The New Nation - Internet Edition

Polls give Obama edge over McCain in first debate

AP, Washington

A pair of one-night polls gave Barack Obama a clear edge over John McCain in their first presidential debate.

Fifty-one percent said Obama, the Democrat, did a better job in Friday night's faceoff while 38 percent preferred the Republican McCain, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. survey of adults.

Obama was widely considered more intelligent, likable and in touch with peoples' problems, and by modest margins was seen as the stronger leader and more sincere. Most said it was McCain who spent more time attacking his opponent.

About six in 10 said each did a better job than expected. Seven in 10 said each seemed capable of being president. In a CBS News poll of people not committed to a candidate, 39 percent said Obama won the debate, 24 percent said McCain and 37 percent called it a tie. Twice as many said Obama understands their needs than said so about McCain.

Seventy-eight percent said McCain is prepared to be president, about the same proportion of uncommitted voters as said so before the debate. Sixty percent said Obama is ready - a lower score than McCain, but a solid 16-percentage-point improvement from before the debate.

In another Obama advantage in the CBS poll, far more said their image of him had improved as a result of the debate than said it had worsened. More also said their view of McCain had gotten better rather than worse, but by a modest margin.

The CNN poll involved telephone interviews with 524 adults who watched the debate and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. The CBS survey involved online interviews with 483 uncommitted voters who saw the debate and had an error margin of plus or minus 4 points. It was conducted by Knowledge Networks, which initially selected the respondents by telephone. Both polls were conducted Friday night.

Polls conducted on one night can be less reliable than surveys conducted over several nights because they only include the views of people available that particular evening.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sought to score a quick post-debate advantage Saturday by traveling to two Republican-leaning states and accusing GOP rival John McCain of being out of touch with middle-class Americans.

"We talked about the economy for 40 minutes and not once did Sen. McCain talk about the struggles middle-class families are having," Obama told more than 26,000 people who stood out in the rain with him on the campus of the University of Mary Washington.

While Obama was out campaigning, McCain stayed in the Washington, D.C.-area monitoring by phone the congressional negotiations on a deal on stabilizing U.S. financial markets. Obama did the same while on the campaign trial, with aides saying he spoke by phone to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., as negotiators inched toward a deal.

"Unlike Sen. McCain, it didn't take a crisis on Wall Street for me to realize that people are hurting," Obama said.

Obama returned to Washington Saturday night with his wife Michelle to accept an award from the Congressional Black Caucus at its annual legislative conference before taking off again Sunday for campaign stops in Michigan, a crucial battleground state.

Two killed, 22 hurt in Delhi bomb attack

Reuters, New Delhi

A bomb exploded in a crowded market in India's capital New Delhi on Saturday, killing two people and wounding 22 others, police said.

The government described it as an "act of terror."

Witness Raj Singh Daswal said he saw two men on a motorcycle drop a black plastic bag that was picked up by a boy.

"He ran after the men telling them 'uncle, uncle you dropped something'," Daswal told Reuters. "Immediately after, there was a huge explosion. The boy's head was blown off."

Police said the second victim was a 60-year-old man who died in hospital.

The bomb left a crater in the road. Police cordoned off the blast site to keep away a crowd of hundreds of people. Many, including wailing women, tried to break through the cordon.

People were seen walking in blood-stained shirts. Locals carried the injured to hospital. Bomb experts picked through debris for clues and sniffer dogs were brought in.

The street in Mehrauli, where the bombing took place, is a mixed area with small mosques and some ancient stone Muslim buildings mixed in with small shops and homes, and close to the Qutab Minar monument which attracts thousands of tourists.

Police evacuated people from all major markets in the city and said ammonium nitrate could have been used in the blast.

"We are looking for the motorcyclists," police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.

Hundreds of people have been killed in a wave of bombings in India in recent years, mostly blamed on Muslim militants, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains.

Saturday's explosion comes days after a series of bombs in the capital that killed 23 people and wounded more than 100 others. Those attacks had put New Delhi on alert and police were raiding Muslims' quarters and criminal hideouts.

They shot dead two Muslims in a raid last week, saying one of them was the mastermind of the New Delhi bombings.

The failure to prevent such attacks has become an embarrassment for the Congress party-led coalition government, with elections less than a year away.

"The government will have to take stern measures to put an end to this type of activities and acts of terror," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.

In July, at least 45 people were killed when a series of bombs ripped through Ahmedabad, the main city of the western state of Gujarat. A day earlier, one woman died when eight bombs went off in the IT hub of Bangalore.

In May, more than 50 people were killed in coordinated bomb attacks in the western tourist city of Jaipur.

Police have blamed the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India for most attacks in recent years, but say that local Muslims appear to have been given training and backing by militant groups in neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh.

No interim peace deal with Israel, Saudi FM says

AP, United Nations

Arab nations will totally reject any partial or interim solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because historically such arrangements have become permanent, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Saturday.

While supporting current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to reach "a comprehensive final solution," Prince Saud Al Faisal said "the least that we expect from Israel during these negotiations is that it should halt all settlement operations."

"The continuation of settlement activity in the occupied Arab territories renders the negotiations meaningless and makes it difficult for us to convince our peoples of the feasibility and benefits of achieving peace," he said.

At a Security Council meeting Friday on Israeli settlements, held at Saudi Arabia's request, Saud said the settlement problem is the "one issue that threatens to bring down the whole peace process." He said that addressing it was the only way to save the peace deal brokered in Annapolis, Maryland, early this year by President Bush's administration, which set the goal of achieving a substantive peace accord by January 2009 when he leaves office.

Saud took up the issue again in a speech he was scheduled to give to the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting. He did not deliver the speech and it was distributed to all U.N. members, said Brenda Vongova, the assembly president's assistant spokeswoman.

The foreign minister said Arabs have affirmed their commitment to "a just and comprehensive peace based on international law" and have not yet received the same commitment from Israel.

"Please allow me, on behalf of the Arab Group, to make it absolutely clear that we will totally reject any partial or interim solutions, because history has taught us that such solutions tend to become permanent," he said.

While peace negotiators representing Israel and the West Bank's moderate Palestinian leadership privately report progress, the talks are taking place in a vacuum, and haven't been accompanied by serious goodwill gestures that could help them succeed.

Top woman police officer in Afghan south killed

Reuters, Kandahar

Unidentified gunmen shot dead the most senior woman police officer in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, witnesses said.

Lieutenant-Colonel Malalai was killed in her car in an area of Kandahar city where she resumed her job as an officer after U.S.-led forces in 2001 overthrew the Taliban government which had barred women from most outdoor work.

She had led many police house searches in Kandahar leading to seizure of arms and drugs in recent years. Her son was wounded in the attack, witnesses said.

Officials have yet to comment about the killing of the 45-year-old Malalai who had survived several assassination attempts.

Kandahar is part of the main bastion for Taliban Islamists, but drug smugglers, criminals and some tribal rivalries have also contributed to some violence there.

Japan's new PM faces setback as transport minister resigns

AFP, Tokyo

Japan's new Prime Minister Taro Aso on Sunday faced his first political setback just days after taking office as his transport minister was forced to resign over a series of embarrassing gaffes.

The resignation was a serious blow to the outspoken, flamboyant Aso, who had been expected to call a snap election-perhaps as early as this week-to capitalise on his government's honeymoon period.

Instead, his administration has fared poorly in initial public opinion polls after taking the reins on Wednesday, and observers said the resignation of Transport Minister Nariaki Nakayama would only make things worse.

Nakayama made a series of blunders last week in his very first interview, one of which was saying that Japan was "homogenous"-a remark which raised the hackles of the country's indigenous Ainu people.

He also said schools with unionised teachers had lower standards, and accused farmers fighting for land seized for airport construction of "making profits by whining."

"I just submitted a letter of resignation to the prime minister," Nakayama told a hastily arranged press conference after an early morning meeting with Aso. "It was accepted, therefore I have resigned from the post."

"If my remarks have made any impact on parliamentary proceedings, it would not be what I had intended," he said.

Aso's government is expecting some tough battles in parliament, with the opposition in control of the upper house and piling the pressure on Aso to put his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on the line by calling early elections.

Opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa said Nakayama's resignation was "no surprise," telling reporters: "I believe the prime minister bears significant responsibility."

Aso, a conservative who has vowed new budget measures to revive the world's second largest economy, took office on Wednesday, replacing the unpopular Yasuo Fukuda, who resigned early this month.

Top government spokesman Takeo Kawamura admitted Nakayama's resignation had caused "damage" to Aso's administration.

"The resignation was inevitable due to the remarks and the development of the situation," Kawamura told reporters.

"The Aso cabinet will just have to do the best to regain public confidence by showing good work."

Nakayama is a staunch conservative who headed a group which denied that Japanese troops massacred tens of thousands of people in the Chinese city of Nanjing in 1937.

US reaches bailout deal in bid to stem economic crisis

Reuters, Washington

US lawmakers on Sunday were set to sign off on a deal to create a $700 billion fund to buy bad debt from ailing banks in a bid to stem an escalating credit crisis that threatened to engulf the global economy.

U.S. congressional leaders had pushed talks into the early morning on Sunday to nail down the bailout deal in the hope of halting a downward spiral in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The high-stakes negotiations over the financial rescue package had roiled financial markets and altered the course of the U.S. presidential campaign less than six weeks before the election. "We've made great progress," House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters after the night of marathon closed-door talks.

Russia blasts US dominant role in world affairs

AP, United Nations

Russia called Saturday for a revival of the global anti-terrorism coalition that formed after Sept. 11, 2001 but started to unravel with what it called the subsequent domination by a single power - a veiled reference to the United States.

"The solidarity of the international community fostered on the wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow 'privatized'," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting.

Lavrov cited the U.S. invasion of Iraq "under the false pretext of fight on terror and nuclear arms proliferation" and questions of excessive use of force against civilians in counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.

And he said the recent crisis over Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia proved again that "it is impossible or even disastrous to try to resolve the existing problems in the blindfolds of the unipolar world."

"Today, it is necessary to analyze the crisis in the Caucuses from the viewpoint of its impact on the region and the international community on the whole," Lavrov said.

"It has become crystal clear that the solidarity expressed by all of us after 9/11 should be revived (without double standards) when we fight against any infringements upon the international law," he said.

Lavrov called for a new "solidarity" of the international community and a strengthened United Nations, saying only in the post-Cold War world can the organization "fully realize its potential" as a global center "for open and frank debate and coordination of the world policies on a just and equitable basis free from double standards."

"This is an essential requirement, if the world is to regain its equilibrium," he said.

US House approves nuclear pact with India

AFP, Washington

The House of Representatives has passed a civilian nuclear pact with India that lifts a three decade-old ban on civilian nuclear trade with India.

The agreement, passed by a 298-117 vote, will now head to the Senate for its vote, but it was unclear if it would be passed before Congress adjourns ahead of the November 4 elections.

Signed by President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2005, the deal offers India access to Western technology and cheap atomic energy provided it allows UN nuclear inspections of some of its nuclear facilities. Bush on Saturday congratulated the House on the vote. "The passage of this legislation by the House is another major step forward in achieving the transformation of the US-India relationship," he said, urging Senate now to adopt the bill.

But the deal has faced criticism from opponents who argue that India, which first tested an atomic weapon in 1974, is not a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Representative Edward Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, denounced the vote, saying in a statement: "This is a terrible bill that threatens the future of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime."

And he argued during a late night debate Friday that opposing the bill did not mean opposing India.

"This is a debate about Iran. This is a debate about North Korea, about Pakistan, about Venezuela, about any other country in the world that harbors the goal of acquiring nuclear weapons," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to allay any lasting concerns, saying the legislation would boost US oversight on any US civilian nuclear assistance to the South Asian nation.

Key nations call on Myanmar to release Suu Kyi

AP, United Nations

Nations concerned about Myanmar called on its military government Saturday to release all political prisoners, including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and to start talking with the opposition.

The so-called Group of Friends, which includes the United States, Britain, China, Southeast Asian countries and the European Union, also called on the junta to cooperate with the United Nations, which has tried with little success to nudge the regime toward engagement with its opponents. The nations met at the United Nations on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's ministerial session.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called the meeting, said in a statement afterward that it "is a clear signal of the importance that the international community attaches to the situation in Myanmar."

The Security Council and Ban had hoped Myanmar's ruling generals would respond to international pressure to embrace national reconciliation following its violent suppression of massive, anti-government protests in Yangon last year, but so far they have not.

The Security Council has demanded that the military regime release all political prisoners, talk with the opposition, open the political process and end human rights abuses.

Ban and his special U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, have actively pursued talks with leaders of Myanmar's government.

"The people have not been forgotten by the international community," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said. He said, "The truth is the regime holds onto their power jealously and guards the power that they have."

Friday marked the first anniversary of the military junta's brutal crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks. The U.N. estimated at least 31 people were killed when the army fired on peaceful protesters Sept. 26-27, sparking global outrage.