The New Nation - Internet Edition

Israel pounds Gaza for second day, over 270 killed

Reuters, Gaza

Israel launched air strikes on Gaza for a second day on Sunday, piling pressure on Hamas after killing more than 270 people in one of the bloodiest days in 60 years of conflict between the Palestinians and the Jewish state.

Israeli leaders said the campaign was a response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire by Gaza militants that intensified after Hamas, an Islamist group in charge of the coastal enclave Israel quit in 2005, ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago.

"Right now, we are not considering an end to the fighting," Israeli Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel said on Israel Radio. "We have the time, patience and means t to return life in southern Israel to normal."

Under clear morning skies, an Israeli air strike destroyed the headquarters of Hamas's al-Aqsa television stations, which continued broadcasting from an unknown location. Israeli aircraft also attacked a training facility for Hamas fighters.

Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets across the border, including one that police said landed in open territory about 30 km (18 miles) inside southern Israel. No casualties were reported. Dozens of Israeli armored vehicles massed along the Gaza border for a possible ground invasion and the U.N. Security Council called early on Sunday for a halt to the violence.

Israeli military affairs commentators said the Israeli offensive did not appear to be aimed at retaking the Gaza Strip or destroying the territory's Hamas government-ambitious goals that could prove difficult and politically risky to achieve ahead of Israel's February 10 parliamentary election.

Instead, they said, Israel-after an air bombardment on Saturday-wanted to strengthen its deterrence power and force Hamas into a new truce that would lead to a long-term halt to cross-border rocket salvoes.

Israel said its warplanes carried out about 100 strikes on Saturday and that Palestinian militants had fired some 70 rockets at the Jewish state, killing one Israeli man.

Palestinian medical officials said on Sunday 271 Palestinians were killed in 24 hours of Israeli attacks. More than 700 were wounded in Saturday's attacks, they said.

"Palestine has never seen an uglier massacre," said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. His Islamist group, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since June 2007, vowed revenge including suicide bombings in Israel's "cafes and streets."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on television: "There is a time for calm and a time for fighting, and now the time has come to fight."

In a show of national unity, Israel's leading political parties suspended electioneering for the February 10 ballot, which opinion polls forecast the right-wing Likud of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will win.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the head of the ruling centrist Kadima party, called for international support against "an extremist Islamist organization t that is being supported by Iran," Israel's arch-foe.

U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, in its final weeks in office, put the onus on Hamas to prevent more violence.

Arab world condemns Israeli attack on Gaza

AP, Cairo

The Arab world reacted with outrage at Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, launching scattered protests and calls for retaliation against Israel.

The Arab League announced a gathering of foreign ministers Wednesday would focus on the attack, said the organization's chairman Amr Moussa.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit extended his condolences to the Palestinians killed in the attacks and said Egypt, which brokered a six-month long truce between Hamas and Israel that expired a little over a week ago, has been trying to avoid such an escalation.

"Today everybody has to stand by the side of the Palestinian people and stop this blind military action," the foreign minister said.

Egypt also came under attack by many in the Arab world for its role, along with Israel, in closing the Gaza Strip after the militant group Hamas came to power in June 2007. The closure is often seen as abetting Israel's siege of the crowded strip of land home to 1.5 million people.

A few hundred protesters gathered in Cairo Saturday calling for an end to the strikes.

In Lebanon, about 4,000 protesters marched through a refugee camp in the southern part of the country, condemning the attacks in general, and Egypt in particular.

"Hosni Mubarak, you agent of the Americans, you traitor!" they shouted. They also called on the militant group Hezbollah to attack Israel.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Saniora described the Israeli attacks as a "criminal operation" and "new massacres to be added to its full record of massacres."

The militant group Hezbollah in a statement Saturday called the attacks "a war crime and a genocide," and criticized what it described as the "shameful" Arab silence.

The Libyan foreign ministry issued a statement calling on Arabs to take solid action in "responding to the Israeli brutality against Gaza," and urged the international community to stop Israel's attacks.

Saudi Arabia, which has put forward a plan calling for a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world, in a statement Saturday condemned the Israeli attacks. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who met with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Saturday in Riyadh, said the Saudi leader promised to call U.S. President George W. Bush and other leaders to ask them to push Israel to halt its operations.

Hundreds of protesters in the Jordanian capital of Amman demonstrated, waving Hamas banners and condemning Israel's strikes. There were similar demonstrations in other Jordanian towns and Palestinian refugee camps.

The Jordanian ruler, King Abdullah II, called for an immediate halt to "all military actions" in a statement. He also met Saturday with Abbas after the Palestinian returned from Saudi Arabia. In a statement, the two leaders called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its military operations.

In Syria's al-Yarmouk camp, outside Damascus, hundreds of Palestinians also protested, vowing to continue fighting Israel.

"It's a Zionist holocaust, but it won't dissuade us from going on with our struggle to achieve our goals," said Ali Barakah, 42, one of the protesters.

The Sudanese foreign ministry issued a statement calling for an end to the Israeli attacks that it described as "brutal raids" and saying Arab states should take a unified stand to protect the Palestinians.

Even Turkey, with ties to Israel, expressed dismay as about 2,000 people protested in Istanbul, burning an Israeli flag.

22 dead in Pakistan car bombing

Reuters, Islamabad

Up to 22 people were killed in a suspected car bomb blast at a polling station in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday during a by-election for a provincial assembly seat, police said.

"Twenty to 22 people have been killed. It appears that an explosive-laden car was parked outside the polling station and exploded while polling was going on," Behraman Khan, head of the police station near the Buner town, where the blast took place, told Reuters by telephone.

The car bomb destroyed a school in the town of Bunir on the edge of the restive Swat valley, where voters were casting ballots in a parliamentary by-election, police said. It was not immediately clear whether the bomb was triggered by remote control or whether a suicide attacker detonated the explosives.

"Twenty people were killed and 14 injured in a powerful car bomb attack near the polling station," local police official Behramand Khan told AFP.

"The bomb was so powerful that it completely destroyed the school building and badly damaged nearby houses and other buildings," he said, adding that people were still buried under the rubble.

Car bombs kill 30 in Iraq

AP, Baghdad

An Iraqi police officer says a car bomb has exploded on the outskirts of Fallujah, killing two civilians and wounding four others.

The officer says the bomb exploded Sunday morning in a parking lot where farmers and other merchants gather to buy and sell goods.

Delivery trucks and other vehicles that do not have access permits for Fallujah are not allowed to drive into the city, which is west of Baghdad. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to release information to the news media.

AFP report adds: A massive bomb tore through a crowd gathered near a bus station in a Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 22 people and wounding 54, security officials said.

"The toll in the Kadhimiyah explosion has risen to 22 killed and 54 injured," army spokesman Major General Qassim Atta told AFP.

He said the explosion occurred in a car park used by commuters near a key city bus terminal in the Shiite neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah, northwest Baghdad.

Initial Iraqi military reports said the source of the explosion was a car bomb. However, a statement from the US military identified the bomb as a homemade bomb and said 18 Iraqi civilians had been killed with 25 wounded.

Discrepancies in death tolls and the type of device used are common in Iraq.

An AFP photographer at the scene said the charred remains of one vehicle pointed to a car bomb. The force of the explosion was so powerful that body parts were scattered across houses and vehicles surrounding the site.

The blast, which occurred around midday (0900 GMT), echoed for kilometres (miles) across the embattled Iraqi capital.

Kadhimiyah, location of an important shrine where two respected Shiite imams are buried, has suffered routine attacks since the 2003 US-led invasion triggered vicious Sunni and Shiite sectarianism.

The level of violence in Baghdad has dropped in recent months but insurgents still seem able to strike at will despite the tight security measures in capital of seven million people.

Suicide attack near Afghan school kills 8

AP, Kabul

A suicide bomber tried to attack a meeting of tribal elders and blew himself up near a primary school on Sunday, killing eight people and wounding 51, officials said. At least five schoolchildren were killed and 15 wounded.

The blast went off near the entrance to a police and army post, said Yacoub Khan, the deputy police chief of the eastern province of Khost. U.S. troops are also stationed inside the outpost, but no troops were wounded or killed in the attack.

Five young schoolchildren were among the dead, Khan said, as were at least one Afghan soldier and one private security guard.

Dr. Abdul Rahman, a doctor at a hospital near the blast, said the children were aged 8 to 10.

Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Kabul, said eight people in total died and 51 were wounded. Asif Nang, spokesman for the Ministry of Education, said 15 students were among the wounded, many by flying broken glass.

Khan said the attack came at a time when Pashtun tribal elders from Mandozai district were meeting inside the compound to discuss security issues. It was not immediately clear how many - if any - of those tribal leaders were wounded or killed.

The attack came on the last day of school for the year. Students had gathered in the classrooms to receive end-of-year certificates, Nang said. Teachers were also delivering books to the students, he said.

Violence has spiked across Afghanistan the last two years, and the U.S. plans to send between 20,000 and 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next six months to reinforce the 32,000 U.S. forces already in the country.

More than 6,100 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count of figures from Western and Afghan officials.

Suicide blast near Lankan capital kills eight

AFP, Colombo

A Tamil Tiger suicide bomber killed seven security personnel and a civilian at a base just outside Sri Lanka's capital on Sunday as troops mounted pressure on the rebels in the north, officials said.

The male bomber infiltrated the base of the Civil Defence Force near a market in Wattala, a suburb of the capital Colombo, a police official at the scene said.

"The suicide bomber managed to get through the first checkpoint and stage the bombing inside the CDF detachment," the officer said. "An officer and four men were killed on the spot."

The wounded were taken to the main hospital in Colombo as well as a nearby medical facility, doctors said.

Twenty people were taken to hospital, of whom three were dead on arrival.

Several vehicles at the nearby market had their windscreens shattered.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said military reinforcements were rushed to the area to step up security and help with the investigations.

It was the first attack near the capital since the Tigers were blamed for an abortive bombing against a government minister in early October when two bystanders were killed.

On October 22, the rebels used boats packed with explosives and manned by suicide bombers to target two merchant ships off the island's northern coast. Suicide bombings are a trade mark of the Tigers.

The bombing came as the guerrillas faced a massive Sri Lankan military offensive against their stronghold in the north of the island, their main political capital of Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres (206 miles) north of here.

Military officials said the air force carried out two bombing sorties against the Tigers near Kilinochchi on Sunday morning.

Taliban kill three 'spies’ in NW Pakistan

AFP, Miranshah

Taliban militants killed three men in Pakistan's troubled tribal region near the Afghan border after accusing them of spying for the United States and Islamabad, an official said Sunday.

The incident in North Waziristan was the latest in a string of similar killings in the rugged mountainous region, a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents.

The body of one of the alleged spies, 25-year-old Rahim Gul, was found Sunday with multiple gunshot wounds and a broken arm near a market in the tribal area's main town Miranshah, a security official told AFP.

He said the bodies of the other two men -- 22-year-old Inayatullah Khattak and 18-year-old Shooti Bannu-were hung from a bridge in a village outside the town of Mir Ali.

They had first been shot dead.

He said the killers left a note with the bodies saying, "Those spying for the US and ISI will suffer the same fate."

The ISI is Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Militants have killed dozens of local tribesmen and Afghan refugees on alleged charges of spying, mainly for the Pakistani government or US forces operating across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's lawless tribal areas have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels sought refuge in the region after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

US Midwesterners fear floods could follow the freeze

AP, Chicago

Summerlike storms pounded the Midwest on Saturday with hail, high winds and even funnel clouds, helping to thaw the ice after days of a deep freeze and threatening floods.

Residents braced for an aftermath forecast expected to include overflowing rivers and flooded basements. Flooding was also being fueled by unseasonably high temperatures that climbed into the 60s in Illinois.

In Kane County, several dozen Boy Scouts spent Saturday morning filling 2,400 sandbags for residents to pick up as needed outside the Campton Township Highway Department. Scouts shoveled sand into the bags and stacked them in neat piles.

"They're learning community service," said troop leader Jeff Koehl, who said authorities sent out an e-mail asking for Scouts to volunteer.

"They're just concerned with the way we're going to get this quick melt that all the tributaries are going to fill up."

In the Chicago suburb of Riverside, authorities encouraged residents along the Des Plaines River to evacuate, saying the river was expected to rise to nearly 10 feet by Sunday morning.

Nature dealt Illinois a mixed bag of weather on Saturday, with flood warnings and advisories in the north and tornado watches in the central and southern parts of the state.

Guinea coup leader vows to fight corruption

AP, Conakry

Guinea's coup leader declared a zero tolerance policy on corruption Saturday, vowing to renegotiate the country's numerous mining contracts and warning that anyone who embezzles state funds will be executed.

Capt. Moussa Camara also extended an apparent concession to Guinea's opposition, telling them they could help choose a prime minister following international criticism that elections are not planned for two more years.

On a concrete stage inside the barracks from where he launched his rebellion Tuesday, Camara jabbed his finger at the sky as he swore to do away with the corruption that has drained the mineral-rich state's coffers.

"For the person who embezzles money, there won't be a trial. They'll be killed," he said as the crowd went wild. "I was born in a hut. I walked to school. t Money means nothing to me."

Guinea is the world's largest producer of bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and also produces diamonds and gold. Yet its mineral wealth was siphoned off to enrich the country's longtime ruling clique.

Guinea has been ruled by only two people since gaining independence from France half century ago. Dictator Lansana Conte died on Monday and the military junta led by Camara declared the coup a day later.

He said the country's ruling clique "spit on the faces of the poor," enriching themselves at the population's expense.

Hamas chief urges new intifada against Israel

AFP, Damascus

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal called on Saturday for Palestinians to wage a new intifada against Israel, including a return to suicide missions.

In an interview on Al-Jazeera television, Meshaal said: "We called for a military intifada against the enemy. Resistance will continue through suicide missions."

Hamas has not carried out a suicide attack on Israel since January 2005.

The first intifada, or uprising, broke out in 1988, and was followed by the 1993 Oslo peace accords, which led to a certain degree of Palestinian autonomy with the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

A second intifada broke out in 2000 and eventually ran out of steam three years later.

Meshaal said Hamas had accepted "all the peaceful options, but without results."

He said that for there to be any talks with the people of Gaza, "the blockade must be lifted and the crossings (from Israel) opened t notably that in Rafah," which leads to Egypt.

Meshaal was referring to a blockade imposed on Gaza after Hamas seized control of the overcrowded, impoverished strip in from forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June 2007. Israel, the United States and other world powers consider Hamas to be a terrorist group.

Meshaal said he was open to reconciliation with Abbas, but demanded that the Palestinian president cease peace negotiations with Israel.

"Neither rockets nor suicide operations are absure, but negotiations are," he said.

Israel hammered Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 225 people in retaliation for rocket fire, in one of the bloodiest days of the decades-long Middle East conflict.

Pakistan says 'will not act’ against India

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistan's president promised on Saturday to rid the country of terrorism and his prime minister said the military would not take action first in any face-off with India.

Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors have deteriorated after India blamed Islamist militants based in Pakistan for the last month's attacks on Mumbai that killed 179 people.

In a sign of mounting tension, Pakistan has canceled army leave and shifted some troops from its western border with Afghanistan to the eastern border with India.

Pakistan has condemned the Mumbai attacks and has denied any state role, blaming "non-state actors."

President Asif Ali Zardari, speaking at ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the assassination of his wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, said dialogue was the best way forward.

"Yes, we have none state actorstyes, they are forcing an agenda on us. But please don't fall victim because you will be the victim, we will be the victim, the region will be the victim," Zardari said.

The South Asian neighbors both tested nuclear weapons in 1998. They have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and came to the brink of a fourth after gunmen attacked the Indian parliament in December 2001.

Although many analysts say war is unlikely, international unease is growing and the United States has urged both sides not to raise tension further. China and Iran have also tried to calm things down.

Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said Pakistan did not want war but was ready for one, although it would not be the first to act in any face-off with India.

"Our armed forces aretfully prepared but at the same time I assure you, once again, that we will not act. We will only react," Gilani told Muslim diplomats in Islamabad.

The movement of Pakistani troops off the Afghan border is likely to cause alarm in the United States which does not want to see its ally distracted from the battle against al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

NKorea's Kim inspects military units: State media

AFP, Seoul

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has inspected military units, state media said Sunday, in the latest reported public appearance by the communist leader, who is said to be recovering from illness.

The official Korean Central News Agency said in separate dispatches that Kim, accompanied by military leaders, visited an Air Force unit and an Army unit. The dispatches, dated on Saturday, did not say when he made the trips.

South Korean and US officials have said the 66-year-old leader suffered a stroke in mid-August. Seoul officials said he has made a good recovery, and both US and South Korean officials say he is still in control of the country.

Kim's health is the subject of intense interest since he has not publicly nominated a successor to rule the nuclear-armed communist state.

Kim has a history of diabetes and heart disease, Seoul officials say.

The North's state media carried no reports between August 14 and October 4 of Kim's public appearances.

But the media have reported Kim's trips to a variety of destinations in recent weeks and published photographs, in an apparent attempt to show that he is active and in charge.

Bird flu found in poultry in northern Vietnam

Reuters, Hanoi

Bird flu has resurfaced in poultry in northern Vietnam after many months without any cases, killing ducks and chickens at two farms, a state-run newspaper reported on Sunday.

Animal health officials confirmed on Saturday the H5N1 virus had killed several birds among a flock of more than 100 ducks in Thai Nguyen city, 80 km (50 miles) north of Hanoi, the Ho Chi Minh City Communist Youth league-run Tuoi Tre newspaper said. Officials had also detected the virus in dead chickens at a farm in the same city and nearly 4,200 chickens had been slaughtered to prevent the virus from spreading, the report said without giving a timeframe.

Deputy Health Minister Trinh Quan Huan said this week that there was a very high risk of bird flu returning during the winter and spring in northern Vietnam. The H5N1 strain seems to thrive best in low temperature.

Five Vietnamese have died of bird flu so far this year out of six reported H5N1 infections and all were found in northern Vietnam during the first quarter of the year.

The H5N1 strain has killed 247 people globally among the 391 confirmed cases of infection since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

Vietnam has 106 infections, the second highest number of cases among 15 countries with known human cases after Indonesia.

Thailand on edge for protests against new PM

AP, Bangkok

More than 3,000 Thai police moved into position Sunday to prevent a replay of mass demonstrations that virtually paralyzed the government for months and climaxed with an eight-day seizure of the capital's airports, local media said.

This time, it was supporters of exiled ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra - instead of his opponents - who planned to take to the streets.

Thaksin's followers were planning to marshal enough demonstrators to block the new government from delivering its policy statement at Parliament early next week. The protest was scheduled to begin Sunday.

Police units were being dispatched to cordon off the Parliament building and a nearby field where the pro-Thaksin Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship was to gather, the Web site of The Nation newspaper said.

On Saturday, the alliance vowed to stage demonstrations nationwide unless the new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, dissolves Parliament and holds new elections. The group - dubbed the "red shirts" for their favored protest attire - says Abhisit's Democrat Party came to power this month through a virtual coup d'etat.

Warong Dechgitvigrom, a spokesman for the Democrat Party, said party representatives would go together to Parliament on Monday morning and if it was blocked they would return to party headquarters.

He said the government did not plan to force its way into the building if the demonstrators manage to block the area.

An Oxford-educated, 44-year-old politician, Abhisit was formally named prime minister Dec. 17 in what many hoped would be the end of months of turbulent, sometimes violent, protests that had their roots in a 2006 military coup that toppled Thaksin.