The New Nation - Internet Edition

Barak hints at Israel’s readiness to strike Iran

AP, Jerusalem

Israel's defense minister hinted Thursday that Israel was ready to attack Iran's nuclear program, saying it didn't balk before "when its vital security interests" were at stake.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak's allusion to Israel's 1981 airstrike on an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor came at a time of intensified tensions between Israel and its archenemy, Iran.

Tehran launched war games and tests of a long-range missile this week after saying Tel Aviv would be "set on fire" if Israel were to attack Iran.

"Israel is the strongest country in the region and has proved in the past that it doesn't hesitate to act when its vital security interests are at stake," Barak told a meeting of his Labor Party. But he quickly tempered his remarks, noting that "the reactions of enemies t need to be taken into consideration as well."

Earlier in the day, Israel put its latest spy plane on display, in what defense officials said was a show of strength in response to Iran's war games and missile tests.

Israel is convinced Iran is building nuclear weapons, despite Tehran's insistence that it is developing energy. Israel's fears about Iran have only been heightened by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for the Jewish state's destruction. Iran has long warned it would strike back for any attack against it. But it has sharpened its rhetoric since Israel's military sent warplanes over the eastern Mediterranean in June for a large military exercise that U.S. officials described as a possible rehearsal for a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

This week's missile tests made a dramatic show of Tehran's readiness to strike back in the event of a U.S. or Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities.

Among the missiles Iran said it tested was a new version of the Shahab-3, which has a range of 1,250 miles and is armed with a 1-ton conventional warhead. The missile puts Israel, Turkey, Pakistan and the Arabian peninsula within striking distance.

Israeli defense officials have said there were no major surprises in the latest Iranian missile tests. The officials said they appeared to be more of an exercise in psychological warfare than a breakthrough in military technology. In another act of muscle-flexing, Israel displayed its new spy plane Thursday at the hea

dquarters of state-run Israel Aerospace Industries. Israel unveiled the plane last year and will exhibit it at the Farnborough air show in England next week. Israeli defense officials said the aircraft went on display at IAI headquarters in response to the Iranian war games.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss military tactics.

IAI spokesman Assaf Dargan said the plane "has the most sophisticated early warning and intelligence devices to date and is capable of reaching all destinations required by the air force." He declined to elaborate, citing security considerations.

McCain, Obama woo Hispanics, duel over prescriptions for growth

AP, Washington

John McCain and Barack Obama agree the Latino vote will be pivotal in a close presidential election and both know their disadvantages, with McCain tied to an unpopular party and Obama losing such voters overwhelmingly in the Democratic primaries.

Both see a path to winning Latinos by talking up their biographies and records. Those strategies will be on display in coming days as they speak in San Diego to the National Council of La Raza, the largest U.S. Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, after recent dueling appearances in Washington. The presumptive presidential nominees are highlighting their differences on economic issues before Hispanic groups. In a speech last month, Democrat Obama, 46, pinned the sagging economy on President George W. Bush's policies and said a McCain presidency would be equivalent to a third Bush term. He emphasized the inequalities in Hispanics' access to health care and education, and evoked his experience as a black American.

"Washington has not been working for ordinary Americans," the Illinois senator told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on June 28. "Few have been hit harder than Latinos and African-Americans."

The following week, Arizona Senator McCain said he had the better prescription for the economy: helping small businesses and keeping taxes low. "If you believe you should pay more taxes, I'm the wrong candidate for you," he told the League of United Latin American Citizens, known as LULAC, on July 8.

The Republican is aiming for the 40 percent of the Hispanic vote that helped Bush win re-election in 2004; Obama is trying to capture the 70 percent who sided with his Democrats in the 2006 congressional elections after a divisive debate over immigration.The 10 percent of the Latino vote in contention could be crucial in states including Nevada, Colorado, Florida, and Ohio. Obama told LULAC that the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry, lost by less than 6,000 votes in New Mexico, where 44 percent of the population is Hispanic and many are unregistered.

Nationwide, Hispanics have the second-lowest voter registration rate and the lowest voting rate among ethnic groups, according to U.S. Census data. Obama's campaign held organizing meetings at recent Latino gatherings and is undertaking a massive voter-registration drive.

Pakistan accuses India of violating cease-fire

AP, Islamabad

Pakistan's army spokesman accused Indian forces of violating a 2003 cease-fire in Kashmir on Thursday, but a top Indian official denied the country's army had fired on Pakistan's positions in the disputed Himalayan region.

Pakistan's Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the Indian army fired mortars and small arms without any provocation in the Battal sector of Kashmir. Pakistan's forces returned fire, he said.

The local Pakistani commander lodged a protest with his Indian counterpart, Abbas said. The army's director general of military operations later spoke to his Indian counterpart to set up a meeting on the matter, he said. "The Indian army opened fire at 2 p.m. today without any provocation, and our forces deployed there also returned fire," Abbas said. "The Indian army is to be blamed for the breach of cease-fire."

Indian army spokesman Lt. Col. S.D. Goswami denied its forces targeted Pakistani positions, and claimed Pakistan-based militants had opened fire on Indian forces as the militants tried to slip into Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"A group of militants fired on our troops during an infiltration bid. Our army returned the fire and foiled the infiltration bid," said Goswami.

He said that in a separate incident Thursday in the same area, Pakistani soldiers opened fire on Indian positions but: "We didn't retaliate."

Abbas declined to respond to the Indian allegations.

Pakistan and India have a long history of bitter relations and have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir - which is divided between them but claimed by both - since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.

The frontier has been largely quiet since the 2003 cease-fire between India and Pakistan, whose relations have warmed amid a peace process launched in recent years.

SKorea offers North talks on implementing summit pacts

AFP, Seoul

South Korea's new conservative president on Friday offered North Korea an olive branch after months of hostility, proposing talks on ways to implement summit agreements reached by his predecessors.

Lee Myung-Bak, in a speech to parliament, also offered to help alleviate the communist state's acute food shortages.

Lee's proposal for dialogue on summit pacts marked a clear departure from his initial tougher policy which led Pyongyang to term him a "traitor" and "US sycophant" and cut off contacts. "Full dialogue between the two Koreas must resume," Lee said. His government, he said, "is willing to engage in serious consultations on how to implement the inter-Korean agreements made so far," including summit pacts reached by his liberal predecessors in 2000 and 2007.

Lee has previously said he would study whether to carry out joint economic projects agreed with Pyongyang based on their feasibility and the cost to South Korea.

He had also linked major economic aid to the North to progress in scrapping its nuclear programmes.

The North responded angrily to Lee's harder line, which followed a decade-long "sunshine" engagement policy under liberal presidents. It has cut off all official contacts with the South.

Lee last weekend restated his willingness to meet the North's leader Kim Jong-Il "as many times as I can" for genuine dialogue to improve relations.

But the North said it was "preposterous" for Lee to make such a suggestion when he had ignored "important declarations" at previous summits.

The North has also rebuffed Seoul's offers of food aid despite serious food shortages this year.

Lee said Seoul "is ready to cooperate in efforts to help relieve the food shortage in the North as well as alleviate the pain of the North Korean people."

He stressed that the North's denuclearisation is his highest priority and welcomed "important and substantive progress" made in six-nation negotiations.

A new round of six-party talks was under way Friday in Beijing after the North delivered a declaration of its nuclear programmes and blew up part of its Yongbyon reactor.

"As the denuclearisation process progresses, substantial cooperation between the two Koreas will be rejuvenated. This will, in turn, open an age of the Korean peninsula, with both parts of the country thriving together," Lee said.

47 Afghan civilians killed in US-led strikes

AFP, Jalalabad

An official investigation has found that US-led air strikes a week ago struck a wedding and killed 47 Afghan civilians, most of them women and children, an official said Friday.

The US-led coalition had said that only militants died in the July 6 strikes in the mountains of eastern Nangarhar province. But spokeswoman Lieutenant Rumi Nielson-Green told AFP Friday the force was investigating and regretted the loss of any civilian life. It is facing similar charges over strikes two days earlier in another border area.

A nine-member team appointed by President Hamid Karzai to look into the Nangarhar incident found that only civilians were killed in remote Deh Bala district, said the head of the mission, Burhanullah Shinwari. "We found that 47 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in the air strikes and another nine were wounded," said Shinwari, who is also the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's senate. "They were all civilians and had no links with Taliban or Al-Qaeda," he told AFP.

Around 10 people were missing and believed to be still under rubble, he said.

Local officials said earlier the strikes had hit a party of women and children escorting a bride to her groom. The bride was among the dead, they said.

The investigation team-which includes representatives of the defence and interior ministries, parliament and a provincial council-is yet to present its findings to Karzai. The president ordered them to look into the incident after provincial officials said 27 civilians were killed in the strike.

Another member of the delegation, Mohammad Asif Shinwari, said there were only three men among the dead and the rest were women and children. "The last body was found yesterday, taking the toll to 47," he told AFP. During a visit to the remote and mountainous area on the border with Pakistan, the team was shown bloodied clothes of women and children, he said.

The coalition, in Afghanistan to help the government fight a Taliban-led insurgency, has also been accused of killing more than a dozen civilians in a similar strike on July 4 in the rugged province of Nuristan.

The force also rejects the allegation, saying only militants were killed, but an official from the province told AFP Friday that an investigation found that only civilians had died.

"Any loss of civilian life is tragic," said Nielson-Green, the coalition spokeswoman. "We never target non-combatants. We do go to great length to avoid civilian casualties."

Civilians are regularly caught in the crossfire of the insurgency launched after the hardline Islamic Taliban regime was removed from power in late 2001 in a US-led invasion.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday that 250 were killed or wounded in five days of military action and militant attacks starting July 4.

This included in the US-led air strikes and a suicide blast outside the Indian embassy in the capital on Monday that killed more than 40 people, including two Indian envoys.

The committee urged all parties in the conflict-including the international military forces and "armed opposition"-to take more care, a plea that Karzai has often repeated.

The United Nations said last month that nearly 700 Afghan civilians had lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, about two-thirds in militant attacks and about 255 in military operations.

Bush signs new rules on government wiretapping

AP, Washington

President Bush signed a bill Thursday that overhauls rules about government eavesdropping and grants immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the U.S. spy on Americans in suspected terrorism cases.

He called it "landmark legislation that is vital to the security of our people."

Bush signed the measure in a Rose Garden ceremony a day after the Senate sent it to him, following nearly a year of debate in the Democratic-led Congress over surveillance rules and the warrantless wiretapping program Bush initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was a battle that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks and Democrats' fears of being portrayed as weak when it comes to protecting the country. Its passage was a major victory for Bush, an unpopular lame-duck president who nevertheless has been able to prevail over Congress on most issues of national security and intelligence disputes.

Bush said the 9/11 attack "changed our country forever" and taught the intelligence community that it must know who America's enemies are talking to and what they are saying. "In the aftermath of 9/11," Bush said, "few would have imagined that we would be standing here seven years later without another attack on American soil. The fact that the terrorists have failed to strike our shores again does not mean that our enemies have given up."

Even before Bush signed the legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would challenge the new law in court.

The president said the bill gives the government anti-terror tools it needs without compromising Americans' civil liberties. Bush was joined at the ceremony by Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and more than a dozen members of Congress.

The ACLU's lawsuit was filed on behalf of several civil rights groups. It wants a federal judge in New York to rule that the law is an unconstitutional violation of free speech and the right against unlawful search and seizure. It also asks that the judge permanently block intelligence officials from conducting surveillance under the law. "The new law gives the government the power to conduct dragnet surveillance that has no connection to terrorism or criminal activity of any kind," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, in a conference call to reporters.

"A law like this is fundamentally inconsistent with the Constitution and with the most basic democratic values," he said.

Roger Atwood, communications director for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization for the region, said the new law will impede the group's work.

"The mere suspicion that information provided to us, to our staff, will be accessed by the U.S. government can seriously affect WOLA's credibility and our effectiveness in Latin America in moving our work forward," Atwood said in the conference call.

Maoists blow railway tracks, building in Bihar

Reuters, Patna

Maoist insurgents raided a police station and blew up railway tracks and a government building in Bihar on Friday, police said, to retaliate against the arrest of several rebel leaders in recent months.

Rail traffic was severely disrupted as rebels blew tracks in two separate areas in the state, officials said.

Police said the rebels also bombed a government building and later raided a remote police station in a remote area.

"The rebels retreated in the jungles when the police retaliated," Vinay Kumar, a senior police officer said.

At least 22 trains were held up, said Deepak Jha, a senior railway official.

The Maoists also enforced a one day shutdown in their rural strongholds in Bihar, the latest in a string of strikes in the region over the past two months.

More than 100 Maoists have been arrested in the last few months in Bihar and neighbouring Jharkhand in a police crackdown, angering the rebels.

Last week at least 35 elite anti-insurgency policemen were killed when Maoists blew up their patrol boat in mineral-rich Orissa.

10 Kurdish rebels killed in Turkey

AP, Ankara

A Turkish news agency reported Friday that army troops clashed with Kurdish rebels in the southeast and that 10 of the rebels were killed.

Dogan news agency said the clashes occurred on Mount Kato, in the predominantly Kurdish province of Sirnak, which borders Iraq. The report, which could not immediately be confirmed, also said a village guard - armed and paid by the government to help troops fight the rebels - was killed in the violence. The rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, have been fighting for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people. The rebels abducted three German climbers on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey on Tuesday and said they would not release them until Berlin put an end to a crackdown on the guerrilla group in Germany.

The German government called for the immediate and unconditional release of the kidnapped Germans.

Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organization.

Earlier in the year, Turkish war planes carried out several strikes on suspected rebel targets across the border in northern Iraq, where thousands of rebels have their main bases. In February ground troops also crossed the border for an eight-day long incursion to hunt down rebels.

Iran warns Israel, US would regret any attack

AP, Tehran

A top Iranian cleric on Friday warned Israel and the United States that they would be made to regret any attack against Iran, amid mounting tensions in the nuclear crisis. "You liar Israel and you liar the White Houset if you want to make an invasion we will give you such a response that you will regret your move," Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani said in a Friday prayers sermon broadcast on state radio.

Tensions over the nuclear standoff have again surged in the past two days after Iran test-fired a broadside of missiles-including one it says puts it within range of Israel-in war games that provoked international concern.

Indian govt will win confidence vote: Sonia Gandhi

AFP, New Delhi

The head of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, said Friday she was certain the government would win a confidence vote triggered by the withdrawal of support by left-wing allies.

The parliamentary vote, set for July 22, will decide if the world's largest democracy will have to go to early polls before the end of the year.

A bloc of left-wing and communist parties withdrew their support for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition after he decided to push ahead with a controversial deal on sharing nuclear technology with the United States.

At present, the Congress-led government has 225 assured seats in India's 545-member directly elected lower house, far short of the number required for a simple majority. Last week, the regional socialist Samajwadi Party with 39 MPs promised to vote for the government, and Congress is currently shopping for support.

"I have no doubt that we shall prove our majority and work to fulfil our remaining agenda," Gandhi told a meeting of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), as the coalition is known.

"Everybody is prepared for a vote of confidence," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee also said.

Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who heads a party allied to Congress, also insisted that "there is no doubt that we will get a confidence vote in our favour."

UN will investigate Benazir Bhutto killing

AP, United Nations

The U.N. chief has agreed to Pakistan's request to establish an independent commission that will investigate the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office confirmed the agreement moments after it was announced by Pakistan's top diplomat.

"The objectives are for the commission to identify the culprits, perpetrators, organizers and financiers of the assassination," Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters Thursday, just after a brief, private meeting with Ban. Determining who was behind Bhutto's killing could help stabilize a nation that is a key U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, but has been struggling against an influx of insurgents joining with al-Qaida and other militant groups in Pakistan's remote tribal and mountainous areas.

The previous government blamed the Taliban in Pakistan for the attack against Bhutto, but suspicions surrounding her death have been cast far and wide - a further reason for the government's pressing to clear up the matter. Qureshi assured reporters that Ban would appoint "well-respected, eminent people" to the independent commission.

"We have reached an understanding, and there is a concrete decision on that," the foreign minister said. "What is being discussed and further consultations are required are on the modalities."

Ban's office said in a statement that "broad understanding had been reached" on the nature of the commission, including: how to pay for it; who its members should be; how to protect its independence and impartiality; and that its members should have unfettered access to the information it needs.

But Ban said he would have to talk further with Pakistan and other U.N. officials to hammer out all the details.

Qureshi said he believed Ban had authority without the U.N. Security Council's approval to set up a commission to try to identify the culprits in Bhutto's assassination as quickly as possible. But Qureshi also said some council members he spoke with were supportive of establishing a commission.

Israeli police resume Olmert bribery probe

Reuters, Jerusalem

Israeli police investigators began questioning Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday for a third time over allegations he took bribes from an American businessman.

The scandal, which police and judicial sources say involves hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable cash payments over a decade from the early 1990s, broke two months ago when detectives moved at short notice to question Olmert on May 2.

The case could force him from office and hamper U.S.-backed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Olmert said he did nothing wrong in his dealings with New York Jewish fundraiser Morris Talansky but has promised to step down if indicted. Israeli investigators have also traveled to the United States to seek evidence.

In testimony on May 27, Talansky told the Jerusalem District Court that he had passed $150,000 to Olmert over a 15-year period, including loans that were never repaid.

Olmert said the money was used legally to fund election campaigns.

Olmert's lawyers plan to cross-examine Talansky starting on July 17 in court hearings expected to last several days.

Olmert averted a coalition crisis over the affair when he agreed to hold a party leadership election after Defense Minister Ehud Barak's Labour Party, Olmert's main partner in the government, called on him to step aside.

On Thursday, the Kadima party confirmed that it would hold a leadership election in September which Olmert's deputy, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, appears favored to win, a newspaper survey showed on Friday.

Zimbabwe government, opposition meet in S. Africa

AFP, Johannesburg

Seeking a way out of their country's political crisis, Zimbabwean government and opposition officials met in South Africa, with the opposition pressing for an end to attacks on its supporters.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Thursday that he sent a team to Pretoria, the capital, led by his top deputy Tendai Biti to lay down conditions for talks - not to open negotiations.

Chief among the conditions is an end to violence blamed on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's supporters, he said.

"At present the state-sanctioned violence and repressive legislation employed by the regime is designed to silence the Zimbabwean people," Tsvangirai said in a statement. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change is "committed to finding a peaceful, negotiated solution to the Zimbabwean crisis and we will take every opportunity to clarify our position and to allow the voice of the Zimbabwean people to be heard," he said.

Recently, Mugabe's party has shown increasing eagerness to start talks, apparently in the hope of persuading U.N. Security Council members to reject a U.S.-drafted resolution to impose sanctions on Mugabe and some of his top political and security officials. The council is expected to vote on the resolution this week.

But Zimbabwe warned Thursday night that any more sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe could push the nation to civil war.

Those sanctions - Zimbabwe's U.N. mission said in a letter made available at the United Nations in New York - would lead to the removal of Zimbabwe's "effective government and, most probably, start a civil war in the country."

The opposition says more than 90 of its supporters have been killed since Tsvangirai won a first round of presidential elections in March. He did not win the 50 percent plus one vote necessary to avoid a runoff against second-place finisher Mugabe.

Zimbabwe's crisis has deepened since Mugabe claimed victory in a widely denounced June 27 presidential runoff in which he was the only candidate. Tsvangirai pulled out days before the race because of the violence.