The New Nation - Internet Edition

Obama tells Abbas he’ll work for peace

AP, Jerusalem

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has received a courtesy phone call from President-elect Barack Obama, who confirmed that he would work for peace, a Palestinian official said Wednesday.

The conversation took place Tuesday. The official, Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide, said Obama had thanked Abbas for the congratulations he had extended after the Nov. 4 election. Erekat added that the two men had "reiterated their commitment to continue to work" for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on a two-state solution. Obama met Abbas and other Palestinian leaders when he visited the region in July. At a news conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Ramallah on Nov. 7, Abbas said the Palestinians wanted the new administration to start addressing Middle East issues and the peace effort "immediately," so that time would not be wasted and previous efforts would not be in vain.

The departing Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, Abbas's partner in negotiations, spoke with Obama on Nov. 6. They also discussed "the need to continue and advance the peace process, while maintaining the security of the State of Israel," a communiqué from Olmert's office said.

In reality, the yearlong Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which have not resulted in a deal, are suspended pending the outcome of Israeli elections on Feb. 10.

AFP report from Washington: Barack Obama picked former Senate leader Tom Daschle to lead his high-risk drive to end the US healthcare crisis and stocked his White House staff with loyal campaign aides. The president-elect, who takes office in January, spent the day in his Chicago transition office, but a Democratic official said he had asked ex-South Dakota senator Daschle to be health and human services secretary. Obama was also reported to have candidates in mind to head the key departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, but the reports could not be immediately confirmed.

CNN, citing multiple sources familiar with the appointments process, said Obama was likely to name Democratic Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, 50, to run the Department of Homeland Security. The department was created following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.

And Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, 49, who raised record amounts of money as Obama's national finance chairwoman for his campaign, is the leading candidate to be commerce secretary, the network reported.

Both women would accept the positions if offered, the sources told CNN.

Daschle, 60, will be tasked with shepherding healthcare reform legislation through Congress in line with Obama's campaign vow to revamp the US medical system and help 45 million Americans who have no health insurance.

The last major healthcare reform attempt by a Democratic president, piloted by Hillary Clinton during her husband Bill Clinton's administration, ended in a notorious failure.

More than a decade on, there was no indication Wednesday on whether the former first lady would accept Obama's overtures concerning the key post of secretary of state.

The Wall Street Journal reported former president Clinton had removed a barrier to the appointment by offering to submit his future charitable and business dealings to an ethics review if his wife became the top US diplomat.

Some analysts have questioned whether Bill Clinton's myriad business deals, donor lists and contacts with foreign governments could raise conflicts of interest if his wife became the face of US foreign policy.

More than two weeks after Obama's historic election victory, there was a morsel of comfort for his defeated rival John McCain, after the final vote totals finally nudged Missouri into the Republican's column.

The Arizona senator took the heartland swing state by a wafer-thin margin of 49.4 percent to 49.3 percent and no recount is expected.

The result, once certified, means the total in the state-by-state Electoral College total will stand at 365 to Obama and 173 to McCain. A total of 270 was needed for victory in the November 4 election.

Sixty-two days before Obama is sworn in on January 20, he announced a raft of new top staff appointments in the White House, and offered broad hints of the make-up of his national security council team.

David Axelrod, a Chicago political consultant who is perhaps Obama's closest aide after they first met in the early 1990s, will work in the White House as senior advisor to the president.

Greg Craig, another advisor who was in at the start of Obama's presidential campaign, will serve as special counsel-the president's top lawyer.

Gazans cook on wood fires because of power cuts

AP, Gaza City

While an Israeli cutoff in fuel shipments has closed down a dozen of his competitors, baker Khalil Awad stays in business thanks to a little creativity and dirty black oil drained from car engines. The cutoff in fuel shipments to the Gaza Strip's sole power plant started a week ago in response to rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.

Israel has also banned journalists from entering Gaza, prompting top executives from some of the world's largest media organizations to file a rare protest.

Blackouts now last 16 to 20 hours each day, and shortages of kerosene and cooking gas are widespread. While wealthier Gazans have generators and diesel pumped in through contraband tunnels from Egypt, poorer residents have to be inventive.

Many households have run out of cooking gas to make their own bread, so women flocked to Awad's shop on a recent morning with trays of unbaked pita. He gave them numbers to keep the order. A worker shoveled three loaves at a time into the oven with a long wooden paddle.

"We have to eat bread," Awad shrugs. "Somebody has to bake it."

A handful of salt is 23-year-old Naela's secret recipe to working her old-fashioned brass-bottomed lamp when the power cuts off. She can't find kerosene in the shops, so she pours in diesel instead along with a handful of salt. The salt reduces the smoke and lightens the heavy burning smell.

"It's like a doctor's prescription. Works every time," the university student says proudly.

The dirty laundry is a more difficult task. Naela has to rush to work the washing machine when the electricity blinks on, often at 11 p.m. She sometimes hangs laundry until 2 a.m.

And there isn't much she can do about missing out on her favorite dubbed-over Turkish soap operas.

"If I don't have studies, I just go to sleep. There's nothing else to do during a blackout," Naela says.

Two hairdressers work furiously tugging and blow-drying the hair of a young bride and her mother. The generator in Victoria Shaer's salon is making a banging noise, and they have to finish before the fuel runs out.

Pakistani general calls for halt to missile strikes

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan's army chief called for a halt to missile attacks on Pakistani territory by pilotless drone aircraft operated by Western forces in Afghanistan.

General Ashfaq Kayani delivered the message during an address to NATO's military committee in Brussels on Wednesday, just hours after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five militants, possibly including an Arab al Qaeda operative.

A statement issued by the Pakistani military said Kayani had urged a halt to the use of unmanned "combat aerial vehicles within Pakistani territory."

Pakistan says the attacks violate its sovereignty, make it harder to justify the alliance with the United States in a country rife with anti-American sentiment, and undermine efforts to win public support for the fight against militancy.

Kayani also met with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and held individual meetings with Admiral Michael Mullen, U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and a French defense chief.

The restatement of opposition to the air strikes followed hard on the heels of a denial by the foreign ministry that Pakistan had a secret agreement with Washington to publicly protest the attacks, while privately acquiescing.

Missile-armed drones are primarily used by U.S. forces in the region. The United States seldom confirms drone attacks. Pakistan does not have any combat drones.

Wednesday's attack on Bannu district, bordering North Waziristan, was unusual in that it took place deeper in Pakistani territory in an area outside the semi-autonomous tribal lands bordering Afghanistan.

U.S. strikes have focused on North and South Waziristan where at least 20 missile attacks and a cross-border commando raid have killed scores of people since September.

Dick Cheney indicted over Texas prison abuse

AP, Raymondville

A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.

Cheney, Gonzales and the others will not be arrested, and do not need to appear in person at the arraignment, Presiding Judge Manuel Banales said.

In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday. Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county.

The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.

One indictment charges Cheney and Gonzales with engaging in organized criminal activity. It alleges that the men neglected federal prisoners and are responsible for assaults in the facilities.

The grand jury accused Cheney of a conflict of interest because of his influence over the county's federal immigrant detention center and his substantial holdings in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies.

The indictment accuses Gonzales of stopping an investigation into abuses at the federal detention center.

An attorney for the private prison operator The GEO Group filed motions accusing Guerra of "prosecutorial vindictiveness."

One motion said Guerra had hijacked "the grand jury process and disregarded the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure designed to protect defendants' due process rights."

Some attorneys argued that Banales may not have the authority to schedule an arraignment because the indictments were invalid. One lawyer said Guerra never should have been allowed to present the cases to the grand jury because at least four of the indictments deal with people who had some role in the investigation of his office last year.

"He is the witness, the victim and the prosecutor," said the attorney for Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a former U.S. attorney who was appointed special prosecutor to investigate Guerra.

District Clerk Gilbert Lozano, District judges Janet Leal and Migdalia Lopez, and special prosecutors Mosbacker and Gustavo Garza, a longtime political opponent of Guerra, were all indicted on charges of official abuse of official capacity and official oppression.

Zawahri urges attacks on 'criminal’ America

Reuters, Dubai

Al Qaeda's second-in-command urged Muslims to keep up attacks on the "criminal" United States and criticised U.S. president-elect Barack Obama for promising to back Israel . Ayman al-Zawahri also warned Obama of failure should he pursue the policies of President George W. Bush , according to a tape published Wednesday by the SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. organisation that monitors Islamist militant groups. The Egyptian militant also criticised Obama, born to a Muslim Kenyan father, for what he described as turning his back on his Muslim roots.

"The Muslim nation received with extreme bitterness your hypocriticaltstance towards Israel ," he said. "You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand with the enemies of Muslims."

An Obama spokeswoman in Washington said the president-elect's office was not planning to comment.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said Zawahri's message showed that the militant network-which masterminded the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States-was isolated but still a threat.

"The messagetis remarkable chiefly as an additional sign that al-Qaeda is out of touch with so much of the world," the official said.

During a visit to Israel in July, Obama assured Israel and its U.S. Jewish supporters he was a friend who would not press for peace concessions that would compromise its security.

Hailing Israel as a "miracle," he promised staunch support and held only a low-profile meeting with Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank.

The audio recording was accompanied by visuals including a picture of Obama wearing a yamaka.

"America, the criminal, trespassing crusader, continues to be the same as ever, so we must continue to harm it, in order for it to come to its senses," Zawahri said, addressing Muslims across the world.

IAEA unable to say if bombed Syrian site was nuclear reactor

AFP, Vienna

The UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday it could not yet determine if a building in a remote site in the Syrian desert bombed by Israeli planes last year was a nuclear reactor, as the United States claims.

Nevertheless, puzzling anomalies had been found at the site, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

"We are not in a situation to say that it was a nuclear reactor," an official close to the IAEA said, adding at the same time that "we cannot exclude that it was" one. The watchdog addressed the matter in a restricted report circulated to the agency's board of governors on Wednesday, a copy of which was obtained by AFP. "While it cannot be excluded that the building in question was intended for non-nuclear use, the features of the building t along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site," the IAEA said.

Furthermore, traces of uranium had been found by IAEA investigators in environmental samples taken from the site, known alternatively as either Al-Kibar or Dair Alzour, which was razed to the ground by Israeli planes on September 6, 2007.

"The analysis of these particles indicates that the uranium is anthropogenic. ie. that the material was produced as a result of chemical processing," the report said.

"No such nuclear material had so far been declared in Syria's inventory t In principle, that sort of nuclear material should not exist there. It's not usual to find man-made uranium in sand," a senior UN official said.

Bangkok protest blast kills one, wounds 22

AFP, Bangkok

One Thai protester was killed and 22 wounded Thursday in a blast at a Bangkok demonstration site, police said, raising fears of an upsurge in political violence after a recent lull.

The explosion hit before dawn at the prime minister's Government House offices, in the first deadly attack inside the compound since anti-government protest group the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) occupied it in August.

PAD leaders accused the government of being behind the attack and called for massive protests against the current administration, which they accuse of being corrupt and a proxy for ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. "The PAD will no longer tolerate daily brutal crackdowns by the government and cannot accept any type of Thaksin regime," the group said in a statement.

"Therefore we have reached a consensus to call for a mass protest on Sunday November 23 at 2:00 pm to move to parliament to finally get rid of the proxy government and stop the tyrants."

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat immediately denied any involvement and vowed a swift police investigation into the incident.

"It is not government policy to use force or violence," Somchai told reporters. "No one wants bloodshed or killing among Thais."

Thailand has been gripped by escalating political turmoil since May when the PAD began their rallies, but there was a respite for the six-day funeral of Princess Galyani, late sister of deeply-revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Sri Lanka takes Tiger defences, kills scores

AFP, Colombo

Sri Lankan security forces on Thursday captured a key defence line of Tamil Tiger rebels after six days of intense fighting that left "scores" of guerrillas dead, the defence ministry said.

Government troops took a near five-kilometre (three-mile) front from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) following a new thrust that began on Saturday, the ministry said.

Despite the LTTE's stiff resistance, troops captured the strategically important defence line from Muhamalai to Kilaly in the Jaffna peninsula, the ministry said in a statement.

"In continuous military thrust launched by 53 and 55 Divisions, terrorists were unable to defend their defence line," the statement said adding that Tigers suffered "scores" of losses while troops "minimised" their casualties.

The statement came a day after the Tigers said they beat back a new push into their territory by government troops as heavy fighting raged across the island's north.

There was no immediate comment from the Tigers to the latest military statement.

The rebels are locked in a decades-long war with the government to carve out a homeland for minority Tamils.