The New Nation - Internet Edition

Ruling party picks outspoken Aso to be Japan PM

Reuters, Tokyo

Outspoken nationalist Taro Aso, an advocate of spending and tax cuts to boost the economy, won the race on Monday to become Japan's next prime minister and swiftly set his sights on an election expected within months.Aso, a former foreign minister, clinched the ruling Liberal Democratic Party leadership vote by a landslide to take over from Yasuo Fukuda, who quit this month just as the economy flirts with recession and faces further damage from turmoil on Wall Street. The new leader must try to revive the world's second-biggest economy despite the constraints of its huge public debt, although he may have scant time to do so if, as media and pundits predict, he calls an early poll for parliament's powerful lower house.

"Standing here, I feel that this is Taro Aso's destiny," Aso, the grandson of a premier, told LDP members after winning 351 of 525 valid votes cast by party lawmakers and chapters. "But the LDP, as the government party, must resolutely fight the (opposition) Democratic Party in the next election, and only when we have won that election will I have fulfilled my destiny. Aso, set to be voted prime minister on Wednesday by virtue of the ruling bloc's majority in parliament's powerful lower house, will be Japan's third prime minister in a year. Both his predecessors quit in the face of a deadlocked parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house and can stall bills.

"It's going to be a weak government and there is going to be an election and there will probably be a weak government as a result of the election," said Columbia University professor Gerry Curtis. "Japan will not be in a position to play a more dynamic role in world affairs. It will be more and more inward-looking."

The ruling bloc is expected to lose in the next election the two-thirds lower house majority that allows it to override upper house vetoes, and analysts say a clear victory for either side camp may prove elusive, leaving more policy paralysis. One voter predicted that, with many longing for change, the long-ruling LDP could lose its grip on power altogether. "The Liberal Democratic Party is already finished regardless of who got elected," said 52-year-old advertising producer Youji Nomura. "The LDP is completely corrupt, and I don't think the new prime minister would last even a year, no matter who it is."

Aso, who wants tax cuts for businesses and stock investors, has said Japan's goal of balancing its budget by 2012 could be put off, a stance that has alarmed fiscal reformers in his party but charmed local party machines looking toward the election.

TAPPING RIVALS, EYEING POLLS

Aso won five times the votes of his nearest rival to clinch the top post on his fourth attempt to lead the party.

Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano, a fiscal conservative, was a distant second with 66 votes and former defense minister Yuriko Koike came in third with 46 votes for her bid to become Japan's first female prime minister.

Critics had charged the contest was just a show to appeal to voters ahead of an expected early general election and that debate, which focused on economic policies, became blurry.

Japanese media said Aso was considering keeping Yosano in a new cabinet to be formed on Wednesday as well as tapping another rival, former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba, in an effort to unify the party, which is suffering from dismal voter ratings.

Though inclined to view China's rising clout with concern, Aso is likely to stick to Fukuda's diplomatic stance that stresses Japan's tight security alliance with the United States and stable ties with China, which have warmed after years of strains due bitter wartime memories and regional rivalry.

He is likely to stay away from Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, seen by Beijing as a symbol of Japan's past military aggression.

But his tendency toward verbal gaffes could prove a problem.

"One of the reasons a lot of LDP members supported him was that his speeches are amusing. But at the same time he makes a lot of gaffes," said Koichi Nakano of Tokyo's Sophia University.

"If he makes a gaffe during the election campaign, that could lead to a lot of criticism of the LDP."

Aso, a dapper dresser and fan of manga comic books popular with young people, regularly tops voter surveys for next prime minister, making him the LDP's natural choice to lead it in a general election that must be held by next September.

Japanese media say an election could be called for as early as October 26 to make the most of any bounce in public support, although Aso said on Sunday that his priority was to pass an extra budget to support the economy.

The new leader would be seeking a mandate to break a deadlock in parliament, but with both sides facing a tough battle, speculation is rife over a possible rejigging of party allegiances, although an attempt by Fukuda and main opposition Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa to form a "grand coalition" flopped last year.

Pakistani troops fire on intruding US choppers

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire when two U.S. helicopters crossed into the country from neighboring Afghanistan, intelligence officials said Monday.

The alleged incident late Sunday in North Waziristan came as the Muslim country struggled to respond to a suicide bombing at a luxury hotel in the capital that killed at least 53.

Pakistan's army and the U.S. military in Afghanistan said they had no information on the reported incursion, which will likely add to tensions between Islamabad and Washington. A spate of suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan's border region and a raid by U.S. commandos that killed about 15 people have angered and embarrassed Pakistani leaders. President Asif Ali Zardari is headed to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly. The newly elected leader is also expected to meet President Bush. The two intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. They said informants in the field told them of the incursion about one mile inside the disputed and poorly demarcated border in the Alwara Mandi area.

The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing, the officials said. A week ago, U.S. helicopters reportedly landed near Angoor Ada, a border village in South Waziristan, but returned toward Afghanistan after troops fired warning shots.

A military spokesman said last week that Pakistani soldiers had orders to open fire in case of another cross-border raid by U.S. troops.

Meanwhile, suspicion hardened that al-Qaida or the Taliban were behind Saturday's blast at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. Some 270 people were wounded, while the dead included the Czech ambassador and two U.S. Department of Defense employees. Although no group claimed responsibility, officials and experts said the scale of the blast and its high-profile target were the hallmarks of media-savvy al-Qaida. Senior al-Qaida leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid threatened attacks against Western interests in Pakistan in a video timed with the recent anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Mahmood Shah, a former government security chief for Pakistan's tribal areas, said while the attack had "all the signatures" of an al-Qaida strike, homegrown Taliban militants probably had learned how to carry out an attack of this magnitude. Al-Qaida was providing "money, motivation, direction and all sort of leadership and using the Taliban as gun fodder," he suggested.

The blast prompted foreign diplomatic and aid missions in Pakistan, as well as other expatriates, to review their security status. British Airways said Monday it was temporarily suspending its flights to and from the country as a precautionary measure. The airline, which offers six flights to Pakistan each week, did not face a direct security threat, company spokesman Suhail Rehman said.

Khalid Hussain Abbasi, a rescue official, said search teams finished a second round of checks at the gutted hotel and had not found more bodies Monday.

Dramatic surveillance footage released Sunday showed how the explosive-laden truck sat burning and disabled at the hotel gate for at least 3 1/2 minutes as nervous guards tried to douse the flames before they, the truck and much of the hotel forecourt vanished in a fearsome fireball.

Authorities in Orissa struggle as floods spread

Reuters, Bhubaneswar

Authorities battling floods in Orissa said on Monday they were struggling to rescue thousands of people stranded in remote villages as bad weather and swift river currents hampered rescue attempts.

More than half a million people in Orissa fled their homes when large parts of the state were flooded after authorities were forced to open sluice gates of a dam on the Mahanadi river last week, following heavy rains in the catchment area. The rising waters of the Mahanadi and its tributaries broke through mud embankments and swamped hundreds of villages in the coastal region.

At least 16 people have been killed and 300,000 rescued so far, but officials said another half a million people were still marooned. "Relief officials have not been able to reach many villages as the road links are cut off and boats cannot be used in the swift river current," G.V. Venugopala Sarma, a senior government official told Reuters.

"It is quite a serious disaster."

Television pictures showed hungry children rushing towards food packets dropped by helicopters on a small patch of dry land.

Hundreds of villagers were seen waving at passing helicopters from rooftops, signalling they wanted food.

Thousands of survivors have taken shelter on river banks, after flood waters destroyed villages and swamped hundreds of hectares of farmland.

"The water came suddenly and destroyed our houses and rice crops, leaving us no choice but to run," Kalpana Mohanty, a flood victim told television reporters.

Angry flood victims demanded relief, saying they had gone without any food for days.

"We managed to save our lives, but we are hungry and cannot go anywhere as we are surrounded by water," one among a group of villagers told reporters in a remote village.

Monsoon rains and flooded rivers have brought huge devastation across South Asia this year, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly in India and Nepal.

US, Israel may opt for military strike against Iran

AP, Vienna

Two years? One? Even less?

Opinions differ on how close Iran may be to being able to develop a nuclear weapon, but concerned governments and experts agree the time to stop Tehran is growing short - and the options limited.

The time frame is increasingly important because of the possibility that Israel or the U.S. might opt for a military strike against the Islamic Republic if they judged that all diplomatic options to end its nuclear defiance have been exhausted.

And with Tehran showing no signs of giving up uranium enrichment or heeding other international demands, the diplomatic window is growing increasingly narrow. That fact gives special significance to a meeting of the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief focus of what to do about Iran.

Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to stoke the flames Sunday, declaring that Iran's military will "break the hand" of anyone targeting his country's nuclear facilities.

He spoke during a military parade displaying various types of Iranian-made missiles. Also in the parade was a military truck carrying a huge banner saying "Israel should be eliminated from the universe" in both English and Farsi.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are geared only toward generating power. But Israel says the Islamic Republic could have enough nuclear material to make its first bomb within a year. The U.S. estimates Tehran's is still at least two years away from that stage.

At the low end is physicist and former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright. He says Tehran could reach weapons capacity in as little as 6 months through uranium enrichment.

An IAEA report drawn up for the IAEA board meeting says that Tehran has increased the number of centrifuges used to process uranium to nearly 4,000 from 3,000 just a few months ago.

But Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security closely tracks suspect secret proliferators, has also been able to extrapolate other information from the report that is less obvious but of at least equal concern.

Iran, he says, has managed to iron out most of the bugs in the intensely complicated process of enrichment that often saw the centrifuges breaking down. The machines, he says "now appear to be running at approximately 85 percent of their stated target capacity, a significant increase over previous rates."

That, he says means, they can produce more enriched uranium faster. And while the IAEA says that the machines have spewed out only low enriched material suitable solely for nuclear fuel, producing enough of that can make it easy to "break out" quickly by reprocessing it to weapons- grade uranium suitable for the fissile core of warhead.

To date, Iran has produced nearly 1,000 pounds of low enriched uranium, said the report - close to what Albright says is the 1,500-pound minimum needed to produce the 45-60 pounds needed for a simple nuclear bomb under optimal conditions.

And with Iran's centrifuges running ever more smoothly, it "is progressing toward this capability and can be expected to reach it in six months to two years," says Albright.

Additional work - making a crude bomb to contain the uranium - would take no more than a "several months," he said.

But that work could be done secretly and consecutively with the last stages of weapons-grade enrichment. With Iran limiting access of IAEA inspectors to facilities it has declared to the agency, the U.N. nuclear monitor is blind-sided in efforts to establish whether such covert atomic work is going on.

Iran insists it is an innocent victim of U.S. pressure. But international concern has grown enough to result in three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions over the past two years. And Iranian stonewalling of IAEA inspectors probing allegations that it actively tried to modify a missile to carry a nuclear payload and conducted other weapons-related research has added to fears.

The IAEA report prepared for the board meeting starting Monday faulted Iran for blocking efforts to further investigate the allegations, based on intelligence from the U.S. and several other IAEA member nations.

Part of the report spoke of what appeared to be drawings and calculations by Iranian engineers on reconfiguring its Shahab-3 missile to be able to carry a nuclear payload.

Iranian officials say the missile has a range of 1,250 miles, enabling a strike on Israel and most of the Middle East.

Such report stoke Israeli fears - and may force the Jewish state's hand.

Beyond veiled warnings from Israeli leaders of a possible last-resort strike, the country is building its capacities with weapons that could spearhead such action.

It has purchased 90 F-16I fighter planes that can carry enough fuel to reach Iran, and will receive 11 more by the end of next year. It has bought two new Dolphin submarines from Germany reportedly capable of firing nuclear-armed warheads - in addition to the three it already has.

And this summer it carried out air maneuvers in the Mediterranean that touched off an international debate over whether they were a "dress rehearsal" for an imminent attack, a stern warning to Iran or a just a way to get allies to step up the pressure on Tehran to stop building nukes.

Former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told the AP Sunday that "the military option for Israel is the last resort."

Still, those now in power leave no doubt that it remains on the table.

"If Israeli, U.S., or European intelligence gets proof that Iran has succeeded in developing nuclear weapons technology, then Israel will respond in a manner reflecting the existential threat posed by such a weapon," said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz recently.

US loses another soldier killed in Iraq

AP, Baghdad

The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed in an attack on his patrol in Baghdad.

The military says in a statement that the attack happened at about 11 a.m. on Sunday. It says the patrol came under small arms fire.

The statement says the name of the soldier is being withheld pending notification of family and a U.S. Department of Defense release.

Meanwhile, Insurgents killed at least eight people and wounded dozens in a spate of attacks across Iraq on Sunday, including two suicide car bombings in two northern cities, security officials said.

A bomber slammed his explosives-filled car into a checkpoint in the northern oil city of Kirkuk where a group of youngsters had gathered to be taken to a police recruitment centre, said local deputy police chief Major General Torhan Yussef.

"Two people were killed in the attack and 24 were wounded," he told AFP.

Another suicide bomber detonated his explosives-filled vehicle near a police building in the northern city of Mosul and killed two people, including a policeman, a local police officer said. Forty people were also wounded in the attack, including 15 policemen, he added.

US and Iraqi forces claim Mosul is the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda fighters.

Three people were killed and six wounded when a roadside bomb blasted a minibus in the village of Al-Murjana, northwest of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, police said.

The province north of Baghdad is a stronghold of Al-Qaeda fighters.

In the capital itself, gunmen shot dead Brigadier General Adel Abbas, a senior officer in the interior ministry's criminal investigation department, as he was driving to work, security officials said. His driver was wounded.

Insurgents also tried to kill Ghasan Ridha, a director in the finance ministry, by planting a bomb in his car in Baghdad. Ridha was wounded in the attack.

In Baghdad's Waziriyah neighbourhood, seven people including three Iraqi soldiers were wounded when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb near the Turkish embassy, security officials said.

And in the north of the city, a similar attack targeting a police patrol wounded five more people including a policeman, they added.

McCain criticises Obama for lack of leadership

AP, Baltimore

Republican presidential nominee John McCain told an audience Sunday that Barack Obama behaved more like a politician than a leader, both on matters of national security and on last week's near-meltdown of the U.S. financial system.

Addressing a meeting of the National Guard Association, McCain faulted Obama for not offering a plan to stabilize financial markets after a crisis in the mortgage industry led to the collapse of two investment banks and the government bailout of housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and insurance giant AIG.

"At a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, Senator Obama has not provided it," McCain said. On Friday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced he would begin crafting a $700 billion federal takeover of the troubled financial sector.

The same day, McCain laid out his own series of proposals for helping to stabilize the mortgage industry, such as a Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust.

Obama declined to offer a plan, saying he wanted to allow Paulson to address the matter without political intrusion. Advisers to the Democratic hopeful criticized McCain's proposals as little more than talking points that lacked any meaningful detail.

Later Sunday, McCain cautioned against granting unchecked authority to Paulson, saying he is "greatly concerned that the plan gives a single individual the unprecedented power to spend $1 trillion on the basis of not much more than 'Trust me.'"

In a statement to reporters, McCain urged the creation of a bipartisan oversight board to review the government bailout rather than entrusting Paulson with complete power to craft it. He said the board should be headed by a trusted financial steward like billionaire financier Warren Buffett, and said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be involved as well. Both Romney and Bloomberg made enormous fortunes in business ventures before entering politics.

"I believe we need a high level of oversight and an oversight board to impose real criteria for those who need help and those who do not and that we have a careful steward of the taxpayer's dollars," McCain said.

At a rally in Charlotte, N.C., on Sunday, Obama criticized the Bush administration's $700 billion proposal, calling it a "concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan." Yet he said the government had little option but to intervene.

And Obama said any bailout must include plans to recover that money and protect working families and big financial institutions. It must also be crafted in a way to prevent such a crisis from happening again.

Global financial crisis could hurt UN programme

AP, United Nations

World leaders meeting at the U.N. General Assembly this week face a global financial crisis that threatens the United Nation's efforts to generate billions of dollars to fight poverty, especially in Africa.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week he was very concerned the economic slowdown and turmoil on Wall Street could have a negative impact on the ability of rich nations to help achieve United Nations goals to improve the lives of the poorest people who live on less than $1 a day.

Leaders were set to begin a week of meetings on Monday.

Before the U.S. financial meltdown rippled around the globe, Ban asked world leaders to arrive a day early for the annual ministerial meeting of the U.N. General Assembly to focus on Africa's development needs - and to interrupt their speechmaking Thursday to make new commitments to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

"We are experiencing a development emergency," Ban said in an AP interview. "This is one of the triple crises that I have termed - climate change, development emergency, and global food crisis.

"This week, with the help of all world leaders, I would like to really mobilize necessary resources and galvanize political will to as high as possible as I can," he said.

The leaders are arriving in New York as the U.S. Congress starts debate on a $700 billion proposal to buy a mountain of bad mortgage debt in an effort to revive U.S. credit markets, and whether they are prepared to make fresh commitments to help the poor remains to be seen.

The weeklong meetings begin Monday with a high-level session on African development that 106 of the 192 U.N. member states have signed up to attend - including 34 heads of state and 11 heads of government.

Undersecretary-General Cheick Sidi Diarra, Ban's special adviser on Africa, said he was concerned about the world economy's downturn but he still expected developed countries to keep their promises of increased aid.

At a summit in Scotland in 2005, the major industrialized powers agreed to increase yearly aid to developing countries by $50 billion by 2010 compared to 2004, and to channel $25 billion of the increase to Africa.

But Ban said in a recent report that rich donor nations have failed to deliver on their promises and must increase aid by $18 billion a year. Of that, $7.3 billion would have to go to Africa.

China toxic milk sickens 53,000 as scare spreads

AFP, Beijing

China's tainted milk scandal spiralled into uncharted territory Monday as authorities said nearly 53,000 children had been sickened and more countries moved to ban or recall Chinese dairy imports. In a dramatic update of previous figures, the health ministry said a total of 52,857 children were taken to hospital after drinking milk thought to have been contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine.

Most had "basically recovered" but 12,892 of them remained in hospital, a health ministry official told AFP.

Joining a clutch of other countries, Taiwan said it was banning all Chinese milk products with immediate notice, regardless of brand, because of consumer concerns. "There is no timeframe for the ban," said Wang Chih-chao, an official with the Department of Health, but said milk products already on the shelves after passing safety tests would not be removed.

Meanwhile retailers in Hong Kong said they were pulling more milk products off their shelves after samples tested positive for melamine.

Melamine, normally used in making plastics, was first found in infant milk formula in Chinese markets but has since been detected in a range of products with dairy ingredients both in China and abroad.

The discovery, the latest in a series of scandals to tarnish the reputation of Chinese products, has led to mass recalls and a Chinese government campaign to tighten quality inspections across the dairy sector.

Three children have died and 104 are still in serious condition, the health ministry said, with symptoms including kidney stones.

A fourth child was also reported dead by authorities in Xinjiang province but has not been added to the national figure.

The scandal stems from the practice of adding melamine to watered-down milk to give it the appearance of higher protein levels.

A host of countries -- Bangladesh, Brunei, Burundi, Japan, Gabon, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Tanzania -- have barred Chinese milk products or taken some other form of action to curb consumption.

South African President Mbeki resigns after power struggle

AP, Cape Town

South African President Thabo Mbeki told the nation Sunday that he had resigned, having lost a power struggle to a rival tainted by allegations of corruption but poised now to lead the country.

In a somber but dignified speech focusing on the successes and shortcomings of his nine-year presidency, Mbeki said he had submitted a letter to the speaker of Parliament "to tender my resignation from the high position of President of the Republic of South Africa." He said he would stand down at a date to be determined by Parliament, which will convene in the coming days to select an interim president to serve until next year's elections.

National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete, who is also chairwoman of the African National Congress, is widely tipped to become the interim head of state, paving the way for Mbeki's nemesis, Jacob Zuma, to take over after the elections.

The ANC has a huge majority and is expected to romp to victory in the polls despite its upheavals.

"I am convinced that the incoming administration will better the work done during the past 14-and-half years so that poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, illiteracy, challenges of health, crime and corruption will cease to define the lives of many of our people," Mbeki said.

Mbeki, 66, lost the final battle in the long struggle against ANC President Zuma, his former deputy, on Saturday. Mbeki was pressured to quit after a judge threw out a corruption case against Zuma earlier this month on a legal technicality and implied that Mbeki's administration had put political pressure on prosecutors.

In his television address, Mbeki said "categorically" that he had never interfered in the work of prosecutors. He said that included "the painful matter" of the Zuma case. Zuma has been under a cloud for the past eight years from allegations relating to a big arms deal.

A senior ANC official, Matthews Phosa, said the party had asked the Cabinet to remain on the job.

"We want the Cabinet to stay," Phosa said. "We want stability and we want them to stay t but we cannot enforce things upon them," he said on South African television.

Early indications were that most Cabinet ministers had agreed to stay, including Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, who is important to investor confidence in South Africa.

Phosa also said the party wanted Mbeki to continue as mediator in Zimbabwe, where he recently persuaded President Robert Mugabe to share power with the opposition.

Although increasingly isolated at home in recent months, Mbeki persisted in his statesmanship abroad. In his speech he reeled off a list of countries that have benefited from South African mediation and quiet diplomacy: Congo, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

"These African patriots know as I do that Africa and Africans will not and must not be the wretched of the earth in perpetuity," Mbeki said.

Despite the humiliation inflicted on him by the party to which he has belonged for the past 52 years - and despite his own reputation for dealing ruthlessly with opponents - Mbeki was graceful in defeat. He did not fill his speech with recriminations, as some had feared.

Nuclear deals in sight as Indian PM heads to US, France

AFP, New Delhi

India's prime minister on Monday was set to begin a 10-day visit to the United States and France which is expected to mark the country's return to global nuclear commerce after 30 years in the cold.

Manmohan Singh, who will also attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York and a India-EU gathering in Marseille, expects to finalise at least one landmark atomic deal before returning on October 2.

In New York, he will meet world leaders including Pakistan's newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said.

Singh will then make a brief visit to Washington on September 25 when officials hope to sign a bilateral accord allowing India to buy nuclear power plants, technology and fuel.

It would mark a milestone in warming ties between the United States and India, a former Soviet ally, said security analyst C. Uday Bhaskar.

New Delhi, which is critically short of energy to fuel its booming economy, is looking at investments worth billions of dollars in its power sector.

Signed by Bush and Singh in July 2005, the pact is awaiting final approval from the US Congress.

Lalit Mansingh, a former ambassador to Washington, noted that the US Congressional calendar was "very tight" with the session slated to end on September 26 ahead of November 4 polls.

But the passage of the deal "doesn't seem impossible," he said, pointing to mounting internal pressure for an endorsement before Singh's arrival in Washington.

New Delhi, which agreed to open some of its reactors for inspection, already has approvals to buy fuel and technology from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) that controls global atomic trade.

Mansingh said that, even if the US deal was not signed, a nuclear cooperation accord with France was likely to be completed in Paris on September 30.