The New Nation - Internet Edition

India directs anger at politicians after Mumbai attacks

Reuters, New Delhi

Indians blazed criticism against their political leaders on Sunday after the attacks in Mumbai which killed almost 200 people, saying their bickering and ineptness was at least partly responsible.

As commandos gunned down the last of the militants, TV channels were divided between covering the operations and an outpouring of venom against both the ruling Congress party-led coalition and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"These are the people who are responsible for the system," author and columnist Shoba De, a Mumbai resident, said on one talk show.

"The city would not have suffered the way it has had it not been for the complete and total abrogation of duty and the kind of negligence we've seen, the kind of indifference we've seen."

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil submitted his resignation to the prime minister on Sunday because of the attacks, the Congress party said.

But that may not be enough to satisfy critics.

"Our politicians fiddle as innocents die," the Times of India said in a front-page comment.

It said while the attacks engulfed Mumbai and hundreds were held hostage, saving them took precedence.

"But today, as heaps of bodies lie in morgues t it is time to ask our politicians, are you going back to playing politics with our lives? Or are you going to do something worthwhile with yours?"

The Congress-party government was blamed for the loopholes that allowed the heavily armed Islamist attackers to come across the seas to land in Mumbai. Others decried the Hindu nationalist BJP for seeking electoral advantage.

"There is rage," wrote a Mumbai resident in a blog published in the Indian Express. "A simmering against our so-called leaders. A simmering against the unpreparedness for this attack."

Arun Shourie, a former BJP cabinet minister, said India's growing economic prowess had masked governance problems.

"I feel that this being mesmerised by growth rate figures is actually misleading, because the tree of the state is being hollowed by termites-the political class," he told Reuters.

National elections are due in May, and both sides of the political divide were seen using the Mumbai attacks for their own ends before state polls in Delhi on Saturday.

The BJP said in a full-page newspaper advertisement: "Brutal terror strikes at will. Weak government. Unwilling and incapable. Fight terror - Vote BJP."

Congress, under fire from the BJP about national security during the 20 days of campaigning in Delhi shot back: "20 days of false campaigning cannot replace 10 years of development. Your decision".

Columnist Vir Sanghvi wrote in the Hindustan Times: "We are fed up of politicians who use terrorism as an excuse to win votes. We are fed up of their incompetence. As far as we're concerned, they are all the same."

'War level’ security in India after Mumbai carnage

Reuters, New Delhi

India will increase security in the country and on its borders to a "war level" in the wake of the deadly attacks in Mumbai that killed nearly 200 people, a government minister said on Sunday.

"Our intelligence will be increased to a war level, we are asking the state governments to increase security to a war level," Sriprakash Jaiswal, India's minister of state for home affairs, told Reuters in an interview.

India said on Sunday it had proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks, while officials in Islamabad said it would move troops to the Indian border if tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals spilled over. "They can say what they want, but we have no doubt that the terrorists had come from Pakistan," Jaiswal said.

India has already boosted coastal security with the Indian Navy and the coast guard carrying out coordination patrols.

The Mumbai attackers are said to have come to the city by sea from the Pakistani port of Karachi, according to security officials. They have said they were from the Lashkar-e-Taiba a Pakistan-based group that has been blamed for previous attacks in India.

"We have evidence of their nationalities. We will reveal everything soon," Jaiswal added.

6 cops among 9 killed in NW Pakistan clashes

AFP, Miranshah

At least six policemen and three militants were killed in gunfights in northwest Pakistan where the military is hunting Al-Qaeda linked Taliban, police said Sunday.

Three policemen were killed and five others injured on Sunday when local Taliban fired rockets at a police pickup near the northwestern town of Lakki Marwat, senior police official Mohammad Alim Shinwari told AFP.

Separately, three policemen and three Taliban were killed and 12 others injured after insurgents attacked a checkpoint in the northwestern town of Bannu late Sunday, Shinwari said.

The incident took place near a police station at Bahram bridge and officers immediately launched a search of the area, he added. Bannu is the main base of Pakistani military fighting Al-Qaeda linked militants in the neighbouring Waziristan tribal district which borders Afghanistan.

Pakistan's tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led toppling of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 and have since set up training camps.

Atleast 400 killed in Nigerian sectarian violence

AP, Nigeria

Mobs burned homes, churches and mosques Saturday in a second day of riots, as the death toll rose to more than 400 in the worst sectarian violence in Africa's most populous nation in years.

Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, the imam at the city's main mosque, said more than 400 dead bodies were brought there on Saturday alone and 183 could be seen laying near the building waiting to be interred.

Those killed in the Christian community would not likely be taken to the city mosque, raising the possibility that the total death toll could be much higher. The city morgue wasn't immediately accessible Saturday.

Police spokesman Bala Kassim said there were "many dead," but couldn't cite a firm number.

The hostilities mark the worst clashes in the restive West African nation since 2004, when as many as 700 people died in Plateau State during Christian-Muslim clashes.

Jos, the capital of Plateau State, has a long history of community violence that has made it difficult to organize voting. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people.

The city is situated in Nigeria's "middle belt," where members of hundreds of ethnic groups commingle in a band of fertile and hotly contested land separating the Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south.

Authorities imposed an around-the-clock curfew in the hardest-hit areas of the central Nigerian city, where traditionally pastoralist Hausa Muslims live in tense, close quarters with Christians from other ethnic groups.

The fighting began as clashes between supporters of the region's two main political parties following the first local election in the town of Jos in more than a decade. But the violence expanded along ethnic and religious fault lines, with Hausas and members of Christian ethnic groups doing battle.

Obama to name Hillary secretary of state today

AP, New York

President-elect Barack Obama planned to nominate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as his secretary of state on Monday, transforming a once-bitter political rivalry into a high-level strategic and diplomatic partnership.

Obama will name the New York senator to his national security team at a news conference in Chicago, Democratic officials said Saturday. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly for the transition team. To clear the way for his wife to take the job, former President Bill Clinton agreed to disclose the names of every contributor to his foundation since its inception in 1997. He'll also refuse donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Global Initiative, his annual charitable conference, and will cease holding CGI meetings overseas.

Bill Clinton's business deals and global charitable endeavors were expected to create problems for the former first lady's nomination.

But in negotiations with the Obama transition team, the former president agreed to several measures designed to bring transparency to his post-presidential work.

The former president had long refused to disclose the identities of contributors to his foundation, saying many gave money on condition that they not be identified. He's now agreed to do so, and has volunteered to step away from day-to-day management of the foundation while his wife serves as secretary of state.

Bill Clinton also agreed to submit his speaking schedule to vetting by the State Department and White House counsel, and to submit any new sources of income to similar ethical review.

Pakistan rallies support as tension with India rises

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan's government has begun rallying support both at home and abroad as tension flared with old rival India after a bloody militant assault on the Indian city of Mumbai.

India said on Sunday it had proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks that killed nearly 200 people, raising the prospect not only of a breakdown of peace efforts between the nuclear-armed nations but of confrontation across their border. Pakistan condemned the assault as a "barbaric act of terrorism" and denied any involvement by state agencies. It has vowed to cooperate in fighting terrorism but backtracked on a decision to send the chief of its spy agency to India to help with the investigation, in a move likely to revive questions about who is in charge of the shadowy organisation.

Pakistan has also said it would move troops from its western border with Afghanistan, where security forces are battling al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as part of the U.S.-led campaign against militancy, to the Indian border if tension escalated.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani telephoned opposition politicians late on Saturday to brief them on the crisis.

"These political leaders assured the prime minister of their full support and cooperation at this critical juncture," Gilani's office said. Gilani had cancelled a trip to Hong Kong, an official said.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke by telephone to the foreign ministers of China and the United Arab Emirates as well as European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, and told them Pakistan had promised all help to India.

Iran proposes nuclear plants with Arab countries

AP, Tehran

Iran's official news agency says Tehran has proposed building joint light-water nuclear power plants with neighboring Arab countries.

Sunday's IRNA report quotes the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh. He says Iran is ready to offer a proposal to Arab countries if they are interested. Iran's Arab neighbors have been suspicious of the Persian country's controversal nuclear program, and several Arab countries have announced plans to develop their own nuclear programs.

The U.S. and some of its allies claim Iran is secretly seeking to develop nuclear weapons - a charge Tehran denies. Iran is building its first nuclear power plant with Russia's help. It is slated to open in 2009.

Israel keeps Gaza borders sealed

AFP, Gaza City

Pre-dawn clashes erupted in Gaza on Sunday, leaving three militants wounded according to the Palestinans, as Israel said it was keeping all border crossings with impoverished territory sealed.

"Following mortar and rocket fire, the border crossings we had expected to open will remain closed," defence ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said.

He said the restriction covers all goods and people except the sick, who would be allowed to travel to and from the Hamas-run territory.

A small Palestinian militant group, the Popular Resistance Comittees, said three of its fighters were wounded in the early hours after an Israeli incursion into central Gaza.

The group said the incusion east of the Maghazi refugee camp prompted an exchange of fire and Israeli shelling of its fighters. Medical sources confirmed that they were treating three wounded Palestinians. There was no immediate word from the Israeli military on the incident.

An Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and the Hamas movement which rules the Gaza Strip went into force on June 19, but since November 4 there has been a spate of cross-border attacks.

Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned on Saturday that a major incursion into Gaza was becoming more likely after militant mortar fire wounded seven soldiers at a nearby base on Friday.

The attack was claimed by the Popular Resistance Committees. Three of its fighters were also wounded during an Israeli incursion into Gaza on Friday.

Thai tensions rise after blasts wound dozens

AFP, Bangkok

Grenade attacks targeting Thai anti-government protesters injured at least 51 people Sunday, stoking tensions as police struggled to end a paralysing blockade of Bangkok's airports.

The blasts came hours before thousands of supporters of the kingdom's embattled administration were due to hold their own mass rally in the centre of the capital, creating another potential flashpoint.

The five-day outbreak of civil unrest has caused mounting concern among foreign governments, with around 100,000 frustrated travellers trapped in the self-styled "Land of Smiles".

Police have held off launching an assault on the protesters occupying two Bangkok airports amid fears of a repeat of political violence that left two people dead last month, and concerns that more bloodshed could spark a coup.

In the latest violence , attackers lobbed a grenade at Government House, the prime minister's cabinet offices which the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) occupied in August. Emergency services said 49 people were wounded.

"Whatever happens, we will fight, we will not step back," senior PAD leader and retired general Chamlong Srimuang later told reporters at the site.

Hours later, a blast hit outside the small domestic Don Mueang airport, injuring two passers-by, police said. A grenade was also found at the offices of a party in the ruling coalition but did not go off.