The New Nation - Internet Edition

Global financial crisis hangs over UN General Assembly debate

AFP, United Nations

World leaders open their annual UN debate here Tuesday, with top geopolitical issues like the crisis in Georgia, Iran's nuclear ambitions and rights abuses in Darfur overshadowed by the global financial crisis.

More than 120 heads of state or government are attending the week-long General Assembly's general debate, which UN chief Ban Ki-moon is to open at 9 a.m. (1300 GMT). Britain's UN Ambassador John Sawers on Monday told reporters that the financial crisis would be "uppermost on the minds" of world leaders who "will want to address that issue as well as issues on the UN agenda."

Indeed George W. Bush, who will address the Assembly for the last time as US president Tuesday, is expected to "talk some about the recent action he took to help stabilize our markets and the global impact of that," his spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Monday. The US president has been pushing the US Congress to approve his proposed 700- billion-dollar bailout, but his Democratic critics and even some fellow Republicans have criticized the plan.

Bush is also expected to urge Russia to honor its commitment to fully withdraw its troops from Georgia and, according to Johndroe, "will talk about the role of multilateral institutions, the need for them to be effective in combating terrorism, but also help spread freedom." Another keynote speaker Tuesday will be French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency and who brokered the truce deal which ended the five-day war in August between Russia and Georgia for control of the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In the afternoon, it will be Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's turn to take the floor.

It will be Ahmadinejad's fourth visit to the United States for the UN General Assembly since his election in 2005. He is also due to meet students, religious leaders and foreign politicians. The firebrand Iranian leader has used previous UN visits to attack Iran's arch-foes, the United States and Israel, and to defend Tehran's nuclear program which the West fears could be used for weapons development.

Thursday, foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States are to meet on the sidelines of the Assembly debate to weigh prospects for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran for its nuclear defiance.

173 killed, 266,000 homeless in Indian flood

AFP, Shimla

The death toll due to heavy rains and flooding over the weekend across India shot up to 173 with the air force rescuing a revered Tibetan spiritual leader, officials said Sunday.

Most of the casualties were reported from India's most populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh with 110 people dead in rain related accidents, revenue secretary Balwinder Kumar said in state capital Lucknow.

Further north, in the tourist state of Himachal Pradesh, state officials said 46 had died due to heavy rains lashing the state. In eastern Orissa, 17 people were washed away and 2.4 million people left homeless after four rivers burst their banks and flooded villages, senior official Ajit Kumar Tripathy said Sunday in state capital Bhubaneswar. In Uttar Pradesh, Kumar said incessant rains and strong winds triggered house collapses which killed many victims.

Further north, rains felled trees and severed power lines in Himachal Pradesh, blocking roads and bridges and cutting off electricity to houses, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said.

Indian air force helicopters, dropping food, medicines and supplies to affected people, also ferried the Karmapa Lama, who heads the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, to safety, Dhumal said. The Karmapa Lama -- Ugyen Trinley Dorje -- ranks only behind the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama in the Tibetan spiritual hierarchy.

Another helicopter dropped food and other essentials to 45 trekkers including 25 foreigners stranded in the high altitude Lahaul valley, he added. Sudha Devi, a senior Himachal administration official said at least 150 tourists had been evacuated from the snow covered 13,050 feet (3,977 metres) high Rohtang Pass on Sunday.

Meanwhile, in eastern Orissa state, about 266,000 people were evacuated to safer places after heavy rains and water overflowing from brimming dams inundated large parts of the state, Tripathy said.

Taliban bomb kills Afghan district and police chief

AFP, Kandahar

A roadside bomb killed a district governor and his police chief as they were driving home in southern Afghanistan, police said Tuesday, in an attack claimed by Taliban insurgents.

The Registan district officials were in the same vehicle driving to their homes in the southern province of Kandahar when they were struck by the bomb at about 9:00 pm Monday, provincial police chief Mutiullah Khan told AFP.

"They are both killed and four of their guards were wounded," he said.

District chief Amir Mohammad and the police commander, named only Assadullah, lived in the neighbouring Spin Boldak district where they were killed.

Pakistani troops kill 10 Qaeda-linked militants

AFP, Khar

Pakistani troops killed at least 10 Al-Qaeda-linked militants in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, days after a massive attack on an Islamabad hotel, officials said Tuesday.

The insurgents were killed in the Bajaur area as part of a huge military operation launched last month, which analysts say likely sparked Saturday's bombing of the Marriott hotel in which at least 60 people died.

Soldiers killed six militants late Monday in a mortar attack on a suspicious vehicle in the town of Loisam, a security official said. The extremists inside the vehicle were planning an attack on a security post in the area, the official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP.

Young pretender Miliband favourite for British PM if Brown goes

AFP, Manchester

He is nicknamed "Brains", has left- wing politics in his blood and is loved by the Labour Party faithful, but David Miliband insists he does not want a coup against Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The 43-year-old British foreign secretary is the clear favourite to take over if Brown does quit in the face of a festering rebellion in the ruling party, although he says he does not support a leadership election and wants unity.

That did not stop Miliband giving two interviews on the eve of Labour's annual meeting here about his ideas and personal life, including how he met his concert violinist wife on a plane and his love for his two young adopted sons.

At the conference, he has tried to rally the party with his vision of Labour's future.

Most Australians want to dump British monarch: Poll

AFP, Sydney

Most Australians want to dump the British monarch as head of state and become a republic, an opinion poll showed Tuesday. Fifty-two percent support a republic, 40 percent do not and eight percent are undecided, the Herald/Nielsen poll of 1,400 voters showed.

The poll comes as the government and official opposition are both led by republicans for the first time in the history of this former British colony.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who ousted royalist John Howard in elections last November, describes himself as "a lifelong republican". The new leader of the opposition, former merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull who took over the Liberal Party from a royalist last week, led a push for a republic nearly 10 years ago. A referendum on the issue was held in 1999 and republicans lost. Since then, the issue has been largely shelved while the popular Queen Elizabeth II remains on the throne.

Japan incoming PM works to keep coalition

AFP, Tokyo

Japan's premier-designate Taro Aso got down to business Tuesday by trying to ensure an alliance with his party's partner, which has been increasingly uneasy about the coalition as tough elections loom.

The brash conservative handily won the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership election on Monday, fuelling speculation that he would call general elections as soon as late October. The 68-year-old former foreign minister was to meet Tuesday with Akihiro Ota, head of New Komeito, to confirm the two-party coalition in a deadlocked parliament half controlled by a rising opposition. New Komeito, Japan's third largest party, enjoys steady support from a Buddhist sect. It has been restless with Aso's predecessor Yasuo Fukuda, fearing he would lead the two parties to election defeat by weakening social welfare services.