| International |
Paris unrest takes on new intensity US under pressure to break Korean nuclear stalemate UK thwarts two attacks since July: Blair Four US soldiers among 22 killed in Iraq Pakistan to use F-16s fund to help quake victims India to name panel to probe FM's alleged oil-for-food links US should repay Iraq $208.5m: UN audit Iran to convert more uranium Women’s rally demands US pullout from Philippines UN copter lands by mistake in India UN summons Syrian officers in Hariri probe Anti-Bush demos mar Americas summit Hindus kill three Muslims in India Inmate dies at US-run prison in Iraq Israeli forces kill Palestinian boy Mine blast kills 13 in China Six killed in Pak blast Azeris vote for new parliament Violence rocks France for 10 nights Indo-US joint Airforce exercise Jewish activist killed in prison Cruise ship comes under rocket attacks in Somalia Unilateral US actions cause global resentment Toll rises to 46 in Ethiopian unrest Blair backs down over 90-day terror suspect plan Bush arrives in Brazil after inconclusive summit UN envoy urges EU to launch probe into secret US prisons Paris unrest takes on new intensity AP, PARIS Nov 6: Spreading urban unrest - with arson attacks on vehicles, nursery schools and other targets in France from the Mediterranean to the German border - for the first time reached central Paris, where police said Sunday that 28 cars were burned overnight. Police made 186 arrests nationwide as the violence, in its 10th night, moved from poor suburbs into the capital - France's seat of power - and reached new intensity across the country. The number of cars torched overnight - 918 across France - was the highest yet since the unrest began Oct 27. Of the cars burned, 545 were outside of the wider Paris region, the Interior Ministry said. The night before, 900 vehicles were burned throughout the country. The count of overnight arson attacks, still incomplete, could rise further, police said, adding that it did not include shops, gymnasiums, nursery schools and other targets attacked by bands of youths. The violence began in a low-income suburb northeast of Paris after the deaths of two teenagers, of Mauritanian and Tunisian origin, accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police in a power substation. They apparently thought they were being chased. The unrest took a potentially alarming turn with reported attacks inside the well-guarded French capital. Police said three cars were damaged by fire from gasoline bombs in the Place de la Republique neighborhood, or 3rd district, northeast of City Hall and near the historic Marais district. The office in charge of roadways indicated the attacks on vehicles were spread out in districts on the northern and southern edges of Paris. It was not immediately clear whether anything other than vehicles was targeted in Paris. The violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs, where many Africans and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair - fertile terrain for crime of all sorts as well as for Muslim extremists offering frustrated youths a way out. France, with some 5 million Muslims, has the largest Islamic population in western Europe. The town of Evreux, 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Paris, appeared hardest hit by marauding youths overnight, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. Arsonists there laid waste to at least 50 vehicles, shops and businesses at a shopping center, a post office and two schools, he said. That the shopping center was partially burned shows "there is a will to pillage," Hamon said. "This has been true since the start." Five police officers and three firefighters were injured in clashes with youths, he said. Some 2,300 police poured into the Paris region to bolster security on what had been expected to be a restive Saturday night. For the second night in a row, a helicopter equipped with spotlights and video cameras to track bands of youths combed the poor, heavily immigrant Seine-Saint-Denis region, northeast of Paris, where the violence began and has been concentrated. Small teams of police were deployed to chase youths speeding from one attack to another in cars and on motorbikes. Arson attacks also were reported to the north, south, east and west of Paris, often in unlikely places such as the cultural bastion of Avignon, southern France, and the resort cities of Nice and Cannes, a police officer said. Attacks also were reported in Nantes, in the southwest, the Lille region in the north and Saint-Dizier, in the Ardennes region east of Paris. In the eastern city of Strasbourg, 18 cars were set alight in full daylight, police there said. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Anti-Bush demos mar Americas summit FTAA will enslave Latin American workers: Chavez AP, MAR DEL PLATA, ARGENTINA Nov 6: Leaders from across the Americas ended their tumultuous two-day summit Saturday without agreeing to restart talks on a US-favoured free trade zone stretching from Alaska to Chile. Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa said the 34-nation summit's declaration would state two opposing views: one by 29 nations favouring the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, and another by the remaining five saying discussions should wait until after World Trade Organisation talks in December. The decision came after negotiations extended eight hours past the scheduled deadline. Almost all the leaders - including President Bush - left during the discussions and put other negotiators in charge. The summit was marked by street battles between riot police and protesters opposed to Bush and the FTAA. The protesters ransacked and burned businesses just 10 blocks from the theatre where the summit opened. Sixty-four people were arrested, but police reported no deaths or major injuries. Security remained tight in Mar del Plata on Saturday. A huge section of downtown was closed off by metal barriers, and police and soldiers toted semiautomatic weapons. Mexico, the United States and 27 other nations wanted to set an April deadline for talks on the free trade zone, but that was opposed by Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela. The United States says the proposed FTAA would open up new markets for Americans and bring wealth and jobs to Latin America. The zone's main opponent, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, said it would enslave Latin American workers. He came to the summit vowing to "bury FTAA." Chavez, a self-declared rival of Bush, declared the meeting a victory, saying the long "unedited, intense and frank debate was like none other in a summit." In the declaration, the five dissenting countries stated: "The conditions do not exist to attain a hemispheric free trade accord that is balanced and fair with access to markets that is free of subsidies and distorting practices." Bielsa said, "We are not going to negotiate something that is harmful to the interests of our people." Colombian President Alvaro Uribe volunteered to try to negotiate a consensus next year. The last-minute haggling at the summit of Latin American and Caribbean nations came after Brazil - Latin America's largest economy - hedged at setting a firm date for talks because it wants to focus on the WTO talks in Hong Kong aimed at cutting tariffs around the world and boosting the global economy. "Anything we do now, before the WTO meeting, could confuse the facts and we'd be creating an impediment to the WTO," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting at Argentina's most renowned summer resort. The decision capped a week of tensions between the United States and Venezuela, as Bush traveled to the region to mend fences in Latin America. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Mosque bomb plot Jewish activist killed in prison AP, LOS ANGELES Nov 6: A Jewish Defence League activist imprisoned for his role in a plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of a Lebanese-American congressman was killed at a federal prison in Phoenix, an FBI spokesman said Saturday. Earl Krugel, 62, was killed in an assault Friday evening at the Federal Correctional Institution, said FBI agent Richard Murray. Murray wouldn't release further details but said federal authorities had opened a homicide investigation. Krugel's wife, Lola, said FBI investigators told her an inmate had struck her husband on the head from behind with a cement block. "Earl never saw it happening," she said. "He was exercising." He had been at the medium-security prison for three days, according to his sister Linda Krugel, also of Los Angeles. Earl Krugel, a former dental assistant from Los Angeles, and late JDL leader Irv Rubin were arrested in 2001 and charged with conspiring to bomb the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City and a field office of Republican Rep. Darrell E. Issa, who is Lebanese-American. Krugel pleaded guilty in 2003 to one count of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of worshippers at the mosque and one count of carrying an explosive device in connection with a conspiracy to impede or injure an office of the United States. Despite the plea, he was sentenced in September to 20 years in prison. The reasons for the collapse of an initial plea agreement were sealed, despite a lawsuit by news Organisations, including The Associated Press, to make the details public. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Cruise ship comes under rocket attacks in Somalia One crew member injured; 151 passengers, mostly Americans, unhurt Ex-British envoy says AFP, LONDON Nov 6 : Britain's involvement in the Iraq war has "partly radicalised and fuelled" the rise of home-grown terrorism, London's former ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, said Saturday. Prime Minister Tony Blair has repeatedly denied that the US and British invasion of Iraq in March 2003 has led to an increase in Islamic extremism and that it played a part in the July 7 attacks in London which left 56 dead. But in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Meyer said: "There is plenty of evidence around at the moment that home-grown terrorism was partly radicalised and fuelled by what is going on in Iraq." "There is no way we can credibly get up and say it has nothing to do with it. Don't tell me that being in Iraq has got nothing to do with it. Of course it does," said the veteran diplomat, who was ambassador in Washington in the run-up to the war. "The issue is it is part of the price we have to pay and should be paying for the removal of Saddam Hussein and at the moment the jury is still out." Meyer-a key aide to Blair in crucial talks between London and Washington in the months and weeks leading up to military action-said the continued US-British presence in the Gulf was aiding Iraqi insurgents. But he said he opposes an early pull-out of US and British troops even though the tide of violence in Iraq has left both countries "on the horns of an absolutely impossible dilemma". "DC Confidential," Meyer's memoirs of the decision-making that led to the Iraq war, is to be serialised in the Guardian and the Daily Mail newspapers from Monday. The book reportedly singles out Blair and a number of British cabinet members for criticism, and reveals that in the build-up to war the prime minister had few dealings with the Foreign Office, where diplomats raised doubts about the conflict's legitimacy. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Clinton says Unilateral US actions cause global resentment AP, MINNEAPOLIS Nov 6: America's security in the future depends on how it acts today - while it's still the only global superpower, former President Bill Clinton told a crowd Saturday at the University of Minnesota. "We should be trying to build a world now that we want to live in when we're not the only big dog on the block," Clinton said. But he said recent actions at home and abroad have undermined that goal. A unilateral foreign policy that alienates allies is creating global resentment, and large tax cuts during a time of war are creating an economic mess and making the country more reliant on creditors like China - which could give America a run for its superpower money, he said. Clinton gave an hourlong, wide-ranging speech to 4,700 people attending the 25th anniversary of the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs' Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series. He refused to speculate on whether his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, would run for president in 2008. "A Clinton family rule is you don't worry about any election except the next one, and right now Hillary is running for re-election to the Senate," he said. He talked more about the global humanitarian work he has been involved in since leaving the White House, and argued that the fortunes of countries around the world are interdependent - tied together by economies and security interests that can't be ignored. After Americans helped lead global relief efforts in response to the tsunami in southeast Asia, for example, public opinion of the United States in tsunami-stricken Indonesia rose, while Osama bin Laden's approval rating dropped, he said. "We related to them not in geopolitical terms but in human ones," Clinton said. He also urged the audience, largely of college students, not to become disenchanted by present political circumstances. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Toll rises to 46 in Ethiopian unrest AFP, ADDIS ABABA Nov 6: At least four people were killed and 11 wounded in Ethiopia on Friday, taking the death toll to 46 after a fourth day of clashes between security forces and demonstrators protesting alleged electoral fraud, police said. The four died in the town of Bahir Dar, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) northwest of the capital Addis Ababa, where police clashed with demonstrators demanding the release of opposition members in police custody, said the state-run Ethiopian News Agency said, quoting police sources. In addition to Bahir Dar, there was violence in the Ethiopian towns of Awasa, Gondar, Dessie and Dire Dawa, the government said, but police did not say whether there were fatalities in the other towns. According to a diplomat, eight people including a soldier were killed in Bahir Dar. Two other diplomats said two civilians were killed in Dessie, a scene of similar rioting. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Blair backs down over 90-day terror suspect plan AFP, LONDON Nov 6: British Prime Minister Tony Blair has accepted he will have to compromise over legisation, prompted by the London bombings in July, to hold terrorism suspects for up to 90 days without charge. Following a report in The Observer newspaper Sunday, a government spokeswoman said that Blair would accept next week that he cannot push the tough new anti-terror powers through parliament. "The prime minister acknowledges there will have to be negotiations and/or compromise but as far as he is concerned 90 days continues to be right," the spokeswoman said. Last week, Home Office Charles Clarke was forced to promise fresh talks after it became clear opposition lawmakers-and some backbenchers from Blair's Labour party-would vote down the measure. Clarke is due to meet his counterparts from the main opposition Conservatives and smaller opposition Liberal Democrats on Monday. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Bush arrives in Brazil after inconclusive summit AAFP, BRASILIA Nov 6: US President George W. Bush arrived in Brazil Saturday after failing to win a date for future talks on free trade at an Americas summit marked by fierce anti-US protests. The United States had hoped to use the fourth Summit of the Americas in the Argentine resort of Mar del Plata to bolster prospects for a free trade zone stretching from Canada to Chile, first proposed by the United States in 1994. Bush made a final appeal to the 34-nation's main session before leaving for Brazil but the summit ended soon thereafter without agreement on resuming negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Instead, participants signed a declaration in which 29 countries said they want to resume trade talks in January 2006, while five countries, including Brazil and Argentina, said it would be impossible under current conditions to negotiate a fair trade deal. From a plane taking Bush from Argentina to Brazil, US national security adviser Stephen Hadley insisted the summit had made "real progress" toward expanded trade, despite its failure to reach a unified stance. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | UN envoy urges EU to launch probe into secret US prisons AFP, HELSINGER, DENMARK Nov 6: UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak has urged the EU and the Council of Europe to conduct "high-level" investigations into allegations of secret CIA prisons in Europe. "I am very much concerned about these allegations of any secret places of detention by the US government and the CIA in any part of the world," Nowak told AFP on the sidelines of a seminar on torture held in Helsinger, Denmark, north of the capital Copenhagen. "Since these allegations have now been made public by The Washington Post and many others like Human Rights Watch, I think it is now up to the European Union and also to the Council of Europe to ... carry out high-level fact-finding." The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the US intelligence agency was holding Al-Qaeda suspects in prisons in eight countries including Thailand, Afghanistan and "several democracies in eastern Europe", in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | US under pressure to break Korean nuclear stalemate AFP, WASHINGTON Nov 6: The United States is under pressure to give some concessions upfront for North Korea to fulfill a pledge to abandon its nuclear weapons Programme, as multilateral talks enter a crucial phase this week. At the last round of the talks, North Korea pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons arsenal in return for wide-ranging benefits, in the first-ever accord signed by the United States, China, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan since six-way negotiations began in August 2003. But a key question has cropped up ahead of the fifth round of talks in Beijing, set to begin Wednesday: Who should make the first move under the so-called "commitment for commitment, action for action" principle they agreed upon? "I think the next round is unlikely to yield significant progress, because the two sides are very far apart on what each of them should do at the beginning," said Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Programme at the Washington-based Center for International Policy. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | UK thwarts two attacks since July: Blair REUTERS, LONDON Nov 6: British security forces may have thwarted two further attacks since suicide bombers hit London's transport system in July and killed 52 people, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said. Blair, who has been forced to shelve counter-terrorism plans to avoid losing his first major vote in parliament, accused critics of his tough proposals of "woeful complacency." He insists that police need powers to hold terrorism suspects for up to 90 days compared to the current limit of 14. But on Wednesday rebels in Blair's ruling Labour party cut his parliamentary majority to just one -- its lowest ever -- over his counter-terrorism measures. To avoid outright defeat over the 90-day detention measure, Home Secretary (Interior Minister) Charles Clarke withdrew and promised a new round of cross-party consultation. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | ASIA/PACIFIC Hundreds flee as US forces launch major attack near Syrian border Four US soldiers among 22 killed in Iraq AFP, BAGHDAD Nov 6: At least twenty-two people including four US soldiers were killed scores injured in different incidents in Iraq. Three US soldiers were killed in separate incidents across Iraq on Friday and a fourth died in a traffic accident Saturday, the US army announced. A soldier was killed when a bomb exploded as his patrol passed on Friday in the east of Baghdad, and a second one "was killed by small-arms fire" south of Baghdad. Both soldiers belonged to Task Force Baghdad, the military command in charge of operations in and around the capital. And a soldier assigned to the marine force in charge of operations in the western province of Al-Anbar "died of wounds after his vehicle hit a mine" near the town of Habbaniyah, just west of Fallujah, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad. On Saturday, a US service member was killed and three others injured "in a non-combat related vehicle accident" at Ali Base, an air base near the southern city of Nasiriyah, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of Baghdad. The person's branch of service was not released. The deaths bring to 2,045 the number of US military personnel who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent group that follows US casualties in Iraq. AP report adds: About 3,500 US and Iraqi troops backed by jets launched a major attack Saturday against an insurgent-held town near the Syrian border, seeking to dislodge al-Qaida and its allies and seal off a main route for foreign fighters entering the country. The U.S.-led force sporadically fought militants armed with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and two American service members were wounded, according to The New York Times, which had a reporter embedded with U.S. forces. Coalition forces supported by tanks and fighter jets dropped 500-pound bombs but met more resistance than expected from insurgents in the town of Husaybah and only managed to take control of several blocks by nightfall Saturday, the Times reported. At least two U.S. service members were wounded by sporadic enemy fire down alleyways as U.S.-led forces advanced in the town searching house by house, the report said. U.S. officials describe Husaybah as the key to controlling the volatile Euphrates River valley of western Iraq and dislodging al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The U.S.-led operation includes about 1,000 Iraqi soldiers, and the offensive will serve as a major test of their capability to battle the insurgents - seen as essential to enabling Washington to draw down its 157,000-strong military presence. Thunderous explosions shook Husaybah early Saturday as U.S. Marines and Iraqi scouts, recruited from pro-government tribes from the area, fought their way into western neighborhoods of the town, 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, residents said. Throughout the day, U.S. jets launched at least nine airstrikes, according to a U.S. Marine statement. The coalition forces sometimes found it hard to spot insurgents hiding in the town's 4,000 homes and called in support from Abrams tanks and fighter jets, the Times reported. But the soldiers also discovered that many families had fled Husaybah during the past several weeks, having been tipped off about the offensive ahead of time or having assumed that one was likely in the insurgent stronghold, the Times reported. Also Saturday, five Iraqi police were killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in northern Baghdad, hospital officials said. And 11 members of a Kurdish Shiite family - including an infant - were killed and three wounded when gunmen sprayed their minibus with automatic weapons' fire northeast of Baghdad, police said. The relatives were returning to their home in the Baghdad area after visiting a family cemetery near Balad Ruz, about 50 miles away. Shiite Muslims traditionally pay their respects to their dead during the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan and ends for most Shiites on Sunday. The attack's motive was unclear, but tensions between Shiites and Sunnis have been on the rise in the area, with extremists from each community targeting the other. Elsewhere, a 65-year-old male detainee died Saturday of natural causes at a U.S. military prison camp in southern Iraq, the U.S. military announced. Camp Bucca is located near the southern port city of Umm Qasr near the Kuwaiti border. U.S. commanders hope the Husaybah offensive, code-named "Operation Steel Curtain," will restore control of western Anbar province ahead of the parliamentary election Dec. 15 and enable Sunni Arabs there to vote. Sunni Arabs form the vast majority of the insurgents, and U.S. officials hope that a strong Sunni turnout next month will encourage many of them to lay down arms and join the political process. However, some Sunni Arab politicians and tribal leaders complained that the Husaybah operation was endangering civilians in the overwhelmingly Sunni area and could lead to greater instability throughout Sunni sections of the country. "We call all humanitarians and those who carry peace to the world to intervene to stop the repeated bloodshed in the western parts of Iraq," said Sheik Osama Jadaan, a Sunni tribal leader. "And we say to the American occupiers to get out and leave Iraq to the Iraqis." Husaybah, a poor Sunni Arab town of about 30,000 people, is the first stop in a network of communities that the U.S. military suspects al-Qaida of using to smuggle fighters, weapons and explosives from Syria down the Euphrates valley to Baghdad and other cities. Many Husaybah residents are believed to fled the town after weeks of fighting between Iraqi tribes that support the insurgents and those that back the government. The U.S. military says foreign fighters are only a small percentage of the insurgent ranks, which also include supporters of Saddam Hussein and Sunni Arabs opposed to the Americans and their Shiite and Kurdish allies. However, foreign Islamic extremists are blamed for many of the spectacular suicide attacks that have killed hundreds of Iraqis in recent months. And foreign extremists are seen as more likely to continue the fight regardless of whether Iraqi Sunnis gain a measure of political power in the coming vote. Most Sunni Arabs boycotted the Jan. 30 election of Iraq's current interim parliament, but many members of the minority voted in the Oct. 15 referendum that adopted the country's new constitution. Many Sunnis also plan to vote in the Dec. 15 ballot, hoping to increase the low number of seats they control in the National Assembly now dominated by Shiites and Kurds. In Baghdad, Fakhri al-Qaisi, a prominent Sunni politician running on a hardline ticket was shot Saturday as he was driving home. Doctors at Yarmouk Hospital reported him in critical condition. Meanwhile, suspected insurgents shot and killed a Palestinian working as a security guard in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, police said. Insurgents frequently target Iraqis and others working for the Americans. Al-Qaida in Iraq warned this week that foreign diplomats should leave Iraq or face attacks. The militant group also threatened to kill two kidnapped Moroccan Embassy employees who disappeared Oct. 20 while driving to Baghdad from Jordan. On Saturday, Arabic language Al-Arabiya TV showed interviews with the families of the Moroccans, begging for their release. "I plead with my brothers, the Muslim mujahedeen in the name of the Islamic law and in the name of justice, because Abdelkrim is a religious man," said Leqaa Abbas, wife of embassy staff member Abdelkrim el-Mouhafidi. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Pakistan, India ready to open Kashmir border amid new aftershocks Pakistan to use F-16s fund to help quake victims REUTERS, MUZAFFARABAD Nov 6: Pakistan will postpone the purchase of F-16 fighter jets from the United States in order to provide more relief to victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake, President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday. "I am going to postpone that," Musharraf told reporters when asked about the purchase of the aircraft while visiting a quake-hit region of northern Pakistan. "We want to bring maximum relief and reconstruction effort," he said, while stressing that maintaining national security was also important. The United Sates said last year it was willing to sell Pakistan F-16 fighters and Islamabad was expected to buy about 80 of the fighters made by Lockheed Martin Corp. An F-16 can cost up to about $40 million, depending on the model and the configuration. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said there were continuing discussions with the Pakistani government. "But in terms of whether or not the sale is going to move forward, I'd let them talk about it," he told reporters in Washington. Pakistan is seeking billions of dollars in relief and reconstruction aid after the earthquake that killed more than 73,000 people in its northern mountains. AFP report from Rawalpindi: Pakistan and India were Sunday making final arrangements for opening their heavily militarised border in Kashmir to help earthquake relief efforts as new strong aftershocks rocked Pakistan. Pakistan said Sunday it was ready to open five designated crossing points on the de facto border with India in Kashmir, even though India has said it is only ready to open one. "As far as Pakistan is concerned we are ready to open crossing points on the five designated places at the Line of Control (LoC) on Monday," said foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam. "India has informed us that they would be able to open one crossing point Poonch-Rawlakot on Monday because some work remains to be done on their side to open the rest of the crossing points which could be opened on November 9 and 10," she said. However Aslam also said Kashmiris are unlikely to cross the de facto border when it opens on Monday because officials have not yet exchanged lists of travellers. "Because of holidays no lists have been exchanged. We now expect the lists to be exchanged shortly," she said. The once-scenic town of Rawlakot now lies in ruins some 65 kilometres (45 miles) southeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir which had been devastated by the October 8 earthquake. Military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said the military had completed the job assigned to it under the historic October 30 agreement to open the border at five points to help earthquake survivors. "As far as the army is concerned we have done the job and set up relief centres at all five locations," Sultan said. "Relief centres have been established at all the five crossing sites which include the creation of shelters and storage of relief goods," a Pakistani military statement said late Saturday. "At relief centres medical teams will be available to attend the affected people coming from the other (Indian) side," it said. India's foreign ministry said Saturday that the first crossing point will be opened at Chakan da Bagh in Poonch district on Monday, followed by another at Kaman on Wednesday and a third in Tithwal on Thursday. "The crossing point at Chakan da Bagh will be operationalised on November 7," a ministry statement said. In April the two sides allowed the first official opening of the LoC since the late 1940s by starting a fortnightly bus service to reunite families in the Indian and Pakistani zones. Indian and Pakistani troops were working just a few feet away from each other to prepare the first crossing point due to open on Monday, near the village of Titrinote in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. The Pakistani soldiers had set up a small gate topped with the flags of both countries at the bottom of a mountain valley. Titrinote in Rawlakot district faces the village of Chakan Da Bagh. "Everything is ready. We could not have done more than this," Brigadier Tahir Naqvi, the officer in charge of the crossing point on the Pakistani side, told AFP. He said he expected a lorry from either side to transport relief goods over the LoC starting early Monday. But he also said there would be no movement of people across the line because the two sides had not exchanged the lists yet. Snow is forecast to hit quake-battered northern Pakistan in coming days and the United Nations warned Saturday that earthquake survivors urgently need heating to get through the winter alive. "Relief material for earthquake victims will be sent through these crossing points. People can start using these points to cross the Line of Control as soon as their names are approved by both sides," the foreign ministry statement said. Nearly four weeks after the massive earthquake, strong aftershocks continue to rattle quake-battered areas of Pakistan and instill panic in people. A severe aftershock measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale and two mild aftershocks rattled earthquake-battered northern Pakistan early on Sunday, the seismological department said. The strongest aftershock since October 8 struck the capital Islamabad, North West Frontier Province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir at 7:12 am, a department official told AFP. Earlier, two mild aftershocks measuring 4.5 and 4.7 on the Richter scale were felt in Balakot, Mansehra and Muzaffarabad at 1:42am and 4:04 am, he said. The October 8 earthquake left more than 73,000 dead in Pakistan and millions homeless. In Indian Kashmir, 1,300 people were killed and more than 150,000 made homeless. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | India to name panel to probe FM's alleged oil-for-food links AFP, NEW DELHI Nov 6: India's prime minister met Foreign Minister Natwar Singh on Sunday to discuss allegations that the minister and the ruling Congress Party benefited from deals linked to the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq. "I met the prime minister (Manmohan Singh) a short while ago. We discussed the Volcker report. We also discussed other pressing foreign policy matters," Natwar Singh told reporters after the meeting. A UN report by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker said Singh and the Congress party were among beneficiaries worldwide allowed to buy Iraqi oil at below market rates in return for kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Newspapers said the prime minister was likely to appoint a retired judge to examine details of the report. Several television channels said there would be pressure on the foreign minister to resign if such a probe was ordered. A government source said the prime minister had decided to order a probe following talks with Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram and Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, both noted lawyers. The Times of India newspaper said that after going through the Volcker report, Chidambaram and Sibal advised the prime minister that Natwar Singh could not be cleared immediately. But the two ministers felt confident that it would be possible to get the Congress party cleared, the newspaper said. The prime minister's office refused to confirm that a probe would be announced later Sunday. Last week the foreign minister rejected opposition demands to resign, saying he enjoyed the full confidence of his Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and of Manmohan Singh. The Volcker report named him as a non-contractual beneficiary of four million barrels of Iraqi oil allotted to a firm named Masefield AG. The report said it found that Saddam's regime manipulated the programme to extract about 1.8 billion dollars in surcharges and bribes, while an inept UN headquarters failed to exert administrative control. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | US should repay Iraq $208.5m: UN audit AP, AMMAN Nov 6: A UN auditing board has recommended that the United States reimburse Iraq up to $208.5 million for contracting work carried out by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, in the last two years. The International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund for Iraq said in a report that the work, paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, was either overpriced or done poorly by the Virginia-based company. Compiled from an array of Pentagon, United States government and private auditors, the report did not specify how or what work has been done poorly. Halliburton said its subsidiary had cooperated with the auditing process and that questions raised had to do with documentation rather than the costs incurred by the company. It pointed to findings by the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency. "Many of DCAA's questions have been about the quality of supporting documentation for costs that KBR clearly incurred," Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in an e-mailed statement. "Therefore, it would be completely wrong to say or imply that any of these costs that were incurred at the client's direction for its benefit are 'overcharges.'" The International Advisory and Monitoring Board, which was set up in 2003 to ensure the transparent operation of the development fund, recommended in a statement Friday that "the U.S. Government seek resolution with the Iraqi Government concerning the use of resources ... which might be in contradiction with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483." That resolution transferred authority for expenditures from Iraq's oil revenue from the United Nations to the Development Fund for Iraq. The fund was controlled by the United States and Britain, Iraq's occupying powers, until the June 28, 2004, transfer of sovereignty to the new interim government, when it was handed over to Iraq's new leaders. The report said because the audits were continuing, it was premature to specify how much of the $208,491,382 must ultimately be paid back. But the board said that once its analysis was completed, it "recommends that amounts disbursed to contractors that cannot be supported as fair be reimbursed expeditiously." Mann said KBR continues to work with its client, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, regarding the settlement of government audits of fuel costs and other disputed issues. "As these negotiations continue, KBR will confirm the total of all outcomes once complete. No timeline has been set for resolution of these issues," she said. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Iran to convert more uranium AFP, TEHRAN Nov 6: Iran again defied the international community over its nuclear programme, announcing it would soon embark on fresh nuclear fuel work and was seeking investors for uranium enrichment activities. Officials said Sunday Tehran would be converting a fresh batch of uranium ore -- the precursor step before enrichment -- in a flagrant rejection of calls from Europe and the United States for Tehran to halt all such activities. The state press also said the government had given the country's atomic energy agency the go-ahead to look for foreign and domestic investors in uranium enrichment, even though this practice remains suspended. The decisions appear a fresh sign of Iran's determination to make full use of the nuclear fuel cycle, despite the international pressure to cease all enrichment-related activities as proof it is not seeking a nuclear bomb. They come three weeks ahead of a meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog which could theoretically send Iran to the Security Council and amid mounting concerns about the direction of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government. "The government is authorising the Iranian atomic energy agency to seek Iranian or foreign investors -- from the public or private sectors -- for the Natanz enrichment project," the press said, apparently quoting from an official directive. According to the press, the decision was taken on Wednesday by the cabinet. The central town of Natanz is the site of Iran's nuclear enrichment plant, which is to host thousands of centrifuges which spin at supersonic speeds to enrich the uranium. The enrichment process provides the fuel for civilian nuclear power stations but in highly enriched form the uranium can also be used to make the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. Iran also said on Sunday that it will be converting new consignments of uranium at its plant outside the central city of Isfahan, after resuming this crucial part of the fuel cycle in August following a suspension. "We have told the (International Atomic Energy) Agency that we are going to inject new initial materials (uranium ore) into the production chain," Javad Vaidi, an official from Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told state television. Iran says it only wishes to enrich to the low-level purity required for reactor fuel but its enemies have accused Tehran of seeking to make a nuclear bomb. European countries, led by Britain, France and Germany, had attempted to persuade Iran to permanently suspend uranium enrichment as a watertight guarantee that its nuclear programme was peaceful. However the talks came to a shuddering halt when the Islamic republic in August resumed its uranium conversion activities, the precursor of enrichment. Iran has vehemently maintained that its right to enrichment is enshrined under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a position reaffirmed on Sunday by foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. "We will never abandon our right to the nuclear fuel cycle," he told reporters, at the same time stating that "the door is open to discussions, nothing has been closed." International concern about Iran's nuclear policy of hardline Ahmadinejad's administration has intensified after he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". On the horizon now looms the November 24 meeting of the IAEA, where the United States and Europe could call for Tehran to be hauled up before the UN Security Council if it does not halt all uranium enrichment related activities. Previous attempts for such a move have foundered over the opposition of Russia and Moscow is once again expected to play a key role in November's meeting. Iran also moved to weigh the scales in its favour by last week allowing UN inspectors access to the Parchin military site, where Washington alleges Iran may be testing high-explosive charges with an inert core of depleted uranium. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Women’s rally demands US pullout from Philippines AP, MANILA Nov 6: Activists called Friday for the scrapping of an agreement allowing joint exercises between Philippine and U.S. troops after a Filipino woman claimed she was raped by six Marines. Five of the six accused - part of a contingent that took part in recent joint counterterrorism exercises - have been barred from leaving the country. Authorities have been unable to identify the sixth suspect. The alleged attack occurred Tuesday at the former Subic U.S Navy base near Manila. On Friday, about 30 activists from the League of Filipino Students and women's rights group Gabriela marched through Manila with placards reading "U.S troops out now!" Police stopped them before they reached the U.S. Embassy. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has instructed officials "to ensure that justice is done and that the proper procedure and provisions (of the accord) are properly followed and observed," Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said. Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo described the alleged gang rape as a "heinous crime" and said the U.S. Embassy has pledged to cooperate in the investigation. Rep. Satur Ocampo of the left-wing Bayan Muna party said in a statement that more such abuses would occur if the U.S. military remains in the Philippines. He called for the Visiting Forces Agreement to be abolished. The accord spells out the privileges and obligations of American troops in the Philippines. Under the agreement, judicial proceedings must be completed within a year. After that, the U.S. government, which maintains custody of the Marines, would not be obligated to turn them over for proceedings. Foreign Undersecretary Zosimo Paredes said the proceedings would "be expedited so that we will not go beyond the one-year period." "There will be no whitewash," he added. A complaint of rape has been filed against the five Marines in Olongapo city, near Subic and located 50 miles west of Manila. They have yet to be charged in a court. The state prosecutor will determine if there is sufficient evidence for any of them to be indicted, said Raymond Viray, an assistant prosecutor. U.S. Embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop said U.S. authorities are involved in the investigation, but refused to identify the five Marines or their unit. Rep. Ruffy Biazon said the allegations against the Marines "will be a test of U.S. sincerity and respect for Philippine law," but added that the incident should not hinder joint counterterrorism efforts. Gang rape is punishable by life imprisonment or death. Washington and Manila negotiated the Visiting Forces Agreement following the 1992 closure of all permanent U.S. military bases, which are banned under the Philippine Constitution. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | UN copter lands by mistake in India REUTERS, UDOOSA Nov 6: A U.N. helicopter carrying a senior U.N. official and Western and Pakistani reporters landed by mistake on the Indian side of the heavily fortified border on Sunday during a tour of the Pakistani earthquake zone. The mistake was made after incorrect coordinates were entered into a flight plan, a U.N. spokeswoman said. "You are presently standing in Indian territory," an Indian army captain said as he boarded the aircraft, shortly after it touched down at an Indian military helipad at Udoosa, about 6 km (four miles) on the Indian side of the border. The aircraft had been bound for the small town of Chinari, in Pakistani Kashmir. "It seems we're about 20 km (12 miles) off course," said U.N. spokeswoman Amanda Pitt. She said the helicopter had landed at the correct coordinates given on the U.N. flight plan. "It seems it's a misunderstanding resulting from several emails that went back and forth," Pitt said. Pakistan and India, which have gone to war twice over mountainous Kashmir, are due to open a crossing on their militarised frontier in the Himalayan region on Monday to help with quake relief efforts. But the crossing, one of five due to be opened, will be open only to people on foot. Aircraft are not allowed to cross the border. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | UN summons Syrian officers in Hariri probe AFP, BEIRUT Nov 6: The chief U.N. investigator into the assassination of a former Lebanese premier, armed with new powers from the Security Council, has summoned six senior Syrian intelligence officers for questioning, a Lebanese official said Saturday. The officers include Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law. The official, close to the U.N. team investigating former Premier Rafik Hariri's killing, said chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis sent the summons to the Syrian government via the United Nations on Wednesday. Mehlis has sent a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanding to question at least six Syrian officials, the official told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media about this sensitive issue. There was no immediate Syrian comment due to the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Hindus kill three Muslims in India AP, LUCKNOW NOV 6: A Hindu mob attacked a Muslim village in northern India, torching homes and killing three people, after hearing rumors that cows, considered holy by Hindus, were slaughtered for the Islamic Eid-al-Fitr celebrations, police said Sunday. Hindus from neighboring areas attacked Mehndipur village in the northern Uttar Pradesh state on Saturday night and set fire to dozens of houses after being told villagers had killed the cows for a feast to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Friday, said S. B. Shirodkar, a local police chief. Three Muslims died and over 40 houses were torched, Shirodkar said. He said a police investigation revealed no cow had been slaughtered in the village. Authorities deployed paramilitary forces in and around Mehndipur, located about 35 kilometers (20 miles) east of state capital Lucknow. Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state, and about 15 percent of its 180 million people are Muslims. Muslims form nearly 16 percent of India's 1 billion people, and simmering tensions with the majority Hindus often spill over into rioting. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Inmate dies at US-run prison in Iraq AFP, BAGHDAD Nov 6: A 65-year-old man being held at the US-run prison in far southern Iraq died on Saturday, the US military reported Sunday. The inmate at Camp Bucca, located near the border with Kuwait, "complained of chest pains" and was rushed to the camp hospital, where he "went into cardiac arrest ... and died after all life-saving efforts failed to resuscitate him" the military said. The man's body "will be transferred to the family upon completion of an autopsy, in accordance with standard procedure," the statement read. Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib, located just west of Baghdad, are the two main US-run prisons. In late October the US military opened a third prison with capacity for more than 1,700 detainees near the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, north of Baghdad. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Israeli forces kill Palestinian boy AP, JERUSALEM Nov 6: A 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot by Israeli troops while holding a toy gun last week died of his wounds Saturday, relatives and medical officials said. Israeli forces mistook the boy for an armed militant during an exchange of gunfire Thursday in the West Bank town of Jenin and later discovered he was carrying a toy M-16 rifle, military officials said. The boy, Ahmed Ismail Khatib, was taken to an Israeli hospital with wounds to his head and stomach. Dr. Tzvi Ben-Yishai, a spokesman for Rambam Hospital in the Israeli city of Haifa, said the boy died Saturday and his parents decided to donate his organs "to bring hearts closer and bring peace closer." The boy's uncle, Jamal Khatib, confirmed that the family had donated the boy's organs. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Mine blast kills 13 in China AP, BEIJING Nov 6: An explosion at a coal mine in northern China killed 13 miners and left three missing on Sunday, the government said. Twenty-five miners were working underground when the explosion occurred at the Taiping Colliery in Shanxi province's Qingxu County, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Nine miners managed to escape but 13 were confirmed dead, Xinhua said. Rescuers were searching for the three missing miners and an investigation was under way, it said, citing Gong Anku, director of the provincial Coal Mine Safety Supervision Bureau. China's mines are said to be the most dangerous in the world, with more than 6,000 miners killed last year by fires, explosions, floods and cave-ins. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Six killed in Pak blast AP, PESHAWAR Nov 6: Suspected militants set off a blast while making bombs at their compound in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least eight people, including a woman and three children, army officials said. The explosion occurred in the tribal village of Mosaki, about 12 miles east of Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said. Several male foreigners were among those killed, but Sultan had not further details and it was not immediately clear if top Taliban or al-Qaida suspects were among them. The suspects set off the blast while making detonators for improvised bombs at their mud-walled compound, Sultan said. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Azeris vote for new parliament AP, BAKU Nov 6: Azerbaijan's president pledged that Sunday's parliamentary elections would be followed by further democratic reform of the oil-rich former Soviet republic, but his political opponents alleged there already had been violations in the voting. Azerbaijan's president pledged that Sunday's parliamentary elections would be followed by further democratic reform of the oil-rich former Soviet republic, but his political opponents alleged there already had been violations in the voting. The parliamentary election is an uneven contest in a country where President Ilham Aliev's word is law and where a weak opposition has been shrunk by arrests and many campaign rallies broken up with police beatings. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Violence rocks France for 10 nights 300 arrested; 1,300 cars torched AFP, PARIS Nov 6: Arsonists torched 1,300 cars and police arrested 300 people across France overnight Saturday, as the urban violence which has rocked the country for 10 nights reached a new peak. Police deployed helicopters and stepped up their arrests of youths responsible for the street violence, as trouble flared for the 10th consecutive night in suburbs around Paris and spread to other French cities. Copycat arson attacks hit the outskirts of Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Pau in the south, Rennes and Nantes in the west, Lille in the north and Mulhouse and Colmar in the east. The disorder also spilled into central Paris itself, where a petrol bomb set alight four cars near a major square, Place de la Republique, while half a dozen vehicles went up in smoke in the northwest 17th arrondissement, or district. Despite calls for calm Saturday, 1,295 cars were torched overnight compared with 897 the previous night, while arrests totalled 312 up from 253. Seven police helicopters fitted with powerful lights and cameras flew over Paris and some of the other cities in an effort to pursue and identify the youths, who have taken to setting fires then racing away, often on scooters. Riot squads also broke down doors in a public housing estate in the western Paris suburb of Les Mureaux to arrest youths who had thrown objects, such as supermarket trolleys, on them and on a nearby busy road. Some 2,300 more police than normal were on the streets while additional firefighters were sent to the Paris region. Most night bus services north and east of the capital were suspended overnight Saturday as a precautionary measure against ambushes which have seen at least two buses set fire to and destroyed. Two people were slightly injured and 100 evacuated when an immigrants' hostel went up in flames at Athis-Mons west of Paris. Several other properties suffered fire damage elsewhere, including a McDonald's, two schools and a gym outside the capital. In the western suburb of Evreux, four policemen were injured in clashes with a hundred youths, some armed with baseball bats, while dozens of cars and three shops were set ablaze and Molotov cocktails were thrown at a school, according to police and fire crews. Violence also spread to the central Loire region, with fires started in Orleans, Montargis and Blois. In the outskirts of Bordeaux, 25 cars were torched and nine people arrested as disorder spread to nearby towns. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who visited a police command headquarters at Evry in southern Paris overnight, has said that the gangs responsible for the violence have become increasingly organised. They have been seen using mobile telephones to relay police movements and Internet blogs to urge unrest elsewhere. Teenagers arrested in nearby Courcouronnes-where police found a stockpile of crowbars, petrol bombs and iron bars-were sheepish when approached by the minister, who has come under fire for his handling of the crisis. "You're not very happy that your dad is coming to get you, are you?" Sarkozy asked one boy who shook his head but said his father knew he had been out. Just before the riots erupted, Sarkozy had described delinquents in the suburbs "rabble" and vowed to clean up crime in the neighbourhoods "with a power-hose"-comments that have angered people living in those areas. Around 800 people have been arrested since the riots began, some of them minors. In all, more than 2,700 automobiles have gone up in flames. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page | Left Front protests Indo-US joint Airforce exercise SANAT MUKHERJEE, KOLKATA Nov 6: The Union government and the ruling Left Front in West Bengal stood practically eye-to-eyeball over the joint air forces’ military exercises – named ‘Cope-India’2005 - at Indian Air Force base at Kalaikunda, about 120 km West off Kolkata, in Midnapur district in the state. The exercise is scheduled to commence its 12-day work out from November 7. Undeterred by the demonstrations, the Indian Air Force and the US Air Force were busy in tying up the loose ends to make the show a total success. The CPIM-led Left Front (LF) look upon this air game as compromising the sovereignty of the country under the pressure of the US Imperialist. They observed, "The deepening military collaboration (between India and the US) does not augur well for India’s strategic interests and independent foreign policy). The left parties described the manoeuvre as a "threat to the country’s security and sovereignty". The LF started their protest demonstration from Friday when two US C-5 planes landed at Dum Dum airport on Thursday last, before the Hyatt Regency Hotel where about 50 US Air Force personnel quartered en route Kalaikunda. Reacting sharply over the air force exercises, the CPIM state secretary Anil Biswas warned that like previous occasions, this time too the imperialist power would be washed out like straws in the wind. We would stick to our programme of protest against the joint air exercise" Meanwhile, an Indian Air Force official told media persons that all arrangements to hold the second joint Indo-US air exercise, the first one was held at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh in February 2004, were complete. "The 300-strong including 16 pilots of the American Air Force workforce under Colonel Cobat Nelson have arrived at Kalaikunda". Participating craft strength would be around 16/18 F-16 fighters, two each C-5 and KC-10 planes and unspecified number of AWACS aircrafts. The party insiders confirmed that the LF would marshall over 1-lakh plus demonstrators outside the Kalaikunda air base as a mark of protest against the air war game between the two countries. Biswas iterated that the left parties would never ditto the New Delhi’s policy of turning India a supporter and partner of the US war policy. In this regard, they considered India’s participation in this war game as violation of the common minimum programme as agreed to by the left parties. New Delhi reportedly tried to impress upon the left parties that the current Kalaikunda exercise was a continuing operation and it predated the UPA & Left alliance. Even then, New Delhi did not want to ruffle the left parties’ feathers. Accordingly, the union defence minister Pranab Mukherjee parleyed with the state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to use his influence for ensuring trouble-free execution of the Kalaikunda air exercise. It was learnt, the chief minister reportedly assured that the demonstrators would carry out their protest programme peacefully and would not hamper the movement either of the US personnel or the IAF participants. ###### | Top of this page | Back to Index Page |