The New Nation - Internet Edition

Hindu-Muslim tensions worsen in Indian Kashmir

AFP, Srinagar

Indian officials pledged Monday to stop Hindu protesters from imposing an economic blockade on the mainly Muslim Kashmir valley as tensions worsened in the region.

The unrest was triggered after the state government reneged on a plan to transfer land to a Hindu trust, throwing Kashmir-already in the grip of a separatist Islamic insurgency against New Delhi's rule-into new turmoil.

"We have sought the help of the army in securing the national highway to ensure smooth transportation of supplies to and from the valley," Kashmir chief secretary S.S. Kapur said, adding that the situation was "under control."

"We are not going to allow the movement of vehicles to be disrupted," he said in a statement.

The 300-kilometre (180-mile) national highway is the only surface transport link between the Kashmir valley and the rest of India.

The valley was reported to be running short of supplies as a result of the attempts by protesters in the mainly Hindu southern Jammu area to stop transport along the highway.

Fruit-growers in the valley complained their produce bound for markets in New Delhi was rotting as a result of the blockade.

Hindu protesters are angered by the state government's decision to back down on its June promise to provide land to shelter Hindu pilgrims who visit a Kashmir mountain grotto each year.

Muslim separatists said the land transfer was a ploy to settle Hindus in Kashmir. Six people died and hundreds were injured in days of riots.

Last week the Indian army was deployed in Jammu as Hindu protesters went on the rampage, attacking government buildings.

Meanwhile, a one-day strike called by hardline separatists to protest against attacks on Muslims in Jammu left shops, schools and offices shut in Srinagar and other towns in the Kashmir valley, witnesses said. Police and Muslim protesters clashed at several places in summer capital Srinagar, police said, adding about nine people were hurt.

Senior hardline separatist Syed Ali Geelani was placed under house arrest early Monday to prevent him from leading demonstrations, police said.

Indian soldiers were enforcing a strict curfew in Jammu and Kathua districts, police said, adding the restrictions had been extended to other communally-sensitive districts.

Another key separatist, Yasin Malik, said Monday he would go on a hunger strike from Tuesday to protest attacks on Muslims in Jammu.

"It is a fake curfew in Jammu. Fanatics have been given a free hand to target Muslims," he said, as police reported four fresh cases of assault on Muslim drivers along the highway.

Radical Hindu groups have told Muslims living in Jammu to leave the region and the houses of some Muslims have been set ablaze, according to reports.

The state government collapsed last month after its main ally withdrew support over the land issue, and the scenic region has been put under federal rule.

The state is due to go to the polls in September or October.

Iran tests naval weapon with 300 km range

Reuters, Tehran

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Monday they had tested a naval weapon that could destroy any vessel in a range of 300 km (190 miles), Iranian media reported. The comments are likely to stoke tensions over Iran's disputed nuclear program after Tehran failed to meet Saturday's informal deadline to respond to a package of nuclear incentives offered by six world powers to defuse the row.

The West accuses Iran of seeking to build an atomic bomb, a charge Tehran denies. The United States has not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to end the row, prompting Iran to warn it would target U.S. bases if attacked. "The Revolutionary Guards have recently tested a naval weapon with a 300 km range in which no vessel would be safe and would be sent to the depths," Guards Commander-in-Chief Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.

He said it was Iranian built but did not give details.

U.S. forces are stationed in several countries around the Gulf, including Bahrain where the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet is based. Iran says U.S. forces are in range of its weapons and has threatened to impose controls on shipping in the Gulf if pushed.

Around 40 percent of globally traded oil leaves the region through the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point at the southern end of the Gulf, flanked by the coastlines of Iran and Oman.

Western capitals had set an informal deadline of Saturday for Iran to freeze expansion of its nuclear work in return for a halt to measures to impose more U.N. sanctions.

The freeze was aimed at getting preliminary talks going, before formal negotiations on a package of nuclear, trade and other incentives start once Tehran suspends uranium enrichment, a process that can have both civilian and military uses. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, has dismissed the idea of a deadline and refused to suspend enrichment, saying it only wants to master the technology to generate electricity.

Attackers kill 16 police at Chinese border post

AFP, Beijing

Two men rammed a dump truck into a group of jogging policemen and then tossed explosives into their barracks Monday, killing 16 officers in a restive Chinese province bordering Central Asia, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

The attack in Xinjiang province came just four days before the start of the Beijing Olympics - an event that has put security forces nationwide on alert and that at least one militant Muslim group has vowed to disrupt. Xinhua, citing local police, called it a "suspected terrorist attack."

Meanwhile, about 20 people angry about being evicted from their homes in central Beijing demonstrated Monday not far from Tiananmen Square, saying the Olympics should not curb their legal rights.

The attackers in Xinjiang struck at 8 a.m., plowing into the policemen performing their morning exercises outside a hotel next to their paramilitary border patrol post in Kashgar, Xinhua said.

After the truck hit an electrical pole, the pair jumped out, threw homemade explosives at the barracks and "also hacked the policemen with knives," the report said.

Fourteen died on the spot and two others en route to a hospital, while at least 16 others were wounded, Xinhua said.

Police arrested the two attackers, one of whom had a leg injury, the report said.

The attack was one of the deadliest and most brazen in recent years in Xinjiang province, where local Muslims have waged a sporadically violent rebellion against Chinese rule.

Local government officials declined comment Monday. An officer in the district police department said an investigation had been launched.

The exact location of the attack in Kashgar could not immediately be determined. Kashgar, or Kashi in Chinese, is the name of an oasis town that was once a stop on the Silk Road caravan routes and lies about 80 miles from the border with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Chinese security forces have been on edge for months, citing a number of foiled plots by Muslim separatists and a series of bombings around China in the run-up to the Olympics, which open Friday. Last week, a senior military commander said radical Muslims who are fighting for what they call an independent East Turkistan in Xinjiang posed the single greatest threat to the games.

Xinhua said that Xinjiang's police department earlier received intelligence reports about possible terrorist attacks in the week leading up to the Olympics by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. The movement is the name of a group that China and the U.S. say is a terrorist organization, but Chinese authorities often use the label for a broad number of violent separatist groups.

In Xinjiang, a local Turkic Muslim people, the Uighurs, have chafed under Chinese rule, fully imposed after the communists took power nearly 60 years ago. Occasionally violent attacks in the 1990s brought an intense response from Beijing, which has stationed crack paramilitary units in the area and clamped down on unregistered mosques and religious schools that officials said were inciting militant action.

Uighurs have complained that the suppression has aggravated tensions in Xinjiang, making Uighurs feel even more threatened by an influx of Chinese and driving some to flee to Pakistan and other areas where they then have readier access to extremist ideologies.

One militant group, the Turkistan Islamic Party, pledged in a video that surfaced on the Internet last month to "target the most critical points related to the Olympics." The group is believed to be based across the border in Pakistan, with some of its core members having received training from al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban, according to terrorism experts.

Terrorism analysts and Chinese authorities, however, have said that with more than 100,000 soldiers and police guarding Beijing and other Olympic co-host cities, terrorists were more likely to attack less-protected areas.

In Beijing, uniformed police quickly surrounded the residential street where AP Television News video showed the group of protesters shouting about being kicked out of their homes and not getting proper compensation. The protesters had been evicted as early as 2003.

The police officers did not interfere, but women who said they were members of a neighborhood committee pushed and led the protesters away from the area. Neighborhood committees are not officially part of the government but work closely with police and other departments.

China has stationed security agents throughout the city to watch for signs of unrest. Demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square are rare and generally stopped quickly by police.

It was not clear where the protesters were taken, and whether they were detained. A duty officer in the Beijing police news office said he did not know what happened to them.

A large crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the protest in the historic Qianmen district just south of Tiananmen Square, one of Beijing's most famous landmarks where large pro-democracy protests were held in 1989. Authorities cracked down hard on those protesters.

The demonstrators were unhappy about being evicted from their former homes in the area to make way for redevelopment. The area is being rebuilt into a commercial strip with businesses such as Nike, Starbucks and Rolex, and it is scheduled to open on Thursday.

Beijing carried out a $40 billion makeover in preparation for the Olympics, and many older homes were razed as part of the modernization campaign.

New UN rights envoy starts mission in Myanmar

Reuters, Yangon

The U.N.'s new human rights envoy to Myanmar started his first mission to the military-ruled Southeast Asian nation on Monday, four days before the 20th anniversary of brutally crushed democracy protests.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, whose own parents were political prisoners under a military regime in Argentina, arrived in the former Burma late on Sunday and is due to stay until Thursday, eve of the "8-8-88" uprising anniversary.

He is expected to meet a number of government officials as well as opposition politicians and leaders of some of Myanmar's many ethnic minority groups.

It is not clear whether he see detained opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in prison or under house arrest continuously for the past five years, and on-and-off for nearly 13 of the past 19 years.

"The Special Rapporteur wishes to engage in a constructive dialogue with the authorities with a view to improving the human rights situation of people of Myanmar," the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council said in a statement.

It remains to be seen whether he will make any headway in a country that has been ruled by a succession of uncompromising military dictators for the past 46 years.

Last week, the junta charged popular comedian and leading dissident Zarganar with public order offences that could see him jailed for up to two years, a lawyer said.

Shortly after his appointment, Ojea Quintana described the arrest of Zarganar for helping coordinate relief supplies to victims of Cyclone Nargis as part of continuing, serious human rights violations.

The junta is keeping a particularly tight grip on public life at the moment as the 20th anniversary of the nationwide democracy protests approaches-also the start of the Olympic Games in China, Myanmar's main commercial and diplomatic backer.

The uprising was crushed by the army with the loss of an estimated 3,000 lives. Dissidents who fled the crackdown are hoping the milestone will trigger another uprising, although analysts and diplomats say that is very unlikely.

According to the United Nations, more than 1,100 people are behind bars in Myanmar because of their political or religious beliefs.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by David Fogarty)

Israel to transfer Fatah fugitives to West Bank

AFP, Jerusalem

Israel said on Monday it will transfer to the West Bank Fatah members who had fled the Gaza Strip amid concern that those who had already returned to the Hamas-ruled territory were in mortal danger.

The announcement reversed a previous decision that more than 200 members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's party who had fled Gaza into Israel on Saturday should be returned there and not transferred to the West Bank.

The secular Fatah members had fled Gaza following a day of deadly clashes with their bitter Islamist Hamas rivals.

Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, routing forces loyal to Abbas whose authority is today limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad agreed that the fugitives would be transferred to the West Bank town of Jericho, a senior Israeli security official told AFP.

More than 20 fugitives including Ahmed Helis, the head of a powerful pro-Fatah clan, who were hospitalised for wounds inflicted in the fighting, will remain in Israel until they recover, a defence ministry statement said.

Others were being held and questioned by the Israeli army, a spokesman said.

Around 35 Fatah members were sent back to Gaza on Sunday, and several were immediately detained for questioning by Hamas-run security forces.

"Israeli authorities halted the process, however, as they received information that they were being arrested by Hamas and that their lives were in immediate danger," the Israeli statement said.

Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan said that of the 35, 10 were arrested and the others fled.

Israel's about-turn also followed an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which said the Fatah members would be at mortal risk if returned to Gaza.

In its reply, the state said that Monday's decision applied to all of the fugitives expect for several Palestinians who have been detained by Israel's internal security services and those who wish to return to Gaza.

According to a senior official in Ramallah, Israeli authorities have already given the green light for some 30 fugitives to cross to the West Bank.

2 US soldiers killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad

AFP, Baghdad

The U.S. military said two American soldiers were killed and one was wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Monday, while Iraqi officials reported that at least nine Iraqis died in a separate series of bombings.

The deadliest attack was a roadside bombing against an Iraqi police patrol vehicle in Mahaweel, about 35 miles south of Baghdad that killed four policemen and three civilian bystanders, according to Iraqi police. The U.S. military said it could not immediately confirm that attack.

The roadside bomb that killed the two American soldiers occurred shortly before 10 a.m. in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. It did not provide more details.

Iraqi police officials said the attack occurred on Palestine Street, a major thoroughfare in eastern Baghdad. Two Iraqis - a soldier and a civilian - also were killed, and seven others were wounded, according to the Iraqi officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

The attacks came a day after a truck bomb explosion that killed 12 people and wounded 23 in Azamiyah, a former Sunni insurgent stronghold in northern Baghdad that has seen a sharp drop in violence after tribal leaders joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bird flu toll hits 112 in Indonesia

AFP, Jakarta

The death toll from bird flu in Indonesia has risen to 112 after a 19-year-old man died from the virus last week, a health ministry official said on Monday.

Contagious Diseases section chief section I Nyoman Kandun confirmed that the man had died in hospital in the Jakarta satellite city of Tangerang.

He said 112 people had died in Indonesia, the country worst-hit by the virus, out of 137 positive cases. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari earlier this year closed a 24-hour information centre on bird flu outbreaks and stopped providing regular updates of the death toll, saying it was unnecessary.

44 killed in Sri Lanka rebel violence

AFP, Colombo

Heavy fighting across Sri Lanka's north left at least 35 Tamil Tiger rebels dead, the defence ministry said Monday.

Nine government soldiers also died on Sunday, including three in an accidental hand grenade explosion in Jaffna, the statement said. There was no comment from the Tamil Tigers.

The latest fighting raises the number of rebels who have died in combat since January to 5,531, while 505 soldiers have been killed in the same period, according to a tally of defence ministry claims. Independent verification of government figures is not possible as Colombo bars reporters from travelling to the combat zones.

Bush heads to Asia for diplomacy and sports

AP, Washington

President Bush's agenda in Asia this week is front-loaded with trouble on the continent: nuclear worries, political repression, recovery from natural disaster. Then comes plenty of sports. Bush embarks Monday on his last venture as president to the Far East, a trip built around the Olympic Games in Beijing. The president will stop en route at an Alaskan Air Force base to speak to military personnel and get his plane refueled, then fly through the night to South Korea. With less than six months left in office, Bush is out to show that the United States is engaged in Asia's affairs, and that the economic and security dividends pay off back home. His enthusiastic plans to attend the Olympics are meant to pay respect to the Chinese people in their moment of glory. Yet as hard as Bush tries to define the games only in the context of sports, there is no escaping the politics of a world event held in a police state. China, trying to ensure the event is clean of controversy, has only intensified its repression of political dissent, religious expression and press coverage. Bush says he can and will candidly raise concerns about China's human rights record to President Hu Jintao. Given the long travel and time differences, Bush begins his agenda in earnest on Wednesday in Seoul, South Korea. The country is a key partner in the six-country coalition striving to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons. Progress has been stop and start as the world watches to see whether North Korea will come to terms on allowing its nuclear dismantling to be verified.

Obama, McCain vow to step up fight against HIV/AIDS

AFP, Washington

White House hopefuls Barack Obama, pictured in June 2008, and John McCain Sunday vowed to step up the fight against HIV and AIDS in America, after government figures showed the epidemic was growing faster than previously thought. White House hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain Sunday vowed to step up the fight against HIV and AIDS in America, after government figures showed the epidemic was growing faster than previously thought. Democrat Obama said he would develop a national strategy to cut down on new infections, expand testing and education, and eliminate the stigma associated with the disease, while his Republican rival McCain vowed to lower drug costs and target testing and prevention in communities most affected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Saturday that about 56,300 people were infected with the virus that causes AIDS in 2006, 40 percent more than the previous estimate of 40,000 new infections annually. "These new figures should bring new focus to our efforts to address AIDS and HIV here at home," Obama said in a statement, advocating "expanding access to testing and comprehensive education programs." "Combating HIV/AIDS also demands closing the gaps in opportunity that exist in our society so that we can strengthen our public health. We must also overcome the stigma that surrounds HIV/AIDS-a stigma that is too often tied to homophobia," he said.

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"We need to encourage folks to get tested and accelerate HIV/AIDS research toward an effective cure because we have a moral obligation to join together to meet this challenge, and to do so with the urgency this epidemic demands."

India announces $450m aid to Afghan

Reuters, New Delhi

India announced fresh aid of $450 million to Afghanistan for development projects on Monday and both countries vowed to fight terrorism, weeks after a deadly attack at the Indian embassy in Kabul. Afghanistan, India and the United States have accused Pakistan's spy agency of being involved in the July bombing that killed at least 58 people, including two Indian diplomats. "It was an attack on the friendship of India and Afghanistan," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said shortly after meeting Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is on a two-day visit to India. "We have agreed that we will not allow terrorism to stand in our way, we will fight it unitedly and with full determination," Singh said. India said after the Kabul attack that the peace process with Pakistan was "under stress" because its traditional foe was "inciting terror" inside India and trying to hit its interests abroad. Analysts say that Pakistan is worried about India's rising influence in Afghanistan, the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars of Indian development aid in recent years. "We will allocate an additional amount of $450 million over the $750 million announced so far to effectively meet the requirement of our ongoing and forthcoming projects," Singh added. New Delhi was a key backer of Afghan forces led by the Northern Alliance which, along with the U.S. military, overthrew the Taliban, previously aided by Pakistan. India is now involved in training Afghanistan's police and diplomats, building roads and hospitals, and supporting trade and services as Afghanistan tries to rebuild its war-ravaged economy, despite continuing Taliban attacks.

The Afghan intelligence agency accuses Pakistani agents of training militants to attack Indian road projects in Afghanistan. A number of Indian road workers have been killed in Afghanistan.

On Monday, both countries agreed to strengthen trade ties and fight against the Taliban's influence, officials said.

Supreme Court halts Manila's deal with Muslims

Reuters, Manila

The Philippines' Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on Monday halting a territorial deal between the government and Muslim separatists in the latest setback for peace in the nation's volatile south. The agreement between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's largest Muslim rebel group, was set to be signed in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday after more than 10 years of stop-start talks. "There will be no signing tomorrow. I got a call from the (Supreme) court," Jesus Dureza, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's spokesman, told Reuters. The deal was meant to widen an existing autonomous region for Muslims in the south of the largely Catholic country and give them wide political and economic powers, including control over mineral wealth in an area rich in nickel, gold, gas and oil. "I don't know what will happen next," Mohaqher Iqbal, the MILF's chief peace negotiator, told Reuters. Catholic politicians in the south had asked the Supreme Court to halt the signing ceremony arguing that they had not been consulted on the deal, which they fear will carve up the southern island of Mindanao into Muslim enclaves.

"Do not build a Berlin Wall among the people in Mindanao," Celso Lobregat, mayor of the mainly Catholic city of Zamboanga, had earlier told a crowd of around 10,000 people.

The Supreme Court has asked both sides to present their cases on August 15.

The agreement was meant to formally re-open peace talks to end nearly 40 years of conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people, displaced 2 million, and stunted growth in the region.

Analysts, however, are skeptical about whether the territorial deal will ever leave the drawing board, given its implementation is dependent on a comprehensive peace deal.

Both the MILF and Manila have committed to agree a final deal by November 2009 but deadlines have consistently been missed in over a decade of talks, punctuated by violent conflict.

Thousands of Catholics had demonstrated in two southern Philippines cities on Monday against the agreement.