The New Nation - Internet Edition

Israeli President warns Iran against 'surprise attack’

AFP, Jerusalem

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday warned Iran against considering a surprise attack, at a ceremony commemorating the 35th anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The war began with Syria and Egypt launching a surprise invasion of Israel on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in which early battlefield successes destroyed the myth of Israel's military invincibility.

But Peres said that although the initial invasion came as a "complete surprise," Israel soon emerged victorious. "What began as a terrible catastrophe was in 18 days transformed into an extraordinary victory.

"The IDF (Israeli army) stopped 101 kilometres (63 miles) from Cairo and 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Damascus," he said at a ceremony honouring Israeli soldiers killed in the war.

Peres went on to warn that "our new enemy, the arrogant Iranian leadershipt should not rely too much on the element of surprise."

Israel considers Iran its main strategic threat because of Tehran's accelerating nuclear enrichment programme, which Israel and the West believe is aimed at developing nuclear weapons.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and has vowed to press ahead with it despite three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions.

Israel is widely considered the sole nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, though it has never officially confirmed nor denied having such weapons.

The 1973 war, known as the Yom Kippur War in Israel, claimed the lives of 2,689 Israelis.

Pakistan gunship raid kills 35 Islamic militants

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistani helicopter gunships on Sunday bombed a meeting of Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda near the border with Afghanistan, leaving 35 fighters dead, security officials said.

The attack in the northwestern district of Orakzai came two days after a suicide bomber killed at least 40 anti-Taliban tribesmen at a tribal gathering in the same district.

Among the dead in Sunday's attack were two Taliban commanders and about 12 potential suicide bombers, officials said.

"Helicopter gunships carried out a successful raid at a militant hide-out in Orakzai district killing 35," a senior security official told AFP.

Separately, a paramilitary official confirmed around a dozen potential suicide bombers were among those killed. "The raid was carried out after ground intelligence that the Taliban were meeting and their commanders and potential suicide bombers would be there," he said.

It was not possible to get independent confirmation of the incident. Orakzai, a mountainous area which is the only one of the lawless tribal regions that does not share a border with Afghanistan, has previously been relatively unaffected by Pakistan's battle with Islamic militants. Across the tribal belt, the government has tried to enlist the fiercely independent ethnic Pashtun tribesmen to back its military operations against Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists based near the Afghan frontier.

Taliban rebels have killed dozens of tribal elders they accuse of backing the government using roadside bombs, executions and, less frequently, suicide bombings. Most of their attacks have however targeted security forces. In September, Taliban militants beheaded two police recruits one week after abducting 25 of them from Orakzai.

The United States has become increasingly concerned at Pakistan's failure to tackle Taliban militancy in the tribal regions and in the adjoining North West Frontier Province.

In the latest suspected US drone strike, two missiles on Saturday struck a compound outside Miranshah, the main town in restive North Waziristan district, which is seen as a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Four people died in the strike, officials said.

The US has stepped up its attacks inside Pakistan since a new civilian government came to power in Islamabad in March.

Relations have also been strained by a raid by US special operations forces into Pakistan on September 3 which killed several Pakistanis.

Pakistan's tribal regions have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Car bombings in Mosul and Baghdad kill 13

AP, Baghdad

Suicide car bombers struck twice Sunday in the northern city of Mosul, killing at least six people and wounding dozens of others, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. A car bomb killed seven other people in Baghdad.

Two Iraqi soldiers were killed by snipers in separate attacks Sunday in the capital's Yarmouk district, police said.

Also Sunday, the government announced new security measures to protect Christians in Mosul after a spate of attacks against them by Sunni religious extremists. The series of attacks shows the ongoing security challenges facing Iraq as the U.S. shifts responsibility to this country's own soldiers and police following the sharp decline in violence since last year.

The first attack in Mosul occurred when a suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. patrol, the U.S. military said. There were no American casualties, but five Iraqis were killed, including three young boys, the U.S. said. The attack also killed the bomber.

Another suicide car bomber targeted Iraqi police in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. Twenty-five people were wounded, the U.S. said. In Baghdad, a parked car bomb exploded in a commercial street in the Bayaa district, killing seven people and wounding nine others, police said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information. The southwestern Baghdad neighborhood was the scene of bitter Sunni-Shiite fighting until last year when the U.S. troop "surge," the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida and a cease-fire by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr brought down violence to its lowest level in four years. "Several car bombings have occurred on this street but no measures were taken to prevent these events," one Bayaa resident, who gave only his nickname Abu Ibrahim, told Associated Press Television News.

"Where is the government? Where are the security officials to prevent such attacks?"

Attacks have been continuing in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, despite months of U.S. and Iraqi security operations against al-Qaida and other Sunni extremist groups.

The governor of the province that includes Mosul, Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula, said Saturday that about 3,000 Christians have fled the city over the past week alone to escape threats and attacks by Sunni extremists.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf said Sunday that the government was taking new measures to protect Mosul's Christians, including more police in their neighborhoods and more checkpoints and patrols near churches.

"Anyhow, there is a kind of exaggeration in describing the events in Mosul," Khalaf said. "We don't deny that hostile acts occurred, but we have the ability to stop such acts and the situation is under control."

In an interview Sunday with Al-Sharqiya television, Iraqi Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly condemned the killings that have occurred recently in Mosul "especially our sons the Christians."

"We the sons of Iraq, should be of one heart, one population and one homeland for the sake of the prosperity of our country," he said from Rome.

In Baghdad, Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, said the plight of Mosul Christians indicated "a real defect" in the security operation there and urged the government to take steps immediately to correct the problems.

He said Christians in the northern city "have the right to be protected from those criminals and murderers."

U.S. officials are concerned that violence may rise in the run-up to provincial elections, which are expected by the end of January. Voters will select ruling councils in most of the country's 18 provinces. No date for the election has been set.

On Sunday, the spokesman for the election commission, Qassim al-Aboudi, told reporters that a total of 440 provincial seats would be contested, with 57 of them in Baghdad.

About 20,000 people have been trained as election monitors, he said.

Cambodia warns Thailand again in border spat

Reuters, Phnom Penh

Cambodia accused Thailand on Monday of trying to send troops across their disputed border, warning that such a provocation could eventually lead to "large scale conflict."

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said up to 500 Thai troops had tried to cross the border near an area where two Thai soldiers stepped on landmines earlier this month.

"Our troops at the border have asked the Thais not to encroach on our border," he told reporters after talks with his Thai counterpart, Sompong Amornvivat, in Phnom Penh.

"If so, there will be an armed clash. This could lead to a large-scale conflict," he said.

Sompong did not speak to reporters, but Thai officials in Bangkok denied there was any attempted incursion. "Invasion? What invasion when the land is claimed by both sides?" Thai army spokesman Sunsern Kaewkumnerd told Reuters.

Bangkok and Phnom Penh have accused each other of unprovoked aggression since a border shooting incident on October 3 in which three soldiers were wounded.

After that clash, Cambodia warned Thailand that such "armed provocation" could lead to conflict.

The standoff began in July and centers on 1.8 square miles (4.6 sq km) of scrub near an ancient Hindu temple that sits on a jungle-clad escarpment dividing the countries.

The argument started when protest groups seeking to overthrow the Thai government criticized Bangkok's backing of Cambodia's bid to list Preah Vihear as a U.N. World Heritage site.

Both sides have claimed Preah Vihear for decades. The International Court of Justice awarded it to Cambodia in 1962, a ruling that has rankled many in Thailand ever since.

Japan opposition wants bigger global security role

AFP, Tokyo

Japan would play a more active role in global security if the opposition wins upcoming elections and would also seek better diplomacy to bring peace to Afghanistan, the shadow defence minister said.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been gaining ground in opinion polls, raising the prospect of the fall of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party which has ruled for all but 10 months since 1955.

Keiichi Asao, the defence minister in the Democrats' shadow cabinet, said he would maintain support for the United States-which stations more than 40,000 troops in officially pacifist Japan-but with a different attitude.

"The DPJ regards the the Japan-US alliance as very important," Asao told AFP in an interview. But we think that Japan should say what it needs to say to the United States. In return, we will be involved at the frontlines in UN activities.

"Our use of force will need to be endorsed not only by the United States but also by the international community as a whole, namely the United Nations," he added.

Japan has long pushed for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council to bolster its influence in global affairs. A previous bid to join flopped due to strong opposition by China, the only Asian nation in the elite club.

At 44, Asao is young for a Japanese politician. A former banker, he earned a master's degree in business administration from Stanford University in California.

Asao called for a new way of thinking about the Taliban, which is waging a bloody insurgency against Afghan leaders and foreign troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"Theoretically we could join ISAF, but the party has not concluded on joining it because we don't think ISAF is contributing to building peace in Afghanistan," Asao said.

32 killed in Lankan clashes

AFP, Colombo

At least 27 Tamil Tiger rebels and five government soldiers have been killed in the latest clashes in northern Sri Lanka, the island's defence ministry said Monday.

The ministry said the fighting took place on Sunday around Kilinochchi, the administrative centre of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the target of the current government offensive.

There was no immediate comment from the Tamil rebels, and casualty figures cannot be independently verified as the Sri Lankan government tightly controls media access to the war-torn north.

The latest casualty figures bring to 7,466 the number of LTTE fighters the defence ministry has reported killed since January, when the government pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered truce. It has acknowledged the loss of 738 soldiers in the same period. Australia is considering formally declaring Sri lanka's separatist Tamil Tigers a terrorist group, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Monday, calling for a political solution to the island's civil war.

Visiting Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said he had asked Canberra to join countries such as Britain and the United States in taking the step against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"As I indicated to the foreign minister, that is currently under consideration by the Attorney-General," Smith told reporters after a meeting with Bogollagama in Canberra.

Smith said the Tamil Tigers was already effectively banned in Australia.

"For a considerable period of time the LTTE has effectively been listed under United Nations arrangements, that effects a freeze on LTTE assets in Australia and as a consequence (it is) unlawful for the use of LTTE assets in Australia," he said.

Smith said he had also raised with his counterpart Canberra's concerns over the violence in Sri Lanka and the worsening humanitarian situation.

"Australia's view remains that Sri Lanka's conflict cannot be resolved through military means alone," he said.

"All parties to the conflict must work towards a political solution that meets the legitimate aspirations of all Sri Lankans."

Water row may affect Pakistan-India ties: Zardari

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has warned a brewing row with India over the waters of the Chenab river in the disputed Kashmir region could harm improving ties between the old rivals.

The warning came two days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated a 450-megawatt hydro power project at Baglihar dam on the Chenab, which flows from the Indian side to the Pakistani side of Kashmir.

"Pakistan would be paying a very high price for India's move to block Pakistan's water supply from the Chenab River," the official Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Zardari as saying in a statement late on Sunday. "Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured me in our meeting in New York that his country is seriously committed to our water sharing treaty," he said, referring to their meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly last month. "We expect him to stand by his commitment."

Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India have fought three wars since their independence from British rule in 1947 and came close to a fourth in 2002, but relations improved after they launched a peace process in early 2004. Pakistani newspapers reported last week that India had blocked water from the Chenab river, which raised Pakistani concerns about water availability for crops.

Zardari warned that violation of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty "would damage the bilateral ties the two countries had built over the years."

Under the accord, each country controls more than three rivers draining into the Indus river basin.

India has rejected Pakistan's contention that the Baglihar dam reduces the flow of water and says the project is crucial for power-starved Kashmir.

A World Bank team of experts conducted an inquiry into the dispute in 2005 but did not make its findings public.

Pakistan's water commissioner is due to go to New Delhi on Tuesday for discussions, officials said.

Palestinian leaders call for reconciliation

AP, Damascus

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday the rift between his mainstream Palestinian faction and archrival Hamas must end. The Hamas leader, meanwhile, said the time is right for reconciliation.

Fatah and Hamas have been at odds since the latter's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Following the takeover, Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led government from his base in the West Bank and formed a new administration excluding the more radical group. Abbas was in the Syrian capital for a two-day visit to brief the Syrian leadership, which holds enormous sway with Damascus-based Palestinian groups including Hamas, on Palestinian reconciliation efforts.

"No one is happy to see the current divisions continuing," Abbas told reporters in Damascus following a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. "No one would ever respect us if we go on," he added.

He said upon his arrival in Syria Saturday that Egyptian mediation had reached an advanced stage. He said there will be a declaration in Cairo followed by a meeting with all Palestinian factions, but did not give details.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal seemed to echo those views Sunday. "We have reached a formula (for reconciliation) and we ask God to give it success," he said in Doha, Qatar.

He suggested that Fatah and Hamas release all political prisoners in Gaza and the West Bank and halt media campaigns meant to undermine each other to provide a "positive atmosphere" for Palestinian reconciliation.

Mashaal, who accused the United States of obstructing past efforts at reconciliation, said the time is now right because the Americans and Israelis were busy with internal problems. "This is an opportunity God has given us," he said.

Despite the apparent progress made in Egypt, Abbas had no plans to meet with Hamas officials during his Syria visit.

Russia fires long-range missiles

AFP, Moscow

Russia fired three long-range missiles and pronounced its nuclear deterrent strong in an extraordinary show of force experts said had not been seen anywhere since the days of the Cold War.

Two of the missiles were fired Sunday from nuclear submarines in the Asian and European extremes of the sprawling country while a third was watched by President Dmitry Medvedev on land in northwest Russia, news agencies reported.

It was the second Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in as many days and the latest in a series of high-profile military exercises of conventional land, sea and air forces as well as strategic nuclear units. "This shows that our deterrent is in order," Medvedev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying after Sunday's missile launches. "We will of course be introducing new types of forces and means into the military," he added, without elaborating. Independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said the exercises reflected Russia's determination to prepare for major military conflict.

"This was a dry run for a war with the United States," Felgenhauer said of the missile launches, part of major military manoeuvres billed "Stability 2008" involving all military branches.

"These are the biggest strategic war games in more than 20 years. They are on a parellel with those held in the first half of the 1980s. Nothing of the sort has been seen either in Russia or the United States since then," he said.

Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo confirmed the near-simultaneous ICBM test-launches from submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan and the Barents Sea northeast of Norway, saying they had been planned well in advance.

Speaking to AFP from northwest Russia, Dygalo admitted it was unusual for the navy to conduct three ICBM test launches in two days-a submarine in the Barents Sea also fired a missile Saturday-and called the tests successful.

Support for Japanese PM falls to 46 percent: Poll

AP, Tokyo

Tepid public support for Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso has fallen further in the weeks since he took office and voters now want help for the country's economy to take priority over domestic politics, according to a poll published Monday.

Support for Aso's administration has fallen to 46 percent, down almost 4 percentage points from a survey taken just after he took power and picked his Cabinet three weeks ago, reported the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper by subscribers.

It also showed that 70 percent of voters feel a stimulus package for Japan's lagging economy should take priority over parliamentary elections. Earlier polls had shown broad support for quick elections. Aso can call snap elections anytime until next September, and just after he was elected there was heavy speculation that he would do so quickly, with many politicians beginning campaign preparations.

But his low initial popularity, coupled with the growing economic crisis, may cause him to hold off.

The results indicate concern about the effects of the global financial crisis on Japan is growing among voters. On Friday the stock market plunged nearly 10 percent to cap its worst week ever.

The Yomiuri survey was a nationwide random telephone poll of 1,056 eligible voters. The newspaper provided no margin of error, but a survey of that size would generally have a margin of plus or minus three percentage points.

Chinese dairy blames subcontractors for tainting

AP, Beijing

A dairy ensnared in China's chemical-tainting scandal says it was a victim of unscrupulous behavior by the independent providers from whom it buys raw milk.

Speaking on a television talk show late Sunday, the president of Bright Dairy said his company, one of the largest in the Chinese dairy industry, had been "too nice" toward milk collection stations that bought milk from farmers. The comments appeared aimed at restoring consumer confidence in the wake of the scandal that has dinged the reputation of some of China's best-known food companies.

"We thought they were operating in good conscience," Guo Benheng said on state television's economics channel. "I'd say we made an innocent mistake, although an innocent mistake is still a mistake. We are definitely making corrections," Guo said, according to a transcript of his remarks posted on official Web sites Monday.

Appearing on the same show, the vice president of Mengniu Dairy, one of the country's largest, said the scandal had affected the company profoundly.

"This sort of thing just tears your heart apart," Zhao Yuanhua said.

Milk collection stations and individual farmers are accused of watering down milk to increase volume, then adding the industrial chemical melamine to increase protein levels. Melamine, used mainly in plastics and fertilizer, is high in nitrogen and can make milk appear to contain more protein, which is what quality tests measure.

The practice has been blamed for causing the deaths of four infants and sickening 54,000 others, with 10,000 still hospitalized.

Large dairy companies typically buy raw milk gathered from small farmers at milking stations and collection centers, often by subcontractors responsible for safety testing. Safeguards were often lax and major milk producers have been criticized for not carrying out adequate testing.

Chinese milk powder and other food products have been banned from more than a dozen countries, worsening an increasingly painful downturn in China's crucial export sector and threatening household incomes in the vast, mostly poor countryside.

The scandal has struck a blow to China's efforts to build global brand names and establish healthy business practices.

Newspapers on Monday reported Chinese beverage-maker Hangzhou Wahaha Group was considering buying dairy assets from Sanlu Group, the milk-maker accused of attempting to cover up melamine tainting.

Sanlu is 43 percent owned by New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra Group, which has already slashed the value of its investment. China's government took over and suspended Sanlu's operations last month, and company heads have been detained for investigation.