The New Nation - Internet Edition

Most Indians, Pakistanis want Kashmir independence: Poll

Reuters, New Delhi

People in India and Pakistan show a readiness to let the disputed region of Kashmir decide its own fate, and many would tolerate independence if that ended the long-running Himalayan conflict, a rare poll on the crisis said.

A poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org asked Indian and Pakistanis to consider a range of possible outcomes for the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir and to say whether they found them desirable, acceptable, tolerable, or unacceptable.

A majority of those surveyed would find independence at least tolerable if Kashmiris wanted it.

"Given the deep roots of the conflict over Kashmir, it is surprising the conflict does not muster clearly polarised majorities in Pakistan and India, falling in line behind their governments' positions," said Clay Ramsay, research director of WorldPublicOpinion.org.

"Instead, many show openness to considering different possibilities for resolving the conflict." Three-quarters of Pakistanis called independence for the Muslim-majority region desirable or acceptable. While 50 percent of Indians said the idea was unacceptable, 29 percent said it was at least tolerable and the rest did not provide an answer.

The problem, analysts say, is that those who oppose making concessions over Kashmir in both countries tend to be very vocal and have often driven policy-making. That has made finding a solution to the crisis impossible until now.

Most Indians want Kashmir to remain under Indian control, either in its present status or with more autonomy. While Pakistan's government has at times conceded that changing borders may not be an option, its people seem reluctant to accept this.

Around two-thirds of Pakistanis said simply giving Indian Kashmir more autonomy was unacceptable. Most would prefer it to join their country or become independent. The idea of dividing the region between Pakistan and India gets little support on either side, but is also not opposed by a large majority, the pollsters said. Some 52 percent of Pakistanis and 42 percent of Indians found division unacceptable.

Similarly, around half of those surveyed on both sides said joint management by India and Pakistan was unacceptable.

India has controlled nearly half of Kashmir since a war that followed independence from Britain in 1947, including the heavily populated and prized Kashmir Valley. Pakistan controls around a third and China the remainder.

Between 40,000 and 60,000 people are thought to have died in violence in the Himalayan region since an insurgency against Indian rule broke out in 1989.

The Indian government sees retaining control of its only Muslim-majority state as central to its identity as a secular nation and is extremely wary of making concessions over Kashmir that would encourage separatist tendencies elsewhere. In Pakistan the Kashmir cause had been used by the army, whose generals have led Pakistan for more than half its life, to forge a sense of unity among a Muslim nation riven by ethnic, regional and political tensions, as well as sectarian violence.

The poll was taken among 907 Pakistanis spread over 19 cities with a sampling error of about +/-3.3 percentage points, while 1,258 Indians answered the survey in 10 cities.

The sampling error for India was about +/-2.8 percentage points.

Jailed MPs may hold key to trust Indian vote

Reuters, New Delhi

Six Members of Parliament (MPs) jailed for crimes from extortion to murder are being temporarily freed to participate in a tight no-confidence vote that will decide the fate of the government and a nuclear deal with the United States.

The constitution allows convicted lawmakers to participate in a parliamentary vote. Parties believe the vote could be very close, which means every ballot in the 543-member parliament on Tuesday could be crucial.

If the government loses, early elections will be called and a civilian nuclear deal with the United States, over which the government's communist allies withdrew support, could be buried.

Keen to avoid uncertainty amid rising inflation and signs of economic slowdown, ruling coalition supporters are now knocking on the doors of high security prisons.

The Congress party-led government looks set to gain the most as five jailed lawmakers are members of regional party allies.

One of the most infamous is a Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) lawmaker, Mohammed Shahabuddin, from Bihar. He is serving a life term for murdering a political opponent and faces 40 other cases of murder, abduction and extortion.

Bihar is regarded as India's poorest and most lawless state.

A local court granted Shahabuddin bail on Wednesday, on condition he pays his expenses during his two-day stay in New Delhi.

"The court has also asked him to bear the expenses of the policemen who will escort him," his lawyer Abhay Kumar Ranjan said.

Rajesh Ranjan, another jailed Bihar politician, who broke down in tears when given a life term for murdering a trade unionist in February, finds himself surrounded by party members now.

Ranjan, along with another Bihar lawmaker in prison for murder, will be released for the vote. Both are government allies. Ranjan is still feared in Bihar, political opponents say.

Between them, both men face close to 100 criminal cases, but their political leaders are not too bothered, for the moment.

Pope warns against splits at 'critical juncture’ for Christianity

AFP, Sydney

Pope Benedict XVI warned Christian leaders Friday the ecumenical movement was at a "critical juncture", as Anglican bishops met amid a split in their church over the ordination of women and gays. The pontiff, in Australia for World Youth Day which has united hundreds of thousands of Catholic pilgrims in a show of spiritual force, called on around 50 Christian leaders to fight for unity within the broader faith.

"Dear friends in Christ, I think you would agree that the ecumenical movement has reached a critical juncture," the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics told a meeting in Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral.

"We must guard against any temptation to view doctrine as divisive and hence an impediment to the seemingly more pressing and immediate task of improving the world in which we live."

The pope, who was speaking to about 50 Christian leaders, including those from the Anglican, Uniting, Catholic and Lutheran churches, did not elaborate on what he saw as the critical juncture in the search for greater unity. But his comments came as Anglican bishops from around the world gathered at Canterbury in England this week for a once-a-decade Lambeth Conference amid splits between liberal and conservative elements of the church. Around 650 bishops were to attend the 20-day conference with the issue of the position of gays and women in the church expected to dominate.

About a quarter of the church's bishops-including most from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda-are staying away, a week after the Church of England approved the ordination of women bishops.

"Christians must work together to ensure that the edifice stands strong so that others will be attracted to enter and discover the abundant treasures of grace within," he said on the sidelines of a festival aimed at combating a global move towards secularism.

The pope later met leaders from the Muslim, Jewish and other faiths, telling them religions had a special role in maintaining peace.

"In a world threatened by sinister and indiscriminate forms of violence, the unified voice of religious people urges nations and communities to resolve conflicts through peaceful means and with full regard for human dignity," he said.

The Catholic church sought to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions, he added.

"My dear friends, I have come to Australia as an ambassador of peace. For this reason I feel blessed to meet you who likewise share this yearning and the desire to help the world attain it."

The 81-year-old pontiff received a rapturous welcome from some 200,000 young Catholic pilgrims as he took charge of World Youth Day celebrations Thursday after a spectacular arrival by "boat-a-cade" on Sydney Harbour.

Cambodia, Thai come close to shoot-out

AP, Preah Vihear

A Cambodian general said a border standoff between his soldiers and Thai troops came close to a shoot-out overnight as the confrontation over disputed territory surrounding an ancient temple entered its fourth day Friday.

The dispute is centered around Cambodia's 11th century Hindu temple Preah Vihear and came to a head last week when UNESCO approved Cambodia's application for World Heritage Site status for the site. Thai activists fear the new status will undermine Thailand's claim to nearby land.

Thai soldiers entered the surrounding area on Tuesday, staking out positions at a Buddhist temple compound nearby. However, some resident Cambodian monks remained and Cambodian soldiers have continued to visit them even after the Thais arrived.

A large group of Cambodian troops came to the compound Thursday planning to spend the night, and the two sides raised their rifles at each other when the Thais moved to evict them in an incident lasting about 10 minutes before the Cambodians departed, Cambodian Brig. Gen. Chea Keo said. "We exercised patience to prevent weapons from being fired," he said.

The standoff is the latest in a long-standing conflict over frontier territory that has never been fully demarcated. Both countries have agreed to hold defense minister talks next Monday in Thailand to avoid military action.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen wrote a letter to Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej on Thursday saying that relations have been "worsening" since Thai troops "encroached on our territory" on Tuesday, and asked Samak to pull them back. Both countries have massed troops in the area. "The deteriorating situation is very bad for the relations between our two countries," Hun Sen wrote.

The Thai government sent troops to the area after anti-government demonstrators made an issue of the disputed territory near the temple, decrying the government's endorsement of Cambodia's UNESCO application.

To some extent, the demonstrators appear to be playing to nationalist sentiment to gain support for their larger goal of unseating Samak, whom they accuse of being a proxy for toppled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Pakistan, India hold new round of peace talks

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistan and India opened a new round of senior-level peace talks Friday despite a bomb attack on India's Kabul embassy which New Delhi has blamed on the Pakistani spy service, officials said.

The talks, part of a peace process launched in 2004, would focus on trade and transport links between the Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir, the Pakistani foreign ministry said.

"The working group meeting will discuss measures to facilitate travel and trade across Line of Control," which separates the two zones of the disputed Himalayan territory, it said in a statement.

The Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers, who met in Islamabad in May had agreed to hold a meeting of the working group to discuss and promote confidence-building measures.

The Kashmir dispute has been the trigger for two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947.

New Delhi accuses Islamabad-backed Islamic militants of waging an insurgency in the disputed Himalayan territory Kashmir and of triggering attacks in other parts of the country.

Pakistan strongly denies it arms or trains the militants.

The meeting comes days after New Delhi blamed Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence for the July 7 attack on its embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 40 people. Pakistan rejected the allegations.

While ties have warmed since a peace process started in 2004, after the countries nearly went to a fourth war, there has been little progress in their main dispute over Kashmir, and both suspect each other's involvement in revolts raging in border areas.

The Indian government also faces a confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday and with doubts about its survival, analysts say there will no breakthroughs between the two sides.

Efforts to build trust received a setback last week when India's national security adviser blamed Pakistan's intelligence service for a suicide car-bomb attack in Kabul that killed 41 people, including two Indian diplomats.

Analysts say the attack will reinforce India's fear Pakistan's new civilian government, formed four months ago, had failed to clamp down on state-sponsored violence towards India.

"Tensions on account of terrorism will continue," G. Parthasarathy, India's former High Commissioner to Islamabad, told Reuters.

"It is clear the civilian government has no control over the terrorist activities directed against India."

India accuses Pakistan of backing a 20-year-old separatist revolt in Kashmir, which both sides claim in full but rule in part, and trying to hit Indian interests abroad.

5 troops among 15 killed in Pakistan

AP, Islamabad

Pakistan's army says 10 militants have been killed and five troops wounded during a military operation to expel insurgents from a town in the volatile northwest.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Friday security forces backed by helicopter gunships were continuing "mopping up" operations in the suburbs of Zargari after clearing the town of militants.

He said the casualties were sustained in the last 48 hours.

A week ago militant supporters of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud ambushed a military convoy near Zagari and killed 17 troops.

An offensive was launched late on Wednesday in the Hangu district after militants killed 15 soldiers in an ambush last weekend and threatened to kill some 49 troops and officials being held hostage.

Early Friday morning the army helicopter spotted a vehicle filled with Islamist fighters in an area close to the Orakzai tribal region, previously one of the most peaceful of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal lands.

"The helicopter fired at a vehicle in Zargari area, killing five militants and wounding six," a government official in the region said.

After the attack, militants managed to take away their wounded comrades, while the dead were shifted to Hangu, according to officials.

A military official in the region confirmed the action. He said 13 militants had been killed in the past few days.

On Thursday, troops cleared two militant strongholds in Hangu district.

Fighting in Sri Lanka kills 25

AP, Colombo

A wave of battles along the front lines of the civil war in northern Sri Lanka killed 20 ethnic Tamil rebels and five soldiers, the military said Friday.

Meanwhile, air force jets bombed a rebel storage facility Friday morning and attacked and destroyed three rebel boats, the military said.

The violence came amid a sharp increase in fighting in recent months, with the government vowing to crush the rebels and seize control of their de facto state in the north.

In the worst fighting Thursday, troops attacked rebel bunkers along the front lines in the Vavuniya area, killing 10 Tamil Tiger fighters, said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara. Fighting in the area also killed four soldiers, while a fifth soldier was missing in action, he said.

Fighting in Welioya killed nine rebels and one soldier, while another rebel was killed in Jaffna, he said. Nanayakkara had earlier reported 11 rebels were killed in Welioya, but later said that was an error.

Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan was not immediately available for comment.

It was not possible to independently verify the military reports because journalists are banned from the conflict zone. Both sides often exaggerate the losses inflicted on their enemy and underreport their own.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have faced marginalization by successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.

Iraqis divided by US troop timetable call

Reuters, Baghdad

Iraqis want the U.S. military presence to end. But when that occurs-and whether a timetable should be set for troops to leave-is something ordinary Iraqis, security officials and politicians cannot agree on.

The differing views of two dozen people interviewed across the country reflect the dramatic changes in the past few months in Iraq, where violence is at a four-year low.

Iraqi security forces, with U.S. military backing, have cracked down on Shi'ite and Sunni Arab militants in several large-scale operations across the country.

That has given many Iraqis more faith in their own forces. Others insist the army and police cannot go it alone and that a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops could open the door to the sort of violence that nearly tore Iraq apart not so long ago.

It's a dilemma Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama will confront when he visits Iraq soon.

He has called for the removal of U.S. combat troops within 16 months of taking office.

"Setting a timetable or conducting a quick withdrawal would be like committing suicide. I do not think the Iraqi army and police will be able to keep the peace," said Muneer Abbas, a local politician in the southern oil city of Basra.

Ashraf Fawzi, a secondary student in northern Kirkuk, disagreed: "American forces must leave at once, without any timetable. They brought us sectarianism, which we had never heard of before. The Iraqi security forces can protect us."

Last week, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested setting a timetable for U.S. forces to leave as part of a deal being negotiated with Washington to govern the presence of U.S. troops when a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Turkish troops kill 11 more rebels in clashes

AP, Ankara

Turkey's military says 11 Kurdish rebels have been killed in clashes in the country's southeast.

The toll raises the number of rebels killed in clashes in the past five days to 33.

A statement on the military's Web site Tuesday said the 11 were killed in an ongoing operation in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq.

On Monday, the military had reported 22 rebels killed in separate fighting in Sirnak province.

The rebels have battled more than two decades for autonomy in southeastern Turkey. The group use bases in northern Iraq for cross-border raids.

Palestinians, Israel peace talks in US

AP, Ramallah

Palestinians say peace talks with Israel are set for Washington this month.

Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made, say chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will meet July 30 with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said he did not know about plans for talks. The Palestinians also said their president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet next week. Olmert's office was not available for comment.

Abbas and Olmert pledged last November to aim for a peace agreement by year's end.

6 countries to meet over North Korea nuclear talks

AP, Seoul

Top diplomats from the U.S. and North Korea will meet next week along with their counterparts from regional nuclear talks, a South Korean official said Friday, the highest level of contact between the countries amid recent progress on Pyongyang's disarmament. The talks, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun, will take place on the sidelines of an Asian security meeting in Singapore that all the countries' foreign ministers had already planned to attend, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the organizer of the nuclear talks, China, had not yet made a formal announcement about the meeting.

The talks would be the first time the countries' top diplomats have met since the six-nation arms negotiations began in 2003. Along with the U.S. and North Korea, the arms talks include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

The meeting comes as North Korea has promised to wrap up the disabling of its main nuclear facility by later this year, meaning it would not be able to easily resume making plutonium for bombs.

However, the sides have not yet agreed on details for the more critical next step - dismantling the North's facilities and ridding the country of nuclear bombs and radioactive material to make them.

Tributes pour in as Mandela marks his 90th birthday

AFP, Qunu

Nelson Mandela, the icon of the anti-apartheid movement and South Africa's first black president, was marking his 90th birthday Friday as tributes poured in from around the world.

Mandela, whose stint as head of state between 1994-99 came after three decades behind bars, was to enjoy a private party with his family at his rural homestead in the Eastern Cape before a glittering bash on Saturday.

Friday also marks 10 years since Mandela's wedding to his third wife Graca Machel who has been at the head of a long queue wanting to sing his praises.

"He is simply a wonderful husband t and we enjoy every single day as if it is the last day," Machel, the widow of the former Mozambican president Samora Machel, told CNN television.

"When we married we didn't know we'd be given 10 years together. We have been very lucky."

One of Mandela's grand-daughters, Ndileka Mandela, said the family was planning "a surprise" for him in Qunu.

"We don't want to give too much away as it would be like knowing what's in a present before opening it," she told AFP.

Iran expects progress from nuclear talks

AP, Ankara

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says he expects forthcoming nuclear talks in Geneva that will include the participation of a U.S. diplomat will bring real progress in negotiations.

U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns is expected attend the talks in Geneva on Saturday - the first time the U.S. has had such a presence - and join colleagues from other world powers to meet with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator.

"The new negotiation process, the participation of U.S. diplomat look positive from the outset but we hope that is reflected to the context of talks for progress," Mottaki told a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on Friday.

The meeting in Damascus signaled Syria's willingness to act on a request by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to try to help resolve the crisis by pushing Iran to cooperate with the international community.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, welcomed a Syrian role in trying to ease the tension, Syria's official SANA news agency reported. Speaking at a news conference, he added that Iran has always kept the Syrians informed of developments in the standoff with the United States and its European allies.

83 pc of Pakistanis want Musharraf out, says survey

Reuters, Islamabad

Eighty-three percent of Pakistanis want President Pervez Musharraf to be removed and judges he sacked restored, according to a survey released by the U.S.-based International Republican Institute on Thursday.

Coming three-and-a-half months after a coalition made up of anti-Musharraf parties formed a government, the IRI survey said Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf overthrew in 1999, was now the most popular leader, because of the uncompromising position he has taken over the issues. In contrast, the Pakistan People's Party of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, which heads the ruling coalition, has been hurt by its ambivalence over the reinstatement of judges and how to tackle Musharraf. Yet 52 percent of respondents said they were optimistic that things would get better in Pakistan under the new government. The uncertainty in nuclear-armed Pakistan is worrying Western powers and neighbors in the region, who fear a transition to civilian-led democracy could founder at a time when the threat of Islamist militancy is growing and the economy is floundering.

The country's benchmark stock index has shed 35 percent from a life high in April, depressed by investors' worries about the political situation and its impact on the economy.

The survey from the IRI, a U.S. government-funded organization chaired by U.S. presidential contender John McCain, said Musharraf's job approval ratings had dropped to 11 percent. Only three percent of people surveyed thought he was the best person to handle Pakistan's problems.

Musharraf's power has waned and he became politically isolated after his allies were trounced in a general election in February.

China says heed fears about Bashir genocide charges

Reuters, Beijing

World powers should heed the worries of African and Arab states in responding to genocide charges against Sudan's president, China's envoy on Darfur said, warning that the court steps could imperil peace efforts.

Liu Guijin, Beijing's envoy for the ravaged region of western Sudan, said on Friday the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor's application for the arrest of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir could threaten deployment of peacekeepers and hopes for fresh negotiations in Darfur.

Judicial moves should not upstage the other efforts, he said.

"The United Nations is using these different measures, and it should ensure its own priorities, and the use of one measure should not undermine the other measures," Liu told a small group of reporters. "Don't send wrong or chaotic signals," he added.

The veteran Africa diplomat's comments were China's first lengthy public response to the announcement on Monday by ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo that he wants Bashir tried for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

They were also the clearest signal yet that China might back a U.N. Security Council resolution suspending the ICC case.

The renewed attention on Darfur comes as Beijing readies for the Olympic Games in August, when its arms and oil ties with Sudan will come under a blaze of global attention.

Moreno-Ocampo accused Bashir of a campaign of genocide that killed 35,000 people outright, at least another 100,000 through "slow death" and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes.

Arroyo most unpopular leader since 86, says poll

Reuters, Manila

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is the most unpopular leader in the country since democracy was restored in 1986, the country's leading pollster said on Friday.

The Social Weather Stations (SWS) agency said in a statement that Arroyo registered a net satisfaction rating of minus 38 in a poll in the last week of June.

It said only 22 percent of the 1,200 respondents were satisfied with Arroyo's performance while 60 percent said they were dissatisfied. Serge Remonde, a palace spokesman, said the low rating of the president was expected due to high prices of rice and oil which the people blamed on her and the administration.

"We consider it as a continuing challenge," he said.

BusinessWorld newspaper quoted another palace spokesman, Anthony Golez, as saying: "A lot of people are mistaken in blaming the government for it when it is something no Filipino can stop, not even the president."

Annual inflation in June was at a 14-year high of 11.4 percent, pushed higher by oil and food prices. The Philippines imports most of its fuel needs and is the world's biggest importer of rice this year.

Arroyo is the only president since strongman Ferdinand Marcos was deposed in 1986 whose satisfaction rating has slipped into negative territory, SWS data showed. Her previous worst was a minus 33 rating in May 2005.

Despite a persistently poor showing in opinion polls, Arroyo is not seen in any danger of losing office. She was voted to power in 2004 for a six-year term.

She is supported by the military and her allies dominate the lower House of Representatives.