The New Nation - Internet Edition

Obama vows to exit Iraq and close Guantanamo

AFP, Washington

US President-elect Barack Obama vowed to pull troops out of Iraq, crush Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and shut down the Guantanamo Bay camp as part of a dramatic foreign policy break with George W. Bush.

Repairing the stricken US economy will be priority number one, even at the cost of still-bigger budget deficits, Obama said in his first major post-election interview broadcast on CBS program "60 Minutes" late Sunday.

Following his election triumph of November 4, Obama said at least one Republican would be in his cabinet and confirmed that he had met former Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton last week.

But the president-elect refused to comment on speculation linking the former first lady to the job of secretary of state.

The man who will be the first black US president is accelerating his transition to inauguration day, resigning his Senate seat Sunday and appointing three more top aides to serve in his White House once he succeeds Bush.

As soon as that happens on January 20, Obama said, "I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops" from Iraq .

"Particularly in light of the problems that we're having in Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We've got to shore up those efforts," Obama said in the interview, which was taped Friday.

On the campaign trail, Obama vowed to pull one or two combat brigades out of Iraq every month until after 16 months, only a residual security force of unspecified size remains. Some of those brigades would head to Afghanistan.

He told CBS that "it is a top priority for us to stamp out Al-Qaeda once and for all" and that killing or capturing the group's mastermind Osama bin Laden was "critical" to US security. Obama pledged to tackle controversial offshoots of Bush's "war on terror"-the US military's internment camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and harsh interrogations of captured terror suspects.

"I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that," the president-elect said.

"I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world," Obama added.

But he did not elaborate on where the Guantanamo prisoners would be taken, whether they would be transferred to civilian custody in the United States itself, put on trial, or released.

A command to redeploy troops out of Iraq or shut down Guantanamo could be done in short order under Obama's presidential prerogatives, and he is expected to reverse a slew of other contentious "executive orders" signed by Bush.

Obama said that in Congress, his first legislative priority was getting another stimulus package passed to prop up the enfeebled economy , if Democrats in the outgoing legislature fail to overcome Republican opposition.

As already shown in excerpts released by CBS, Obama said it would be a "disaster" for the government to stand by and let the cash-strapped General Motors and the auto industry in general collapse.

In line with the outcome of a summit Saturday of the world's 20 biggest economies, the president-elect said forging new regulation of the financial markets was essential to restoring the trust of consumers.

Obama appeared unconcerned about the red ink blotting the US government's finances, arguing economists from left and right agreed that "we have to do whatever it takes to get this economy moving again."

"And that we shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even the year after. That short term, the most important thing is that we avoid a deepening recession," he said.

Joined by his wife Michelle in the interview, Obama said their two young daughters would get their promised dog, and expressed hope that Michelle's mother Marian Robinson would move in with them at their new residence.

Obama, a gifted writer who has authored two best-selling memoirs, turned wistful as he anticipated life in the White House fishbowl.

"That's something that I don't think I'll ever get used to. I mean, the loss of anonymity," he said. "And this is not a complaint, this is part of what you sign up for."

On Monday, Obama will meet in Chicago with his former Republican rival, Arizona Senator John McCain.

3 troops among 11 killed in Pak unrest

AFP, Peshawar

A suicide bomber killed at least three troops when he rammed an explosives-packed vehicle into an army checkpost in Pakistan's restive northwest on Monday, the army said.

The attack took place in the Khwaza Khela area of the Swat valley. "The bomber came in a car and rammed it into the checkpost. Resultantly, three troops were killed and three others wounded," a spokesman for the army told AFP.

The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination, featuring Pakistan's only ski resort.

But the region has been turned into a battleground since Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law. Violence elsewhere in the region has left at least five suspected militants dead.

Pakistan is engaged in a pair of major offensives against militants who use pockets of its northwest to stage attacks on American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. Insurgents have retaliated by staging a wave of attacks throughout Pakistan.

The suicide attack Monday occurred in Gashkor, a village in the Swat Valley, said Ali Rehman, a police official. Swat, a former tourist destination, is the scene of one of the two offensives.

The other offensive is focused on Bajur, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan and a rumored hiding place of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Indonesia quake kills four, topples homes

AFP, Palu

A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Monday, killing four people, toppling homes and triggering tsunami warnings that sparked widespread panic.

Thousands of people fled to higher ground in the middle of the night after US and Indonesian agencies warned of a possible tsunami in the minutes after the quake struck.

"Some residents saw an abnormal sea level as high as two metres (six feet). They thought that a tsunami would strike in a matter of minutes," said Nasir Maroto, a council member in worst-hit Buol district of Central Sulawesi.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow earthquake struck 136 kilometres (84 miles) off the coastal town of Gorontalo.

US and Indonesian authorities immediately warned that the quake was strong enough to cause a devastating tsunami but there was no killer wave and the Indonesian warning was withdrawn shortly after being issued.

Indonesia was the country worst hit by the earthquake-triggered tsunami in December 2004 that killed more than 200,000 people in 11 nations across Asia, including over 168,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province alone.

Officials in Buol district, about 600 kilometres north of the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu, said at least three people had died in the area and about 700 houses had collapsed.

"A collapsing wall and roof hit them as they were trying to escape," local official Syamsuddin Mangge told AFP.

He said another 20 people had been hospitalised with injuries.

A 56-year-old man was killed and 23 people were injured in Kwandang village, Gorontalo province, an Indonesian crisis centre official said.

Central Sulawesi governor HB Paliuju said communications with Buol had been cut in the quake and information was sketchy.

An official also said people of Tolitoli district of Central Sulawesi had so reported collapsed buildings but no fatalities.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned that the quake had the potential to spawn a destructive regional tsunami and advised authorities in the region to "take immediate action to evacuate coastal areas."

There were at least three powerful aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 6.0, according to Indonesian monitors.

The Indonesian archipelago straddles several continental plates in an area known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, where seismic and volcanic activity is recorded on an almost daily basis.

Monday's quake came less than a week after Indonesia launched a high-tech tsunami warning system in a bid to prevent a repeat of tragedies like that in 2004.

The 1.4 trillion rupiah (130.2 million dollar) system is able to detect an earthquake at sea and predict within five minutes whether it could cause a tsunami.

The system, built with German technology and funding from a number of foreign nations, will eventually include 23 or 24 buoys linked by cables to detectors on the ocean floor.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch Tuesday that Indonesia was "living on the edge."

25 killed in Iraq suicide car bombings

AFP, Baquba

At least 25 people were killed in suicide car bomb explosions in Iraq.

A suicide car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint in Iraq's volatile Diyala province Sunday, killing at least 15 people, including seven policemen, a security official said.

Police Major Hassan al-Kurawi said another 20 people were wounded in the attack, which took place east of the provincial capital Baquba hours after Iraq's cabinet approved a wide-ranging military pact that would have all US troops withdraw by the end of 2011.

Firas al-Dulaimi, a doctor at Baquba General Hospital said his hospital was still receiving victims but declined to give a specific number of casualties.

Meanwhile, at least 10 people were killed and scores more injured in a series of bomb attacks across Iraq on Saturday, Iraqi police said.

A car bomb in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar killed seven people and wounded more than three dozen when it exploded near an auto dealership, police said.

However, a US military spokesman issued a statement putting the toll at 10 and saying another 20 were wounded in the bombing which took place near a car market and targeted civilians.

The town is half way between the Syrian border and the city of Mosul, which the US military considers to be the last remaining urban bastion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Iraq has seen dramatic improvements in security over the past year as US and Iraqi forces have teamed up with local Sunni tribes to drive out insurgents and militias, but attacks are still common in some parts of the country.

In Baghdad, another three people were killed and 23 wounded when a car bomb exploded near the National Theatre, police said.

Another 10 people were wounded, including seven civilians, in two other bomb attacks, police said. One targeted a police patrol and another set alight a mostly-empty oil tanker.

Taliban accept Karzai's talks offer

Reuters, Kabul

Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents said on Monday they were drawing up a response to an offer from President Hamid Karzai of safe passage for insurgent leaders who wanted to talk peace.

Karzai, back from a trip to Britain and the United States, said on Sunday he would guarantee the safety of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar if he was prepared to negotiate.

With the Taliban insurgency intensifying seven years after the hardline Islamists were forced from power, the possibility of talks with more moderate Taliban leaders is increasingly being considered, both in Afghanistan and among its allies.

The Taliban have ruled out any talks in the past as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan, but Karzai said on Sunday that condition was unacceptable. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, declined to comment on Karzai's comments but said a Taliban reaction would be issued.

"We are preparing a reaction and will put it in a statement later today," Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Violence in Afghanistan has surged over the past two years, raising doubts about prospects for the country and its Western-backed government.

About 70,000 foreign troops, about half of them American, are struggling against the Taliban, whose influence, and attacks, are spreading in the south, east and west.

Jewish settlers given 72 hours to leave Hebron house

AFP, Jerusalem

Israel's High Court on Sunday ordered Jewish settlers to evacuate within three days a house in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron whose ownership is contested.

The ruling, which was slammed by settler leaders, follows a series of violent clashes between Israeli security forces and hardline Jews seeking to erect unauthorised outposts in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967. The court rejected an appeal by two rightwing organisations against an order issued by the state to evacuate the Hebron house, which the settlers claim they had purchased from a Palestinian, who denies selling the house.

The controversial house was occupied by dozens of hardline Jewish settlers in March 2007. They have remained in the four-storey building which they dubbed "the house of peace" despite the evacuation order.

The court ruling said the settlers "should turn to the appropriate legal bodies to prove their ownership over the house and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by occupying the property against the will of its owner."

It ordered the settlers to leave the house within three days. If they are not out by then, the ruling said, they can be subject to forceful evacuation by police.

The settler representatives claimed the house had been bought for 700,000 dollars, but Palestinian Faez Rajabi said he had documents proving he was the legal owner and that the deal had never been completed.

Sri Lanka troops take two more towns from Tigers

AFP, Colombo

Sri Lankan troops on Monday captured two more strategic towns from Tamil Tiger rebels following fierce fighting in the north of the island, the defence ministry said.

Security forces battling to dismantle the rebels' mini-state entered the town of Mankulam, located just south of the Tamil Tiger political capital of Kilinochchi, government defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.

Government troops also seized Kumalamunai, a town just south of the key Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) base of Mullaittivu, situated on the northeast coast.

"The Task Force Three of the army went into Mankulam junction this morning and they are now consolidating in the town," Rambukwella told AFP. "This morning we also captured Kumalamunai in Mullaittivu district."

The Sri Lankan military said on Saturday it had taken another key town, Pooneryn, on the northern edge of the mainland.

"Mankulam is a psychologically very important place for us to re-establish, because nine years ago the army lost it. The same with Pooneryn," said Rambukwella, who is also a cabinet minister.

The minister did not give casualty figures, but added that a multi-pronged offensive to take Kilinochchi, the political headquarters of the Tigers, was under way.

The LTTE meanwhile said they had beaten back an offensive against their frontlines at Muhamalai on the Jaffna peninsula in the far north of the island.

Fighting in Congo despite rebel backs UN peace plan

Reuters, Jomba

Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda agreed on Sunday to take part in U.N.-backed peace talks, but fighting between the army and rebels raged on in the east despite his declared support for a ceasefire.

After meeting United Nations special envoy Olusegun Obasanjo at Jomba in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, Nkunda said he had agreed to three requests from him-to respect a ceasefire, open a humanitarian corridor to aid refugees, and support the U.N. peace initiative. But he had asked Obasanjo, a former Nigerian head of state, to tell Congolese President Joseph Kabila's government to also respect a suspension of military hostilities.

"We are behind him (Obasanjo) and we are going to do our part so we can get on with this peace," said Nkunda, wearing a gray suit and holding a cane topped with a silver eagle's head.

Speaking later in the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, before flying to Kigali in neighboring Rwanda, Obasanjo said the Tutsi rebel chief had agreed to take part in U.N.-sponsored peace negotiations in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

But he did not specify a date and did not expect it would involve face-to-face talks with Kabila, which Nkunda wants.

However, Obasanjo, who met Kabila on Saturday, said the president had told him he was "not averse to negotiation."

Nkunda hosted Obasanjo at his home village of Jomba in the foothills of the Virunga mountains, close to the Rwandan and Ugandan borders. Afterwards, the two briefly danced with rebel fighters and children outside a church compound.

But as they met, U.N. peacekeepers reported heavy fighting between Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) rebels and Congo's army near the village of Ndeko, 110 km (70 miles) north of Goma.

The U.N. trouble-shooter is seeking to prevent the fighting in North Kivu from escalating into a repeat of a wider 1998-2003 Congo war that sucked in six neighboring states.

Tibetan exiles rethink struggle against Chinese rule

AFP, Dharamshala

Leading Tibetan exiles began a week-long meeting Monday in northern India that could usher in a more radical approach to their long struggle against Chinese rule in Tibet. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, called the gathering after admitting that his attempts to secure greater autonomy for the region through negotiation with the Chinese government had failed. Before the talks began, he urged the 500 participants to consider all aspects of policy regarding China-ensuring that the thorny issue of whether to push for full independence would be tackled. The meeting should air "the real opinions and views of the Tibetan people through free and frank discussions," said the Dalai Lama, who has expressed uncharacteristic frustration over failing to win concessions from Beijing. Many exiles feel that his campaign for "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet-which he fled in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule-should now be replaced by a more aggressive pro-independence stance.

"We certainly hope the cause of independence for Tibet is stronger by the end of the week," said Tsewang Rigzin, president of the influential Tibetan Youth Congress and a delegate at the meeting.

"I was a bit surprised when the Dalai Lama called this meeting," Rigzin told AFP. "But it was high time. As he says, he has done everything in his power and not made progress."

The conclave in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala opened with the arrival of a large portrait of the Dalai Lama, which was set at the front of the meeting hall.