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Afghanistan opened on Monday its first session of parliament after three decades of occupation and war with an emotional ceremony attended by the US vice president, Dick Cheney.
   The sitting of the first parliament since 1973 was crucial to securing the future of the war-ravaged country, the president, Hamid Karzai, said after swearing in the 351 new parliamentarians, some of them former warlords accused of rights abuses.
   ‘Let me tell the world that Afghanistan is rising from the ashes of invasion and will live forever,’ Karzai said, his voice breaking with emotion.
   His speech prompted applause and tears from the new MPs, most of whom wore the traditional shalwar kamiz and turbans for the historic occasion.
   The opening of the parliament is the final step of a transition to democracy launched after the extremist Taliban regime, which imposed harsh Islamic law on war-weary Afghanistan, was toppled in a US-led invasion four years ago.
   Other milestones along the way have included the adoption of a new constitution in 2003 and the election that confirmed interim leader Karzai as president in October 2004.
   Meanwhile, three policemen were killed and one was missing following an attack by Taliban insurgents hours ahead of the historic first session of Afghanistan’s parliament, an official said.
   The insurgents attacked a police post in insurgency-hit eastern Kunar province early Monday, provincial governor Asaddullah Wafa said.
   The rebels, whom Wafa said were from the Taliban movement ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001, had control of the post for hours. At dawn they set it ablaze before fleeing, he said.
   Karzai praised the ‘great leaders’ of the resistance to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation for helping Afghanistan to its ‘victorious independence’.
   Many of these mujahedeen fighters were deeply involved in a bloody civil war that followed the occupation, with some—among them new parliamentarians—accused of war crimes during the conflict.
   The parliament also includes a handful of former members of the Taliban, which took power in 1996 before being toppled after they did not surrender Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
   The presence of figures from Afghanistan’s bitter past was condemned by firebrand MP Malalai Joya.
   ‘I see the future of this parliament as very dark because of the presence of warlords, druglords and those whose hands are stained with the blood of the people,’ she told reporters after the ceremony.
   One of the former commanders accused of rights abuses, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, dismissed such criticism saying: ‘The parliament represents the reality of Afghanistan.’
   ‘The subject of warlords belongs to Afghanistan’s past,’ said another MP and one-time presidential contender, Yunus Qanooni.
   While warlords or people linked to them are estimated to make-up about two-thirds of the new legislature, according to analysts, there are several progressives, including many of the women who had 25 per cent of seats reserved for them in the House of Representatives.
   ‘We could work with them if they make a strong commitment to work for the benefit of the country,’ said MP Shukria Barakzai.
   ‘It was a great day. I was very moved because I was brought up in wartime, so seeing the first session of parliament is a good thing,’ she said.
   Karzai urged the new MPs to put aside their differences.
   ‘Difference of opinion is good as long as long as it’s in the interest of the country,’ he said. ‘But you (MPs) should consider the national interest as of your priority.’
   The parliament was adjourned until Tuesday.
   Hours before the session began, three policemen were killed and one reported missing in an attack by Taliban fighters in volatile eastern Kunar province, highlighting the security concerns bedevilling the country despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops hunting down insurgents.

India’s plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear plants, key to a landmark nuclear deal with the United States, has been finalised ahead of a meeting of officials of the two countries, a report said Monday.
   Under the plan, New Delhi has finalised the list of nuclear plants to be identified as civilian and subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, The Times of India newspaper reported.
   The deal, signed in July by the US president, George W Bush, and the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, would give India crucial access to civilian atomic technology if it separated its nuclear facilities.
   India has been long denied advanced civilian nuclear technology since it tested atomic weapons and refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
   ‘The list of civilian nuclear facilities that India will place under IAEA safeguards will be long enough to satisfy the Bush administration,’ the report said quoting unnamed Indian officials.
   Under the deal, the US Congress has to amend anti-proliferation laws to allow India to buy advanced nuclear technology once the facilities are separated.
   The Indian foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, who heads the Nuclear Working Group with the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, will discuss the separation plans Thursday in Washington, the Times of India said.
   Some Indian security experts were, however, opposed to the deal saying it could effectively cap the country’s nuclear weapons programme.
   ‘The Manmohan Singh regime is ready to sacrifice sovereignty over nuclear decisions and to undermine the indigenous nuclear weapons sector,’ Bharat Karnad, professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi wrote in the Asian Age newspaper.
   Karnad said new nuclear plants would contribute only six per cent of all the energy produced in India, which imports 70 per cent of its oil and gas needs.
   Nuclear power supplies around three per cent of India’s fuel needs. But the country intends to raise this to 25 per cent by mid-century.

The president, George W Bush, warned of more sacrifices in Iraq in 2006, but urged a divided US public not to give in to ‘defeatism’ from critics of his strategy, declaring: ‘We are winning the war.’
   ‘There is more testing and sacrifice before us,’ he said in his first televised address to the nation from the Oval Office since the March 2003 invasion.
   ‘And tonight, I ask all of you listening to carefully consider the stakes of this war, to realise how far we have come and the good we are doing, and to have patience in this difficult, noble, and necessary cause.’
   Bush predicted progress over the coming year in training Iraq’s fledgling security forces and fighting corruption and said that ‘as these achievements come, it should require fewer American troops to accomplish our mission.’
   Much of the president’s speech focused on the growing chorus of calls for a firm timetable for a US withdrawal, something he has rejected and equated to admitting defeat in the face of a deadly insurgency.
   The unrelenting violence ‘proves that the war is difficult, it does not mean that we are losing,’ he said. ‘Not only can we win the war in Iraq, we are winning the war in Iraq.’
   Bush acknowledged a series of mistakes, starting with the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction at the core of his case for war, but said it was wrong to question the value of the conflict.
   ‘It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power,’ he said.
   The president also talked of the decisions he has made saying ‘... I know that some of my decisions have led to terrible loss, and not one of those decisions has been taken lightly. I know this war is controversial, yet being your president requires doing what I believe is right and accepting the consequences.’
   ‘Some look at the challenges in Iraq, and conclude that the war is lost, and not worth another dime or another day. I don’t believe that. Our military commanders do not believe that. Our troops in the field, who bear the burden and make the sacrifice, do not believe that America has lost. And not even the terrorists believe it.
   ‘Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts,’ Bush said.
   Bush, making the fifth and final speech in a public relations offensive aimed at shoring up wavering US support for the war, pointed to Thursday’s historic parliamentary election in Iraq as a key turning point.
   The president’s speech came hours after the vice president, Dick Cheney, wrapped up a surprise visit to Iraq, his first tour there since the invasion, and told US troops that ‘when we look back from 10 years hence, we’ll see that the year ‘05 was in fact a watershed year here in Iraq.’
   Bush said in his speech that as Iraq moved forward and its military gained strength ‘it should require fewer American troops to accomplish our mission. I will make decisions on troop levels based on the progress we see on the ground and the advice of our military leaders, not based on artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington.’
   At least 17 Iraqis were killed over the weekend as violence flared after Sunni and Shiite politicians appealed for unity and warned against sectarian divisions.

As the world marks the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, millions of people who dug into their pockets in an unprecedented outpouring of generosity will be wondering how their money has been spent.
   Some may be surprised to discover that 12 months on the vast majority of the 1.8 million people who lost their homes in the December 26 disaster are still in temporary accommodation.
   But if the pace of reconstruction has been disappointing, the initial relief effort went far better. Basic needs were met promptly, helping prevent an epidemic that could have killed thousands in a second disaster.
   ‘The world’s response to the tsunami was the best ever,’ UN emergency coordinator Jan Egeland said. ‘Governments, the private sector, and individuals around the world opened their hearts and their wallets. Private donations for the tsunami eclipsed anything seen before,’ he said.
   By comparison, Egeland said disasters like Hurricane Mitch which ravaged Central America in 1998 and the Bam earthquake in Iran in 2003 had only received half the money promised.
   Dozens of governments, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank pledged more than $7 billion. They have so far allocated over $6 billion, according to Reuters research. The public donated another $5 billion plus.
   The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which did not even launch a tsunami appeal, received so much money in the first few days it took the unprecedented decision to stop accepting funds and asked people who had already given donations if they could be diverted to other crises. More than 99 per cent agreed.

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has for the first time recounted the moment of his capture two years ago in an ‘interview’ conducted via his lawyer, British newspaper The Sun said on Monday.
   ‘The once feared despot broke his silence in an interview with The Sun from his cell,’ the tabloid title said, adding that Saddam was speaking through his lawyer, former US attorney general Ramsey Clark.
   Clark told the paper that before Saddam was cornered by US troops in a cramped underground hideout near his hometown Tikrit on December 13, 2003, he had been ‘moving every day to a different location, organising the insurgents’. When captured, the former Iraqi leader had been about to flee the scene by motorbike, the paper said.
   ‘I came out of the house where I was hiding by this hole. I went through the trap door. I went through the hole, through the tunnel then lost consciousness,’ Saddam said, adding: ‘I believe I was betrayed. I have been set up.’
   Clark said Saddam ‘thinks he was gassed in the tunnel’.
   ‘He tried to get to the exit of the tunnel. But he did not have time to get away. He told us he spent maybe minutes in this tunnel, not hours or days,’ Clark added.
   According to US forces who pulled Saddam from his hiding place, his first words to them were: ‘I am Saddam Hussein, I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate.’
   Saddam has since gone on trial along with seven of his deputies for the massacre of 148 Shiites from Dujail village following an assassination attempt on the former president in 1982, and faces a possible death sentence.
   The Sun, a famously eurosceptic paper with a particular fondness for needling France, also quoted Saddam on his relations with the French president, Jacques Chirac.

Citizens of the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan have expressed shock at the king’s decision to abdicate in favour of his son before democratic elections in 2008.
   King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, 50, on Saturday announced that his eldest son, the crown prince, would take over from him in 2008, when the country will hold its first national elections.
   The king has ruled the Land of the Thunder Dragon, as Bhutan is known, since ascending the throne in 1972 at the age of 17.

Evo Morales, a leftist former coca leaf farmer vowing to be a ‘nightmare for the US,’ was poised to become Bolivia’s first indigenous president on Sunday after likely clinching one of the biggest electoral victories in the country’s history.
   Morales appeared certain to take office in January when his rivals conceded defeat and results tabulated by local media showed him garnering slightly more than 50 per cent of the vote, much higher than predicted.
   ‘Beginning tomorrow Bolivia’s new history really begins, a history where we will seek equality, justice, equity, peace and social justice,’ Morales told hundreds of supporters amid chants of ‘Evo President! Evo President!’ at his campaign headquarters in the central city of Cochabamba.

US officials operated a secret prison near Kabul where detainees were abused and tortured as recently as 2004, the rights group Human Rights Watch said, citing former inmates as sources.
   Eight detainees being held at the prison for terror suspects at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba described to their attorneys how they were held at a site near Kabul they called the ‘Dark Prison’ or ‘Prison of Darkness,’ the group said in a statement on Monday.
   The witnesses, held at various times between 2002 and 2004, said they were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with loud rap, heavy metal music, or other sounds blared for weeks at a time, the statement read.
   US interrogators and US and Afghan guards wore no uniforms at the site, which suggests that the prison may have been operated by personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency, HRW said.

Iran denied on Monday media reports that a firefight last week in the country’s lawless southeastern borderlands was an assassination attempt on the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
   Government officials said Ahmadinejad was making a speech in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, on Wednesday when a car carrying security forces was attacked by smugglers on the road to the Gulf port of Chaharbahar.
   ‘During the attack, the local driver and a Revolutionary Guardsman was killed. The police immediately intervened. One smuggler was killed and one arrested,’ government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told a news conference.
   Some domestic and foreign reports described the attack as an assassination attempt, but officials said the vehicle that came under fire was not part of Ahmadinjad’s cavalcade and that there had been no question of the president travelling on that road.

US Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called the Republican-led Congress ‘the most corrupt in history’ on Sunday, and distanced himself from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, at the centre of an escalating probe.
   The Justice Department is investigating whether Jack Abramoff directed illegal payoffs to lawmakers, including Rep Tom DeLay of Texas, who was forced to step down as House Republican leader in September after indicted in his home state of Texas on unrelated charges.
   ‘Don’t lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal,’ Reid told Fox News Sunday, saying he never received any money from Abramoff.
   Reid, like many members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, has received campaign contributions from Abramoff clients. Some lawmakers have returned those donations, but Reid gave no indication he would do so.

India’s power minister dies in
South Korea
India’s power minister PM Sayeed died of a heart attack during an operation at a hospital in the South Korean capital, officials said Monday. The 65-year-old minister from the country’s ruling Congress party died Sunday at Hyundai hospital during an operation on his liver, the hospital said. ‘His body was taken out of the hospital at 10:00am (0100GMT) on Monday,’ hospital official Choi Jong-Min said. Sayeed arrived in Seoul on December 8 for treatment for liver problems, his third visit to the capital this year, a South Korean government official
said.
— AFP

Indonesia confirms two bird flu deaths
Tests conducted in Indonesia have shown that an eight-year-old boy and a 39-year-old man died of bird flu, a top health official said Monday. ‘Tests by the Health Ministry’s laboratory showed that both of them had died after contracting the virus,’ said Hariyadi Wibisono, the ministry’s director for vector-borne disease control. He said samples from the man were also being tested in a Hong Kong laboratory accredited by the World Health Organisation to determine whether he died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
— AFP

SL army fires
on crowd
Sri Lankan troops fired shots on Monday to disperse a crowd attacking checkpoints in the northern city of Jaffna, the army said, while the local hospital said at least one man had been wounded. JaffnaTeaching Hospital said it had received 14 casualties, including one person with a gunshot wound. Army spokesman brigadier Nalim Witharanage blamed the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for inciting the marchers to throw stones at the checkpoints and said the troops had fired into the air.
— Reuters

Pak offensive in Baluchistan
Pakistani forces have launched an operation against tribal rebels in troubled Baluchistan province after a string of attacks, a security official and tribal sources said on Monday. ‘The operation is on,’ lieutenant-colonel Jamil Hassan, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, said in Quetta, the provincial capital. He declined to give details of the operation in the Kohlu district, which began late on Sunday, but said rebels had launched two rocket attacks on Frontier Corps camps in the area on Monday but no one was hurt.
— Reuters

Sharon recovering after minor stroke
The condition of prime minister Ariel Sharon, improved on Monday after he was hospitalised overnight for a minor stroke that raised questions about how long he could dominate Israeli politics. The hefty 77-year-old former general, battling for re-election after pulling Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and remaking Israel’s political landscape, was rushed to hospital on Sunday and stayed overnight for tests. ‘I am fine. I guess I should have taken a few days off,’ Sharon told Israeli media overnight after his stroke.
— Reuters