The New Nation - Internet Edition

India, Pakistan leaders to meet as peace process hits bad times

AFP, Colombo

The leaders of South Asian rivals India and Pakistan are to meet in Sri Lanka this week for their highest-level talks in 15 months and to see if they can hold together their embattled peace process.

Relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, who have fought three wars since partition in 1947, hit another low point this month after India said "elements" in Pakistan were behind the recent bombing of its Kabul embassy. There has also been an increase in incidents along the Line of Control dividing the Himalayan region of Kashmir, with the Indian army accusing Pakistani soldiers of crossing the border on Monday and killing an Indian soldier.

Amid the growing tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is expected to meet his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of a South Asia regional meeting in Sri Lanka this week.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also be meeting his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani at the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SSARC) summit which begins on Saturday. "The meeting (between Singh and Gilani) is being scheduled," a Sri Lankan official involved with the arrangements told AFP.

The talks also follow a series of bomb attacks in India's southern IT hub of Bangalore and the western Ahmedabad city over the weekend. New Delhi blames Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, of masterminding the July 7 attack on its embassy in Kabul that killed at least 41 people.

It has yet to point a finger over the weekend serial bombings, claimed by a little-known Islamist group calling itself the "Indian Mujahedeen". But the complaint of a Kashmir incursion by Pakistani troops on Monday is the first to be made by India since 1999, when the South Asian rivals fought a mini-war in the Kargil peaks along the Line of Control.

Pakistan in turn blames India for fueling sectarian violence on its soil, and alleges India's external intelligence agency tried to assassinate its ambassador to Sri Lanka in a roadside bomb attack in Colombo in August 2006.

"I think the effort of both sides will be to see that even if there is no breakthrough, there is no break-off," said analyst C. Uday Bhaskar, former head of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses think-tank in New Delhi.

Retired Indian diplomat Kanwal Sibal also said that "both countries will aim to keep the dialogue process alive."

"The level of trust that had been slowly built up over the past four years has been affected," Sibal said. "This in turn will affect the content of the dialogue process."

Last week Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said the peace process, launched in 2004, was "under stress," but said talks should continue.

Two years ago, New Delhi stalled the dialogue process in the aftermath of a series of bomb blasts on commuter trains in India's commercial capital Mumbai in which 186 people were killed-an attack also blamed in Islamabad.

It was resumed only after Premier Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf agreed to constitute an anti-terror panel to share intelligence on such attacks.

Indian security analyst Bharat Karnad, with the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, said that the future of the India-Pakistan peace talks depended on the "political will" of the two governments.

"I think the two governments will be under pressure to ensure the talks do not break down as the common people on both sides will not accept the floundering of relations after the recent rapprochement," he said.

Israeli PM to resign, Mideast peace in doubt

AP, Jerusalem

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to resign amid corruption allegations and his own plummeting popularity has intensified doubts about Israel's prospects for reaching peace deals with the Palestinians and Syria.

Olmert said Wednesday he would not run in his party's primary election Sept. 17 and would step down afterward to allow his successor to form a government.

But because of Israel's political system, he could serve until well into 2009. Possibly hinting at his expectation of being in power for some time, he pledged to work for peace "as long as I am in my position," and said talks with Palestinians and Syria are "closer than ever" to achieving understandings.

But the internal turmoil could make it difficult for Olmert to close deals with either of them, agreements that long have eluded Israeli leaders.

Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher said Olmert's resignation would at least slow the process.

"The Arabs are asking themselves how useful an agreement with Olmert would be, because he is a self-proclaimed lame duck and he will have a hard time to get his deals approved," Alpher said.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said Olmert's decision would not change much.

"It's true that Olmert was enthusiastic about the peace process, and he spoke about this process with great attention, but this process has not achieved any progress or breakthrough," Malki said. He said the Palestinians would deal with any Israeli government.

Olmert spoke as his delegation to indirect talks with Syria returned from a fourth round in Turkey. The two sides set another round for August.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said President Bush called Olmert to pledge his continued cooperation.

Political analysts had been predicting Olmert's resignation for weeks as details of the latest allegations against him dominated the news.

The most damaging inquiry focuses on American Jewish businessman Morris Talansky, 76, who testified he gave Olmert envelopes stuffed with tens of thousands of dollars before he became prime minister, in part to finance Olmert's lifestyle of expensive hotels and fat cigars.

Olmert has never been formally charged with a crime.

12 civilians killed in northwest Pakistan clashes

AFP, Peshawar

At least 12 civilians, including seven members of the same family, were killed Thursday in fresh clashes between troops and Taliban militants in northwestern Pakistan, officials said.

Helicopter gunships pounded militant positions in the Swat Valley in a second day of fighting, which has brought a two-month-old peace deal in the former tourist region to the brink of collapse.

The civilians died when shells hit houses, gardens and even a golf course a day after five soldiers and 25 extremists were killed in a gunbattle sparked by a militant attack on a checkpost.

Residents said shells hit a house early Thursday in the Deolai area of Swat, killing five children and their parents.

"There had been heavy shelling overnight and when we woke up in the morning we saw Fasihul Ehsan's house destroyed, and when rubble was removed all the seven people in the house were dead," relative Jehanzeb Khan told AFP.

"We are now preparing for the burial, but facing hardships due to the curfew," Khan said. Another two men died when shells hit their houses in Deolai, while a young boy and a man working in a garden were killed in nearby Matta district, police and intelligence officials said.

A man was also killed in the crossfire between militants and security forces at a golf course in the town of Kabal, they said, adding that a total of 25 people were also wounded in the fighting.

Officials did not say if they were caused by shells fired by security forces or militants.

Separately Taliban militants set fire to two girls' schools overnight, they said.

Authorities said a curfew enforced in the area as a result of the fighting was relaxed for two hours in the morning to allow people to buy food.

Local army spokesman Major Mohammad Farooq told AFP that police had detained some suspects overnight, but had no details.

The Taliban movement warned that it would launch suicide attacks across the country if the military failed to halt the operation against followers of pro-Taliban Muslim cleric Maulana Fazlullah.

Mountainous Swat was a thriving tourist resort known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan" until last year, when Fazlullah launched a violent campaign to enforce harsh Islamic Sharia law in the region.

Under the May peace deal, the government agreed to gradually pull out troops and introduce an Islamic justice system. In exchange, the rebels said they would halt attacks and surrender arms.

US troops killed three Iraqi civilians

AFP, Samarra

US soldiers killed three unarmed Iraqi civilians, including a woman, near the central city of Samarra, the American military said Wednesday.

The incident which is under official investigation occurred early Wednesday as US troops carried out what the military described as operations targeting Al-Qaeda in the central zone of the war-ravaged country.

It said that US soldiers moving towards a building had observed four "suspicious" individuals and had perceived "hostile" intent after being fired upon.

"The force engaged them, killing two men and a woman, and wounding another woman. A third man who was detained on site admitted to working with explosives," the US statement said. But Nusayf Jassim, a resident on Samarra, 125 kilometres (80 miles) north of Baghdad, told AFP that US soldiers had raided his home in search of insurgents and in the ensuing gunfire his mother and two brothers were killed.

"The US forces burst into our home at 2.00 am and opened fire in all directions, Jassim told AFP at his home on the edge of the city.

"They killed my 50-year-old-mother and two of my brothers, aged 21 and 26," he said. US troops also wounded two of Jassim's sisters prior to detaining his 23-year-old brother, he said.

Jassim added that the raiding US soldiers had told him that "terrorists" were living at his home.

The US military said no weapons were found..

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle against the wall of a police station south of Mosul on Thursday, killing three policemen and wounding four others, authorities said. It was the fifth suicide attack in Iraq this week and showed that insurgents can still carry out assaults despite security gains in urban areas of the country.

Four suicide bombers killed 57 people in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday.

The Thursday attack occurred on a police station in the Qayara area about 30 miles south of Mosul, according to a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

A statement posted Wednesday on a Web site in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, warned of a campaign of attacks in the Mosul area in retaliation for the killing of one of its "hero brothers."

Bomb wounds 3 at Pakistan consulate in Afghanistan

Reuters, Herat

A bicycle bomb outside the Pakistani consulate in the western Afghan city of Herat wounded a police guard and two civilians on Thursday, a Reuters witness said.

Afghanistan has suffered scores of Taliban suicide and roadside bombs that have killed more than 200 civilians already this year, but Herat is relatively peaceful and most violence there analysts say is related to armed gangs and criminals.

The explosives were attached to a bicycle near a police kiosk outside the consulate, wounding a police guard and a woman and a child.

There was no damage to the consulate.

A suicide bomb killed 58 people outside the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital on July 7, an attack Afghan officials blamed on Pakistani agents.

Pakistan is unsettled by the growing influence of its rival India in Afghanistan, analysts say, but Islamabad has denied any interference in its western neighbor and says it only wants a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.

Pakistan had requested greater security at its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan, an embassy official in Kabul said.

Herat is one of the most peaceful and prosperous cities in Afghanistan with a new road to the nearby Iranian border boosting trade. An Iranian-funded railway to the border is also under construction.

Nonaligned countries back Iran’s nuclear programme

AP, Tehran

More than 100 nonaligned nations backed Iran's right to peaceful uses of nuclear power on Wednesday, an endorsement sought by Tehran in its standoff with the U.N. Security Council over its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.

The decision came as supreme Iranian leader Ayatolla Ali Khamenei pledged to continue the country's nuclear program. Senior Iranian officials depicted the support from a high-level conference of the Nonaligned Movement as deflating claims by the U.S. and its allies that most of the international community wanted Iran to stop enrichment.

The conference's backing, which echoes the group's previous declarations, acts to "remove this notion that the international community opposes the nuclear activities of Iran," said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's top representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the endorsement from the 115 countries present at the Tehran conference sends a "strong positive signal that the only way is negotiation and dialogue" over the nuclear standoff.

"Get the message," he said, in blunt comments indirectly aimed at the U.S. and its Western allies, the nations at the forefront of accusations that Tehran wants to build nuclear arms. "Come to the negotiating table."

Support was expressed in a three-page declaration in Farsi, translated by The Associated Press. It said the conference "reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of all states, to develop research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes."

The West is seeking an agreement for Iran to curb uranium enrichment, a process that can be use to generate nuclear power or build a weapon.

The U.S. and its allies say Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran maintains its program is aimed at harnessing nuclear energy. The Security Council has slapped three sets of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. And a fourth set looms.

Only days remain until a deadline expires for Tehran to show it will stop expanding its enrichment program, at least temporarily, or face the threat of new U.N. sanctions.

The offer is meant to create space for the start of in-depth negotiations that the West hopes will end in Iran agreeing to permanently mothball its enrichment program in exchange for a package of economic and political concessions.

Japan closes India visa office, warns over bombings

Reuters, New Delhi

The Japanese government closed the consular section of its embassy in India and warned its citizens to avoid crowded places such as markets and train stations after receiving an e-mail warning of a possible attack.

Japan's embassy in New Delhi said in a statement in Japanese on its website that it had received an e-mail warning of an attack on New Delhi's popular market district of Sarojini Nagar, where at least 66 people were killed in a 2005 bomb attack.

The consular section of the embassy would be closed from July 30 "for a while," according to a spokesman.

Indian authorities have been on a high alert since at least 45 people were killed when a series of 16 bombs ripped through Ahmedabad, the main city of Gujarat state, on Saturday.

The attack came a day after bombs killed one woman in Bangalore, India's outsourcing and software capital.

A group called the "Indian Mujahideen" said it carried out the Ahmedabad attack, writing in an e-mail sent five minutes before the first blast that it was in revenge for a 2002 massacre in Gujarat of around 2,500 people, mainly Muslims, by Hindu mobs.

Police have also defused at least 13 unexploded bombs in the western Indian city of Surat, one of the world's biggest diamond-polishing centres, in the last few days

Sri Lanka says military win may not wipe out rebels

Reuters, Colombo

Sri Lanka may be close to a military victory over Tamil Tiger separatists, but the rebels could still wage a protracted low-intensity insurgency with hidden resources, a senior foreign ministry official said.

"Defeating the LTTE might not be the end of the story because an organisation like this might still have some resources hidden away," Sri Lanka's Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona told Reuters in an interview.

"This might continue to be a problem for us."

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which the United States classifies as a terrorist group, is fighting to create an independent state for ethnic minority Tamils in north and east Sri Lanka. One of the deadliest contemporary civil wars, it has killed more than 70,000 people in a quarter of a century of fighting.

Often credited with perfecting the modern suicide bomb attack, the LTTE has conventional military capability as well, including a rag-tag air force and a navy with considerable firepower.

Kohona's comments came amid increasing signs the military was gaining an upper hand with near-daily land, sea and air attacks, as part of a strategy to gradually retake the Tigers' northern stronghold.

Analysts say the military had an advantage in the latest phase of the war given its superior air power, strength of numbers and swathes of terrain captured in the island's east. But they still see no clear winner on the horizon.

Sri Lanka's army commander, Sanath Fonseka, said last month the LTTE would lose all its territory in less than a year.

But Kohona warned it could still carry on a protracted hit-and-run insurgency with military hardware such as explosives-strapped speedboats and small arms saved from its present armed campaign.

"So the way we are trying to resolve this problem is t by a combination of military and political means," he said, hoping the Tigers would follow the example of a break-away rebel group that fought elections held after two decades in the east. "Hopefully it also sends a message to the (rebel-held) north that simply because you spent the better part of your life as a ruthless killer doesn't mean you have to do so for the rest of your life."

Britain tightens visa rules for foreign students

PTI, London

Britain on Wednesday unveiled stricter visa rules under which students from India and other non-European countries will require to provide their fingerprints and prove that they have money to support themselves.

Official sources said the new system, known as Tier 4, will be more transparent and easily understood and will simplify the existing immigration rules.

They said as per the new rules the students will have to be sponsored by education institutions that have been licensed by the UK Borders Agency.

Home Office Minister Liam Byrne said, "Foreign students wanting to take advantage of our world-class universities and colleges must meet stringent criteria". "All those who come to Britain must play by the rules," he said. "By locking people to one identity with ID cards, alongside a tough new sponsorship system, we will know exactly who is coming here to study and crack down on bogus colleges," he said.

As per new rules, the students will need to be sponsored by a licensed education institution and obtain an identity card in advance, have a good academic track record and demonstrate they can financially support themselves and any dependants.

The rules are intended to prevent people abusing the system by entering the country as students and then disappearing, the sources said.

The new student visa system under the Points Based System will require colleges and universities to report about the international students who fail to attend courses after gaining student visas, they said.

Syria, Israel to hold more indirect talks

AP, Ankara

Syrian and Israeli officials, ending a fourth round of indirect talks Wednesday, agreed to press ahead with negotiations aiming to forge peace between the two enemies, a Turkish official said.

The official said the Israeli and Syrian negotiating teams would hold fresh rounds of indirect talks in the coming months through Turkish mediators. The official said the latest round was "constructive and positive" but there was no agreement yet on direct negotiations. "We are not yet there," he said. The official, who is in contact with Turkish mediators, spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.

Turkish officials - including an aide to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - shuttle between the sides who stay in separate hotels in Istanbul. The indirect Israeli-Syrian talks in Turkey began in May.

Previous negotiations between the two countries broke down in 2000.

Israel captured the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, and Syria demands the return of the territory as a condition for peace.

The fact that Syria has agreed to the indirect talks is seen as a signal that Damascus is more open to peace with Israel lately. However, Israeli skeptics contend that Syria is interested more in the appearance of peace talks to break its isolation than in actually making peace.

Defiant China hits out at US, stands firm on Internet

AFP, Beijing

A defiant China stood firm on controversies swirling around the Olympics on Thursday, hitting back at the United States over human rights criticism and insisting Internet censorship would remain.

China's communist rulers responded sternly to critics following a storm of bad publicity this week surrounding their decision to renege on a pledge of allowing unfettered Internet access to foreign reporters covering the Games.

The decision highlighted long-standing concerns over the Chinese government's attitude towards human rights, and led the White House to intervene by saying China had "nothing to fear" from the Internet.

The Chinese foreign ministry reacted by criticising a meeting US President George W. Bush had with leading Chinese dissidents and describing some US lawmakers who spoke out on China's human rights record as "odious". "We express strong discontent and firm opposition to this," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said about Bush's meeting on Tuesday with the dissidents.

Karadzic faces UN judge to hear genocide charges

Reuters, The Hague

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic faces a U.N. war crimes judge for the first time on Thursday to answer genocide charges after his dramatic arrest that ended 11 years on the run.

The man who led a breakaway Serb Republic during the Bosnian War faces two charges of genocide over the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.

He is due in court at 10 a.m. EDT after spending his first night in a cell at the U.N. war crimes tribunal detention centre in the Hague.

Since his arrest in Belgrade he has shorn the flowing beard and long hair that helped disguise him as an alternative healer in the years following the war. He was flown to the Netherlands on Wednesday morning.

The behavior of Karadzic-a flamboyant figure when Bosnian Serb leader-will offer an indication as to how he will conduct himself during his eventual trial, and whether judges can expect a repeat of the forceful display by former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in the same courtroom.

Just like Milosevic, who died in custody in 2006 months before a verdict was due in his four-year trial, Karadzic has suggested he wishes to defend himself, a move which could protract the proceedings.

Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said he would conduct the trial efficiently, learning from the Milosevic case.

"Of course it will take some months before the prosecution and defense will be ready to start. It will be a complex trial but we are fully aware of the importance of being efficient," he told reporters.

No 'shortcuts' in Mideast peace deal: Palestinian negotiator

AFP, Washington

The United States, Israel and the Palestinians agreed in talks Wednesday to strive for a Middle East peace deal without any "shortcuts," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

The parties also regarded Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's announced resignation Wednesday as an internal matter that would not dampen negotiations for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, officials said.

"We will not opt for an option of partial agreements, shortcuts or anything short of a full agreement on all issues," Erekat told reporters after he and chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qorei held talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

There have been reports that Rice, who is to travel to the Middle East next month, is reportedly anxious to get the two sides to agree on a document of understanding on some key issues, such as borders for a Palestinian state and the right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Such a document was in the cards ahead of the UN General Assembly session in September, some reports suggested, amid growing pessimism about a peace breakthrough before President George W. Bush leaves the White House in January 2009. Without citing these reports, Erekat said, "Let everybody understand that we are negotiating the issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees, security, prisoners and water and we want to achieve an agreement on all issues or no agreement."

Japanese PM to reshuffle cabinet today

AFP, Tokyo

Japan's embattled Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda plans to reshuffle his cabinet on Friday in a bid to revive sagging approval ratings, television reports said Thursday.

The private Asahi and NTV networks, quoting unidentified sources, said that Fukuda would announce the reshuffle on Friday. Public broadcaster NHK said that the move would come "within the week."

Officials declined comment but said that Fukuda would meet early Friday with the leader of New Komeito, the junior partner in the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition.

Japanese media polls show Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's public support has been hurt by a series of scandals about missing pension records, arrests of defense officials and alleged bribery. His overall approval rating has fallen to about 20 percent in recent months, several polls found.

Fukuda has failed to achieve the popularity of the flamboyant former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Fukuda will meet Thursday with ministers to discuss the matter and would soon announce a decision, said Nobutaka Machimura, the chief government spokesman.

The opposition, which controls the parliamentary upper house, has been challenging the ruling party about the scandals and pressing for a snap-election. Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party controls the more powerful lower house in a coalition.

McCain likens Obama to Britney in assault on star power

AFP, Washington

White House contender John McCain invoked gossip-page perennials Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to portray Democrat Barack Obama as a vapid celebrity who was unfit to lead.

The McCain campaign and Republican Party rolled out a concerted offensive to allege that Obama, fresh from an overseas tour, was keener to soak in the adulation of adoring crowds than to offer real solutions for US voters. The Illinois senator hit back to accuse a rattled McCain of promoting no positive ideas about how he might address challenging issues such as the faltering US economy and the Iraq war. "It's beyond dispute that he's become the biggest celebrity in the world," Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to McCain, told reporters as the campaign unveiled a national television ad called "Celeb." "The question we are posing to the American people is this, is he ready to lead yet? The answer that we will offer to the American people is, no he is not," he said.

The ad features images of the pop diva Spears and the socialite Hilton, both known as much for their off-field antics as for their professional activities, and a sea of 200,000 people listening to Obama speak in Berlin last week.

It juxtaposes those images with claims that the Democrat's policies would raise taxes and increase imports of foreign oil.