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Rice in India, Mullen in Pakistan to calm tensions between two countries

AFP, New Delhi

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in New Delhi Wednesday to try and ease India-Pakistan tensions over the Mumbai attacks, as US intelligence blamed a Pakistan-based militant group.

Ties between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals have become strained in the wake of last week's devastating assault by Islamist militants on India's economic capital which left 188 people dead.

An Indian government source told AFP that Rice will be handed evidence of a Pakistan link to the attack.

"We will put on the table information so far gathered. We plan to share transcripts of satellite phone conversations that link the terrorists to their Pakistani handlers," the senior official said on condition he not be named.

"We have evidence of numbers recovered from phones (that show) where the calls came from or were made to," he added.

A senior State Department official said Rice would pressure the two US allies-who have fought three wars since their 1947 independence from British rule-to cooperate in wiping out terrorism.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday as part of U.S. diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions between Pakistan and India after last week's militant attacks on Mumbai.

Admiral Mike Mullen flew in for talks with Pakistan's 8-month-old civilian government and military officials hours after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in New Delhi for talks with the Indian leadership about the crisis.

"He'll be meeting with government officials and counterparts on regional issues," said Lou Fintor, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy.

Rice is expected to go to Islamabad later in the week, according to officials. Mullen's visit was expected to be a short one and it was uncertain whether they would both be in Pakistan at the same time.

India has accused "elements in Pakistan" of being behind the Mumbai attacks which killed at least 171 people, including Americans and other foreigners.

The one gunman captured has told investigators he belonged to the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist militant group and had received training in Pakistan, according to Indian officials.

The attack has sparked fears that the two nuclear-armed neighbours could slide towards a fourth war since independence from Britain in 1947 unless cool heads prevail.

"I want to consult with the Indian government on what we can do to help," Rice told reporters on her way to India. "I am going to, of course, express solidarity with the Indian people. This was a horrible attack."

India says the only gunman captured has confirmed under interrogation that all the militants were from Pakistan and received their training there.

The United States is particularly concerned about any military stand-off with India that might see Pakistan move troops from its western border with Afghanistan-a crucial battleground in the US "war on terror".

Suspicion has fallen on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group fighting Indian control of disputed Kashmir. The group was behind a December 2001 assault on the Indian parliament that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of another war.

US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell on Tuesday said the Pakistan-based group was the focus of investigations.

"The same group that we believe is responsible for Mumbai had a similar attack in 2006," he said. "Go back to 2001 and it was an attack on the parliament."

India called in the Pakistani ambassador earlier this week and demanded Pakistan arrest and extradite 20 terror suspects, including the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Saeed.

Others named were Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammed rebel group, and Dawood Ibrahim, wanted in India on charges of masterminding serial bombings in Mumbai in 1993 that killed around 300 people.

Pakistan has suggested setting up a "joint investigation mechanism" but says it wants concrete proof that all the attackers were Pakistanis.

"The state of Pakistan is no way responsible," Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari told CNN.

"I think these are stateless actors who have been operating throughout the region. The gunmen, whoever they are, they are all stateless actors who are holding hostage the whole world."

India's security and intelligence agencies have come under intense criticism over their handling of the incident, which has already forced the resignation of interior minister Shivraj Patil.

US networks this week reported that the United States had warned India in October that hotels and business centres in Mumbai would be targeted by attackers coming from the sea.

One US intelligence official even named the Taj Mahal hotel, one of 10 sites hit in the 60-hour siege by gunmen, as a specific target, ABC television said.

Malaysia raises doubts over Thai plans for ASEAN summit

AFP, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia raised doubts Wednesday over whether crisis-hit Thailand will be able to host a Southeast Asian summit, which has already been postponed from December to March.

The venue for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit had also been moved from Bangkok to the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai because anti-government protesters were occupying the capital's two airports.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Rais Yatim expressed "sadness" over the turmoil in Thailand , where the ruling party has been dissolved and Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat barred from politics for five years.

"In terms of the next summit, which we were hoping to be held in Chiang Mai, now it is not to be," Rais told a press conference.

"So we'll have to wait (to see) whether Thailand of the future will be able to furnish for us in ASEAN the commitment for the summit," he said. "Malaysia only hopes that the next government or the next authority in Thailand would be able to foster and germinate the essentials of ASEAN."

Singapore has urged that the ASEAN talks be held as soon as possible, preferably in January, given the urgent need to discuss the impact of the global financial crisis.

It said that the summit could instead be held at the Jakarta-based secretariat of the 10-member ASEAN.

Rais indicated that bilateral relations with neighbouring Thailand had been affected by the turmoil.

"Of course we would like to see relations with Malaysia in particular develop at a level that is more constructive and lasting," he said.

"We truly hope the system of democracy in Thailand would germinate again and foster the kind of relationships we need within ASEAN."

25 injured in suspected gas explosion in Spain

AFP, Madrid

A suspected gas explosion injured 25 people, 17 of them seriously in a block of flats at Gava, near Barcelona, in northeast Spain, a regional government spokeswoman told AFP.

"An accumulation of gas" in the lower part of the three-storey block could have set off the explosion, the spokeswoman for the interior ministry of the Catalan government said.

The blast happened around 3.00 am (0200 GMT). At least four children were among the injured.

Firemen were combing the wreckage in the search for any more victims in the building which had been partially destroyed and whose walls were instable, she added.

Around 50 people living in neighbouring blocks of flats had been evacuated as a precaution, she added.

Mumbai needs more modern police

AFP, Mumbai

The devastating attacks on Mumbai show that the Indian financial capital urgently needs a more modern police force and better intelligence resources, according to former officers and security experts.

The Indian intelligence community has faced outspoken criticism in the wake of last week's attacks, which left at least 188 people dead, amid allegations that warning signs were ignored and anti-terrorist forces were slow to respond.

"There has been a complete deficiency of local and police intelligence," said Ajai Sahni, executive director with the Institute of Conflict Management, a non-profit internal security group based in the capital New Delhi.

"National intelligence is paper-thin, and despite repeated attacks, we have not learnt our lessons," Sahni told AFP.

Some experts have questioned whether Mumbai's understaffed and under-resourced police should even be used to tackle militant attacks, arguing that regular officers lack the training required to take on armed extremists.

Maharashtra state has a 125,000-strong police force for a population of over 100 million, according to official figures, or one officer to every 800 people.

And where previous assaults involved bombs being left in public places, as in 2006 when Islamist militants staged serial attacks on Mumbai's trains that killed 186 people, this time the militants engaged directly with police.

Five soldiers killed in communist rebel attack in Philippines

AFP, Butuan

Five soldiers were killed and four wounded in a communist guerrilla ambush in the southern Philippines after a fresh attempt to restart peace talks collapsed, authorities said Wednesday.

New People's Army (NPA) rebels set off landmines as the soldiers' truck passed near Lianga town on Tuesday, according to police and military reports.

The rebels also stopped a bus and used the vehicle to block reinforcements from reaching the ambush site, they added.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the political leadership of the NPA, said the global financial turmoil would strengthen their forces and weaken the Philippine government.

"If the US and other global centres of capitalism are staggered by financial crisis and certain depression, how much more their semicolonies like the Philippines," it said.

The National Democratic Front (NDF), an arm of the CPP, said that fresh attempts to reopen peace talks between the government and the rebels collapsed in Oslo, Norway last week.

The NDF said it rejected a government demand for a "prolonged ceasefire" before talks could resume.

Manila cancelled peace talks with the Maoists soon after President Gloria Arroyo won a fresh term in 2004, and she has ruled out any such talks unless the rebels agreed to a ceasefire.

The 5,000-strong NPA and the CPP have been waging a Maoist rebellion since 1969 in one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies.

Thai airports reopening after PM ousted by court

AP, Bangkok

Victorious anti-government protesters lifted their siege of Bangkok's two airports Wednesday while leaders of the ousted government named a caretaker prime minister to lead the politically chaotic kingdom.

The country's immediate crisis, which virtually severed Thailand's air links to the outside world for a week, appeared to be over and the People's Alliance for Democracy said it was ending six months of daily anti-government protests. But the alliance warned it would be on the streets again if a new government tried to return to its past policies.

A court decision Tuesday forced the country's prime minister from office and disbanded the three top ruling coalition parties. But they quickly were reconstituted under different guises and leaders met Wednesday and named the deputy prime minister as the country's caretaker leader.

A spokesman for the protest alliance, Parnthep Wonguapan, said protesters at Bangkok's international and domestic airports were ordered to "clean up and pack their belongings" before leaving the two sites.

The first commercial airliner to arrive in a week - a flight by the national airline Thai Airways from the resort island of Phuket - landed at Suvarnabhumi international airport at 2.15 p.m. (0715 GMT).

Thai Airways said its flights will also take off from Suvarnabhumi for Sydney, New Delhi, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Seoul and Copenhagen on Wednesday.

In what was billed as a hand-over ceremony, Vudhibhandhu Vichairatana, the chairman of the Airports of Thailand, hugged and shook hands with alliance leaders in front of a Buddhist shrine as protesters danced to folk music and trucks loaded with their gear rolled out of the airport.

"We want to clean up the airport before we leave. We want PAD (the alliance) to have a good image," said Bow Piyapat, a souvenir maker, as she wielded her mop around rows of check-in counters at Suvarnabhumi.

A stream of cars, trucks and buses transported the protesters out of the airport.

100 police staff protest over pay in China: rights group

AFP, Beijing

About 100 police employees damaged government property in a highly unusual protest in China over inadequate pay, a human rights group said on Wednesday.

The three-hour protest occurred Tuesday in the city of Leiyang in the central province of Hunan, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement.

At one point, the demonstrators damaged chairs and other property at the local Communist Party headquarters, it said.

The majority of the protesters were auxiliary police, civilians hired to back up regular police officers and patrol work but who do not have full police powers, it said.

However, some full-time police officers were also among the crowds, the statement said.

Citing witnesses, the group said the protesters surrounded the building around 11am.

They complained about low salaries and allowances, it added.

The incomes of vast numbers of Chinese consumers have been squeezed in the past couple of years by runaway inflation that has only recently tapered off.

The protest lasted about three hours, ending when party officials urged the demonstrators to disperse.

Calls by AFP to Leiyang police and government headquarters went unanswered on Wednesday.

China sees tens of thousands of public protests each year by members of society who have been marginalised or left behind in the country's economic boom.

However, such protests are typically quelled by police, not initiated by them.

The Hong Kong-based group said local officials in Leiyang were in "urgent" meetings on Wednesday over the incident.

Obama to name Richardson as commerce secretary

AP, Chicago

President-elect Barack Obama is ready to name Bill Richardson as his choice for commerce secretary after passing over his vanquished Democratic rival for secretary of state. Democratic officials say the two would appear at a news conference together in Chicago on Wednesday. Richardson's nomination as commerce secretary has been all-but-announced for several weeks. One of the nation's most prominent Hispanic politicians, he will become the latest former Democratic primary opponent to join Obama's Cabinet.

The incoming chief executive has chosen another adversary-turned-ally, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to be his secretary of state. Obama also chose former rival Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.

The president-elect has moved quickly to fill out his Cabinet, having named more than half of it in the month since he was elected the country's 44th president.

An energy secretary and United Nations ambassador in President Bill Clinton's administration, Richardson was a contender for the State Department job, but Obama offered him the post as commerce secretary after choosing the former first lady as his top diplomat.

Richardson sought the Democratic presidential nomination this year but eventually dropped out and endorsed Obama.

SKorea braces for provocation by NKorea: defence ministry

AFP, Seoul

South Korean troops are on guard against any military provocation by North Korea after the communist state ordered a border clampdown amid worsening ties, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

The North on Monday imposed strict border controls and ordered the expulsion of hundreds of South Koreans working at the Kaesong joint industrial estate, in protest at what it calls the Seoul government's confrontational policy. It also halted a cross-border cargo rail service and a popular day tour.

"In response to the North's December 1 measure, surveillance and control operations are being stepped up against (any) naval attacks and attempts to kidnap fishing boats," the ministry said.

Special training programmes are also being implemented to cope with "contingencies" along the heavily fortified land border, it said in a report to parliament.

Some analysts believe the North may provoke a limited clash around the disputed border in the Yellow Sea, the scene of bloody naval battles in 1999 and 2002.

The ministry report also said the North in 2007 deployed new ballistic missiles with a range of 2,500-4,000 km (1,562-2,500 miles). It was building up ground forces including tanks, artillery and special warfare troops.

A defence ministry spokesman declined to elaborate on the missiles.