The New Nation - Internet Edition

4 US troops among 25 killed in Iraq unrest

AP, Baghdad

At least 25 including four US troops were killed in a string of attacks across Iraq on Wednesday.

At least 23 people were killed in a string of attacks across Iraq on Wednesday, including a dozen people who lost their lives in a rush hour bombing in Baghdad and 4 US troops slain by an Iraqi comrade.

In the deadliest single attack of the day, a booby-trapped car exploded, followed by another bomb blast at a bus station in a working class district of Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 60, according to the interior ministry.

In the chaotic northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on his American comrades, killing 4 and wounding another six, according to the US military and the Iraqi ministry of defence.

A security source told DPA that the "Iraqi soldier opened fire on a group of US soldiers after an angry dispute. The Iraqi soldier died in the fire exchange."

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi soldier went on the rampage at a joint security station in northern Iraq on Wednesday, shooting dead two U.S. soldiers and wounding six, the U.S. military said.

The U.S. military said the soldier opened fire on the Americans at the station-one of many in which Iraqi and U.S. troops operate side by side-in the city of Mosul.

"The soldiers were in the courtyard t an Iraqi soldier entered and shot two soldiers, killing one, mortally wounding another, and then spraying the others," said U.S. army spokeswoman for northern Iraq Major Peggy Kageleiry.

"He was engaged by counter-fire and killed," she added. A local morgue said it had received the body of the Iraqi soldier, riddled with bullets.

Two local police sources and an Iraqi army source, all of whom declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, said a quarrel had broken out between the Iraqi and U.S. soldiers at the joint station.

But Kageleiry denied there was any altercation between the soldiers before the shooting.

"The U.S. soldiers had no conversation with this soldier and there was no interaction of any kind before they were murdered," she said.

Elsewhere in Mosul-which the US military call one of the last bastions of Al-Qaeda in Iraq-two Christian sisters were slain by gunmen who broke into their home and wired it with bombs.

The intruders killed Lamia and Walaa Sabih and wounded their mother before booby-trapping the house. When police arrived a bomb went off, wounding two of them, an officer said on condition of anonymity.

The US military said in a statement that five bombs were placed in the home and that two exploded.

The women-one the mother of three children-both worked for the provincial council, which condemned the attack.

More than 2,000 Christian families fled Mosul in October after a wave of killings there.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that some Christians were starting to return, with around a third of the families in one neighbourhood coming back to their homes.

After the latest killings the governor of the Nineveh province, where Mosul is the capital, transferred the head of security for the province to Baghdad and appointed a replacement, a senior military official said.

The order "came after Nineveh witnessed violent operations, especially during the last month, including the dispersal and targeting of hundreds of Christian families," the official said, adding that Baghdad had been forced to send another two brigades to Mosul.

More than 200 Iraqi Christians have been killed across Iraq since the 2003 invasion and a string of churches have been attacked, with the violence intensifying in recent months, particularly in the north.

Hong Kong children fall sick, melamine found in fish feed

AFP, Hong Kong

Two more Hong Kong children have fallen ill after eating Chinese-made products tainted with melamine, authorities said, as high levels of the toxic chemical were found in fish feed. The two girls, both aged four, were found to be suffering from kidney stones. They had a history of eating Chinese-made milk products and biscuits, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection said. "The products concerned were earlier found by the Centre for Food Safety to have been adulterated with melamine, a chemical that can cause kidney stones leading to renal failure," said the statement, issued Wednesday.

Melamine is at the centre of a major contamination scandal that has already cost the lives of four babies and sickened 53,000 children in China.

The latest cases in Hong Kong bring the number of children sickened in the territory since the scandal was revealed in September to 12. The two children had no previous history of renal problems.

Meanwhile the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) said unsafe levels of melamine had been found in Chinese-made fish feed used at a farm in Hong Kong. The centre said the level detected was 6.6 parts per million. Hong Kong limits concentration to 2.5 parts per million.

"According to the fish farmer, the feed in questiont was sourced in the mainland and delivered to Hong Kong by himself," a CFS spokesman said in a statement late Tuesday.

The discovery led to testing of fish from several farms across Hong Kong, but none was found to contain dangerous levels of the chemical, the statement said.

Fish feed is the latest product to test positive for melamine after it was found in mainland eggs sold in Hong Kong, causing concern over how far the chemical has infiltrated the food chain.

The chemical is normally used to make plastics but some mainland farmers have been using it to bulk out food products to make it appear as though they contain more protein.

Four Palestinians killed in Israeli attack

AFP, Gaza City

Four Palestinian militants were killed and an Israeli soldier was wounded along the Gaza border on Wednesday in the latest flare-up to rattle a nearly five-month lull and imperil aid deliveries.

The Israeli army said militants also fired several mortar rounds into Israel and that it responded with two air strikes just inside Gaza.

Witnesses said the four Palestinians who died were members of the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said soldiers exchanged fire with gunmen who attempted to place an explosive device near the security fence in the central Gaza Strip.

"Throughout the exchange of fire a number of mortar rounds were fired at IDF (military) forces and an explosive device was detonated," she said.

"The IDF force identified hitting four gunmen. Grenades and various weapons were found on their bodies," the spokeswoman said, adding that a soldier was hospitalised with light wounds.

The gunbattle broke out after Israeli armoured vehicles crossed into the territory near the city of Khan Yunis, Palestinian witnesses and security officials said.

Two aircraft carried out strikes in open areas several hundred metres (yards) inside the Gaza Strip, the army spokeswoman said.

The four deaths brought to 550 the toll since Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace talks 12 months ago, the majority of them Gaza militants.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum called the killing of the gunmen "an enormous Israeli crime which constitutes a grave violation of the truce."

A further five mortar rounds were fired into Israel later on Wednesday, a military spokeswoman said, adding that no injuries or damage was reported.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Tuesday of a looming confrontation with Hamas despite the Egyptian-mediated June 19 ceasefire.

"I have no doubt that the situation between us and Hamas is an unavoidable pre-confrontation situation," Olmert said while touring the military headquarters responsible for the Gaza region.

"It's only a question of time and not a question of if," his office quoted him as saying.

The renewed violence on the Gaza border came as Israel said aid deliveries to the impoverished territory would be dependent on a sustained period of calm.

After a flare-up last week, Israel further tightened the punishing blockade it imposed when Hamas seized control of Gaza last year, closing its border crossings to fuel and food deliveries by the European Union and United Nations.

It only allowed fuel deliveries to Gaza's sole power plant to resume on Tuesday, a day after the Palestinians said they had been forced to shut it down for want of diesel.

Israel said the decision would be reviewed daily.

Defence officials said just hours before Wednesday's clashes that they were considering allowing food deliveries to resume on Thursday after the United Nations said it was close to having to suspend the distribution of rations to some 750,000 people.

Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Pak city

Reuters, Peshawar

Gunmen kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in northwestern Pakistan's Peshawar on Thursday, officials said, soon after a U.S. aid worker was killed in a city hit hard by an Islamist insurgency spreading from Afghanistan.

The diplomat's driver was killed in the attack.

Suspicion for the attack, a day after the U.S. aid worker was killed, will inevitably fall on the Taliban and affiliated Sunni Muslim militant groups such as al Qaeda, who hate Shi'ite Muslims and predominantly Shi'ite Iran almost as much as the West.

Criminal gangs using religion as a cover are also active in the area. Spiralling violence has raised fears that nuclear-armed Pakistan could slide into chaos unless the 7-month-old civilian government and army can throttle the militant threat.

Pakistan's support is seen as vital to the defeat of al Qaeda globally and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Peshawar is the last city on the road to the Khyber Pass, the main land route to Afghanistan, and has borne the brunt of an Islamist insurgency spreading from neighboring tribal lands.

Millions will die if AIDS funds stop: UN

Reuters, New Delhi

Millions of people suffering from HIV/AIDS will die if major donors battling a global financial crisis cut funding even for six months, the head of the United Nations' AIDS agency said on Wednesday.

In such a scenario, the poorest countries in Africa and Asia would bear the brunt, with access to healthcare greatly reduced, Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS told Reuters in an interview.

Experts and donors such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates have warned the global financial crisis could last two to three years, forcing rich countries to cut back spending on health aid.

"If we interrupt (funding) even for six months or a year, it will result in millions of deaths," Piot said. "If we interrupt these activities we will have to pay later as more people will become infected."

An estimated 33 million people worldwide were infected with HIV in 2007, slightly down from 33.2 million in 2006, due to intensified efforts to fight the disease, UNAIDS figures show.

About three million people now received AIDS drugs in low- and middle-income countries, while the number of people dying of AIDS has dropped modestly.

Sri Lankan troops take rebel villages

AFP, Colombo

Sri Lankan troops on Thursday wrested control of two coastal villages from Tamil Tiger rebels after a series of pitched battles, the military said.

The fishing settlements of Devil's Point and Vallaipadu on the island's northwestern shore were used by the rebels to smuggle arms from south India and launch attacks on troops, the military said in a statement.

Troops would now be able to advance on the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) stronghold of Pooneryn, it said.

Government forces say they have recently taken control of the nearby towns of Kiranchi and Palavi following weeks of heavy fighting.

Clashes continued elsewhere in the north on Wednesday, with the defence ministry reporting artillery exchanges across the districts of Mullaittivu, Jaffna and Kilinochchi.

The ministry did not give out casualty details, but said the LTTE suffered major losses.

There was no immediate comment from the LTTE, who have been fighting since 1972 to carve out a homeland for minority Tamils from the majority Sinhalese community.

Russia ready to respond if US ends missile plan

Reuters, Paris

Russia could cancel its deployment of missiles near the Polish border if U.S. President-elect Barack Obama scraps plans for a missile defense system in central Europe, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said.

In an interview with French daily newspaper Le Figaro published on Thursday, Medvedev said Moscow had no choice but to react to U.S. plans to set up a network of missiles and radar systems near its own frontiers.

"But we are ready to abandon this decision to deploy the missiles in Kaliningrad if the new American administration, after analyzing the real usefulness of a system to respond to 'rogue states', decides to abandon its anti-missile system," he said.

"We are ready to negotiate a 'zero option'. We are ready to reflect on a system of global security with the United States, the countries of the European Union and the Russian Federation."

Washington says the missile defense system it plans to set up in Poland and the Czech Republic is needed to protect the United States against missile strikes from what it calls rogue states, notably Iran. Russia believes the system poses a threat to its security and last week announced plans to deploy Iskander tactical missiles in the Kaliningrad region bordering Poland in response.

Medvedev said he had spoken with Obama by telephone and hoped to meet him in person soon.

"We hope to create frank and honest relations with the new administration and resolve problems that we were not able to resolve with the current administration," he said.

Sudan offers truce with Darfur rebels

Reuters, Khartoum

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, facing a possible indictment by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur, announced a ceasefire in the region on Wednesday.

But an important Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, called the announcement a "PR exercise" and vowed to fight on until a proper ceasefire deal was reached.

The move by Bashir, accused in July by the ICC chief prosecutor of masterminding a campaign of genocide in Darfur, marks the latest push by the Sudanese government to persuade the United Nations Security Council to suspend any ICC warrant.

"I hereby announce our immediate unconditional ceasefire between the armed forces and the warring factions, provided that an effective monitoring mechanism is put into action and observed by all involved parties," Bashir said in a speech.

He also pledged to launch a campaign to disarm militias in the vast region in Sudan's west, where international experts estimate that 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since the conflict between the government and mostly African rebels flared in 2003.

Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000 people.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cautiously welcomed the move though a statement by his spokeswoman noted previous attempted ceasefires had failed.

"The effectiveness of any ceasefire depends upon all parties demonstrating their commitment to a cessation of hostilities, particularly since past efforts to uphold a ceasefire in Darfur were not successful," the statement said.

In announcing the ceasefire, Bashir was adopting the recommendation of the Sudan People's Initiative-a platform of government and opposition figures he launched last month. Rebel groups boycotted the event.