spoiled ballots.

In the opposition stronghold of Bulawayo, official results showed Mugabe got 21,127 votes and opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai had 13,291, while 9,166 ballots were spoiled.

A high number of spoiled ballots had been noted earlier Sunday by Marwick Khumalo, a member of parliament from Swaziland who led a team of election observers from across the continent under the auspices of the AU-sponsored Pan-African Parliament.

Khumalo said some ballots were defaced with "unpalatable messages." He refused to elaborate, but left the impression the messages expressed hostility toward Mugabe, who has been accused of ruining Zimbabwe's economy and holding onto power through fraud and intimidation.

Tsvangirai won the most votes in the first round of presidential voting in March, but not enough for an outright victory. Official results were not released for more than a month after that vote.

Tibet exile envoys due in China for fresh talks

AFP, Dharamshala

Envoys of the Dalai Lama were due to arrive in China later on Monday for fresh talks over they called the "long simmering issue" of Tibet, the Tibetan government-in-exile said. The formal seventh round of talks, initially to be held on June 11, were postponed following the massive earthquake that devastated parts of southwest China killing over 69,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

"The talks will be held on July 1 and 2 (Tuesday and Wednesday)," in Beijing, Tibetan prime minister-in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche told AFP. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly stated his opposition to Tibetan independence, but continues to seek "real and meaningful autonomy" for Tibet, which Beijing says is already an "autonomous region" within China. China and the Dalai Lama's representatives held an informal round of talks on May 4 after unrest against Chinese rule shook the Tibetan region two months earlier. "This (new) meeting is taking place at a crucial time," Chhime R. Chhoekyapa, the Dalai Lama's secretary, said in the northern Indian hill station of Dharamshala where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based.

"It is hoped this round of talks will contribute in resolving the long simmering issue through dialogue in the interest of stability, unity and harmony of all nationalities in the People's Republic of China," a statement from the Dalai Lama's office said.

At the May meeting in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, just over the border from Hong Kong, the Dalai Lama's envoys and the Chinese leadership agreed to continue the formal dialogue process launched in 2002 that broke off last year.

Beijing offered in April to reopen dialogue on Tibet, a move seen as a response to global protests over its crackdown on unrest in the region that has angered and embarrassed the leadership in Beijing ahead of the Olympics.

China has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting the unrest in the region in an effort to sabotage the Olympics, a charge he has denied.

Deadly riots broke out on March 14 in the capital Lhasa after earlier peaceful protests to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.

A crackdown by Chinese authorities on the unrest brought international criticism of Beijing's policies in the Himalayan region.

The Dalai Lama fled into exile after the 1959 uprising and set up his government-in-exile in Dharamshala.

Beijing says it acted with restraint to quell the Tibetan "rioters" and "insurgents," accusing them of killing 21 people in the unrest, which spread to other parts of western China with sizeable Tibetan populations.

The Tibetan government-in-exile says 203 Tibetans were killed and about 1,000 hurt in China's crackdown.

Political analysts earlier dismissed the plan to renew formal talks, saying they were being held under pressure from world leaders.

Firefighters in stalemate against California blazes

AP, San Francisco

Firefighters in Northern California battled more than a thousand wildfires to a stalemate by Sunday, but forecasters said dangerous conditions would not relent anytime soon. No new major fires had broken out Sunday as fire crews inched closer to getting some of the largest blazes surrounded, according to the state Office of Emergency Services.

But a "red flag warning" - meaning the most extreme fire danger - was still in effect for Northern California until 5 a.m. Monday. And the coming days and months are expected to bring little relief. Forecasters predicted more thunderstorms and dry lightning through the weekend, similar to the ones that ignited hundreds of fires a week ago. Meanwhile, a U.S. Forest Service report said the weather would get even drier and hotter as fire season headed toward its traditional peak in late July and August. Lower-than-average rainfall and record levels of parched vegetation likely mean a long, fiery summer throughout Northern California, according to the Forest Service's state fire outlook released last week.

The fires burning now could take weeks or months to bring under full control, the report said.

Those blazes were mostly sparked by lightning storms that were unusually intense for so early in the season. But summer storms would probably be even fiercer, according to the Forest Service.

"Our most widespread and/or critical lightning events often occur in late July or August, and we have no reason to deviate from that," the agency's report said.

The blazes have scorched more than 550 square miles and destroyed more than 50 buildings, said Gregory Renick, state emergency services spokesman.

A wildfire in the Los Padres National Forest has forced the closure of a scenic stretch of a coastal highway and driven away visitors at the peak of the tourist season.

Air quality districts from Bakersfield to Redding issued health advisories through the weekend, urging residents to stay indoors to limit exposure to the smoky air.

On Saturday, President Bush issued an emergency declaration for California and ordered federal agencies to assist in firefighting efforts.

But California emergency officials said state and local governments would also need federal financing to cover the costs of fighting so many fires this early in the year.

Federal aid now includes four Marine Corps helicopters, remote sensing of the fires by NASA, federal firefighters, and the activation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In Arizona, residents of a remote mountain community north of Phoenix left their homes voluntarily ahead of a slow-moving fire, officials said Sunday. Fueling the blaze were trees killed by a beetle infestation, said Debbie Maneely, spokeswoman for the Prescott National Forest.

And firefighters southwest of Phoenix allowed evacuated residents living near a fire in the dry Gila River bed to return home Saturday. The fire was not contained but was no longer advancing.

Evacuation orders were lifted Sunday morning for residents of Tajique in central New Mexico, where a blaze has destroyed six homes. The fire, sparked by lightning June 23, was more than 60 percent contained.

In Guffey, Colo., about 40 miles west of Colorado Springs, most of the 100 residents who fled a fire were allowed back home Sunday.

A small-plane crash that killed four people touched off a wildfire northwest of Las Vegas on Saturday. Firefighters ordered the evacuation of a subdivision but expected to have the fire under control soon.