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Bush, Medvedev clash on missile defence

AFP, Toyako

US President George W. Bush praised Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday as a "smart guy" who means what he says, even as they clashed on US missile defence plans.

The two leaders, holding their first face-to-face meeting since Medvedev took the reins from Vladimir Putin in May, also highlighted their cooperation in diplomatic efforts to resolve nuclear disputes with Iran and North Korea.

"There are topics on which we are making progress, such as Iran and North Korea, but there topics on which we diverge, such as the missile shield and European matters, but there are possibilities for agreement," said Medvedev at the meeting on the fringes of a summit of rich nations in Japan. "While there's some areas of disagreement, there's also areas where I know we can work together for the common good," said the US president. "I found him to be a smart guy who understood the issues very well." "Iran is an area where Russia and the United States have worked closely in the past and will continue to work closely to convince the regime to give up its desire to enrich uranium," he added.

Seven years after Bush declared he had looked into Putin's eyes at their first meeting, seen his soul, and deemed him trustworthy, the US president declined to offer a similar assessment of the new Russian leader.

"I'm not going to sit here and psychoanalyse the man, but I will tell you that he's very comfortable, he's confident," said Bush. "You may not agree with what he tells you, but at least you know it's what he believes."

Later, Medvedev's diplomatic adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, said the Russian president had warned Bush that installing part of a missile defence shield in Lithuania was "absolutely unacceptable."

Thus-far inconclusive US talks with Poland on basing 10 missile interceptors there have fuelled media reports that Washington may be looking at other possible sites, including Lithuania.

"Any missile defence installation, no matter where in Europe, is not a threat to Russia," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who called any discussion of bases in Lithuania rather than Poland "premature."

Bush leaves office in fewer than 200 days and is here at his last Group of Eight (G8) summit, while Medvedev took office in May and is making his debut at the elite gathering of leaders of wealthy nations.

"I reminded him that, yes, I'm leaving, but not until six months and I'm sprinting to the finish. So we can get a lot done together and, you know, a lot of important issues," said the US leader.

Bush had been expected to raise US worries about the rule of law and democracy in Russia, and flaring tensions between former Soviet satellite Georgia and its giant neighbour are on the agenda, US officials said.

He had also planned to reaffirm his support for admitting Russia to the World Trade Organisation as they met on the margins of the Group of Eight (G8) summit of industrialised nations in his mountain resort.

With his youthful image and reputation for openness, Medvedev, 42, cuts a different character than his mentor Putin, who retains the powerful post of prime minister.

In policy terms, Medvedev has few differences from Putin-notably opposition to US plans to deploy a missile defence system against what Washington says is a threat from Iran and North Korea.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due next week in the Czech Republic to sign a deal to deploy an anti-missile radar, and may stop in nearby Poland to sign a pact to base 10 missile interceptors there, US officials say.

The United States wants to deploy the shield in the central European nations by 2011-2013 amid concerns about the impact on ties with Russia, which denounces the plan as a threat to its own security.

Israel shuts Hamas-linked facilities

AFP, Nablus

Israeli troops on Monday shut down a Hamas-linked charity in the northern West Bank city of Nablus in a dawn operation, according to Palestinian security officials and witnesses.

The soldiers searched the offices of the The Al-Tadamon (Solidarity) association, confiscating documents and computers before sealing the building.

They then placed a sign on the door saying "the offices of the al-Tadamon association have been closed because they were part of terrorist infrastructure," witnesses said.

The military would not immediately comment.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper said the army has decided to intensify its campaign against charities and other civil associations linked to the Islamist movement which seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007.

Earlier this year Israeli troops raided and shut down several warehouses and offices of the Islamic Charity Movement and the Islamic Youth Association in the southern West Bank town of Hebron.

The army said both were being used to funnel funds to Hamas's military wing.

Israel has long feared a repeat of the Gaza takeover in the occupied West Bank, with senior officials expressing concern that Hamas could again route security forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Israel and the West have blacklisted the Islamist movement as a terrorist organisation, although Israel last month agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce in and around Gaza aimed at halting near-daily Palestinian rocket attacks.

Suicide bomber at Pakistan Red Mosque rally kills 19

AFP, Islamabad

A suicide bomber killed 19 people Sunday in an attack on police guarding an Islamist rally to mark the anniversary of an army raid on the radical Red Mosque in Pakistan's capital, officials said.

In the latest apparent act of revenge for the bloody storming of the mosque, the attacker blew himself up in a crowd of policemen just after thousands of hardliners demanded the public hanging of President Pervez Musharraf.

The operation to clear the mosque a year ago left 100 people dead, and unleashed a wave of suicide attacks that pushed the newly-elected government into entering peace talks with Taliban militants.

Dozens of dead and injured policemen lay in pools of blood after Sunday's blast, their blue uniforms ripped to shreds, an AFP photographer said. Batons, helmets and riot shields were scattered on the ground.

"The whole event at the mosque went smoothly but then the suicide bomber targeted the security forces," interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters at the scene.

Musharraf condemned the blast and reiterated the government's "commitment to root-out terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.

The US-backed leader, whose allies were defeated in elections in February, urged the new government on Friday to do more to combat militancy, warning that otherwise there would be "Red Mosques everywhere".

A senior police official and a senior security official both told AFP that at least 14 policemen and a civilian were killed in the bombing.

The government however gave lower figures, with Information Minister Sherry Rehman saying that at least 12 policemen were known to have died.

"A young man walked into the police contingent and apparently blew himself up," the senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

"The blast happened 15 minutes after the meeting dispersed. A heavy contingent of police was at a main crossing several hundred metres from the mosque and they were targeted in the attack," the official added.

Television footage showed bearded students frantically running towards the scene and ambulances bringing the wounded to hospitals.

"We were playing cricket in a nearby park when we heard a deafening blast. There were several policemen on the ground and me and my friends took them to hospital but they were dead," witness Shaqeel Ahmed told AFP.

Indian Kashmir's top official quits

AP, Srinagar

The top elected official in Indian Kashmir announced his resignation Monday after weeks of violent protests over the transfer of government land to a Hindu shrine in the Muslim-majority region.

Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said he would resign after a key party in the ruling coalition withdrew its support for the state government over its handling of the land transfer controversy. At least six people were killed and hundreds wounded in the protests.

Azad announced his intention to quit in the state parliament and was expected to submit his resignation to the governor later in the day. The unrest was sparked when the state government transferred 99 acres of land last month to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running a revered Hindu shrine.

Muslim Kashmiris denounced the land transfer as an attempt to build Hindu settlements in the area and alter the demographics in India's only Muslim-majority state.

Faced with some of the largest protests against Indian rule in nearly two decades, Azad revoked the order - a move that led to further unrest, angering Hindus who staged protests in Jammu, a predominantly Hindu area of the state.

Following the protests, the People's Democratic Party said it would no longer support the governing Congress party in the state. After Azad's resignation other parties will be given a chance to form a majority coalition. If negotiations fail, elections scheduled for October will be brought forward.

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

Blasts shake Georgia conflict zone, one killed

Reuters, Tbilisi

Georgian officials said six explosions struck on both sides of a de facto border between Georgia and its breakaway Abkhazia region on Sunday, killing one person.

Moscow and Tbilisi accuse each other of stirring tensions in Abkhazia, which broke away along with the region of South Ossetia from Georgian rule during wars in the 1990s. Russia provides financial support and has peacekeepers in both.

A spokesman for the Georgian-backed government-in-exile of Abkhazia said an explosion in a cafe in Abkhazia's Gali region killed Gali's security department chief and wounded 10 others.

The spokesman, Raul Kiria, said officials in Gali would not let relatives of the wounded take them to hospital in Georgia.

Earlier on Sunday Georgian Interior Ministry official Shota Utiashvili said four mines exploded near the village of Rukhi in a region controlled by Georgia.

One of them went off under a police car as officers investigated the site after the initial blasts, slightly wounding the local deputy police chief, Utiashvili told Reuters. The fifth bomb exploded in "territory which is de facto controlled by the Abkhaz side in the village of Otobia," Utiashvili said. The site was being investigated by the United Nations mission based in the region.

Colonel Clive Trott, who was at the scene of the blast, said it looked like a mortar round.

A Russian commander in Abkhazia said the uniform of a Georgian special forces member was found wrapped around the remains of a shell that had been the source of the blasts, RIA news agency reported.

"In the place of the explosion, there remained the uniform," assistant commander Alexander Novitsky was quoted as saying.

Mugabe regime warns West to 'stop meddling’

AFP, Harare

Robert Mugabe's regime warned the West on Monday to "stop meddling" in Zimbabwe's crisis as the veteran leader faced mounting pressure to cut a deal with the opposition after his one-man election.

While US President George W. Bush again labelled the June 27 poll a "sham" and G8 leaders attending a summit in Japan pushed for new sanctions, a top Mugabe lieutenant said the outside world had no role to play in the crisis.

"We appeal to foreigners and external forces to leave the resolution of the Zimbabwe situation to Zimbabweans alone," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state-run Herald newspaper.

"Britain, the US and the EU, in particular, should stop meddling in our affairs." Group of Eight industrial powers, at a meeting on the sidelines of the summit, were to urge African leaders to pile pressure on Mugabe over the violence-wracked vote boycotted by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Zimbabwe's parties to restore the "rule of law" and said he would take up the crisis with African leaders. Ban, speaking to AFP on his plane as he arrived in Japan, said Mugabe's election lacked legitimacy. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told his Japanese counterpart Yasuo Fukuda it was "important to send a strong message to secure democracy in Zimbabwe," a Japanese government official said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel meanwhile said new sanctions were to be discussed.

After meeting with African leaders on Monday, Bush sought to show solidarity with Zimbabweans while criticising Mugabe, who has ruled the country since independence in 1980.

UN official killed in Somalia

AP, Mogadishu

Gunmen opened fire on people leaving a mosque in Somalia's capital on Sunday night, killing one of the country's senior U.N. officials and wounding his son and another man, a witness and a family member said.

Attacks on officials, including those working for the U.N. or aid agencies, are common in Somalia, where Islamic insurgents have vowed to fight an Iraq-style insurgency against the country's weak and corrupt U.N.-supported government.

Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of the U.N. Development Program for Somalia, was covered in blood and unconscious as he was rushed to a hospital after Sunday's shooting, said Hassan Ali, a witness and a neighbor of Ahmed's. Ali said in an interview that it was not clear how badly Ahmed's son and the other man were hurt. Ahmed's wife, Masteho Abubakr Yusus, later told The Associated Press that her husband died at the African Union hospital after being shot in the head.

The shooting occurred a day after an explosion killed a Somali official, his wife and four others in Mogadishu.

On June 21, Hassan Mohamed Ali, head of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees organization in Mogadishu, was abducted from his home on the outskirts of the capital.

EU ministers hopeful of rapid deal on 'immigration pact'

AFP, Cannes

EU interior ministers expressed optimism Monday for a rapid agreement on new guidelines for controlling immigration, but denied the plan would erect walls around Europe. "It is a good proposal for a common position for everybody," said Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer as he arrived for informal EU talks in the French Riviera resort city of Cannes.

The "European Pact on Immigration and Asylum" sets out principles for the EU to manage migration, fight illegal immigration and help development in poor countries that people are leaving or travelling through to get to Europe. France, which has just taken over the bloc's rotating presidency, wants to have the guidelines wrapped up by October, so that it can be endorsed at a summit of EU leaders.

"I hope that even today we will be able to reach a political agreement on this pact that could be finalised during the French presidency," said Greek Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos.

"It is a plan, a framework for immigration policy that is absolutely necessary for Europe and for the rest of the world," he said.

Even Spain, which has put up most resistance to the pact in the drafting stages, said the document largely respects its system of immigration.

"We are satisfied, we believe that this recognises the major part of our model of immigration," said Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba.

Other ministers insisted that Europe was not turning into a fortress, even though the 27 nations have had to increase security on their borders to the outside world, in exchanging for enjoying passport free travel inside.

McCain promises to balance budget

AP, Washington

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico. The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term.

McCain is making the pledge at the beginning of a week when both presidential candidates plan to devote their events to the economy, the top issue in poll after poll as voters struggle to keep their jobs and fill their gas tanks.

"In the long-term, the only way to keep the budget balanced is successful reform of the large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid," the McCain campaign says in a policy paper to be released Monday.

"The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction."

The pledge is a return to an earlier position he'd later backed away from. On April 15, McCain backed off a February pledge to balance the budget in his first term when asked about it by Michael Cooper of The New York Times, who reported that McCain said "at a news conference … that 'economic conditions are reversed' and that he would have a balanced budget within eight years."

McCain advisers admit that the document is a repackaging of previous policies, without dramatic new initiatives. Some Democratic officials had thought McCain might try to make a splash by proposing a bold middle-class tax cut.