The New Nation - Internet Edition

Tiger suicide attack kills 27 in Sri Lanka

AFP, Colombo

A Tamil Tiger suicide bomber triggered a blast inside offices of the main opposition party in Sri Lanka on Monday, killing at least 27 people, including a senior retired general, officials said.

The attack in the northern town of Anuradhapura came as the Sri Lankan military appeared on the verge of capturing the Tigers' key headquarters as part of a major offensive in the drawn-out ethnic conflict.

"The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) set off a suicide explosion. There are a large number of casualties. At least 27 are dead and 80 injured," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.

The blast killed the provincial head of the United National Party, retired army general Janaka Perera, who was attending a ceremony to open the offices when the attack occurred.

Officials said it was likely he had been directly targeted by the blast, which left many of the dead slumped beside overturned blue plastic chairs put out for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Perera, whose wife was also killed, was a prominent war veteran credited with some of the army's biggest victories over the Tigers, including a 1996 battle in which 200 rebels were killed with the loss of just one soldier.

The United National Party (UNP) officially supports a negotiated settlement with the Tigers and says the current offensive is being used by the government for political ends.

The UNP's Ranil Wickremesinghe was prime minister in February 2002 when Colombo and Tiger rebels negotiated their peace deal, brokered by Norway, which finally collapsed earlier this year.

Among those killed on Monday was a female television reporter filming the opening ceremony, said her employer, the privately-run Sirasa network.

Sri Lanka's army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka announced at the weekend that his troops were within two kilometres (1.25 miles) of the northern rebel headquarters in Kilinochchi.

Losing control of Kilinochchi would be a major blow to the Tigers, who took up arms in 1972, demanding minority rights. In 1976 they raised the stakes, demanding a separate Tamil state.

As the political capital of the LTTE's northern mini-state, Kilinochchi is where the rebels have hosted visiting foreign dignitaries and peace brokers.

The Tigers, who are known for their trademark suicide attacks, have put up only intermittent resistance to the military forces advancing on several fronts in the north of Sri Lanka.

But defence analysts recently warned that the Tigers still had suicide attackers who could be deployed with devastating effect.

"(The) Tigers could be facing the biggest defeat since 1995, but you can't ignore their ability to carry out suicide attacks," one analyst, who declined to be named, told AFP at the weekend.

Foreign aid workers who evacuated the northern region three weeks ago said most residents of Kilinochchi had fled as the fighting moved closer.

Fighting across the northern frontier on Sunday left at least 13 Tigers and two soldiers dead, the defence ministry said Monday.

Since the Colombo government formally revoked the moribund truce in January, 7,196 Tigers have been killed, according to the military, which places its own losses at 704 soldiers.

The casualty figures cannot be independently verified.

65 dead as Kyrgzstan quake razes village

AFP, Bishkek

A strong earthquake hit Kyrgyzstan, killing 65 people mainly in a remote village near the border with China that rescuers were racing to reach, officials said Monday.

The quake late Sunday, which measured magnitude 6.6 according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), flattened the village of Nura in the isolated Alaisky district on the mountainous border.

"The current number of dead has reached 65 people," the Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the quake had flattened 120 of the 428 houses in the village high in the mountains of southern Kyrgyzstan close to the Chinese border.

Emergency Situations Minister Kamchybek Tashiyev told journalists that more than 100 people "were injured to various degrees". The quake hit at 9:52 pm (15:52 GMT) and was felt as far away as the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, some 900 kilometres (560 miles) from Nura.

"The picture we saw was frightening. The village of Nura is fully destroyed, 100 percent. There are many injured. So far we have counted 60 dead. All of them are local residents," Tashiyev said, before his ministry updated the toll.

He added that it would take time for the final number of dead and injured. Victims were being ferried by helicopter from Nura-a village of some 960 residents-to the main regional city of Osh, 220 kilometres away.

"The helicopter will make as many flights as needed to transport wounded people needing medical attention to the regional centre," said Tashiyev.

Rescue efforts were being hampered by the remoteness of the village and a lack of telephone links with it, while roads had become impassable in some places due to the quake, officials said. "Efforts to assist the victims are being complicated by the distance of the villagest from hospitals, by a lack of communications and by the destruction of the roads," said health ministry official Dinara Sagynbayeva.

30 killed as Muslims, tribal groups clash in Assam

AFP, Guwahati

India's Assam state deployed thousands of paramilitary troops Monday to quell clashes between Muslim migrants and tribal groups that have left more than 30 people dead.

More than 60,000 people have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the violence that broke out Friday and swiftly spread through three districts of the northeastern state.

A senior Assam police official said an additional 2,100 paramilitary personnel were being sent to the affected areas, where curfews with shoot-on-sight orders have already been imposed.

The clashes, between members of the Bodo tribal group and Muslim settlers originally from Bangladesh, have witnessed raids on numerous villages by groups armed with bows and poison-tipped arrows, spears and machetes.

"They set fire to a large a number of homes in my village," said Dipali Basumatary, who had taken shelter with her two children in a government-run relief camp.

At least half the fatalities so far have been people killed in police firing.

Eleven killed in US raid in north Iraq

AFP, Baghdad

Eleven people were killed, including three women and three children, as a suicide bomber struck and a gunbattle broke out during a US raid on a house in northern Mosul on Sunday, the US military said.

American troops came under fire as they entered the house in the city of Mosul, 370 kilometres (230 miles) from Baghdad, looking for a wanted man, it said in a statement.

It said a man detonated a suicide vest as the troops closed in on the suspects.

Five men were killed along with three women and three children while another child was wounded in the blast, the US military said, without reporting any American casualties.

"As coalition forces entered the building housing the terrorist, they began receiving small arms fire. Coalition forces returned fire once engaged."

"A terrorist detonated a suicide vest shortly thereafter in the house t Five terrorists along with three women and three children were killed," the statement said.

It was not clear if the women and children were killed in the blast or by gunfire.

The Americans said they conducted a sweep and found small arms and explosives hidden in the building.

"This is just another tragic example of how al-Qaeda in Iraq hides behind innocent Iraqis," US military spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll said.

Struggling Japanese PM rules out snap polls

AFP, Tokyo

Japan's new Prime Minister Taro Aso on Monday brushed aside talk of calling a snap election, vowing instead to concentrate on revitalising the ailing economy as he struggles to win over voters.

Speaking in parliament just two weeks after taking office, Aso indicated he was not minded to put his government to the test just yet, amid poll ratings which have disappointed ruling party leaders.

"Our priority is to let the supplementary budget pass. Therefore, I don't have dissolution (of parliament) in mind at this stage," Aso said.

"I presume that what people are most concerned about right now are the prospects for the economy," he said.

Aso was speaking to a parliamentary committee which is looking at an extra 1.81 trillion yen (17 billion dollar) budget that he has proposed to help the world's second largest economy cope with rising prices.

He is also looking at additional funding to help stimulate Japan's economy, which is teetering on recession as the global financial crisis saps foreign demand for its exports.

The former foreign minister took over as premier on September 24 from Yasuo Fukuda, who resigned amid sagging popularity after raising medical costs for elderly people to ease the budget burden.

But Aso's initial poll ratings disappointed strategists in his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who hoped he could call an election quickly to contain a rising opposition, which controls one house of parliament.

The latest opinion poll by the Asahi Shimbun showed public support for the Aso cabinet has slid even further, falling to 41 percent now from 48 percent immediately after he took office.

Europe backs off of US-style economic rescue plan

AP, Berlin

The leaders of Europe's largest economies on Saturday vowed to "respond with one voice" to the global financial crisis. But a one-day summit in Paris did not produce a $300 billion rescue plan, similar to the $700 billion US rescue plan, or any other far-reaching plans to reform Europe's struggling banking sector.

Instead, they chose a much more cautious approach.

France had suggested a multibillion-dollar European Union-wide government bailout plan, but backed off after Germany said banks must find their own way out. Leaders did agree to begin rewriting European accounting regulations later this month in an effort to reduce the financial losses that banks are currently forced to write off.

They also agreed to propose a so-called "college of regulators" that would monitor international banks with locations in more than one European country.

"They were trying to stop public panic," says Gerhard Illing, research director at the Institute for Economic Studies in Munich. "From that standpoint, I was very encouraged by the meeting."

But leaders left unanswered questions on the extent to which European countries should guarantee bank deposits, and whether any limits should be placed on bank lending practices.

In Berlin, the German government held crisis talks after the collapse of a ballyhooed ??35 billion (US$48.4 billion) bailout of Hypo Real Estate AG, the country's second-biggest property lender.

Hypo is the fourth major European bank to do so in a week.

The EU agreed last week to the privatization of Britain's eighth largest bank, Bradford and Bingley.

Up until now, the European strategy for dealing with the financial crisis has been to hope larger banks will rescue smaller failing ones.

Professor Illing says that it has only worked because the large banks have remained relatively stable.

"The key problem is that as soon as a couple of them fail there will be this domino effect, and even sound banks will be at risk."

Clashes kill 4 in India

AP, Mumbai

Clashes between Hindus and Muslims in a western Indian town left at least four people dead and 80 injured, forcing police to impose a curfew, an official said Monday.

The violence erupted Sunday when some Muslims tore up posters put up by a Hindu group near their shops in Dhule, a town 170 miles northeast of Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital, police officer Jeet Patel said.

Local Muslims objected to the posters, which urged Hindus to wake up following a series of bomb blasts across Hindu-majority India. A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for some of the bombings.

Muslims and Hindus attacked each other with stones and burned several shops, homes and vehicles in the area, Patel said.

Police fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse the rioters, he said.

Paramilitary soldiers also were called in to control the mob and a curfew was imposed in the area, Patel said.

He said three people were killed in the mob violence and one by the police firing.

Muslims comprise nearly 25 percent of Dhule's 550,000 people. Friction and misunderstandings sometimes spark clashes between the two communities, which otherwise live and work together.

India's Muslims, who account for about 14 percent of the country's population of nearly 1.1 billion, lag far behind the Hindu majority in most social indicators, from literacy to household incomes.

UN nuclear meeting indirectly criticises Israel

AP, Vienna

A U.N. nuclear conference indirectly criticized Israel on Saturday for refusing to put its atomic program under international purview, but the Jewish state evaded a Muslim-led attempt to link it to nuclear proliferation in the Mideast.

As in past years at the International Atomic Energy Agency's general conference, Iran, Israel's most outspoken foe, spearheaded the verbal attack on Israel, which is widely considered to have nuclear arms but has a "no tell" policy on the issue.

Chief Iranian delegate Ali Ashgar Soltanieh said Israel's nuclear capabilities represent a "serious and continued threat to the security of neighboring and other states."

And he took the U.S. and other Western backers of Israel to task for their "shameful silence" on what he said was the menace posed by Israel's atomic arsenal.

The meeting of 145 nations voted for a resolution urging all nations to open their nuclear activities to outside inspections and work toward the establishment of a Mideast nuclear weapons free zone.

With Israel the only country in the region considered to have atomic arms, passage of the resolution constituted indirect criticism of the Jewish state.

The resolution called on all nations in the Middle East "not to develop, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons," and urged nuclear weapons states to "refrain from any action" hindering the establishment of a Mideast zone free of nuclear weapons.

The United States and the European Union managed to block an effort by Muslim nations and their supporters to submit a resolution more directly critical of Israel and its "nuclear capabilities."

Although last year's meeting followed a similar pattern, the votes for and against the two motions reflected shifting dynamics on the issues.

US will launch military strike against Iran : Mottaki

AFP, Washington

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in an interview published Monday, said his country did not believed Israel or the United States would launch a military strike against Iran over its nuclear programme.

Asked in an interview with Newsweek magazine and The Washington Post if he believed there would an Israeli or US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, Mottaki answered flatly: "No."

He did not elaborate.

At the same time, he welcomed the US decision last July to send one of the top State Department officials, William Burns, to attend negotiations with Iran in Europe, interpreting the move as a realistic step. "We welcomed the participation by Mr. Burns in the Geneva talks," Mottaki said. "We feel that if this is the real approach taken by the US right now vis-a-vis the nuclear issue, they must continue with such efforts."

The foreign minister said that previously, the administration of President George W. Bush attached conditions to its participation in the talks with Iran.

Burns's presence in Geneva, argued Mottaki, "meant that those were no longer in play."

White House contenders go nuclear a month from election day

AFP, Asheville

Democrat Barack Obama, responding to his portrayal by John McCain's campaign as a crony of "terrorists," fought fire with fire Monday by highlighting the Republican's embroilment in a devastating 1980s financial scandal.

A month from election day on November 4, the rivals traded furious barbs as Arizona Senator McCain battled to arrest his Illinois opponent's poll surge at a time of deep anxiety about the state of the US economy. Obama rolled out a new advertisement and email onslaught recalling McCain's complicity in the scandal over jailed tycoon Charles Keating, the collapse of whose savings and loan firm wiped out the savings of many elderly retirees.

McCain was part of a group of lawmakers that became known as the "Keating Five" that received gifts and favors from the businessman and intervened with regulators to insist his company was in good health.

The Republican escaped with a formal censure by the Senate in 1991 but spoke of the searing embarrassment caused by the scandal, which cost the US government 124 billion dollars to bail out the entire savings and loan industry, and went on to become a crusader for ethics reform.

"Sound familiar?" Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in an email to supporters, after Congress last week passed a 700-billion-dollar bailout for Wall Street.

"The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain's Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts-and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain," he said.

The war of words sparked by McCain's running mate Sarah Palin raised the stakes still higher as the presidential contenders prepared to face off at the second of three debates on Tuesday.

Alaska Governor Palin Saturday accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists," a reference to his ties in Chicago to former militant William Ayers, whose "Weathermen" group bombed government buildings in the 1960s and 1970s.

Modern culture is destroying faith, Pope warns

AFP, Rome

Pope Benedict XVI attacked the Godless character of modern culture as he celebrated mass Sunday in a Roman basilica to mark the opening of a synod of Catholic bishops. In a sombre homily in which he suggested that Christianity in Europe could become extinct like some Christian communities in history, the pope told more than 250 bishops from around the world that societies which rebelled against God in the past had faced His "punishment".

"If we look at history we are forced to notice the frequent coldness and rebellion of incoherent Christians. Because of this, God, while never shirking in his promise of salvation, often had to turn towards punishment," he said. Benedict warned that "nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture.

"There are those that, having decided that 'God is dead,' declare themselves 'god,' believing themselves to be the only creator of their own fate, the absolute owner of the world," the German-born pope said.

"When men proclaim themselves absolute owners of themselves and the only masters of creation, are they really going to be able to construct a society where freedom, justice and peace reign?

"Is it not more likely-as demonstrated by news headlines every day-that the arbitrary rule of power, selfish interests, injustice and exploitation, and violence in all its forms, will extend their grip?"

The pontiff was celebrating mass in the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls in central Rome, which houses the tomb of the Apostle Paul.

Benedict however tempered his speech by saying "if in certain regions, faith weakens to the point of fading away, there will always be other people ready to receive it," adding "evil and death never have the final word."