The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bangkok nightclub inferno kills 60 New Year revelers

AFP, Bangkok

A fierce fire ripped through a popular nightclub in the Thai capital Bangkok early Thursday as people were celebrating New Year, killing at least 60 people and injuring 212, rescuers said.

The blaze broke out after a pyrotechnic display at the Santika club in the city's Ekkamai district, a thronging entertainment area frequented by locals and tourists. It was not clear if any foreigners were among the dead.

The two-storey club was completely gutted by the fire, with the front of the building blackened and partially collapsed, an AFP correspondent said. Around 30 charred bodies were still inside the structure hours after the inferno.

"It appears that the fire started from the area of the stage where a band was playing. There were some pyrotechnics and it appears that they started the blaze," Police Lieutenant Colonel Prawit Kantwol told AFP.

"Most of the victims died from suffocation but some were also killed in a stampede when people were trying to get out," he said.

Almost all the dead were on the ground floor, where the stage was located.

A Bangkok emergency services headquarters official said the death toll had risen to 60 after another person died in hospital, while 212 were injured. Police earlier gave a toll of 59, saying 53 were confirmed dead at the scene.

The injured were rushed to 14 hospitals around the capital suffering burns and smoke inhalation.

The club, which is popular with Bangkok's elite, has a capacity of 1,000 people but it was not clear how many were in there at the time of the blaze.

Fire brigade officials said the death toll was made worse because there were few exits from the building and because windows on the upper floors had iron bars across them.

"There was only one main way to get out from the front. People who worked there were able to escape from the back because they knew the exits but the others had no chance," senior fireman Wacharatpong Sri-Saard said at the scene.

Some victims were trapped in the basement of the club, which was accessed via a narrow stairwell, he said. The roof of the building had also collapsed during the blaze.

Police said the fire broke out between midnight and 1:00am, shortly after revellers had celebrated the passing of the New Year, but had now been extinguished. Several dozen relatives, friends and bystanders remained outside what was left of the venue, trying to get information about loved ones from the emergency services.

Fire brigade officials and forensic police could be seen entering the club in an effort to establish exactly what had caused the fire, as the remains of charred furniture and equipment littered the ground outside.

A billboard advertising the club's New Year party with the logo "Goodbye Santika" and the names of DJs playing at the event was still displayed on the street outside hours after the blaze.

The fire was the latest in a series of deadly blazes at nightclubs around the world in recent years.

In 2003 a pyrotechnics display during a rock concert at the Station nightclub in Rhode Island in the United States set off a blaze that killed 100 people.

US, India, Pakistan agree on need to douse tensions

AFP, Crawford

US President George W. Bush spoke with Indian and Pakistani leaders Wednesday and agreed on the need to avoid any moves that could heighten tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Speaking separately with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Bush "urged both t to cooperate with each other in the Mumbai attack investigation as well as on counterterrorism in general," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"All three leaders from the United States, India and Pakistan agreed that no one wanted to take any steps that unnecessarily raise tensions," he added.

Relations between India and Pakistan have sharply deteriorated since the November attacks in Mumbai left 172 people dead, including nine of the 10 gunmen.

India insists the gunmen were trained by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group and abetted by unnamed Pakistani agencies, and has demanded that Islamabad crack down on the group.

Zardari reiterated to Bush his government's position "that it would not allow its territory to be used by non-state actors for launching attacks on other countries," his spokesman Farhatullah Babar told AFP.

"Anybody found involved in such attacks from the soil of Pakistan will be dealt with sternly," he added.

Pakistan Tuesday called for talks with India to defuse tensions, as New Delhi denied claims it had moved troops into offensive positions on the border.

Officials in Islamabad said last week that Pakistani troops had been shifted from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan to the eastern border with India, following intelligence that New Delhi had redeployed troops to the area.

But an Indian army spokesman told AFP there had been no troop movements on its side of the frontier.

Earlier Wednesday Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said Pakistan was in "denial" over the Mumbai attacks and refusing to acknowledge evidence linking the gunmen to elements in Pakistan.

He told reporters the Pakistani father of the sole surviving gunman had confirmed to Pakistan television that his son was involved. "If that is not evidence, then what is?" Chidambaram asked.

And India's junior foreign minister, Anand Sharma, said New Delhi had supplied key evidence to Islamabad linking the attackers to groups in Pakistan.

"Everyone knows who are the conspirators and from where they came. We have given enough evidence," Sharma said in the Indian city of Chandigarh.

Russia cuts gas to Ukraine, but not rest of Europe

Reuters, Moscow

Russia said on Thursday it had completely cut gas to its neighbor Ukraine over a contract dispute but assured European states worried about disruptions to their supplies that gas was flowing to them as normal.

European Union states, which receive a fifth of their gas from pipelines crossing Ukraine, want to avoid a repeat of a January 2006 row when Moscow cut off supplies to Ukraine causing a brief fall in gas supplies to Europe.

Moscow and Kiev say they will honor their contracts to supply gas to European customers, who analysts say have enough reserves to manage without Russian supplies for days, not weeks.

"We have fully cut off supplies to Ukraine as of 10:00 a.m. (2:00 a.m. EST) today," an official at Gazprom's headquarters in Moscow told reporters.

"Usually we supply 390 million cubic meters per day, of which 300 million is transit gas for Europe. Today supplies are running at 300 million cubic meters. We continue supplying Europe in full."

Ukraine's state energy firm Naftogaz said it had already seen a reduction of pressure in its pipelines, and will now automatically pump gas from its reserves. "We see a reduction," a Naftogaz spokesman told Reuters.

Russia's Vesti-24 television station reported from a compressor station in Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine, that the volume of gas passing through the station to Ukraine was now four times below the normal level.

Pipelines that cross Ukraine carry about one-fifth of the EU's gas needs and are a major source of foreign currency revenue for Gazprom, Russia's biggest company.

A new cut-off could tarnish Russia's reputation as a reliable energy supplier to Europe and further undermine Ukraine's crisis-battered economy.

Russia says the cut-off does not apply to shipments to Europe, but there could be a knock-on effect if it causes a drop in pressure in the transit pipelines or if Kiev halts flows to Europe to use them as a bargaining chip.

Germany's E.ON and BASF and Italy's ENI are among the biggest customers for Russian gas.

Countries in eastern and central Europe are likely to feel any disruption first because they are closer to the potential bottleneck in Ukraine.

US troops under Iraq’s authority for first time

Reuters, Baghdad

The US military in Iraq came under Iraqi authority on Thursday for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, a milestone in the war-weary country's path to restoring sovereignty.

The US force in Iraq, now more than 140,000 strong, had operated since 2003 under a UN Security Council resolution which expired at midnight on New Year's Eve. Starting January 1, troops are operating with authority granted by the Iraqi government in a pact agreed by Washington and Baghdad.

The pact gives U.S. troops three years to leave Iraq, revokes their power to detain Iraqis without an Iraqi warrant, and subjects contractors and off-duty U.S. troops to Iraqi law.

The new, tough terms of the U.S. presence here were secured by an increasingly confident Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, emboldened by a maturing democracy, military victories against Shi'ite militias and progress against al Qaeda militants.

U.S. and Iraqi officials were to hold a ceremony on Thursday morning to formally hand over control of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified Baghdad compound from which the United States governed Iraq directly for more than a year after the invasion.

"The role of the coalition forces (in the Green Zone) will be secondary, centered on training Baghdad brigade troops to use equipment to detect explosives and advising Iraqi forces," Qassim Moussawi, spokesman of Iraqi forces in Baghdad, said.

U.S. troops across Iraq remain under U.S. command but their operations must be authorized by a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee and they can detain Iraqis only with a warrant from an Iraqi judge. They are to leave the streets of Iraqi towns and cities by mid-2009 and withdraw from the country by the end of 2011.

Other U.S.-allied troops, including 4,100 British, are to leave Iraq within seven months.

NKorea vows to strengthen its military

AP, Seoul

North Korea ushered in 2009 with an appeal Thursday to unite around leader Kim Jong Il and bolster the country's military, while reaffirming its commitment to denuclearization and breaking with tradition by not criticizing the U.S.

North Korea traditionally marks New Year's Day with a joint editorial by the country's three major state-run newspapers representing its communist party, military and youth militia force. Outside observers pore over the statement for insight on the reclusive country's policy direction.

This year's message accused South Korea of an "anachronistic confrontation policy" and stressed the need to strengthen the country's 1.2 million-member military - the backbone of Kim's totalitarian rule.

However, it lacked the country's usual criticisms of the United States, an indication the country may hope to build up ties with the incoming government of President-elect Barack Obama.

"North Korea didn't issue insults for the U.S. in this year's editorial. That showed North Korea's expectation for the Obama government," said Paik Hak-soon, an analyst at the security think tank Sejong Institute in South Korea.

Obama has sought to emphasize his willingness to hold direct talks with the North - including possibly meeting with leader Kim.

Kim Ho-nyeon, a spokesman at the South Korean Unification Ministry, noted later Thursday that New Year's messages in 1993 and 2001 also didn't criticize the U.S., shortly before former President Bill Clinton and current President George W. Bush were inaugurated.

New Year grenade attack wounds 22 in Philippines

AFP, Zamboanga

Twenty-two people were wounded by a grenade lobbed into a crowd of New Year revellers in the Philippines, the latest in a spate of blasts in the restive south, the army said Thursday.

In the capital Manila and in nearby suburban areas, a child was killed by a stray bullet while 346 people were wounded by powerful firecrackers set off to welcome 2009, the police and the health department said.

Army Captain Emmanuel Garcia, head of a military security task force, said an unidentified man threw the grenade into the crowd at a park in the city of General Santos on Mindanao island late Wednesday. "At least 22 people are wounded in the grenade explosion and they have been rushed to hospitals," he said.

No one has claimed responsibility and Garcia said authorities were investigating.

However, security forces have been on heightened alert for possible attacks by Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels who have been locked in intense battles with troops since August.

In Zamboanga city, also in the south, police early Thursday disarmed a powerful homemade bomb left near a bus depot, the military said.

The device was made from an 81-millimetre mortar bomb and rigged to a timing device, similar to previous bombs used by MILF militants, it said.

A grenade attack Tuesday on a police outpost in General Santos wounded a policeman and two other people.

The same day, a suspected militant was killed when the improvised explosive device he was carrying went off at a police checkpoint near the town of Esperanza, also on Mindanao.

In Manila, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said 346 people were wounded by firecrackers in the capital and nearby suburbs.

He said there were no official reports of deaths, although the police said one person died after being hit by a stray bullet. Police said 16 others were hurt also by stray bullets.

Police and health authorities earlier gave a smaller figure for injuries in Manila, but later released an updated figure.

Pakistani confesses to Mumbai attacks

AP, Islamabad

A militant arrested in Pakistan has confessed involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks and is giving investigators details of the plot, a senior Pakistani government official said Wednesday. The revelation could add to pressure on Islamabad to either bring Zarar Shah and other suspects to trial or extradite them to India. "(Shah) has made some statement that he was involved," said the government official, without providing specific details. "I can tell you that he is singing."

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the disclosure, which was first reported in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday

A senior intelligence officer said Shah and another suspect, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, were cooperating with investigators, but cautioned that authorities had not reached a definite conclusion as to their involvement yet.

He too asked for anonymity. Indian officials were not immediately available for comment.

Gunmen targeted 10 sites including two five-star hotels and a Jewish center during the November siege on Mumbai's financial capital, killing 164 people in a three-day reign of terror.

India and the United States say the militants who planned and carried out the attacks were Pakistani and are demanding Islamabad root out and punish those responsible.

The official also told The Associated Press that India has shared some evidence of its suspicions but he said it was "very very little." Pakistan's president and other top officials have said India has yet to provide any evidence.

The intelligence officer also said the country had received "information" on the attacks from other, unspecified, nations.

Malaysian chopper saves Indian tanker from pirates

AP, Kuala Lumpur

A maritime official says a Malaysian naval helicopter has saved an Indian ship from pirates in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia.

Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center said pirates on two speed boats attacked the tanker early Thursday but fled when the Malaysian helicopter arrived on the scene.

He says the pirates came close to the ship and started firing machine guns, hitting the bridge.

Choong says the tanker's captain increased speed, took evasive maneuvers and broadcast an alert, which was conveyed to a Malaysian frigate nearby.

He says the frigate dispatched a helicopter, which scared the pirates away without firing a shot. There were no injuries on board the tanker.

Suspected US missile strike kills 5 in Pakistan

AP, Dera Ismail Khan

A suspected U.S. missile strike by a drone aircraft destroyed a vehicle in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least five foreign militants, said intelligence officials.

At least one local militant was wounded in the attack in the South Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border, said the two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The U.S. has launched dozens of similar attacks in recent years in Pakistan's tribal areas, where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters have sought sanctuary to stage attacks across the border into Afghanistan.

The strikes have provoked protests from Pakistani officials and residents in the tribal areas saying they are a violation of the country's sovereignty.

The three militants killed Thursday were from a Central Asian country, said the officials without providing further details.

They said they received information about the attack from local agents.

Pakistani military officials were not immediately available for comment. Washington usually does not confirm such strikes.

Meanwhile, militants fired four rockets at a government building in the town of Khar in the Bajur tribal region Thursday, killing at least four people and wounding 16 others, said local government official Israr Khan. The wounded were transported to a hospital for treatment, he added.

The Pakistani military has conducted an intermittent campaign against insurgents in Bajur, an area that has also been targeted by several U.S. missile strikes.

Bush stance on cease-fire shows support for Israel

AP, Washington

By insisting that Hamas go first in any cease-fire with Israel, the Bush administration is sticking to its support for the Jewish state's right of self-defense while stopping short of encouraging an Israeli ground assault aimed at fully reoccupying the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The Bush administration on Wednesday asserted its desire for a halt to the fighting but also made clear its view that the first step in any cease-fire will require Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rejects Israel's right to exist, to agree to stop firing rockets from Gaza into Israel now and in the future. From his ranch in Crawford, Texas, President George W. Bush telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the first time since the conflict escalated last weekend. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked the phones with other leaders in the region."I think President Bush thinks that Hamas needs to stop firing rockets and that is what will be the first step in a cease-fire," White House deputy press secretary Gordon Johndroe told reporters.

He said Hamas also needs to stop smuggling weapons into Gaza - a move that would show they don't intend to continue to target Israel.

"So I think they're certainly on the same page on that," Johndroe said of Bush and Olmert, briefing reporters on their phone call.

Israel so far has resisted mounting international pressure to suspend its devastating air offensive in Gaza, which has enraged the Arab world. It sent more troops and tanks to the border as signs of an impending ground invasion multiplied.

Cuba celebrates 50 years of Communism

AFP, Havana

Cuba on Thursday celebrates the 50th anniversary of its revolution with its iconic leader Fidel Castro withdrawn from power, still at odds with the United States and facing new economic challenges. Fifty year festivities, led by President Raul Castro, 77, who officially took over from his older brother last February, were due to center on Santiago de Cuba-the southeastern city from where the revolution began. It was unclear how 82-year-old Fidel, who has not appeared in public since undergoing major surgery almost two and a half years ago, would participate. Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales has pulled out of the party and it was also unclear whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who considers himself Fidel Castro's "spiritual son," would attend.

"Celebrations won't be as grandiose as we had wished due to the economic situation," a Cuban official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Six decades ago a 32-year-old Fidel Castro announced the start of the revolution in the island's second city after the victory of a 25-month guerilla war over dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The communist revolution-also led by legendary Argentine guerilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara-took on Marxist overtones in May 1961, one month after the attempted invasion of the Bay of Pigs by CIA-backed Cuban exiles.

Former US president John F. Kennedy declared an embargo in February 1962, before the Soviet missile crisis, which almost set off nuclear war.

US president-elect Barack Obama, due to take power on January 20, has, however, promised to soften the 46-year-old embargo, and Raul Castro has said he is ready for talks without "carrot or stick" with Obama.

The Cuban president has also promised "structural reforms"-a departure from his older brother and leading members of the communist old guard.

Czechs take over EU presidency from France

AFP, Prague

The Czech Republic took over the European Union presidency from France at midnight as a top government official illuminated a giant pendulum on a hill above Prague with blue and yellow.

The former communist country, which became an EU member in 2004, on Thursday assumed the rotating six-month presidency at a time of the financial crisis, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and the row between Russia and Ukraine over gas prices.

The tenure may turn out to be a tough job for the liberal Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek owing to growing opposition from the eurosceptic President Vaclav Klaus, who has dismissed the presidency as "unimportant".

Possible handicaps for Czechs also include the government's failure to set a euro adoption date and to start the ratification of the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty as the last member of the 27-nation bloc.

The official ceremony on the presidency takeover is scheduled to take place at Prague's historic National Theatre on January 7.

In the next six months, the country will organise a dozen ministerial meetings and about 30 conferences and spend a total of 3.3 billion korunas (124.5 million euros, 178 million dollars) on the presidency.

The Czechs are hoping to host the first EU summit with US president-elect Barack Obama, to start a rapprochement process with former Soviet countries Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova, and to continue the EU integration process in commemoration of the 2004 enlargement they were a part of.

Senate seat scandal set to shadow Obama's early presidency

AFP, Chicago

The scandal surrounding the senate seat of president-elect Barack Obama looked set to shadow his first months in office after prosecutors asked for more time to bring charges against the governor accused of trying to sell the coveted post.

The motion came a day after Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich defied Democratic party leaders by appointing a respected African American statesman to the vacated seat. Senate Democrats have vowed to block the appointment, saying former Illinois attorney general Roland Burris would "serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety," but it is unclear if they have the legal right to do so.

Burris vowed Wednesday not to "create a scene" in Washington but showed his determination to fight for the seat by filing suit with the Illinois Supreme Court in an attempt to force the secretary of state to certify his appointment papers.

"The secretary of state cannot veto an action by simply not signing the document," Burris said. "He doesn't have that authority. He must do his job."

Senate Democrats were at work on contingency plans that included having armed guards ready to block Burris from entering the senate floor without certification and preventing him from casting votes until the conclusion of a lengthy investigation by the rules committee.

Iranian resistance condemns Israel, Iran

UPI, Paris

The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran issued an official condemnation of the Israeli air assault on the Gaza Strip.

"The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip and the killing of innocent civilians, in particular women and children," the NCRI said. "It mourns with the Palestinian people, especially with the relatives of those who have perished." Israel Wednesday rejected international calls for a cease-fire, embarking on its fifth day of air strikes on the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory. An Israeli ground invasion appears imminent. The NCRI called on the international community to speak out against what it described as "warmongering" on the part of the Iranian leadership toward the Gaza conflict, saying clerical leaders in Tehran were benefiting from it.

"The (Iranian) regime has been the main obstacle to the goals and legitimate demands of the Palestinian people over the past three decades," the group said, adding Iranian influence should be eliminated in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.

The NCRI advocates regime change in Iran. It describes itself as the "parliament in exile" and is affiliated with the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a dissident group holed up in Iraq's Diyala province.

The NCRI and the PMOI are considered terrorist organizations by the United States and several other nations, though it recently won delisting cases in a European court.