The New Nation - Internet Edition

Emergency declared in Thai capital after clashes

AFP, Bangkok

Thailand's prime minister declared a state of emergency in the capital Tuesday after thousands of his opponents and supporters clashed in the worst street violence here in more than a decade.

One person was killed and 44 were injured, some of them from gunshot wounds, as a week of mass protests calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej spilled over into bloodshed overnight.

Samak called on the protesters to leave the main government complex, which they have occupied for the last week.

"They must be moved from the Government House," Samak told a nationally televised news conference. "I had no other choice but to declare a state of emergency in Bangkok in order to solve the problem for once and for all."

The emergency decree essentially gives control of the capital to Thailand's powerful army chief, General Anupong Paojinda, just eight months after Samak's civilian government was elected to end more than a year of military rule.

Anupong now has the power to break up any gathering of more than five people, but he insisted that he would try to negotiate with the protesters rather than resorting to violence.

"Our methods will be to improve understanding among Thais and make everyone aware that there can still be a peaceful solution through negotiations," Anupong told reporters.

"I can ensure to every person in the press that police and the Thai military will not use violence to any civilian by any means," Anupong said in English.

But protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which is pushing for the premier to stand down, were gearing up for a fight.

Activists rolled barbed wire across streets in central Bangkok, while donning motorcycle helmets and patrolling key areas with golf clubs and wooden sticks.

"We will stay here. The government must decide whether to raid our camp or not," Pibhop Dhongchai told reporters inside the heavily barricaded government complex.

Thai police called in army reinforcements early Tuesday to rein in the clashes, setting nerves on edge in a country that has seen 18 military coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932.

"The situation's touch and go. Now with the emergency decree, we have moved to the next stage of brinkmanship," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University.

He said the PAD wanted to spark even worse violence in hopes of inciting a military coup or a mass uprising against the government .

"They want to draw blood and they've come to the point where they're willing to be martyrs in order to achieve their aims," Thitinan said.

The PAD accuses Samak of acting on behalf of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who now lives in exile in Britain after the same protest group helped provoked a military coup that toppled his government in 2006.

No one was killed during that coup, making this the deadliest political violence since the Bloody May massacre in 1992 when dozens of pro-democracy activists were killed on the same streets where Tuesday's protests took place.

Monsoon misery spreads in India

Reuters, Guwahati

Heavy rains and rising floodwaters forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in northeastern India and sent elephants and rhinos fleeing, as monsoon misery spread in South Asia.

In the eastern Indian state of Bihar, desperate flood victims attacked a warehouse and looted food supplies, while in neighboring Bangladesh major rivers rose to danger levels and fresh parts of the country were submerged.

In the northeastern state of Assam, heavy rains caused water levels to rise on Tuesday, affecting more than a million people and disrupting road networks for the second consecutive day.

Animals fled to higher ground in Kaziranga National Park after the Brahmaputra burst its banks and flooded most of the park, home to more than half of the world's population of one-horned rhinoceros.

At least two rhino calves were drowned and a herd of 100 elephants were swept away by floodwaters, forest officials said.

"We are now worried the poachers will take advantage and kill rhinos and elephants as they are moving out of the protected areas to safer ground," said chief warden S. N. Buragohain.

In Bihar, the floods have already displaced about three million people and killed at least 90.

EU warns Russia to pull back troops in Georgia

AP, Brussels

Threatening to delay talks on a political and economic agreement, the European Union has warned Russia to pull its troops back from positions in Georgia.

The threat Monday to delay the talks set for this month on a "partnership and cooperation agreement" came after Britain and eastern European nations held out for a tougher line. But Europe's dependence on Russian oil and natural gas deterred stronger sanctions.

"I think we found an excellent compromise (by) not going back to business as usual, but still making clear that we want to maintain contact with Russia," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

At a four-hour meeting, the leaders ordered EU bureaucrats to study alternative energy sources to reverse growing dependence on Russia, which supplies a third of the EU's oil and 40 percent of its natural gas.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he plans to travel to Moscow next Monday for talks with the Russian leadership. A cease-fire he brokered to end fighting between Russian and Georgia calls for forces to be withdrawn to their positions before the war.

The Bush administration welcomed the EU's move.

"This extraordinary EU summit demonstrates that Europe and the United States are united in standing firm behind Georgia's territorial integrity, sovereignty and reconstruction," White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement.

Tehran, La Paz natural allies, Ahmadinejad tells Morales

AFP, Tehran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Bolivia's visiting left-wing President Evo Morales on Monday their two nations are natural allies and would boost energy ties, state media reported.

"The two revolutionary nations and the governments of Iran and Bolivia are natural allies and will boost their relations in the fields of commerce, industry, agriculture, gas, oil and politics," he told Morales on the first day of a two-day trip to Tehran.

"We are striding on a common path towards a brighter future and will remain by each other's side and supportive of one another under any circumstances," Ahmadinejad said, quoted by the state-run television news website.

The website also quoted Morales, whose country sits on South America's second largest gas reserves, as saying he supports Ahmadinejad.

"I support and praise Mr Ahmadinejad's stance against imperialism and defending the rights of the Iranian people," he said. "I also hail Iranian progress in industry and agriculture."

Japan's Aso leads race for next prime minister

Reuters, Tokyo

Former foreign minister Taro Aso leads the race to become Japanese prime minister, analysts and media said on Tuesday, after unpopular Yasuo Fukuda became the second leader to abruptly resign in less than a year.

With a policy vacuum threatening an economy teetering on the brink of recession, 67-year-old Aso said he was a suitable candidate to head the country.

If he wins the leadership in what would be his fourth attempt, the former Olympic sharpshooter and comic-book fan will be Japan's 11th prime minister in 15 years.

"I think (Fukuda) felt he had work that was left undone, and he said he wanted it to be carried out," Aso told a news conference, ahead of a leadership vote in three weeks.

"As someone who discussed these issues with him, including the economic package, I think I have the credentials to take that on," said the veteran lawmaker, currently LDP secretary-general.

Japan's Nikkkei share average fell 1.8 percent on foreign nervousness that a second Japanese leader seemed to have just given up the job. Government bond futures jumped, despite analysts warning an Aso government might seek to spend Japan's way out of its economic woes.

India’s 'untouchables’ were last to be rescued during deadly floods

AP, Triveniganj

In the two weeks since a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks, ancient prejudices have run just as deep as the floodwaters. India's "untouchables" are the last to be rescued - if at all - from a deluge that has killed dozens and made 1.2 million homeless. Dalits, the social outcasts at the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder, have borne the brunt of the devastation as the rampaging Kosi River swamped hundreds of square miles in northern India after it overflowed and shifted its course dozens of miles to the east. On Sunday, one Dalit, Mohan Parwan ran up and down a half destroyed bridge that has become the headquarters for rescue operations in this town near the border with Nepal, desperately scanning arriving boats for signs of his family. Dozens came in but each time he was disappointed. Parwan, 43, is from a Dalit village just 2 miles away but completely cut off by a deep lake created by the swirling waters.

Republicans rocked as Palin says teen daughter pregnant

AFP, St Paul

Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin revealed Monday her unmarried teenaged daughter is pregnant, in the latest bombshell to rock the party's Hurricane Gustav-curtailed convention. Palin said her daughter Bristol, 17, would have the baby and marry its father, as the convention held a shortened first day, shorn of political rhetoric out of respect for those sheltering from Gustav's wrath. The curtailed convention will cost presumptive nominee John McCain some of his precious opportunity to take his unfiltered case to US voters, a week after his Democratic rival Barack Obama's spectacular jamboree in Denver. A new CBS/New York Times poll on Monday suggested that McCain needed a boost, putting Obama and his vice presidential pick Joseph Biden up 48 percent to 40 percent, ahead of the November 4 election.