The New Nation - Internet Edition

Pakistan will not use N-weapons first against India: Zardari offers to sign nucler free South Asia pact

Reuters, New Delhi

Pakistan is willing to commit to no first use of nuclear weapons, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Saturday, calling for more trade and easier travel between his country and India to improve bilateral relations.

He even suggested a South Asian pact to prevent use of nuclear weapons in a region rife with political and social turmoil and militancy.

"I am glad I can say it with full confidence that I can get my parliament to agree upon that," Zardari told a conference in India through video conferencing from Islamabad.

"I'm against nuclear warfare altogether."

Tit-for-tat nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 fed global worries of an unchecked arms race in an unstable region, but the two countries have since desisted from more tests.

Immediately after detonating nuclear devices in 1998, New Delhi declared a moratorium on further tests and offered a no first use arrangement.

Pakistan had not reciprocated the Indian offer.

"This is pretty good news. Pakistan till now has been very reluctant to commit to no-first use," said C. Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based strategic affairs expert.

"It is quite a breakthrough, but we have to wait till tomorrow to see how the Pakistan general headquarters in Rawalpindi responds to Mr Zardari's political initiative."

The Pakistani army has been retreating from politics under its new chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, but many in India doubt the effectiveness of Zardari's writ on the country's nuclear establishment, which has little civilian oversight.

"My sense is they (the army) would be very reluctant. They would have to be brought kicking and screaming," Bhaskar said.

Answering wide-ranging questions from Indian business leaders and politicians, Zardari said he was hopeful of resolving the dispute over Kashmir.

"Let them (the people of Pakistan) force me and let the Indian people force the Indian politicians to come together to find a peaceful solution in which we can really say we have done justice to Kashmir," he said.

The two countries began a peace process in 2004 to resolve a host of disputes, including Kashmir, but progress has been slow and the two sides remain suspicious of each other.

To build confidence, Zardari said, the two sides should consider more trade and easier cross-border travel.

"We are looking forward to be trading partners with the world t and, let's say, hopefully, at the huge market of India of a billion people and then the 1.2 billion Chinese."

Suggesting easier travel between the two countries, he said: "We can have a special card of some sort, which will then be an e-card we can show on the border."

"We have problems, yes I admit that, but look at the challenges and look at the opportunities."

Bush bids farewell with impassioned 'freedom’ plea

AFP, Lima

US President George W. Bush, bidding farewell to the international stage, offered a sweeping defense of free markets as leaders from across the Pacific rim vowed to resist protectionism.

Bush and 20 other leaders meeting in Peru echoed a pledge last week from a summit in Washington promising not to erect new barriers to free trade for 12 months in hopes of lifting the ailing global economy.

On the last foreign trip before he hands the keys to the White House to Barack Obama, Bush held a final summit with Russia described as cordial but cool after months of rising tensions between the former Cold War foes.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, whose members account for half of world trade and include fast-growing China, issued a joint statement denouncing any drift to protectionism in the economic crisis.

The pledge came after Bush staunchly defended his controversial eight-year presidency, summing up his philosophy as "free markets, free trade and free people."

"I believe there is an Almighty and I believe a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom," Bush said.

A smiling Bush, peppering his remarks with Spanish, conceded that recent events showed that governments must sometimes intervene in markets.

The Bush administration led a 700 billion-dollar bailout of Wall Street in hopes the US economy would rebound from its worst crisis since the Great Depression.

"Yet it is also essential that nations resist the temptation to overcorrect by imposing regulations that would stifle innovation and choke off growth," Bush said. "The verdict of history is unmistakable."

He vowed to press hard in his final two months in office to break a deadlock in World Trade Organization negotiations, a pledge made by 20 world leaders last week in Washington for a summit on the financial turmoil.

"We refuse to accept protectionism in the 21st century," Bush said emphatically.

Obama plan aims for 2.5m new jobs by 2011

AP, Washington

President-elect Barack Obama, who is set to announce his economic team, promoted an economic plan Saturday he said would create or save 2.5 million jobs by spending billions of dollars to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.

On Monday, Obama will name Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary and Lawrence Summers to direct the National Economic Council, transition officials said. The announcement of the economic team and his promotion of the jobs plan comes as the economy continues its downward spiral, and multi-billion dollar efforts to stabilize the economy have not stemmed the tide.

"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis. These are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama said in the weekly Democratic radio address.

The goal is to get the ambitious plan quickly through Congress, with help from both parties, after Obama takes office Jan. 20. The plan, which envisions those new jobs by January 2011, is "big enough to meet the challenges we face," he said. The president-elect said he has asked his economic advisers to flesh out the recovery plan - one "big enough to meet the challenges we face. t

We'll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy."

The plan comes at a time that the economy is continuing a downward spiral after hundreds of billions have already been spent trying to stabilize markets and restore confidence - with little success so far.

Obama's radio address talked about the goal of job creation and said his economic plan "will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011." The Obama Web site on Saturday said his plan will "save or create" 2.5 million jobs. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs confirmed later Saturday that the plan "will save and create" the 2.5 million jobs.

In his address, Obama noted the growing evidence the country is "facing an economic crisis of historic proportions" and said he was pleased Congress passed an extension of unemployment benefits this past week. But, he added, 'We must do more to put people back to work and get our economy moving again."

Dismantling US military presence in Iraq looms as big task

AFP, Washington

Dismantling the sprawling US military presence in Iraq will be a huge and complex undertaking, US military officials say, even in the three years allowed for the withdrawal of all US forces.

Tens of thousands of pieces of equipment-from tanks to tents to ammo carriers-will have to be packed up and shipped somewhere by December 31, 2011 under a landmark status of forces agreement now before the Iraqi parliament.

How fast they come out, how much will be left behind, and where it will all go are among the decisions that soon will be facing US military leaders and their logisticians if the agreement is ratified.

"I look at it as an orchestra. It's got to be in tune. It's got to be synchronized. That's what we do," said Major General Charles Anderson, the deputy commander of US Army forces in the Central Command region.

Anderson will be a key player on the ground in managing the movement of US army forces out of Iraq, but he would be the first to tell you that other commands and military services have major roles, too.

There is a lot of stuff in Iraq, Anderson acknowledges.

"You got to consider we've been there since 2003. And being there since 2003 you do accumulate a lot," he said in an interview with AFP.

The army alone has more than 19,500 "ground systems" in Iraq, including trucks, Humvees, Mine Resistant Armored Protected (MRAP) vehicles, and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, an army official said. It also has 470 helicopters, he said.

But after more than five years in Iraq, the US military has put in place an efficient system that can move a 3,500-strong brigade a month into Iraq and another out of it, almost at the same time.

Troops fly out of the country by air, and equipment is mostly sent overland to Kuwait, where it is sorted out, washed, inspected, packed into containers and loaded onto ships.

Where it used to take six months for equipment to get back to maintenance depots at the United States, it now takes two months, according to the US Army's Materiel Command

At the depots, war damaged or worn out equipment is repaired or stripped down and rebuilt like new.

"Anytime you move a 55,000 pound Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAP), or you move a 70-tonne tank, it's hard," Anderson said.

Japan, Russia vow 'concrete’ steps to end island row

AFP, Lima

The leaders of Japan and Russia pledged Saturday to take concrete steps to resolve a territorial dispute, saying they wanted normal ties after a row that has endured for decades.

Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty to formally end World War II due to Tokyo's claims over four islands which Soviet troops seized in 1945 off Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, who took office in September, raised the island dispute in his first talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Lima.

"We have to define the border otherwise this problem will remain an element of destabilization in the region," Aso told Medvedev at the start of the meeting.

"I know you're a lawyer so you know about this. I would like to normalize Russian-Japanese relations."

Medvedev replied: "There are no unresolvable problems. You see the delegations here. Let them do something useful and make an effort."

While not revealing specifics, a Japanese government official said the two leaders ordered government officials "to begin concrete work."

"President Medvedev said he has no intention to leave the resolution of the issue to the next generation," the official said.

Medvedev said "although resistance by bureaucrats exists around the world, we can resolve the issue with the leaders' goodwill," according to the Japanese official.

The two countries agreed to launch "intensive, political dialogue on leaders' level" between the two countries, including a visit by Russia's powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Japan early next year.

"I like such frank dialogue," Medvedev was quoted by the Japanese official as telling Aso. "I want to hold such dialogue quite often."

Japanese man stabs bureaucrat over pet death

Reuters, Tokyo

A Japanese man upset by the death of his pet turned himself in after fatally stabbing a bureaucrat and his wife, Japanese police and media said on Sunday.

Police were searching the house of a 46-year-old man who said he murdered a former vice minister for health and welfare, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said.

Kyodo news said the man also admitted to the fatal stabbing of the 66-year-old bureaucrat's wife, although the police spokesman was unable to confirm that.

Takehiko Yamaguchi and his 61-year-old wife, Michiko, were found dead at their home with stab wounds to the chest on Tuesday, Kyodo News said.

Also Tuesday, the wife of another former health and welfare bureaucrat was seriously stabbed at the entrance to her home by a man pretending to be making a delivery, domestic media reported.

Her husband, who had also been vice minister, was not home at the time, according to media reports.

Japanese police and media originally believed the stabbings may have been a backlash against former employees of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, due to widespread resentment over the government's handling of the national pension system.

However, the man who turned himself in to police said he was upset over the death of a pet, Kyodo said.

Thai protesters begin 'final battle’ against govt

Reuters, Bangkok

Thousands of anti-government protesters rallied in central Bangkok on Sunday, the start of what they call the "final battle" in a five-month street campaign to oust the administration.

"I fear nothing. We will not bow our heads to the dark power destroying our country," said Cat, a 48-year-old businesswoman, among the thousands of protesters waving placards and shouting "fight, fight" inside the Government House compound they have occupied since late August.

The crowd led by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) planned to march to parliament early on Monday, where police have erected barricades and stationed trucks with water cannons.

A similar protest in October left two people dead and hundreds wounded, including scores of police, when police fired tear gas to break up the rally aimed at disrupting parliament.

This time, police have been ordered not to use tear gas or other "weapons" and only carry shields, government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar said after a meeting of security ministers.

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, whom the PAD accuse of being the puppet of exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, his brother-in-law, assigned army chief Anupong Paochinda to monitor the protests while he attends an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru.

Major bloodshed would raise the chances of a military coup only two years after the army's removal of Thaksin, who now lives in exile after skipping bail on corruption charges.

AU warns against Guinea Bissau coup

AFP, Addis Ababa

The African Union on Sunday warned against any attempt to take power by force in Guinea Bissau amid reports of post-election turmoil in the west African country.

AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping "is following with grave concern reports of a deterioration of the situation in Bissau," said a statement received by AFP in Addis Ababa, where the pan-African body is headquartered.

The continental organisation's top executive reiterated "the AU's total rejection of any anti-constitutional governnment change and condemned in advance any attempt to seize power by force."

Ping did not elaborate on who he believed may be threatening to challenge provisional legislative election results released on Friday, which saw Guinea Bissau's dominant PAIGC party win a convincing victory last weekend.

Obama tells Karzai Afghan security will be priority

Reuters, Kabul

US President-elect Barack Obama told Afghan President Hamid Karzai he would make it a priority to fight terrorism and bring security to Afghanistan and the region, the Afghan presidential palace said Sunday.

Obama has pledged a new focus on Afghanistan when he becomes president in January, but while still a candidate he criticized Karzai for failing to tackle corruption, the booming drugs trade and for "not getting out of the bunker" to govern effectively.

But Obama assured Karzai of more U.S. cooperation with the Afghan government to combat terrorism and bring security.

"Obama said America will increase its commitment to bring security and stability to the government and people of Afghanistan," the Afghan president said in a statement after the two spoke on the telephone late Saturday.

"Obama also emphasized that combating terrorism and bringing security to Afghanistan, the region and the world would be a priority of his government," the statement said.

Seven years since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the austere Islamist Taliban for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks, the militants have bounced back extending both the scale and scope of their insurgency.

More than 4,000 people, around a third of them civilians, have been killed in Afghanistan this year as some 70,000 foreign troops backing Afghan security forces struggle to put down a Taliban insurgency that has spawned dozens of suicide bombs.

Western leaders have grown increasingly impatient with Karzai who has ruled Afghanistan since 2002, saying his failure to crack down on rampant corruption and the drugs trade and to govern effectively is fueling the Taliban insurgency.

Karzai has hit back saying the killing of dozens of civilians in NATO and U.S.-coalition air strikes weakens support for his government and boosts the Taliban.

Abbas calls on Obama to implement Arab peace plan

AP, Nablus

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday urged Barack Obama to get involved in Mideast peacemaking efforts immediately after becoming the U.S. president in January.

Abbas, who spoke at an economic conference in the West Bank town of Nablus, also asked Obama to endorse a pan-Arab peace initiative that offers full peace with Israel in return for its withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.

The "Arab Peace Initiative" was first proposed in 2002 by dozens of Arab countries that do not have ties with Israel. It requires Israel to leave the lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast War.

"We ask Obama to become immediately involved in the peace process, and to adopt the Arab initiative," Abbas said. Abbas' call to Obama came after he appealed directly to Israelis by taking out full-page Hebrew-language newspaper ads Thursday that said the Arab initiative would bring peace to the region.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the chief negotiator with the Palestinians over the past year, has welcomed the plan as a positive gesture, but says its positions on key issues such as final borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are unacceptable.

"Instead of living in an island of peace it will live in an ocean of peace," he said.

However, a year of negotiations between Palestinians and Israel has not brought tangible results.

Abbas said Saturday that Israel's actions, such as continued construction of settlements and the West Bank separation barrier, contradict Israel's declared willingness to make peace.

French Socialists clash as Aubry wins leadership vote

AFP, Paris

France's opposition Socialists descended into political warfare Saturday after failed presidential candidate Segolene Royal lost a vote for the party leadership to rival Martine Aubry by a razor-thin margin but refused to concede defeat.

Aubry, the mayor of Lille and architect of the 35-hour work week, was declared the winner by 42 votes out of more than 137,000 cast in a ballot by party members on Friday.

Royal, who was beaten by right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy in last year's presidential elections, accused the rival camp of vote-tampering and demanded a re-vote.

"I am not going to take this," Royal told AFP, denouncing what she called "methods from another era" for the split.

Aubry, 58, shot back that "there is no reason" for a new ballot. She appealed to the rival camp to "act responsibly or else our party's situation will only get worse."

"Everyone knows the party is not in good health," she said. "We will lose everything if were are incapable of pulling together."

The dispute pushed the already deeply-divided Socialist Party closer to a formal split and a full-blown confrontation between the leftist old guard backing Aubry and Royal's centre-left followers.

Aubry won 50.02 percent of the vote against 49.98 percent for Royal, according to official results released by the party leadership.

Outgoing leader Francois Hollande, Royal's former partner in personal life, called an emergency meeting of the party's national council for Tuesday that will likely validate the result.

The contested outcome capped weeks of bitter campaigning and dashed hopes that the Socialists could put an end to the feuding and start building a credible opposition to Sarkozy.

Aubry Royal aides charged that there had been irregularities in vote counting at party offices.

Dalai Lama rules out retirement, reaffirms middle way

Reuters, Dharamsala

The Dalai Lama ruled out retirement on Sunday and reaffirmed the support of Tibetan exiles for his "Middle Way" approach to China.

The Tibetan spiritual leader said new policy options on China could be considered in the future.

His statements came a day after Tibetan exiles decided to stick to the "Middle Way" approach to China in a six-day meeting, after a lack of progress in autonomy talks frustrated the Dalai Lama and led him to call for a review of his stand.

The 73-year-old leader told a news conference that he would not retire, putting an end to speculation about his future after he was hospitalised with abdominal pains earlier in the year.

"There is no point, or question of retirement," he said.

"It is my moral responsibility till my death to work for the Tibetan cause."

He said success could also be achieved by pursuing non-violence.

The Dalai Lama's "Middle Way" approach abandoned the dream of an independent Tibet in favour of seeking greater autonomy within China through dialogue.

"Total independence is not practical," the Dalai Lama added.

"Majority of views have come up supporting the Middle Way path to the Tibetan issue t which is right," the Tibetan spiritual leader told a meeting of exiles in northern India.

"With regard to the meeting, I can say concrete things were not expected. However, various options have come out. This is not something we decide on the spot."

"Wait for another month and then we will talk."

Tibetan exiles held a six-day meeting this week in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based.

"My faith is getting thinner in the Chinese government t My trust in Chinese public is strong," the Dalai Lama said.

Tibetan exiles said after the meeting they could start more radical protests and demand independence if China doesn't respond to the "Middle Way".