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US warship docks Georgian port as Russia faces new pressure to leave

Reuters, Batumi

A US navy warship arrived in a Georgia's main Black Sea port of Batumi on Sunday with humanitarian aid as Russia ignored Western demands to remove its remaining troops from Georgia's heartland.

Russia says the residual troops are peacekeepers needed to avert further bloodshed and to protect the people of Georgia's separatist, pro-Moscow provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia two days after Moscow said it had wrapped up its withdrawal.

In Batumi, 80 kilometers (55 miles) south of another port of Poti, where Russian troops are still present, the USS McFaul arrived with aid for the tens of thousands displaced by the conflict that erupted on August 7-8.

Two other U.S. ships are due to follow the guided missile destroyer to the port. The U.S. has already delivered some aid by military cargo plane but is now shipping in beds and food for the displaced.

Russia's Black Sea fleet flagship vessel, the Moskva, is no longer in the same area, after it returned to its base in Ukraine on Saturday, a Russian navy spokesman told Russian news agencies on Saturday.

The United States and Europe fear the Russian presence in Georgia will cement the country's ethnic partition, undermine the pro-Western government of President Mikheil Saakashvili and threaten vital energy pipelines criss-crossing the country.

A loud explosion, heard by a Reuters correspondent west of the town of Gori at the doorsteps of South Ossetia, highlighted persisting tensions.

A Georgian Interior ministry spokesman suggested a train carrying fuel exploded after running on a mine. But there was no independent confirmation to his account.

Particularly worrisome for Tbilisi and the West is a checkpoint set up at the port of Poti, which lies outside the security zone Russia says is covered by its peacekeeping mandate and is hundreds of kilometers from South Ossetia.

"Putting up permanent facilities and checkpoints are inconsistent with the (ceasefire) agreement," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

EU president France, which helped broker the ceasefire, on Saturday urged Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev to order Russian forces out of Poti.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy "insisted it was important that Russian troops present at the Poti/Senaki area should withdraw as soon as possible," a French statement said.

The Kremlin said Sarkozy had given a "positive assessment" of the Russian pullout.

Though not Georgia's busiest port for oil, Poti can load up to 100,000 barrels per day of oil products, which arrive by rail from Azerbaijan. Poti is also the gateway for merchandise moving to Georgia, other Caucasus republics and Central Asia.

"Why do they want to take control of Poti? t Maybe they want to grab Poti from us. While we are still alive we will not allow them to stay here," said Roland Silagava, 60, at a Georgian protest rally at the Poti checkpoint on Saturday.

The 20 or so Russian soldiers, sporting peacekeeper badges, just smiled and said they did not expect to stay there long.

The conflict broke out when Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia. A Russian counter-offensive pushed into Georgia proper, crossing its East-West highway and nearing a Western-backed oil pipeline.

They also moved into Western Georgia from Abkhazia, another breakaway region on the Black Sea. Hundreds of people were killed, tens of thousands displaced and housing and infrastructure wrecked in the conflict.

Sarkozy's office said he and Medvedev on Saturday had agreed on the urgency of creating an international mechanism under the auspices of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to replace Russian patrols in the buffer zone south of South Ossetia.

In a conflicting account, the Kremlin said replacing Russian peacekeepers was not discussed. Russia has earlier said South Ossetians and Abkhazians would only accept Russian peacekeepers.

Despite repeated demands for a complete Russian pullback to positions prior to the conflict the West lacks leverage over a resurgent Russia whose oil and gas it sorely needs.

A U.S. trade official said Russia's actions could affect its membership of the Group of Eight industrialized nations and its bid to join the World Trade Organization.

"That is all at risk now," U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez was quoted as saying by Germany's Der Spiegel weekly.

The U.S. envoy to the Caucasus said Russia had inadvertently helped Georgia's bid for NATO membership with its actions. Moscow sees Georgia and other ex-Soviet republics as part of its legitimate sphere of influence and opposes them joining NATO.

Pak ruling coalition on verge of collapse

AP, Islamabad

Pakistan's ruling coalition teetered on the brink of collapse as the two main partners squabbled over a successor to ousted President Pervez Musharraf.

Former Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif, who heads the junior partner in the coalition, demanded the dominant Pakistan People's Party slash the president's powers before he would support its candidate.

Asif Ali Zardari, head of the PPP and widower of the party's assassinated leader Benazir Bhutto, agreed Saturday to run for the presidency.

Sharif also pushed forward the deadline for restoration of dozens of judges sacked by Musharraf - another key issue dividing the two main parties since they forced the president from power less than a week ago.

Still pressure was building for the two sides to end differences that appeared increasingly irreconcilable.

A Sharif aide, Pervez Rasheed, told The Associated Press on Sunday that "general opinion" in his party favored an exit from the coalition and that party leaders would meet on Monday to decide.

One of those leaders, Javed Hashmi, said Sunday that he was willing to run in the Sept. 6 election to succeed Musharraf if his party asks him to.

Presidential elections by parliament were set for Sept. 6 and the political infighting is a distraction from militant violence flaring in the volatile northwest, where 37 insurgents were killed Saturday in retaliation for a string of deadly suicide bombings.

Though Zardari is a longtime Musharraf critic, he would likely continue the former general's support for the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

But Zardari's climb to power would dismay many in this nation of 160 million who view him as a symbol of corruption that tainted its last experiment with civilian rule in the 1990s.

He won the nickname "Mr. 10 Percent" for alleged graft during his wife's turns as prime minister.

Despite the backing of the PPP, his election is far from certain.

Sharif, who heads the second-largest party in parliament, was one of Bhutto's bitter rivals and has been threatening to bolt in a struggle over power.

He demanded after meeting with Zardiri's lieutenants Saturday that the PPP agree to sharply reduce the powers of the new president before he'd support their candidate.

Sharif wants the head of state to be deprived of the constitutional right to dissolve parliament or to appoint chiefs of the armed forces - but Zardari's name was thrown into the race without any such guarantee.

Sharif, ousted by Musharraf during his 1999 coup, also pushed up a middle-of-the week deadline for the restoration of judges fired by Musharraf late last year to avoid challenges to the former strongman's rule.

He wants an agreement by Monday that all - including former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry - will be back on the bench, saying a surprise Sept. 6 presidential election date forced him to push up his deadline.

Pro-independence strike cripples life in Kashmir

AFP, Srinagar

A massive pro-independence strike brought Indian Kashmir to a halt Saturday, a day after a huge separatist rally in the revolt-hit region where 15 people were killed in a border gunbattle.

The strike was the latest in a string of shutdowns and demonstrations called by separatists in the scenic Muslim-majority Himalayan region.

"The strike is part of continuing protests against India's rule in Kashmir," said leading separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is chief priest at the region's main mosque.

"It is also to demand our right to self-determination through a referendum," he said in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir where a revolt has raged against New Delhi's rule since 1989. In Srinagar, shops, schools, banks and businesses remained closed for a second day running. There were similar shutdowns in other towns in the Kashmir valley.

The strike is set to continue until Monday, when separatists plan to hold a protest sit-in at Lal Chowk, the heart of Srinagar.

Meanwhile, the death toll from an overnight gunbattle with militants near the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan rose to 15, the army said.

"The fighting that is still raging has so far left 12 militants and three soldiers dead, including a colonel," army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anil Kumar Mathur told AFP.

He said three soldiers were critically wounded during the gunbattle, the fiercest this year in Kashmir.

There has been a surge in skirmishes along the border in the past few months and New Delhi accuses Pakistan of arming, training and pushing militants into Kashmir to fight India's rule in the region-a charge Islamabad denies.

India says decades-old UN resolutions calling for a referendum on Kashmir's future are "obsolete."

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of people massed in Srinagar to demand "azadi" or freedom and to protest against New Delhi's rule in the second major demonstration this week.

Scattered demonstrations continued on Saturday across the city, with scores of protesters riding motorbikes and carrying green Islamic flags parading the eerily empty streets.

The trouble was triggered by a state government plan announced in June to donate land to a Hindu shrine trust in the Kashmir valley. The decision was later reversed, angering Hindus.

Since June, at least 31 Muslims and three Hindus have died in police firing on protesters and other violence in the Kashmir valley and mainly Hindu Jammu area.

Pakistan forces target militant positions, kill 50

Reuters, Mingora

Pakistani troops and helicopter gunships targeted Islamist militant hideouts in the Swat Valley on Sunday, the military said, after fierce fighting killed 50 militants and 10 soldiers in the past 24 hours.

Countering growing violence is a test for a fractious coalition government engaged in infighting after staunch U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf quit as president last week. Security concerns, uncertainty over the government's future and worry about the economy have undermined investor confidence and sent the country's financial markets on a downward spiral. The clashes in mountainous Swat in Pakistan's northwest erupted after militants attacked a security patrol and a suicide car bomber killed eight policemen elsewhere in the valley.

"Fighting is still going on. We hit and destroyed over 40 militants' bunkers and a training camp," said Major Nasir Ali, military spokesman in the region.

"We have confirmed reports that 50 militants were killed while 10 of our soldiers were martyred." Ali said the number of militants' deaths could be higher as many bodies had been taken away. Residents in Kabal, about 20 km (13 miles) west of Mingora, the region's main town, said.

intermittent mortar bombing by security forces has continued since Saturday while Cobra helicopter gunships carried out strikes early Sunday morning on militants' positions in the mountains.

Seven villagers were killed and three wounded in mortar bombing, residents said.

"We can't even flee. There's curfew on the one hand and on the other hand, militants use us as human shield when they are attacked. What we can do?" villager Khaisat Bacha told Reuters.

The valley had been one of the country's main tourist destinations until last year when Pakistani Taliban fighters infiltrated from enclaves on the Afghan border to support a radical cleric bent on imposing hardline Islamist rule.

Separately, suspected militants killed and dumped bodies of four men on the roadside in a village, police said, adding the hands and legs of them were tied with rope.

Pro-Taliban militants carry out such killings of those suspected of being U.S. or government spies.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is on the front line of the U.S.-led war against terrorism and al Qaeda-linked militants have unleashed a wave of violence across the country over the past year against the security forces.

Two Russian officers killed in Chechnya attack

Reuters, Moscow

Two senior Russian officers were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by explosives in Russia's restive Chechnya on Sunday, Interfax news agency reported, two days after a gun attack in a nearby province.

Russian security officials have said they expect a rise in rebel attacks after Russia launched a military incursion into Georgia, an ex-Soviet republic neighboring Chechnya, to crush its attempt to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

In the latest incident, a major and a lieutenant-colonel died of their wounds and two other officers were injured after a bomb and gun attack on their three-vehicle convoy near the village of Agishty.

Gunman also fired on the house of a member of Russia's upper parliamentary chamber in southern Ingushetia province, but no one was injured, Interfax reported on Sunday.

The violence came a day before Russian lawmakers were due to meet in Moscow to consider supporting the independence claims of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

On Friday, Gunmen killed one soldier and wounded three in an attack on a Russian army convoy in Ingushetia Russian news agencies reported.

Attacks on police, officials and troops are not unusual in Russia's Northern Caucasus, poor regions adjoining the Georgian border.

Officials blame the attacks on criminal elements and Muslim rebels, while their critics say poverty, corruption and widespread abuse of power keep social tensions high.

India won't accept conditions on US nuclear deal

Reuters, New Delhi

India will not agree to any conditions to get approval from an atomic trade cartel necessary for a civilian nuclear deal with the United States, a report quoted India's foreign minister as saying on Saturday.

A 45-nation meeting on whether to lift a ban on nuclear trade with India ended inconclusively on Friday after many raised conditions, leaving the future of the controversial bilateral nuclear deal unclear.

The countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) will meet again on Sept. 4-5 when the United States is expected to rework the draft taking account of their concerns and re-submit it, according to diplomats who attended Friday's meeting.

"We have to see what kind of amendments come," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Press Trust of India news agency. The nuclear cartel must agree to allow nuclear fuel and technology exports to India for its civilian atomic energy programme to help seal the 2005 U.S.-Indian trade accord.

Diplomats said conditions tabled at the NSG included intrusive U.N. inspections of Indian civilian nuclear sites; cancellation of any waiver if India tests bombs again; and periodic reviews of Indian compliance with the exemption.

New Delhi, sensitive to domestic leftist charges that closer ties with the United States will undo its strategic autonomy, has insisted on a "clean and unconditional" waiver from the NSG.

That demand has disturbed pro-disarmament nations and campaigners since India is outside the global Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and developed nuclear bombs in the 1970s with Western technology imported ostensibly for peaceful ends.

Time is running out on the bilateral deal which still has to reach U.S. Congress latest by early September for ratification, before the house breaks for the November American elections.

Israel dragging world in turmoil: Ahmadinejad

AFP, Tehran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed his verbal attacks on arch-foe Israel on Saturday, accusing it of dragging the world into turmoil and predicting its demise.

"About 2,000 organised Zionists and 7,000 to 8,000 agents of Zionism have dragged the world into turmoil," Ahmadinejad told a rally in the central Iranian city of Arak carried live on state television.

He said that if the West does not restrain Zionism, "the powerful hand of the nations will clean these sources of corruption from the face of the earth," without specifying which nations.

Iran does not recognise the Jewish state and Ahmadinejad has drawn international condemnation by repeatedly saying since his election in 2005 that Israel is doomed to disappear.

Last month Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie triggered controversy and calls for his resignation when he said Iranians are "friends with Israelis."

Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, accuses Iran of seeking atomic weapons and wants tougher sanctions against the Islamic republic to make it halt its controversial nuclear programme.

Iran insists that its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful and aimed at meeting the country's growing energy needs.

Taiwan President renews truce with China

AFP, Taipei

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou on Sunday renewed pledges to promote peace with China on the 50th anniversary of a battle between the rivals. "We cannot change the history of the '823 bombardment' but we can create a peaceful future so the sacrifices of the soldiers and civilians are worthwhile," Ma said while visiting the former battle ground of Kinmen. Kinmen, a Taiwan-controlled fortified island group just kilometres (miles) off China's southeastern Xiamen port, is a constant reminder of lingering hostility between the two sides, which split in 1949 after a civil war.The Chinese People's Liberation Army of Mao Zedong fired more than 470,000 shells on the tiny Kinmen and several other islets in a 44-day artillery bombardment beginning on August 23, 1958.

A total of 618 servicemen and civilians were killed and 2,610 wounded in the so-called "823 bombardment."

"There is no winner in a war which only causes regrets and we cannot let people in both sides of the Strait have the same regrets t both sides paid terrible prices to learn the lesson," Ma said.

He urged Taipei and Bejing to expand their exchanges and cooperation in all areas to resolve the hostility and pave the way for an eventual peace accord.

"The cross-strait rapprochement (since the Kuomintang took office) has laid a foundation for peace and the two sides will further their cooperation on this basis."

Ma of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang was elected in March on a platform to boost economy and improve ties with China.

There have been rapid changes since he took office in May, as the two sides resumed dialogues and launched regular direct flights for the first time in nearly six decades last month.

His government has also allowed more Chinese tourists to visit the island and relaxed controls on China-bound investments, issues which had been shunned by the former government of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.