The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bush, Abbas to take stock of Mideast peace efforts

AP, New York

US President George W. Bush and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas meet Thursday to assess Middle East peace efforts that are not expected to yield a hoped-for breakthrough by year's end.

Bush, the first sitting US president to call for the creation of a Palestinian state, now seems unlikely to achieve that high-priority before leaving office in January, and even major progress seems doubtful.

Political upheaval in Israel, where Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has resigned in the face of corruption scandal, has cast further uncertainty over what can be done in just four months.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, tasked by Israeli President Shimon Peres to form a new government, is locked in political talks that appear to have pushed peace talks on the back burner.

Abbas, in New York for the UN General Assembly, has openly acknowledged that he has little hope of an imminent deal but stresses that he will keep working as he waits to see the new Israeli government and a new US president.

"We cannot call this a last-chance meeting. We are going to talk with them (the United States) until the very last moment," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.

"We are not waiting for the arrival of a new administration to try to reach a peace accord, the only way to put an end to the Israeli occupation and the suffering of our people," he added.

Continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and a lack of breakthroughs on sensitive core issues like the fate of occupied Jerusalem have dogged the talks since they were revived at a US-sponsored conference in Annapolis in 2007 with the goal of sealing a deal in 2008. But Palestinian officials say they will not be squeezed into accepting a partial peace deal that does not satisfy their hopes or defers the toughest issues.

"We reject any partial accord," said Erakat. "We want a complete agreement covering all of the issues."

Some Israeli media had reported in mid-September that Olmert hoped for a deal with Abbas that would largely echo the Annapolis declaration, but would not go into much detail and would not address the status of Arab east Jerusalem.

"We will not accept a last-minute agreement on which we are not consulted," said Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki.

"President Abbas will detail to President Bush what has been accomplished to date in the talks, and what still needs to be done before the end of the year. The goal is to see whether we have hit an impasse or whether there is still a chance of reaching a deal," he added.

Peres has downplayed chances of a deal by year's end.

"We have hoped to conclude it by the end of year but apparently we shall not conclude it by the end of the year. I do believe that we made real progress and there is a very fair chance to conclude it during the next year," he said.

Bush made a passing reference to the difficult process in his farewell speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, urging the world body to support "the people of the Palestinian territories, who deserve a free and peaceful state of their own."

"The President looks forward to discussing with President Abbas the progress made toward building Palestinian institutions and toward realizing the vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Pakistani air strikes on militant tunnels kill 20

AFP, Khar

Pakistani warplanes pounded a militant tunnel network in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing 20 Taliban insurgents, local security officials said Wednesday.

The air strikes happened in the troubled district of Bajaur, where a major army operation launched in August has killed more than 800 people-most of them militants-and displaced 300,000 civilians.

"At least 13 people were killed in repeated raids overnight in Rashakai, Khazana and Takhata towns where the militants had underground tunnels," a local security official said on condition of anonymity.

"The bombing was very heavy and planes carried out repeated sorties" until dawn on Wednesday, residents said.

Local officials said attacks resumed on Wednesday morning in two other towns in Bajaur, killing another seven militants. Islamabad has come under intense pressure from Washington to crack down on Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who have created safe havens in Pakistan's troubled tribal regions along the Afghan border.

Attacks in Afghan capital kill 6 policemen

Reuters, Kabul

A land mine planted by Taliban insurgents in a police post in the Afghan capital killed three policemen on Wednesday, a police official said.

The blast occurred as a group of officers were investigating the killing of three other policemen at the post in an overnight Taliban attack, he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Several other police along with a senior city officer, Ali Shah Paktiawal, were wounded in the blast, which occurred in the western outskirts of the city, he added.

The Taliban in a statement said the militant group was behind both incidents, adding they were part of the Islamists' focus on launching attacks in Kabul.

Taliban militants have closed in on the Afghan capital in the past year, making travel to the west, south and east of the city hazardous for aid workers and government officials.

Earlier, a police officer said the target of the blast was Paktiawal, who heads the criminal investigation department of Kabul police and has survived several attempts on his life.

U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban's radical Islamist rule in 2001 for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States.

But the militants regrouped and have extended the size and scope of their attacks despite the rising number of foreign and Afghan forces, currently around 220,000.

They are mostly active in southern and eastern areas where frustration is high among many over civilian casualties caused by Afghan and foreign troops, the slow pace of economic change and the perception of lack of representation in the central government.

Myanmar opposition vows to continue fight for Aung San Suu Kyi

AFP, Yangon

Myanmar's pro-democracy party on Wednesday vowed to continue pushing for their leader Aung San Suu Kyi's release after several of her close confidants were freed from prison by the ruling junta.

Seven dissidents from the Nobel peace laureate's party were among the 9,002 prisoners freed Tuesday in an amnesty that state media said was ordered so they could take part in elections promised by the ruling generals for 2010.

The most prominent was 79-year-old journalist and activist Win Tin, Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoner, who spent nearly two decades behind the bars of Yangon's feared Insein prison.

National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesman Nyan Win said that although they welcomed the amnesty, they would continue to fight for the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last 19 years under house arrest.

"We will send an appeal for her release from detention this week to the cabinet in Naypyidaw," Nyan Win told AFP, referring to the nation's capital.

"We are always hoping for her release. There are still many long-serving political prisoners t All should also be released," he added.

The release of Win Tin and the six other NLD members was immediately hailed by the United Nations, the United States and rights groups around the world.

"We worked together to defend Win Tin's innocence and we are immensely relieved that he has finally been freed," press freedom organisations Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association said in a joint statement.

"We hope other journalists and prisoners of conscience will also be freed and that Win Tin will be able to resume his peaceful struggle for press freedom and democracy in Burma," they added, using Myanmar's former name.

Food riots in east India, flood waters lap Taj Mahal

Reuters, Bhubaneswar

Officials in eastern India struggled to provide aid to tens of thousands of flood victims after riots broke out on Wednesday, as floodwaters lapped the Taj Mahal compound but posed no immediate threat to it.

Monsoon rains, burst dams and overflowing embankments have unleashed bouts of flooding in South Asia this year, killing about 1,500 people, mostly in India but also in Nepal.

In Orissa, tens of thousands were still stranded on embankments and on highways after large areas were flooded when authorities opened sluice gates of a dam on the Mahanadi river after heavy rains last week.

Food riots broke out in many areas after villagers complained they were not getting relief supplies. Hungry victims beat up officials, blocked roads and looted relief materials.

McCain, Obama plot tricky course on finance crisis

AFP, Saginaw

White House foes Barack Obama and John McCain Tuesday unveiled proposals to improve a bailout for crippled Wall Street but stopped short of rejecting the 700-billion-dollar plan outright.

Two days ahead of their first face-to-face debate Friday, the rivals picked their way through the political minefield sown by the crisis, seeking to win spurs for leadership and support from US workers.

Their latest gambits came as a flurry of new polls suggested voters may be blaming President George W. Bush's Republicans for the meltdown, which could be troubling news for McCain.

The Arizona senator warned time was running short for Congress to pass the bailout, as lawmakers from both parties vowed they would not vote for it as it was currently constituted.

"Inaction is not an option. The American people are watching, history will be our judge and it will judge us harshly if we do not put our country first," McCain said in his first press availability in six weeks.

McCain has raised concerns about what he sees as a lack of oversight for the plan to buy up bad debts of finance firms, which he said puts historic levels of wealth and power in the hands of one official-US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the key architect of the bailout .

"Can you promise me that this sacrifice -- 10,000 dollars-for every household in America, that it's going to work?" McCain said.

With dire warnings from government officials of a financial catastrophe without immediate action, McCain did not say whether his disquiet would prompt him to oppose the bill as it is currently framed in Congress.

He said taxpayers must be guaranteed a route to recover money put into the fund, he said, adding there also must be complete transparency in how the bill makes its way through Congress.

No Wall Street executive from a bailed out firm should be paid any more in severance pay than is earned by the top US government official, McCain said, and warned lawmakers should not be allowed to add on funding for pet projects.

McCain spent the day touring factories and attending small events in battleground states in Ohio and Michigan, in an attempt to reassure worried US workers that he cares as much about "Main Street" as Wall Street.

Democrat Obama also warned that disgraced business tycoons should not get a bonanza in taxpayer funded bonuses.

"This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street executives," Obama told a press conference in Florida, setting out four demands including that a board be set up to oversee the economic rescue plan.

"The power to spend 700 billion dollars of taxpayer money cannot be left to the discretion of one man, no matter who he is or which party he is from. I have great respect for Secretary Paulson, but he cannot act alone."

The Illinois senator, 47, in Florida preparing for Friday's presidential debate , also called for taxpayers to be treated as investors in the crisis and to share in the profits when Wall Street recovers.