The New Nation - Internet Edition

Storm swamps Jamaica, leaves 59 dead in Haiti

AP, Kingston

The spinning core of Gustav bore down on southern Jamaica on Thursday after leaving 67 people dead in Hispaniola. Texas and Louisiana put their national guards on standby, and New Orleans said a mandatory evacuation might be necessary.At least 59 people died in Haiti from floods, mudslides and falling trees, including 25 around the city of Jacmel, where Gustav first struck land Tuesday. Eight more people were buried when a cliff gave way in the Dominican Republic. Marcelina Feliz died clutching her 11-month-old baby, and five more children were smothered in the wreckage beside her.

On Thursday night, the tropical storm was moving along the southern Jamaican coast. The center was about 35 miles (55 kms) west-southwest of Kingston, the low-lying capital. Forecasters said it could strengthen into a hurricane before slamming into Grand Cayman on Friday night. There were no immediate reports of casualties in Jamaica, but many people lost power and the streets of Kingston were deserted as heavy winds and rain lashed the capital. Even as tourists searched for flights off the islands, officials urged calm. Theresa Foster, one of the owners of the Grand Caymanian Resort, said Gustav didn't look as threatening as Hurricane Ivan, which destroyed 70 percent of Grand Cayman's buildings four years ago.

"Whatever was going to blow away has already blown away," she said.

Forecasters said parts of Jamaica could get 25 inches (63 centimeters) of rain, which could trigger landslides and cause serious crop damage.

By early Thursday evening, dozens of roofs were ripped from houses, trees were toppled and many roads were left impassable by floodwaters and debris.

Jamaica evacuated low-lying areas including Portmore, a crowded and flood-prone area outside Kingston. Kingston's main airport was closed and buses stopped running even as people streamed into supermarkets for emergency supplies. Oil prices spiked above $120 a barrel before settling below $116 in a session made volatile by fears that the storm could affect production in the Gulf area, home to 4,000 oil rigs and half of America's refining capacity. Hundreds of offshore workers pulled out, and analysts said the storm could send U.S. gas prices back over $4 a gallon.

"Prices are going to go up pretty soon. You're going to see increases by 5, 10, 15 cents a gallon," said Tom Kloza, publisher of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, New Jersey. "If we have a Katrina-type event, you're talking about gas prices going up another 30 percent."

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna formed in the Atlantic, but it was too early to predict whether it could threaten the U.S. east coast. Forecasters cautioned that Gustav's path remained equally uncertain.

"It is simply impossible to determine exactly where and when Gustav will make final landfall," said Richard Knabb of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "The chances of hurricane-force winds within the next five days are essentially the same at each individual location from the Florida Panhandle coast westward through the entire coastline of Louisiana."

But with Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary falling on Friday, Louisiana wasn't taking any chances. Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency to lay the groundwork for federal assistance. Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration, and together they put 8,000 National Guard troops on standby.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he would order a mandatory evacuation of the city if forecasters predict a Category-3 strike - or possibly even a Category-2 - within 72 hours. Both Jindal and Nagin were meeting with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"I'm panicking," said Evelyn Fuselier of Chalmette, whose home was submerged in 14 feet (4 meters) of Katrina's floodwaters. "I keep thinking, 'Did the Corps fix the levees? Is my house going to flood again?' t 'Am I going to have to go through all this again?'"

Haitian officials said a 7-year-old girl was among the 59 dead, most of whom were killed in the mountainous center of the country's southern peninsula.

"Some of them were killed when trees fell on their houses," said Jean-Michel Sabbat, a senior civil protection official. "Some of them, flood water swept them away."

Thousands seek refuge from religious attacks in India

Reuters, Bhubaneswar

Thousands of people, most of them Christians, have sought shelter in makeshift government shelters in eastern India, driven from their homes by religious violence which has killed at least 11 people this week.

An official said on Friday the religious clashes showed signs of abating after a week of violence in the state of Orissa where Hindu mobs burnt more than a dozen churches and attacked Christians following the killing of a Hindu leader.

"Hindu and Christian peace committees have been meeting and the leaders have appealed for calm," Krishan Kumar, the chief administrator of the worst-affected Kandhamal district, told Reuters, adding that a curfew imposed to halt the attacks would be lifted for a few hours.

At least 6,000 people were taking shelter in the government camps and about 5,000 are hiding in forests around the district of Khandhamal, which has a history of communal and religious clashes, for fear of mob violence.

The numbers at the government camps are expected to swell to 10,000 later on Friday, Kumar said.

Most of India's billion-plus citizens are Hindu and about 2.5 percent are Christians but in the Kandhamal area, more than 20 percent of the 650,000 people are mainly tribal inhabitants who converted to Christianity.

Religious violence has troubled the tribal regions of Orissa for years, with Hindus and Christians fighting over conversions.

While Hindu groups accuse Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to change their faith, the Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape a complex Hindu caste system.

The recent violence has drawn international condemnation.

Pope Benedict has condemned the violence against Christians in Orissa but also deplored the killing of the Hindu leader.

On Thursday, Italy's foreign ministry said it would summon India's ambassador to demand "incisive action" to prevent further attacks against Christians.

Kumar said on Friday that bodies of two Christians believed to have been killed earlier this week were found on Friday.

Indian villagers desperate as floods spread

Reuters, Atraghat

Villagers were eating uncooked rice and flour mixed with polluted water in an eastern Indian state, officials said on Friday, as hunger and diseases accompanied the worst-ever floods in 50 years.

The Kosi river burst a dam in neighboring Nepal earlier this month and surged into Bihar state, swamping village after village as authorities failed to evacuate millions on time.

At least 10 more people drowned overnight, raising the toll to 65, as the rising river waters smashed embankments and flooded vast areas in the eastern state, officials said.

More than two million people in distant villages in Bihar have been displaced and around a quarter of a million houses have been destroyed. Many have no means to cook food. Thousands of people, with all their belongings on their heads, walked away from their flooded homes through narrow and submerged roads. Many children rode on their cows and buffaloes.

"We've lost our homes, we've lost our clothes, we've lost everything t," said Bijender, a villager walking along a road with his child.

"We are taking our children and leaving and we don't even know where we are going."

Water levels continued to rise amid heavy rains. The water could stay for around three months, increasing the risk of water-borne diseases.

Some experts blame the floods on heavier monsoon rains caused by global warming, while others say authorities have failed to take preventive measures and improve infrastructure.

"My hungry children are crying and we are eating raw rice without boiling it," said Amit Kumar from Supaul district, the worst-hit by floods this year.

Some are eating corn flour mixed with water to survive.

"I know how villagers are somehow managing to keep themselves alive by eating whatever food is available to them," Nitish Mishra, the state disaster management minister, told Reuters.

"It is not easy to distribute food to over two million displaced villagers, I know their condition."

Officials said bad weather and strong currents were preventing them from providing aid to remote areas.

Television pictures showed a woman crying and waving at her husband, who could not find a place in a boat that was evacuating villagers.

Another woman was seen hugging her child as dozens in waist-deep water pleaded with the boatman to rescue them.

100 Taliban killed in Afghan unrest

AFP, Kabul

Afghan and international troops have killed more than 100 Taliban militants in several clashes in the troubled southern province of Helmand over the past three days, the US-led coalition said Thursday.

Helmand is a stronghold of the extremist Taliban movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001 and is waging an insurgency to take back power. "Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces killed over 100 insurgents during combat operations in Helmand province August 25-28," the coalition said in a statement. "Numerous engagements" were sparked when troops were attacked several times by insurgents armed with guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, it said.

"The patrols returned fire and called in close-air support against the insurgents," it added. It was not possible to independently verify the figures, announced two days after a United Nations team said it had found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians, 60 of them children, were killed in US-led air strikes last week.

The US-led coalition had said only that 30 Taliban died in the strikes, but acknowledged on Tuesday that five civilians-two women and three children-were killed along with 25 Taliban.

Southern Afghanistan has seen some of the worst of the insurgency, with several areas said to be in Taliban control including in Helmand province which has recently seen weeks of clashes with officials regularly saying high numbers of fighters have been killed.

The coalition's use of air power has come in for renewed criticism after the UN and Afghan investigations said the 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed in strikes in the western province of Herat a week ago.

The coalition announced earlier Thursday that one of its soldiers was killed while on patrol in southern Afghanistan.

It gave no details about what had happened, or the nationality of the soldier, saying only the incident was "under investigation". It was unclear if the soldier died in the Helmand clashes.

2 killed, 31 wounded in Pakistan suicide blast

AFP, Peshawar

A suicide bomber targeting government troops blew up his explosives-laden car in northwestern Pakistan early Friday, killing two people and wounding more than 30, officials said.

The attacker struck at a checkpost near a road tunnel in the lawless town of Darra Adam Khel in North West Frontier Province.

"It was a suicide attack, the bomber rammed his vehicle into a security camp outside the tunnel," highway official Shakil Ahmed told AFP by telephone.

Local police officer Fazal Ayaz said two civilians were killed and 31 others including 29 soldiers from the paramilitary Frontier Corps wounded.

Hospital officials said five of the soldiers were in serious condition.

The attack came after troops arrested four militants including a Taliban commander in a raid in the nearby garrison town of Kohat on Thursday, residents said.

Darra Adam Khel is known for its weapons bazaar and illegal arms factories.

Pakistan used artillery and helicopter gunships to dislodge militants who seized control of the tunnel, situated between Peshawar and Kohat, in January this year.

Security officials say Darra Adam Khel has recently become a stronghold of the banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is said to have links to Al-Qaeda.

Pakistan troops are engaged in an operation against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the tribal Bajaur region on the border with Afghanistan amid a surge in militant violence.

Boats with Palestinians defy Israeli Gaza blockade

AP, Gaza City

Two boatloads of international activists who defied Israel's blockade of Gaza set sail for Cyprus on Thursday, carrying seven Gaza Palestinians who had been confined to the territory.

Israel's navy made no effort to stop the vessels, flying Palestinian flags, as they ferried the Gaza's and dozens of "Free Gaza" demonstrators away from the territory's Mediterranean coastline.

The two small boats sailed into Gaza last Saturday to protest Israel's yearlong blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamic militant group Hamas overran the territory.

Since that fighting, Israel has allowed only minimal humanitarian supplies to enter, causing severe shortages and hardships.

Also, few Gazans are permitted to leave due to Israeli and Egyptian travel restrictions.

Israel's decision to allow the boats to reach Gaza and then to sail unhindered back to Cyprus was an attempt to deny the protesters a propaganda victory, said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

"If they are just carrying a few Palestinians, that is not a problem," he said, while adding that the Israeli navy had the right to stop the boats for inspection. As the boats prepared to enter international waters, there were no reports of Israeli naval activity.

Palmor indicated that Israel would have taken action if the protesters had tried to smuggle out wanted activists or dangerous materials.

The Palestinians on board included a father and his 16-year-old son, who hopes to be fitted with an artificial leg. Protest organizers said the youth lost his leg in an Israeli tank shelling incident.

The other Palestinian passengers were a mother and her four children who have residency permits in Cyprus, organizers said.

Dalai Lama is 'stable’, no cause for concern

AFP, Mumbai

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is in a stable condition and there is no cause for concern over his health, the private Indian hospital to which he was admitted said Friday.

The 73-year-old spiritual leader was taken to hospital in India's financial hub on Thursday after suffering from exhaustion and complaining of "abdominal discomfort," according to his spokesman.

The hospital said he was undergoing tests. "He is stable, there is no cause for concern," Lilavati hospital spokesman Mohan Rajan told AFP. "The tests are in progress."

"His holiness is suffering some abdominal discomfort," the Dalai Lama's spokesman Tenzin Takla added. "He is not in the intensive care unit. He is in a reserved room." According to a statement from his office in in Dharamshala, the northern India base of the Tibetan exiles' movement, "all that he needs is a good rest."

The statement also said there was "absolutely no cause for concern."

In recent weeks the Dalai Lama has been pursuing a gruelling travel itinerary as he campaigned for improved human rights in Tibet while China readied to host the Olympic Games in Beijing that ended on August 24.

His office said that his medical condition had forced him to cancel all appointments for three weeks, including planned visits to Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

The monk will also not be taking part in a worldwide 12-hour fast on August 30 aimed at ensuring attention to the campaign for improved human rights in Tibet did not drop off in the wake of the Olympics, organisers said.

The health scare has prompted special Buddhist prayer meetings in Dharamshala.

Iran says 4,000 atomic centrifuges working

Reuters, Tehran

Iran has 4,000 working nuclear centrifuges, an official said in remarks published on Friday, in line with a number verified by the U.N. atomic watchdog but lower than a figure cited by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran says it is installing centrifuges to enrich uranium so it can make fuel for nuclear power plants. But the West accuses Tehran of seeking to master technology so it can enrich uranium to much higher levels for use in nuclear warheads.

Ahmadinejad said last month Iran had more than 5,000 centrifuges running but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which routinely checks Iranian nuclear sites, later said he appeared to have overstated the number by at least 1,000.

"There are currently close to 4,000 centrifuges active at Natanz enrichment facility. t Another 3,000 centrifuges are being installed," Deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Sheikh Attar told state television, the official IRNA news agency reported.

World powers have offered Iran a package of trade, nuclear and other incentives to halt its sensitive nuclear work, but Tehran has repeatedly said it will not do so.

The United States and its Western allies are pushing for more U.N. sanctions, after three sets were imposed since 2006.

Analysts say Washington may find it more difficult to get U.N. Security Council backing for another resolution because of the Georgian crisis with Russia, which has council veto rights.

Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, has brushed off sanctions, saying it has a cash cushion to cope. But analysts say sanctions, though limited, are deterring particularly Western investors and raising Iran's trade costs.

"If the Westerners could make sure that the resolutions would bring us down, they would certainly have intensified those t They also know that extra-resolution measures would cost them more," the deputy minister said.

Ahmadinejad travels to New York in September for the U.N. General Assembly. He used last year's visit to try to address the United States with a meeting at a university in New York.

"The president is of the opinion that the American people can be our influential targets," Sheikh Attar said.

This year's visit follows U.S. and other reports that Washington was considering opening a U.S. interests section in Tehran, after diplomatic ties were severed in 1980. The Swiss embassy now handles any U.S.-related affairs in Iran.

Tehran has said it has not been notified of any such plans.

"It would be gullible to think that America is seeking to relinquish its past policy," Sheikh Attar said.

Thai police confront protesters in PM's compound

AFP, Bangkok

Defiant Thai protesters scuffled with riot police Friday as tensions flared on day four of a siege of Bangkok's main government compound aimed at forcing the premier to resign.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has so far kept his promise not to use violence to end the massive demonstrations, which represent the biggest challenge to his authority since he took power seven months ago.

Thousands of demonstrators have barricaded themselves in the government complex in the capital, accusing Samak of being a mere figurehead for ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra and insisting that he must step down.

Demonstrators overnight managed to expel about 1,000 police from their protest camp while police found a stash of weapons including machetes and golf clubs, but Samak said he would stick to his peaceful approach.

"Police will still adhere to my earlier order-they merely went to post a court order, not to clear protesters," he told reporters.

Riot police forced their way back into the grounds of Government House on Friday, pushing protesters with their shields. They also used batons to prevent a mob of angry protesters from entering the compound.

Colonel Noraboon Nanna, a police officer on the scene, said about 13,000 protesters remained inside the compound, with 8,000 police surrounding it.

Legal executors tried to enter to post a court injunction ordering the protesters to leave, but the demonstrators blocked them, forcing police to post the order on a lamppost close to the site.

"We have come here to get them to acknowledge the court order," said the deputy chief of the metropolitan police, Major General Akerach Meepreecha.

"We will wait, we will give them time," he said, adding: "If there is no reaction, the police will have to do something."

The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has been demonstrating against Samak for months, but events took a new turn on Tuesday when protesters stormed a TV station and barricaded themselves inside the Government House grounds.

The courts have ordered the protesters to leave the site immediately and issued arrest warrants for nine of the ringleaders on charges including treason, but PAD leaders have appealed to the courts on both counts.

Suriyasai Katasila, a PAD spokesman, told the crowd late Thursday that it would appeal against the warrants because of the "over-the-top charges, especially the charge of treason."

His ally Sawit Kaoewan later announced the group would broaden its attack by holding national strikes across the railways and other state enterprises.

Indian police enforce strict curfew in Kashmir

AFP, Srinagar

Thousands of Indian police and paramilitaries were Friday enforcing a strict curfew in Kashmir and intensifying a crackdown against Muslim separatists, officials said.

Security forces were out in large numbers on the streets of Srinagar and elsewhere in the disputed Kashmir valley, which has been the scene of weeks of violent protests, ordering locals not to leave their homes. "A strict curfew is in force. Please stay indoors and don't come out for congregational prayers," police announced .

through vehicle-mounted public address systems while patrolling the streets of Srinagar.

Muslim leaders in Kashmir had called upon people to hold "peaceful protests" on Friday to denounce Indian rule in Kashmir, as well as the arrest of senior separatists and their supporters.

An indefinite curfew was imposed in Kashmir on Sunday, with authorities hoping to prevent further anti-India protests.

Eight people were shot dead during the week for defying the crackdown, and several separatist leaders-including the two most senior figures Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-have been detained.

Police officials say over 100 of their supporters have also been arrested.

The last month has seen some of the biggest anti-India protests since an insurgency in the region began in 1989.

They were triggered by a state government plan made public in June to donate land to a Hindu shrine trust in the Kashmir valley. The decision was later reversed after massive Muslim protests, angering Hindus.

Since June, at least 39 Muslims and three Hindus have died in police shootings on protesters in the Kashmir valley and the mainly Hindu area of Jammu.