The New Nation - Internet Edition

Russia seizes South Ossetia as wider conflict feared

AFP, Tbilisi

Russian troops backed by tanks and fighter jets seized control of South Ossetia on Sunday as fears grew of a wider conflict with Georgia over the separatist region.

Georgia said it had withdrawn most of its troops from South Ossetia in the face of a build-up in Russian firepower and that it had lost control of the near-destroyed regional capital, Tskhinvali.

International condemnation grew as Georgia claimed that Russian jets had bombed near the capital Tbilisi for the first time, targeting a military airfield.

As diplomatic efforts intensified to bring an end to the crisis, officials in Tbilisi said Moscow had begun bombing Georgian territory in and around another restive province, Abkhazia.

Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili told journalists that Georgia's western city of Zugdidi was being bombed and that Russian battleships had been moved to the nearby Black Sea.

"Zugdidi is now being bombed," Yakobashvili said at a press briefing.

There was no confirmation from Moscow about action near Abkhazia. Russian officials said they were in control of Tskhinvali but added that Georgia still had about 7,400 servicemen, 100 tanks and artillery pieces in the area.

AFP reporters witnessed Russian attack helicopters hovering over the area near Tskhinvali and a stream of people were fleeing the devastation carrying their belongings.

"We're being driven away. The place was in flames and we couldn't stay," Pavlik, an elderly man travelling by foot, told AFP as he fled from the conflict zone.

Russia puts the death toll from hostilities that broke out last week at 2,000 while Georgia estimates range from 92 to 150.

Russia backs the separatist government in South Ossetia and sent in tanks and troops on Friday in response to pro-Western Georgia's military offensive to take back the province which broke away in the early 1990s after a separatist war.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who is due in Tbilisi later Sunday to begin mediation, warned in an interview of a Balkan-like spiral of violence in the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

"We are facing an escalation of violence" that is "unacceptable at the doors of Europe," Kouchner told Le Parisien newspaper as he prepared to leave for the region to mediate with Moscow and Tbilisi.

"This reminds me all too much of other recent conflicts that have torn our continent apart, particularly in the Balkans," he said.

Georgia said it had withdrawn most of its troops from South Ossetia and claimed Moscow had brought in 10,000 extra troops as well as building up a force of armoured vehicles on the Russian side of the border with Georgia.

"We have left practically all of South Ossetia as an expression of goodwill and our willingness to stop military confrontation," Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia told AFP.

"We have asked United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to mediate with the Russians, to transmit them our message," said Lomaia.

The White House responded using strong diplomatic language, warning Russia that its "disproportionate and dangerous escalation" of the conflict could significantly harm relations between Washington and Moscow. The United States said Sunday that Russia's reaction to any Georgian withdrawal from South Ossetia would be a key test of the country's true intentions in the region.

President George W. Bush on Saturday had led a chorus of international calls to end the hostilities which observers fear might spread to other parts of the volatile Caucasus region.

The movement of Russia's naval fleet from their base in Ukraine to positions near Georgia also threatened to destabilise the region.

Ukraine's foreign ministry threatened to prevent the warships from returning to their base in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.

A Russian press report claimed the battleships were preparing to implement a sea blockade on Georgia, but this was denied in Moscow.

South Ossetian authorities said in a statement that overnight shelling had killed 20 and wounded 150 people in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, which Russian forces now control.

On Saturday, Russian aircraft had staged raids on the Georgian port of Poti and the city of Gori, where inhabitants said scores of people were killed.

Georgia's army of less than 25,000 men is confronting a Russian force which can count on more than one million troops and has dominance of both skies and sea.

On the diplomatic front, a meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday failed to agree on a call for an immediate ceasefire.

European Union foreign ministers will hold a crisis meeting to discuss the bloc's response to conflict in the Caucasus on Wednesday in Brussels, an EU source said told AFP.

At the request of Poland, the EU presidency said it may subsequently convene an emergency European Council summit gathering heads of government and state.

South Ossetia broke from Georgia in the early 1990s. It has a population of 70,000, many of whom have been granted Russia passports.

100 militants, nine soldiers killed in Pakistan clashes

AFP, Khar

More than 100 militants and nine Pakistani soldiers have died in four days of fierce fighting in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, the military said Sunday.

Fighting was mostly concentrated in Loisam area of Bajaur district, known for Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts, the paramilitary Frontier Corps said.

"During the last four days more than 100 militants have been killed and nine security personnel have also died," its media centre said in a statement.

"The troops casualties may rise as some of their soldiers were missing," a military official told AFP in Islamabad.

Security forces backed by gunship helicopters pounded suspected militant hideouts in the area and heavy exchange of fire continued overnight, he added.

The clashes between rebels and security forces began in Bajaur on Wednesday when hundreds of militants attacked a security checkpost, which paramilitary troops had recently reoccupied after several months.

Loisam lies on the strategically important road leading towards the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

Pakistan is under mounting international pressure to crack down on militants in the northwest and the tribal zone amid a surge in cross-border rebel attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.

40 Indian villagers feared drowned in flood waters

AP, Hyderabad

Forty villagers riding on a truck were swept away by a flooded river and feared dead Sunday in southern India, where monsoon rains have claimed at least 59 lives in the past three days, officials said.

The truck was washed away while it was crossing a flooded bridge in Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh state, police official Mahesh Chadra Laddha said. The road was under nearly six feet of water, he said.

Rescuers have recovered three bodies and were searching for others, Laddha said. Seven people managed to swam to safety, he said.

The area is about 215 miles east of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, he said.

Survivor Lakshmi Narayana, 45, said the truck driver lost control of the vehicle as he tried to drive across the flooded bridge. The villagers boarded the truck after bus services were suspended in the region because of the floods, he said.

Parts of Hyderabad and two other districts of Andhra Pradesh state were inundated when 4.7 inches of rain fell in less than five hours on Friday, said Navin Mittal, a government official. He said it was the heaviest downpour there in eight years.

House collapses have killed 14 people in Hyderabad and 13 in the Krishna district since Friday, state Revenue Minister Dharmana Prasad Rao said Sunday. Another 32 deaths have been reported in neighboring districts lashed by rains overnight, he said.

The state government has opened 85 relief camps for thousands who have been forced to leave their homes, said the state's top elected official, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.

Monsoon season, which lasts from June to September, brings rains vital for India's farmers but also massive destruction. Floods, mudslides, house collapses and lightning strikes have killed at least 225 people across the country so far this year.

Iraq, US 'on the brink' of security deal

AFP, Baghdad

Iraq's foreign minister says negotiators are "on the brink" of reaching a long-term security pact with the United States that will decide the fate of American troops in Iraq.

Hoshyar Zebari says the Iraqis are insisting on the inclusion of a "clear timeline" for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. But he has refused to give any dates. Zebari told journalists on Sunday that the main sticking points have been over the authorization of military operations and sovereignty issues. But he's optimistic that both sides "are compromising on all these issues." U.S. acceptance - even tentatively - of a specific timeline would represent a dramatic reversal of American policy in place since the war began in March 2003.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BAGHDAD (AP) - A series of bombs struck Iraqi security forces and commuters in the Baghdad area on Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding 25 others, police said.

The deadliest blast occurred about 8:15 a.m. in a crowded area where people wait for buses in the mainly Shiite southeastern district of Kamaliya in Baghdad, police officials said.

Four people were killed, including a woman and her brother, and 11 others wounded in that attack, according to the officials. A car bomb later exploded as an Iraqi army patrol passed by in Baghdad's central Khillani square, killing a soldier and a civilian and wounding nine other people, a police officer said.

The targeted patrol was guarding a van carrying money to the nearby state-run Industrial Bank when the blast occurred, the officer said.

Another Iraqi army patrol was hit by a car bomb in Salman Pak, about 15 miles south of the capital, killing one soldier and wounding five others, police said.

Two other Iraqi soldiers and three civilians were wounded by a roadside bomb that exploded near a telephone exchange elsewhere in eastern Baghdad, police said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Baghdad and surrounding areas have seen a sharp decline in violence over the past year, but sporadic attacks continue to kill and injure Iraqi civilians.

Northeast of the capital, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car near the Kurdish security department in downtown Khanaqin, which is in Diyala province and close to the Iranian border.

Provincial council chief Ibrahim Majilan and police officials said at least 22 people were wounded in the blast.

In a move to bolster public confidence in recent security gains, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other senior Iraqi politicians held an inauguration ceremony for a new parliament building located outside the U.S.-protected Green Zone.

The 275-member legislative body, which has recessed until Sept. 9, has met in a heavily guarded convention center inside the sprawling maze of concrete barriers and checkpoints in central Baghdad.

Officials said the next session will be held in the renovated Saddam Hussein-era parliamentary building, which also has been heavily barricaded by concrete walls and sits a few hundred yards from the Green Zone.

"Iraqis are combating terrorism with one hand and building a democratic state with the other, and this is not an easy job," al-Maliki said during an address broadcast live on Iraqi state TV.

He also appealed for more foreign assistance in rebuilding efforts.

"We have carried messages to all the countries we visited that Iraq is in need of reconstruction in all fields, including railways, oil, electricity, bridges and housing," he said.

South African president meets with Zimbabwe rivals

AFP, Harare

South African President Thabo Mbeki was meeting with Zimbabwe's president, following an earlier meeting with the main Zimbabwean opposition leader.

Sunday's meetings are part of Mbeki's efforts to end a deadly political standoff in Zimbabwe by bringing President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai together in a coalition government. Zimbawbe held disputed elections in June.

The Sunday Mail, a government mouthpiece, reports a power-sharing deal is imminent. But opposition officials refused to confirm the story.

Reporters saw Mbeki and Tsvangirai head into private talks first at a hotel in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. That meeting lasted about an hour and a half. Then Mbeki and Mugabe went into talks.

137 dead, missing after storms hit northern Vietnam

AFP, Hanoi

At least 137 people were dead or missing in mountainous northern Vietnam on Sunday after heavy rains brought by tropical storm Kammuri triggered widespread flash floods and landslides.

Thousands of troops, police and emergency services rushed to flooded towns in the poor and heavily deforested region to deliver drinking water, food and medicines to people stranded on the roofs of their houses.

By early Sunday, two days after the rains first hit the area, 92 people were confirmed dead and 45 listed as missing, according to reports compiled by AFP from central and provincial emergency relief agencies.

About 300 homes were destroyed and 3,500 damaged by the floods, which had wiped out about 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of crops, authorities said.

"We have mobilised all forces, including the military and police, to overcome the effects of the floods," Bui Quang Vinh, Communist Party chief of the worst-hit Lao Cai province, told state broadcaster VTV by telephone.

"We are trying to get to the flood victims, bury the dead and provide medical treatment to the injured," he said, adding that the family of each person killed would receive three million dong (175 dollars).

At least 36 people were killed and 38 remained missing in Lao Cai, but officials said the toll could rise since some areas remained isolated due to blocked roads.

"Many portions of road have been destroyed," said Vinh. "Telecommunications cables have been cut. In some areas it takes half a day to walk from the local commune headquarters to the places were victims are stranded."

At least 33 people were killed and five were missing in Yen Bai province, five were dead in Phu Tho, and one was dead in Bac Kan.

"We are trying our best to help people," said a disaster relief official in Yen Bai province. "I think the number of dead may increase because there are so many people missing, feared dead."

Eight people were killed in coastal Quang Ninh, including a five-year-old boy who died in his family home and eight construction workers buried in their roadside tent by a landslide, officials said.

In far-northern Ha Giang province, nine people were killed, including an eight-year-old boy, and two were missing.

Disaster relief official Hoang Manh Hung said an avalanche of mud and rubble had severed road links to at least one Ha Giang district, while the downpour had eased Sunday but was continuing.

A train engine was also overturned by floods on the railway line between the capital Hanoi and Lao Cai near the Chinese border-injuring no one-while a nearby highway was cut by landslides in several places.