The New Nation - Internet Edition

China landslide kills 128, hopes fade for missing

AP, Beijing

At least 128 people were killed and many more were feared dead in north China after a huge reservoir of iron ore waste, illegally maintained and turned to sludge by heavy rain, buried a bustling marketplace in tons of suffocating mud.

Two thousand rescuers shoveled and hammered through the debris Wednesday searching for those buried under the three-story wave of mud and mining waste that inundated a valley in Shanxi province's Xiangfen county Monday. State media put the official death toll at 128 people with 34 more injured.

Authorities have declined to provide a figure for the number of missing people, saying an investigation is ongoing.

But the Shanghai Morning Post reported that hundreds may have been buried in the mud. The paper said the landslide occurred in the morning just as business at a busy outdoor market was getting under way with shoppers haggling at roadside stalls for food and daily necessities.

When the dam broke, a wave of gray sludge inundated the valley washing out homes, cars and a building where more than 100 people from a local mining company were holding their weekly meeting, the paper said.

A relative of one of the company's employees told the Shanghai paper that only three of those at the meeting were believed to have survived. More than a hundred people kept vigil behind a security cordon, waiting anxiously for news of their loved ones, state media reported but local officials acknowledged that the chances of finding any more survivors was slim.

"There were survivors on the first day and on the second day, but from day three, it's very likely that anyone we find in the future will be dead already," said a woman surnamed Dong who heads the propaganda department of Xiangfen county.

Dong told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that more than 2,000 police, firefighters and villagers were mobilized in the search, but conditions were difficult.

"There is mud everywhere," said Dong, who was speaking from the site where excavators and front loaders were lifting earth and debris. "It is very hard for the machines to drive through the mud."

Also hampering rescue efforts were the rough terrain, poor telecommunications and heavy rainfall, which finally let up on Wednesday, Dong said. Like many Chinese officials, she refused to give her full name.

The accident underscores two major public safety concerns in China: the failure to enforce protective measures in the country's notoriously deadly mines, and the unsound state of many of its bridges, dams and other aging infrastructure.

A preliminary investigation showed that the landslide was caused by the collapse of an abandoned dump which had been turned into a holding pond for mining waste by the illegally run Tashan Mine, said Wang Dexue, deputy head of the State Administration of Work Safety.

"It is an illegal company that was using the abandoned dump to get rid of its production waste," Wang said in an interview broadcast on state television.

Heavy rains caused the already overloaded dump to breach its retaining wall, Wang said.

"It was terrible," Wei Guanghui, a migrant worker who witnessed the disaster, told the official Xinhua News Agency. "The mud-rock flow looked about seven meters (23 feet) high. It roared down the valley and washed away the market and the houses in a few minutes."

Nine people suspected of being responsible for the incident, including the owner of the Tashan mine, were detained. Xinhua said several officials, including the local head of the work safety administration, the village Party secretary and village chief have already been fired for negligence.

White House race plumbs new toxic depths

AFP, New York

Barack Obama strived to wrench the ill-tempered White House campaign back to voters' anxieties as he castigated the "lies and phony outrage" of his Republican foes over a farmyard taunt.

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig," Obama said at a school in Norfolk, Virginia, reprising his line from Tuesday to attack the Republican ticket's claim to be "maverick" reformers at odds with their own party.

In a new Internet ad, John McCain's campaign accused Obama of a sexist "smear" against the Republican's female running mate, Sarah Palin . But Obama aides flagged a YouTube video showing McCain using the same phrase himself.

"They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad, because they know that it's catnip to the news media," Obama said. "We have an energy crisis. We have an education system that is not working for too many of our children. We have an economy that is creating hardship all across America. We have two wars going on," the Illinois senator said.

"I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and 'Swift Boat' politics," he said, referring to an ad offensive against 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry. The McCain ad showed a clip from Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention last week when she quipped that the only difference between an aggressive "hockey mom" like herself and a pitbull dog was "lipstick."

It then pulled Obama's line from Tuesday, delivered at another rally in Virginia, out of context and featured a television newscaster decrying "sexism" during the Democratic primary race between Obama and Hillary Clinton.

"Ready to lead? No," a caption concluded next to a photo of Obama. "Ready to smear? Yes."

But Obama aides highlighted the video of McCain, at an event in Iowa last October, describing Clinton's efforts to revive her push for universal healthcare, which failed in the 1990s, as putting "lipstick on a pig."

Bolivia President asks US ambassador to leave

AP, La Paz

President Evo Morales said Wednesday that he is expelling the U.S. ambassador in Bolivia for allegedly inciting violent opposition protests.

Morales' announcement came hours after his government said a pipeline blast triggered by saboteurs forced the country to cut natural gas exports to Brazil by 10 percent.

"Without fear of the empire, I declare the U.S. ambassador 'persona non grata,'" Morales said in a speech at the presidential palace. He said he asked his foreign minister to send a diplomatic note to Ambassador Philip Goldberg telling the American to go home. "We don't want separatists, divisionists," Bolivia's leftist president added.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid called the accusation "baseless" and said the U.S. government had not yet received a note about the ambassador.

The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia said on its Web site that Goldberg learned of Morales' action during a meeting with Bolivia's foreign minister. The statement said he was surprised at Morales' "sudden decision" and was waiting for official diplomatic notification.

Morales' close ally President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who also calls the United States "the empire," cheered the move, calling a two-week wave of increasingly violent anti-Morales protests the harvest of an alliance between Bolivia's "extreme right" and the U.S. government.

The Bolivian leader did not offer specific evidence against Goldberg, but he has long accused the diplomat of conspiring with Bolivia's conservative opposition. A share of U.S. aid to Bolivia goes to eastern provincial governments that are the nexus of opposition to Morales, which has angered the Bolivian president and his supporters.

Morales, meanwhile, praised protesters who marched on the U.S. embassy in May and has accused Washington of plotting to overthrow him.

In June, his government terminated USAID programs in the coca-growing Chapare region aimed at weaning farmers off the crop from which cocaine is produced. Farmers there had faulted the programs as heavy-handed and ineffectual.

Goldberg met last week with Ruben Costas, one of Morales' most virulent opponents. Costas is governor of Santa Cruz, Bolivia's richest province and the seat of a pro-autonomy revolt against the nation's first indigenous president.

Quake in Iran kills 7, sends tremors across Gulf

AP, Tehran

A strong earthquake rocked southern Iran on Wednesday, sending tremors across the Persian Gulf and shaking the skyscrapers of Dubai. Iranian state television reported that seven people were killed and 40 others were injured.

The country's seismological center said the magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:30 p.m., with the epicenter about 850 miles south of the capital Tehran in the province of Hormozgan.

The region's main city, Bandar Abbas, is one of Iran's key ports and home to a large oil refinery that primarily serves the domestic market. People in the port city, reached by telephone, said panicked residents ran into parks when the tremors started.

"When the quake struck, it was like a snake bite," said Hani Shokouhi, a resident of Bandar Abbas. "Then, the chandeliers and drawers were moving from one side to the other in the house."

Shokouhi said many residents remained in the streets, too afraid to return to their homes. Ten aftershocks were registered, each with a magnitude of 4.7 or less, state TV said, quoting an official at the seismological center.

Abdolkarim Setareh, a local official in the town of Bandar-e-Khamir, also near the quake's epicenter, said extensive damage was unlikely.

"Houses in this region have been built in recent years and are resistant to earthquakes. Only minor damage has been reported from a dozen villages so far," he told The Associated Press by phone.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake's strength at magnitude 6.1.

Across the Persian Gulf waters, residents in Dubai and neighboring emirates reported feeling shaking that lasted less than a minute.

The tremors sent office workers rushing out of some of the high-rise towers that dot the skyline in the city-state's commercial center.

All buildings in the Dubai International Financial Center were evacuated, the DIFC said. More than 700 companies are registered at the DIFC, located in the city's commercial district.

Dubai Civil Defense officials said they received several calls from panicked residents, saying their beds were shaking and their furniture was collapsing.

"My bed was hitting against the wall," said Rheanne Anderson, a Canadian teacher living in the nearby emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. "There was definitely some shaking."

There were no reports of damage or casualties in the Emirates.

Scientists beaming after test of big atom smasher

AP, Geneva

A small blip on a computer screen sent champagne corks popping among physicists in Switzerland. Near Chicago, researchers at a "pajama party" who watched via satellite let out an early morning cheer.

The blip was literally of cosmic proportions, representing a new tool to probe the birth of the universe.

The world's largest atom smasher passed its first test Wednesday as scientists said their powerful tool is almost ready to reveal how the tiniest particles were first created after the "big bang," which many theorize was the massive explosion that formed the stars, planets and everything.

Rivals and friends turned out in the wee hours at Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., in pajamas to watch the event by a special satellite connection. Joining in from around the world were other physicists - many of whom may one day work on the new Large Hadron Collider.

Tension mounted in the five control rooms at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, as scientists huddled around computer screens. After a few trial runs, they fired a beam of protons clockwise around the 17-mile tunnel of the collider deep under the rolling fields along the Swiss-French border. Then they succeeded in sending another beam in the opposite, counterclockwise direction.

The physicists celebrated with champagne when the white dots flashed on the blue screens of the control room, showing a successful crossing of the finish line on the $10 billion machine under planning since 1984.

"The first technical challenge has been met," said a jubilant Robert Aymar, director-general of CERN. "What you have just seen is the result of 20 years of effort. It all went like clockwork. Now it's for the physicists to show us what they can do.

"They are ready to go for discoveries," Aymar said. "Man has always shown he wants to know where he comes from and where he will go, where the universe comes from and where it will go. So here we're looking at essential questions for mankind."

The beams will gradually be filled with more protons and fired at near the speed of light in opposite directions around the tunnel, making 11,000 circuits a second. They will travel down the middle of two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder than outer space. At four points in the tunnel, the scientist will use giant magnets to cross the beams and cause protons to collide. The collider's two largest detectors - essentially huge digital cameras weighing thousands of tons - are capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.

North Korea has quietly built long-range missile base

AP, Washington

North Korea has quietly built a long-range missile base that is larger and more capable than an older and well-known launch pad for intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to independent analysts relying on new satellite images of the site and other data. Analysts provided images of the previously secret site to The Associated Press.

Construction on the site on North Korea's west coast began at least eight years ago, according to Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., senior analyst with Jane's Information Group, and Tim Brown with Talent-keyhole.com, a private satellite imagery analysis company. Bermudez first located the site in early spring and they have tracked its construction using commercial and unclassified satellite imagery.

"The primary purpose of the facility is to test," Bermudez told The Associated Press in an interview last week. A base capable of a long-range test could obviously be used in wartime to launch a missile that carried a warhead.

"This is a clear indication North Korea is continuing its ballistic missile development program," Bermudez said.

Bermudez is also unveiling the images on the defense web site Janes.com and in the Sept. 17 edition of Jane's Defence Weekly.

He said the launch pad has been operational since 2005 but has not yet been used. He believes North Korea wants to use it to develop longer-range and more accurate ICBMs. It could also launch satellites into space.

Although North Korea has been long thought to want additional missile capability and test facilities, this is the first public disclosure of the new launch facility, according to Bermudez, Brown and John Pike, an imagery analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, who first reviewed the information last week. Pike said the new facility represents a major step forward for North Korea's long-range missile program as it would allow multiple test flights in a short time, which is difficult at the smaller, original long-range missile launch site known as Musudan-ni.

"This would be a facility to conduct a real flight-test program and develop something that you have some operational confidence in," Pike told the Associated Press. "It would suggest they have the intention to develop the capability to perfect a missile to deliver atomic bombs to the United States."

"At the old facility, (a robust test program) just wasn't going to happen," he said.

South Ossetia aims to join Russia, leader says

Reuters, Sochi

Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia plans to become part of the Russian Federation, its leader said on Thursday.

"Yes, we will be part of the Russian Federation," South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity told reporters in the Russian resort of Sochi on the Black Sea. "We will do it according to the norms of international law."

Kokoity was reiterating his longstanding position following Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebellious Georgian province, as independent states.

Russian troops crushed an attempt by Tbilisi to retake South Ossetia by force last month, drawing widespread international condemnation and prompting concern over the security of energy supplies through the region.

"Now we are an independent state and we look forward to uniting with North Ossetia and joining the Russia Federation," Kokoity said.

South Ossetia borders North Ossetia, a region inside the Russian Federation, and broke away from Georgia's rule after a separatist war in the 1990s. Russia and Nicaragua are the only states that have recognized its independence.

South Ossetia is a territory of around 1,500 square miles

and has a population of roughly 70,000.

Israeli PM to resign 'immediately’ after vote

AP, Jerusalem

A confidant of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the Israeli leader will step down "immediately" after his party chooses a successor this month.

The comment Thursday shoots down speculation that Olmert would try to linger in office for months.

The Olmert confidant says the Israeli leader will formally resign "immediately following the primary." He spoke on condition of anonymity because the Israeli leader has not made his plans public.

Olmert has already announced plans to resign in order to battle a corruption investigation. But he has been unclear when he would actually step aside.

Olmert's Kadima Party is scheduled to hold a primary next Wednesday. The party could hold a runoff if no candidate receives 40 percent of the vote.

IAEA head not running for new term

AP, Vienna

The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose handling of Iran's nuclear defiance has provoked occasional U.S. displeasure, plans to step down later this year, according to a confidential document obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Mohamed ElBaradei's current term ends Nov. 30 and the "Director General is not available for a further term of office," said the document dated Sept. 5 and circulated among the 35-nation IAEA board.

Diplomats linked to the IAEA who are familiar with ElBaradei have recently said they did not expect the reclusive agency head to stand for another term. Still, he had kept his plans close to his chest ahead of the formal announcement that he would not run for re-election.

Austere and methodical, the Egyptian diplomat has taken a sometimes strident line while guiding the Vienna-based agency through the most serious troubles it has faced since the end of the Cold War.

He also has had to contend with U.S. opposition, although that ended three years ago when IAEA member nations formally approved his reappointment for a third term. The decision to award him and his agency the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for their nonproliferation efforts strengthened his hand against his critics.

Much of the opposition stemmed from Washington's perception that he was being too soft on Iran for not unequivocally declaring it in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. That stance helped block a U.S. bid to haul Tehran before the U.N. Security Council for more than two years until the board finally voted to do so in February 2006.

Australia police minister quits over dirty dance

Reuters, Canberra

The police minister in Australia's most populous state was forced to quit on Thursday over reports he "dirty danced" in underwear over the chest of a female colleague in a drunken late-night office party.

Matt Brown resigned just three days after being sworn in as police minister of New South Wales state, which includes Sydney.

"I'm a human being and I made a mistake and I am going to cop the consequences," Brown told reporters. "I am not wanting to duck or weave this issue. As you can imagine this is a pretty tough day for me."

Witnesses said Brown stripped down to his underpants and danced to loud techno music on a green leather Chesterfield lounge before he "mounted the chest" of a female politician and simulated a sex act.

Brown did not deny stripping, but said he had not tried to simulate sex with his colleague. The party occurred in parliament three months before Brown was sworn in as police minister.

The resignation was a blow to the centre-left state government, already reeling from months of political scandal, leadership instability and poor opinion polls. NSW accounts for 30 percent of Australia's $1 trillion economy.

State Premier Nathan Rees, sworn in with Brown after a leadership tussle, promised a more accountable government and said Brown had to go because he initially promised that "absolutely nothing untoward" occurred during the party.

"I subsequently put it to former minister Brown late last night that 'there are too many reports of you in your underwear for me to ignore'," Rees told local radio.

"Embarrassed doesn't begin to describe it. He conceded he'd been in his underwear and that gave me no option but to demand his resignation," Rees said.

Russia wants guarantees over missile shield

Reuters, Warsaw

Russia wants the United States and its European allies to provide convincing guarantees that a planned missile defense shield is not aimed against Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Lavrov, on a visit to Poland, also urged the West to recognize what he called "the new realities" in the Caucasus and follow Moscow's example in recognizing the independence of the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"We are open to serious negotiations (on the missile shield). If the United States and Poland are willing to guarantee that the European anti-missile base is not aimed at Russia, then we are ready to consider concrete proposals," Lavrov told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily in an interview. "But we should talk about guarantees, not of cosmetic political gestures," he said. Russia strongly opposes U.S. plans to establish an anti-missile shield in NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic, Moscow's Soviet-era satellites, saying they upset the balance of power by undermining its own nuclear arsenal. Washington says the shield is no match for Russia's arsenal and is aimed solely at protecting Europe against possible attack by what it calls "rogue states," notably Iran, or by terrorists.

Poland agreed to host 10 interceptor missiles as part of the shield project at the height of the Georgia crisis last month, drawing Russian accusations that this proved the system was really aimed at Moscow.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has vowed a military response to the Polish decision, though he has not said what shape this might take.

Tensions between Russia and the West have sharply escalated since Moscow sent troops and tanks into ex-Soviet Georgia following Tbilisi's attempt to retake rebel South Ossetia.

"With its aggression against South Osetia and its violation of international arrangements, Georgia has given up its territorial integrity. We appeal to our partners to follow the Russian example and recognize the new realities," Lavrov said.

Japan to end controversial Iraq mission

AFP, Tokyo

Japan said Thursday it was ending an air mission in Iraq, wrapping up a military deployment which was historic for the pacifist nation but deeply unpopular among the public.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Japan planned by the end of the year to bring back planes which flew goods and personnel into Iraq in support of the United Nations and US-led coalition. The mission is Japan's last remaining military operation in Iraq after the country, which has been officially pacifist since defeat in World War II, ended a landmark ground deployment in 2006. "After continued consultations with Iraq, we have come to believe that the situation in Iraq has gradually improved and that we are gradually achieving the purpose" of the Japanese mission, Komura said. Some 210 Japanese troops and airplanes operating in Iraq are stationed in Kuwait. Domestic legislation allowing the mission expires in July next year.

"Even after pulling out the Air Self-Defence Forces, Japan's position to support Iraq will never change," Komura said.

But citing the the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the government said it will continue another controversial mission in the Indian Ocean, in which the naval forces give fuel for the US-led "war on terror" in Afghanistan.

"Operations in Afghanistan are becoming more and more significant," said Defence Minister Yoshisama Hayashi.

"The international community will be able to focus more on the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan" after withdrawing from Iraq, he said.

Japan's opposition, which has been making gains, is staunchly against both missions in Iraq and the Indian Ocean. It briefly forced a halt to the Indian Ocean deployment last year, saying Japan should not be part of "American wars."

Pope to visit France as church flock dwindles

AFP, Paris

Facing a freefall in the number of churchgoers despite its deep Christian heritage, France is set to welcome Pope Benedict XVI on his first visit to bond with the Catholic church's "eldest daughter."

The German pope arrives in Paris on Friday for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy and to deliver a keynote address before flying to the southwest town of Lourdes, one of the world's most visited Catholic sites.

France is home to an estimated 35 million baptised Catholics, although polls show the French have lost much of their sense of belonging to the church over recent decades.

While Catholicism remains by far the country's number one religion, 51 percent of the French consider themselves Catholic, down from 80 percent in the early 1990s, according to a survey published last year. Of those, only 10 percent attend mass regularly, the survey in Le Monde des Religions magazine showed.

Known as the Catholic church's "eldest daughter" since Frankish king Clovis converted in the fifth century, France is shaping up as a testing ground for the Catholic church's revival in Europe.

"Statistically, the church is in the red," commented Michel Kubler, the editor in chief for religious issues for the Catholic newspaper La Croix.

"All the indicators are down, from church attendance to baptisms to the number of priests."

France last year overtook Ireland as Europe's fertility champion, with women giving birth on average to two children, but a majority of babies are now being born out of wedlock.

British police chief condemned for Osama bin Laden costume

Reuters, London

A senior British policeman is in trouble after he dressed as Osama bin Laden at a carnival days before the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Chief Superintendent Colin Terry, who has trained police in Afghanistan, was photographed wearing a bin Laden mask, robes and traditional Arab scarf.

He wore the costume at a carnival in the village of Grampound, Cornwall, on Saturday.

Devon and Cornwall police said in a statement it took the incident very seriously and had referred Terry to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

"Whilst we believe his actions were misguided rather than malicious, they were clearly inappropriate," it said.

Terry is on secondment to the Foreign Office but might have faced disciplinary proceedings had he still been with his local force, the statement added.

A Foreign Office spokesman said Terry had been helping to train police in Afghanistan as part of a European Union project. "He will not be returning to the EU mission," he said. The spokesman would not say if the decision was directly linked to the carnival costume. Terry said he had not meant to cause offence. "I am quite horrified that someone would see this negatively," he was quoted as saying in the Guardian.

"This is a local event that has been running for many, many years, raising money for charity."

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks in which four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania. Al Qaeda leader Bin Laden, who masterminded the attacks, is still at large.