The New Nation - Internet Edition

Force not ruled out on North Korea or Iran: Bush

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush said Wednesday that "military options remain on the table" in nuclear disputes with North Korea and Iran but underlined that he preferred a diplomatic resolution.

"I have always said that diplomacy has got to be the first choice of solving any of these problems. But military options remain on the table," Bush said in a roundtable interview with Japanese news outlets.

The president had been asked whether the six-country-talks approach he embraced for dealing with North Korea could be effective with Iran and about charges he ignored diplomacy when it came to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Bush has frequently warned that he has not ruled out using force against Iran, but has done so less frequently amid six-country diplomatic efforts aimed at defusing the nuclear dispute with North Korea.

White House aides and Bush himself have said that it would be irresponsible for a US president to categorically rule out using force, saying that could de-fang diplomatic efforts with difficult countries.

Bush said North Korea's decision to provide an unprecedented accounting of its nuclear programs last week may have stemmed from leader Kim Jong-Il's decision to end his country's deep political and economic isolation.

"Expectations are that he will move forward, action for action," as part of a tit-for-tat diplomatic arrangement promising the secretive Stalinist country rewards for doing so, Bush told the roundtable.

"And if they choose not to move forward on an agreed upon way forward-action for action-there will be further isolation and further deprivation for the people of North Korea," he said.

But "I would only surmise that perhaps the leader of North Korea is tired of being isolated in the world, and would try to advance his country in a way that makes it easier for the people to have a better life," he said.

Bush also sought to ease Japanese anger at his decision to take North Korea off the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, effective in 45 days, in response to North Korea's nuclear accounting.

Some Japanese accused him of forgetting about the fate of Japanese abducted by North Korea, which in June agreed to reopen the issue of the purloined people after initially saying the case was closed.

"I can understand people saying, 'well, I guess this is the beginning of the end of US concern,'" he said. "But I will say it again, like I have said it time and time again, this is the beginning of our concern."

The six-party talks are "a framework to help solve the concerns of the parents, the people of Japan and the Japanese government," said Bush, who has met in his Oval Office with the mother of one of the abductees.

"The question is, can Japan solve this issue alone better, or does it make sense to have the United States and other countries expressing the same concerns? I happen to believe that it is in your country's interest to have the United States and other countries helping you on this issue," he said.

Hezbollah head confirms prisoner swap with Israel

AP, Beirut

Hezbollah's leader on Wednesday confirmed for the first time that his group will hand over two captured Israeli soldiers and information on a missing Israeli airman in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners in Israel.

Israeli officials believe the two soldiers are dead, but Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said he had not given Israel any indication of their fate. He called reports that they are dead "speculation t not based on anything tangible."

On Sunday, the day Israel's Cabinet approved the swap, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he believes Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, snatched in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a war between Israel and Hezbollah, are dead.

Hezbollah has never confirmed that, and the Red Cross has not been allowed access.

Speaking to a Beirut news conference by video link, Nasrallah said the U.N.-brokered exchange would take place in mid-July.

All the Lebanese prisoners slated to be freed by Israel are alive. The longest-held prisoner, Samir Kantar, was serving multiple life terms for infiltrating northern Israel in 1979 and killing three Israelis - a man, his 4-year-old daughter and a police officer.

Word of Kantar's inclusion stirred emotions in Israel because of the grisly nature of his crime - witnesses said he crushed the little girl's skull - and his release could set a new standard for how far Israel is willing to go to repatriate its soldiers.

Kantar denies crushing the girl's skull, saying she was killed in the exchange of fire.

Nasrallah also said he would provide a thorough report with information on missing airman Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Arad was captured alive by Shiite militants and later disappeared without a trace. His fate remains unknown.

Nasrallah said he has reached "absolute conclusions" about Arad's fate after four years of investigations. He did not elaborate. A United Nations-appointed German mediator will arrive in Lebanon within two days to get a detailed report about Arad, he said.

Bomb threat disrupts LA airport, no explosive found

AP, Los Angeles

Several flights were grounded at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday after a man claimed to be a terrorist and made a bomb threat, police said.

No explosives were found on the man or in a backpack he had, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

The man was identified as Scott Juhun Lee, 27, of Irvine, police Officer Jason Lee said. He was booked for investigation of making a false bomb threat and held on $20,000 bail.

Lee faces possible psychological evaluation and federal charges have not been ruled out, Eimiller said. Authorities say he walked up to an officer, dropped a backpack at his feet outside the international terminal and made threats.

"He said, 'I'm a terrorist, I've got a bomb in the bag and I'm going to blow it up now,'" airport police Sgt. Jim Holcomb told The Associated Press. Holcomb described the man as between 25 and 30 years old.

Holcomb said a police bomb squad squirted the bag with a water cannon and the bag did not explode.

Authorities shut down traffic near the airport's terminal 3 while the threat was investigated. Holcomb said flights at several terminals were also grounded but that normal operations resumed in the early afternoon.

Iran dismisses US, Israeli attack threat

AP, New York

Iran's top diplomat predicted Wednesday that the United States and Israel would not risk the "craziness" of attacking his country and possibly provoking a wider Middle East war or driving oil prices into uncharted heights.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in an interview with The Associated Press that he does not believe a military strike is looming while the U.S. economy is suffering and it is bogged down in a seven-year-old campaign in Afghanistan and more than five years in Iraq.

His remarks come amid mounting speculation that Israel may be considering a unilateral strike on Iran's nuclear facilities - a contingency that could upend already volatile oil markets.

"We do not foresee such a possibility at the moment. The Israeli government is facing a political breakdown within itself and within the region, so we do not foresee such a possibility for that regime to resort to such craziness," Mottaki said through his translator. "The United States, too, is not in a position where it can engage in, take another risk in the region.

"Of course, there are people in the United States who are interested in that. But we think that the rational thinkers in the United States will prevent from that action being taken, and will prevent the imposition of another adventuresome act that would put pressure on the American taxpayers."

President Bush and others in Washington made it clear Wednesday that all options are on the table with regard to Iran and its nuclear program, but a military strike would not be Bush's first choice in the waning months of his presidency.

There have been growing worries that the conflict between Iran and the West over the nuclear issue could broaden into a more violent conflict, particularly if Israel tried to attack Iran's nuclear facilities in Natanz. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia - as well as Germany have offered new talks if Iran signals it is prepared to suspend its enrichment of uranium.

Although Iran prefers the diplomatic route, Mottaki said, he pointedly did not rule out trying to restrict oil traffic in the strategic Strait of Hormuz if Iran was attacked.

Suit accusing Bush admn of illegal wiretapping tossed

AP, San Francisco

A federal judge on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit by an Islamic organization that accused the Bush administration of illegally wiretapping its telephones without warrants.

The U.S. branch of the now-defunct Al Haramain Islamic Foundation claimed federal officials illegally eavesdropped on their telephone calls without court approval required by the administration's so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program.

At the heart of their lawsuit was a top secret call log that the Treasury Department accidentally turned over to Al Haramain's lawyers, who say it shows government terrorist hunters listened to their phone conversations with foundation officials living in Saudi Arabia. The government has designated the former Saudi Arabia-based Islamic charity as a terrorist organization. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker barred the foundation from using the top secret document in the case and dismissed the lawsuit.

Taiwan, China set to launch historic weekend flights

Reuters, Taipei

Taiwan and China, political rivals for six decades, will launch direct weekend charter flights on Friday, potentially letting millions of tourists visit the island in a historic move heralding a further warming of relations.

Thirty-six round-trip routes will open between self-ruled Taiwan and China, which claims the island as its own, eliminating wasteful Hong Kong or Macau stopovers for China-bound Taiwan investors and easing group travel from the other side. There have been no regular direct flights, aside from a few charters on select holidays, since 1949, when defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan amid civil war.

The flights are likely to give a boost to carriers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait at the expense of Hong Kong, but probably not until all restrictions are lifted.

Top negotiators from China and Taiwan agreed last month to the weekend charter flights. They also decided to let as many as 3,000 Chinese tourists a day visit the island, which has seen them as a security risk previously but now wants their money.

The huge influx of tourists will be from China to Taiwan as Taiwanese can already travel to China as tourists, although not directly.

"It will have positive meaning for relations between the two sides," said Li Peng, assistant Taiwan Research Institute director at Xiamen University in China. "Exchanges and encounters will increase, helping each side understand the other."

China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has vowed to bring the island under its rule, by force if necessary.

US leaders acknowledge 'tough’ going in Afghanistan

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush on Wednesday acknowledged "a tough month" for NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan but insisted the war-fighting strategy there is working, despite increasing violence.

"It has been a tough month in Afghanistan, but it's also been a tough month for the Taliban," he said, after the coalition in June suffered its deadliest month since the 2001 ouster of the Islamist militia.

Forty-nine soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the separate US-led coalition died in combat, attacks or accidents in June, according to an AFP tally based on military statements.

June accounted for more than 40 percent of the 122 deaths of foreign soldiers in Afghanistan during 2008, according to the independent website Icasualties.org.

Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, confessed meanwhile to being "deeply troubled" by recent military challenges in Afghanistan, as Taliban troops ramp up their attacks on Western targets.

"I am and have been for some time now, deeply troubled by the increasing violence there," Mullen said.

"The Taliban and their supporters have, without question, grown more effective and more aggressive in recent weeks, and as the casualty figures clearly demonstrate," he said.

Bush nevertheless remained upbeat.

"I'm confident that the strategy is going to work," Bush said, sidestepping a question on whether he would send more US troops to Afghanistan by saying that he is constantly reviewing the needs on the ground.

"One reason why there have been more deaths is because our troops are taking the fight to a tough enemy" deeply at odds with the United States, he said. "Of course there's going to be resistance."

"We're constantly reviewing troop needs, troop levels. We're halfway through 2008. As I said, we're going to increase troops by 2009," said the US leader.

US, Poland reach tentative pact on missile shield

AFP, Washington

The United States and Poland reached a tentative pact on a controversial missile defense shield, part of which Washington wants to site in the former communist country, a senior State Department official said.

"At this point, I am really happy that we made real good progress in the past few days," said the official who asked not to be named, Wednesday adding that a "tentative agreement" had been reached after two days of talks between Polish and US officials.

The United States wants to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar facility in the neighboring Czech Republic to ward off potential attacks by so-called "rogue" states, notably Iran.

The agreement, of which no details were given, was the result of talks in Washington between US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Rood and two high-ranking officials from the Polish defense and foreign ministries.

Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, a former ambassador to Poland, said the talks had made real progress but refused to confirm that an agreement had been reached.

"We are satisfied with the way things are going but I don't yet have a bottom line," he said.

"I want to be very careful. We are very satisfied with the way we left things and we want to hear the next words, the next stages, from Warsaw," Fried said.

In the Polish capital, foreign ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said the ministry could not confirm that the two sides had reached an accord, and said the decision on the Polish side rests with Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Washington and Warsaw began talks about Poland housing missiles for the defense shield in May last year, but the negotiations have been slowed by demands from Poland for substantial aid to modernize its armed forces.

A deal under which the Czech Republic would house the missile shield's radar base was concluded in April.

Russia is opposed to having the US missile shield on its doorstep, and public opinion in Poland and the Czech Republic is generally opposed to the defensive system.

The shield would complete a broader US system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain.

Curfew imposed in parts of Kashmir

AFP, Srinagar

Authorities in Indian Kashmir on Thursday widened a curfew in the region to prevent protests by Hindus angered by the revocation of a land transfer order to a Hindu pilgrims' trust, officials said.

Jammu, the region's second biggest city, was hit by violent protests by Hindu nationalists demanding the state government stick by a decision to give land in the Muslim-majority area to pilgrims despite a week of deadly rioting.

Protests in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley have left five dead and hundreds injured.

Hindu-majority Jammu was put under an indefinite curfew on Wednesday after angry protesters attacked police and government property.

"We had to take the step to prevent loss of precious lives," said divisional commissioner Sudhanshu Pandey, adding the curfew had been widened to outlying areas.

Authorities are also facing the danger of communal violence in the Jammu-Kashmir region, after a grenade was hurled at a Hindu demonstration, wounding 20, and four houses of Muslim nomads were set on fire by Hindu mobs.

But in the summer capital Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir valley, life was returning to normal after nine days of rioting.

Protests erupted last month when authorities transferred some land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board so it could assist large numbers of Hindus who make an annual trek to a Himalayan grotto.

Muslim separatists said the move was aimed at setting up Hindu settlements in Kashmir.

Turkish ruling party rejects charges

AP, Ankara

Turkey's deputy prime minister is defending the ruling party in the country's top court against charges that it is steering the country toward Islamic rule.

The chief prosecutor is demanding that the Islamic-rooted party be disbanded and that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 70 other party members be barred from joining a political party for five years.

Police foil terror attack in Indonesia

AP, Jakarta

Anti-terror police arrested 10 suspected Muslim militants and seized a large cache of high-powered bombs, foiling a major attack targeting Westerners in the Indonesian capital, police and media reports said Thursday.

Among those detained was a Singaporean who met several times with Osama bin Laden, a senior police officer told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The arrests highlighted the lingering terror threat in Indonesia, which has been hit by a string of suicide bombings blamed on the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah since Sept. 11, 2001, including the 2002 attacks on Bali island that left 202 people dead, many of them foreign tourists.

There were no immediate details about the timing or the exact location of the planned strike.

Some of the suspects told police during interrogations that they had initially planned to attack foreign tourists on Sumatra Island, but shifted their target to Jakarta after realizing too many Indonesian lives could have been lost, TVOne quoted anti-terror police as saying.

The Indonesian government has won praise for arresting and convicting hundreds of Islamic militants since the Bali attacks, leaving the terror network severely weakened and isolated, with the most recent strike occurring more than 2 ½ years ago.

UN appeals court acquits Bosnian Muslim war hero

Ap, The Hague

A U.N. appeals court on Thursday overturned the war crimes conviction of Naser Oric, a Bosnian Muslim considered a war hero by many in his country for fighting Serbs in the embattled Srebrenica enclave during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Oric, 41, was convicted two years ago by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal of failing to prevent the murder and torture of Serb captives in Srebrenica. But judges gave him a lenient two-year sentence and ordered his immediate release because of time spent in custody.

But appeals judges went even further, overturning both convictions because the original trial failed to establish that Oric had control over forces responsible for the crimes.

"The appeals chamber has no doubt that grave crimes were committed against Serbs detained in Srebrenica," said presiding judge Wolfgang Schomburg. "However, proof that crimes have occurred is not sufficient to sustain a conviction of an individual for these crimes."

Under those circumstances, "the appeals chamber finds that the appropriate course of action can only be a reversal of Naser Oric's convictions," Schomburg added.

Oric stared ahead without showing any emotion as the judgment was read and then bowed briefly to judges before sitting down. Outside court, he hugged friends and his lawyer before walking out the front door a free man.

UN chief gets hero's welcome in South Korea

AFP, Seoul

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon received a hero's welcome on Thursday as he returned to his native South Korea for the first trip since taking up the post.

Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo greeted Ban upon his arrival at a military airport in southern Seoul, a diplomatic honour which had not been granted for nearly a decade. The foreign minister usually receives visiting dignitaries.

"I'm very happy and filled with deep emotion to come back to my homeland and extend my greetings to you 18 months after taking office," Ban said. "I should have come earliert I'm sorry for coming late because I had to handle urgent international issues."

Dozens of South Korean officials warmly greeted the UN chief, who inspected a military honour guard and was treated to a gun salute.

"As a Korean secretary general of the United Nations, I will do my best to help South Korea build up its national power," he said.

Sarkozy not welcome at Olympics, say China media

Reuters, Beijing

China made a barely veiled swipe at French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday and state media warned he can expect a cold public shoulder if he attends the Beijing Olympics after he threatened not to go over Tibet.

Sarkozy has said he will decide next week whether to attend the opening of the Games in August, with his choice depending on how talks go between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's envoys.

China often lashes out at foreign leaders for meeting the exiled Dalai Lama or criticizing its policies in Tibet, which it calls an internal affair.

In a sign of growing rancor in Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman and official newspapers took swipes at Sarkozy, whose government assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union on Tuesday.

Sharif rebuffs US official's comment

AP, Islamabad

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday rebuffed a senior U.S. official for saying that Pakistan should focus on food prices and militancy rather than the fate of President Pervez Musharraf.

"What Pakistan has to do with its president, who is an unconstitutional president, this is Pakistan's internal affair, this is not Pakistan's external affair. We do not need any external consultation in this," Sharif told reporters.

Sharif was reacting to comments by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher who said Wednesday after meeting Pakistani leaders in Islamabad that the country had a raft of pressing problems on its plate. "Frankly, President Musharraf is not the issue right now," Boucher told reporters who queried him about the future of Musharraf, a close U.S. ally.

Zimbabwe opposition rejects unity government call

AFP, Harare

Zimbabwe's opposition leader on Wednesday rejected calls to form a national unity government, saying it would not solve the country's crisis after Robert Mugabe's widely condemned one-man election.

Speaking the day after an African Union summit called for a unity government, Morgan Tsvangirai said it would merely accommodate Mugabe after much of the world had labeled his regime illegitimate.

"A government of national unity does not address the problems facing Zimbabwe or acknowledge the will of the Zimbabwean people," Tsvangirai told reporters. "The resolution does not recognise the illegitimacy of the June 27 election and the fact that most African leaders refused to recognise Mugabe as head of state."

Dalai Lama hopes for progress in talks with China

AFP, Tokyo

Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama voiced hope Wednesday that the latest round of talks between his envoys and China will lead to progress, saying the situation in his homeland was "critical." In a letter read out to a conference in Tokyo of Japanese supporters of Tibet, the Dalai Lama said the round of talks that opened Tuesday in Beijing "has come at a crucial time."

"I hope this seventh round of talks will contribute in making some marked improvement in our discussions," said the Tibetan spiritual leader, who has lived in exile in India for nearly a half-century. China has said little about the talks in Beijing, which opened three months after major protests in Tibet against Beijing's controversial rule over the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan region.

The crackdown on the unrest, which spread to neighbouring Tibetan-populated areas of western China, sparked global demonstrations that marred the month-long international journey of the Beijing Olympic torch.