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Iraq cabinet wants changes in pact despite US warning

AFP, Baghdad

Iraq's cabinet on Tuesday called for changes to a planned security pact with Washington despite a warning from the US military chief that time is running out for Baghdad to approve the deal.

But officials in Washington defended the draft agreement, with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warning of "pretty dramatic" consequences of not having an accord governing the presence of US troops in Iraq.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet met Tuesday to discuss the deal that will provide the basis for a US military presence in Iraq beyond this year and decided to seek modifications.

"The cabinet unanimously sought amendments to the text of the pact so it can be acceptable nationally," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said after the meeting, which was also attended by US representatives.

"The cabinet called on the ministers to submit their suggestions to be included in the negotiations with the US," he added.

The demand for changes, which were not specified, is expected to significantly delay the agreement, which still must be approved by the Iraqi parliament after endorsement by the cabinet.

Iraq's Al-Sharqiya television reported that ministers from both the largest Sunni block-the National Concord Front-and the ruling Shiite grouping, the United Iraqi Alliance, wanted amendments.

The cabinet decision came just hours after the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, bluntly warned that Iraq risked security losses of "significant consequence" unless it approved the deal.

Mullen also charged that US archfoe Iran was working hard to scuttle the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, after months of fraught negotiations.

"We are clearly running out of time," said Mullen, warning that when the current UN mandate governing the presence of foreign forces expires on December 31, the Iraqi military "will not be ready to provide for their security".

"And in that regard there is great potential for losses of significant consequence."

The White House later sought to play down the dispute, saying it was not surprising the pact had encountered difficulties.

"We knew it was going to take a little while to get this done," spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters in Washington.

But Defense Secretary Gates warned that there was little room for changes to the draft.

"The consequences of not having a SOFA and of not having a renewed UN authorization are pretty dramatic in terms of consequences for our actions," Gates told news wire reporters, including AFP.

He said there is "great reluctance" to entertain new changes as the US government consults with Congress on the current draft.

"If they (Baghdad or Congress) were to come up with something we haven't thought of, or identify problems we missed some way, we would have to take that seriously," Gates added.

"So I don't think you slam the door shut. But I would say it's pretty far closed."

Despite a series of US concessions, the pact remains hugely controversial in Iraq, with fierce opposition in some quarters, particularly the Shiite radical movement of anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Even before the cabinet decision, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari sought to dampen expectations of a swift approval. "It is unlikely that the Iraqi parliament will approve the SOFA before the American presidential election on November 4," Dubai-based Al-Arabiya News Channel reported Zebari as saying on its website.

"Because of the differences among the political groups, we don't believe the deal will be approved now. Iraq still hopes to sign this deal before the end of this year," he said.

Iraq's Political Council for National Security examined the agreement on Sunday and Monday and then forwarded it to the cabinet.

Under the latest draft, the United States will withdraw its combat forces from Iraqi towns by June 2009, with a complete pullout in 2011 -- eight years after the invasion that toppled now executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

In a US concession to assuage Baghdad's concerns over sovereignty, Iraqi courts would have the authority to try US soldiers and civilians for crimes committed outside their bases and when off-duty.

The US concessions fall far short of the demands by Sadr and his followers for an immediate and full withdrawal of US troops.

Sunni political groups, a minority in mainly Shiite Iraq, are concerned about an early US departure. But they too have expressed reservations about the pact by stressing the importance of respecting the nation's sovereignty.

Militant ambush, fighting kill 25 in northwest Pakistan

Reuters, Mingora

At least 25 killed in Militants' ambush and fighting in northwest Pakistan.

At least fifteen Pakistani paramilitary soldiers and five Islamist militants have been killed in a clash in the northwestern Swat Valley, police said on Wednesday.

The fighting broke out on Tuesday in Kabal area, a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban fighters, after a roadside bomb blast aimed at a paramilitary convoy.

"After the exchange of fire that lasted for several hours, more than 20 troops went missing but today we found 15 dead bodies at the site," Noor Rehman, a police officer in Kabal, told Reuters. He said six troops were still missing.

A military spokesman in Swat also confirmed the incident and said security forces had foiled a suicide attack on Tuesday and destroyed a explosive-laden vehicle in the area.

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials say militants have ambushed a convoy of troops and police in the country's volatile northwest, killing five of them.

Dilawar Bangash is the police chief in the Swat valley. He says gunmen detonated a bomb and then opened fire as the convoy passed through the Sersena area on Tuesday.

Bangash says that four paramilitary troops and one police officer died. He says seven militants died in a gunbattle that followed the attack.

A senior official from the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary says 12 troops from the convoy are still missing. He asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media

Bush won’t close Gitmo: White House

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush will likely keep the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists open before handing his successor the keys to the White House in January, the White House said Tuesday.

"We've long said that it won't be closed before the end of the president's term," spokeswoman Dana Perino said of the facility, reviled around the world as a symbol of heavy-handed US "war on terrorism" tactics.

"The president and his administration are working to get to a position where Guantanamo could be closed-and have been for some time," she said after The New York Times reported Bush had concluded he could not shutter the prison.

The chief challenge is where to put the detainees now held at the at the US Navy-run prison in Cuba, even as some of their home countries balk at taking them back and Washington says it fears other nations may not keep close enough tabs on them, or in other cases may mistreat their returning nationals.

Faced with human rights groups' charges of wrongly imprisoning people at Guantanamo Bay, or in its secret network of prisons in Europe, Washington has emphasized the dangerous nature of some who have been released.

Coalition airstrike kills 9 Afghan soldiers

AP, Kabul

A U.S.-led coalition airstrike mistakenly hit an Afghan army checkpoint Wednesday, killing nine soldiers and wounding three, Afghan officials said.

The strike hit a checkpoint in the Sayed Kheil area of Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, said Arsallah Jamal, the province's governor.

The U.S. said its forces "may have mistakenly killed and injured" Afghan soldiers in what may have been a case of mistaken identity "on both sides."

"As a Coalition forces convoy was returning from a previous operation, they were involved in multiple engagements," a U.S. military statement said.

"As a result of the engagements, ANA (Afghan army) soldiers were killed and injured."

Col. Greg Julian, the chief spokesman for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, said American officials would meet with Afghan defense officials to "sort out the details."

Jamal said U.S. and Afghan troops have been conducting operations in the region for over a week, and the army checkpoint was in a fixed location. The incident killed nine soldiers and wounded three, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman.

Apparent friendly fire incidents have happened before. In June 2007, Afghan police mistook U.S. troops on a nighttime mission for Taliban fighters and opened fire on them, prompting U.S. forces to return fire and call in attack aircraft. Seven Afghan police were killed.

S Korea finds melamine in Chinese egg products

Reuters, Seoul

South Korea has ordered 23 tonnes of Chinese processed egg products to be destroyed after they were found to be tainted with melamine, the latest in a series of health scares blighting the "made in China" brand.

The move comes after South Korea found melamine in 10 Chinese dairy products earlier this month and ordered them to be taken off shop shelves.

Tens of thousands of Chinese children have fallen ill and at least four have died from drinking milk formula contaminated with melamine, which has since been found in a series of drinks and foods and led to products being pulled from shops worldwide.

Widely used in making plastic kitchen utensils, melamine is added to cheat nutrition tests and can pose serious health risks if consumed in quantity.

The tainted processed egg products were imported from China's Dalian Hanovo Foods Co. Ltd. and Dalian Greensnow Egg Products Development, South Korea's Farm Ministry said in a statement.

"We've ordered a halt to imports from the two companies and requested the Chinese government to find out the cause of the contamination," it said.

Obama opens double-digit lead over McCain: Poll

Reuters, Washington

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has opened up a 10-point lead over Republican opponent John McCain two weeks before the November 4 U.S. election, according to Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on Tuesday.

The poll found 52 percent of voters favor Obama compared with 42 percent for McCain, up from a 6-point Obama edge two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal reported. The 10-point lead is the largest in the Journal/NBC poll to date and represents a steady climb for Obama since early September, when the political conventions concluded with the candidates in a statistical tie, the newspaper reported. The poll also found that the popularity of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has fallen. Voters are less likely to see the Republican vice presidential nominee in a positive light, and much more likely to report negative feelings, the Wall Street Journal said.

Forty-seven percent view Palin negatively, compared with 38 percent who see her in a positive light.

Fifty-five percent of voters say Palin is not qualified to be president, up from 50 percent two weeks ago.

The poll of 1,159 registered voters was conducted from Friday to Monday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

India launches first moon mission

AFP, Sriharikota

India successfully launched its first lunar mission Wednesday, marking a major boost for the country's space programme and a new step in the fast-developing Asian space race.

Cheers rang out at mission control as the unmanned lunar orbiting spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 was launched with an Indian-built rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on the southeastern coast. Officials said the lift-off, which took place in cloudy skies at 6:22 am (0052 GMT), was a "great success", with the rocket placing the craft into a transfer orbit around the globe within 19 minutes. "Our scientific community has once again done the country proud and the entire nation salutes them," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a message from Japan, where he was on an official visit. The head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Madhavan Nair, said it was a "historic moment" for the country.

"It has been a remarkable performance by the launch vehicle," he said of the lift-off from the national space centre in the state of Andhra Pradesh, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Chennai.

ISRO is sending the Chandrayaan-1 on a two-year orbital mission to provide a detailed map of the mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics of the moon's surface. It is expected to reach lunar orbit in 15 days.