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Israel’s usually rock-solid relations with the United States were taking a battering Tuesday, as a row over arms sales to China escalated ahead of a crucial visit by Washington’s top diplomat to the region.
   Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee and an ally of the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, said ties were now at ‘crisis’ point but stressed that Israel must fight to retain a measure of independence from its key ally.
   The comments came after the Pentagon confirmed on Monday that the Bush administration had raised concerns with Israel about its sales and transfer of military equipment and technology to China.
   The formal indictment of a Pentagon analyst on charges of passing classified information to a pro-Israel lobby group served as a further reminder that all was not well in the relationship.
   The support of the US president, George W Bush, has been vital for Sharon in his efforts to secure approval for his controversial plan to pull troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, an issue that will top the agenda of the visit of secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to Jerusalem this weekend.
   Sharon has been trying to play down the China sales row, declining to make it a major issue on recent trip to the United States, seemingly fearful of upsetting Washington with the start of the Gaza pullout now just two months away.
   But Steinitz said there was no denying the seriousness of the situation.
   ‘There is a crisis. It has been going on for about a year, and to my great regret, even Sharon’s visit to Washington didn’t resolve this crisis,’ he said.
   ‘There is no doubt that relationship with the United States is critical to Israel. But, with all the enormous importance of US diplomatic, economic and military help, Israel must keep its independence and also some reciprocity in this relationship,’ he said.
   Two months ago, Washington imposed a series of sanctions on Israel’s defence industry following a controversial weapons deal in which Israel was to upgrade a consignment of drones it had sold to China.
   The deal provoked US anger and raised concerns that advanced American defence technology contained in Israeli equipment could be used against Taiwan.
   Washington has since barred the Israeli defence industry from involvement in key military development projects and has frozen the transfer of sophisticated technological equipment to its Middle Eastern ally, the Israeli media reported.
   The defence ministry would not comment on reports that its director general Amos Yaron was being forced to step down as a result of US pressure, but said there had been no formal request from Washington to remove him.
   While acknowledging that Israel cannot simply ignore Washington’s views, the Maariv daily said ‘perhaps the time has come for somebody—the prime minister for example—to put a stop to the grovelling which has recently been forced upon the Israeli defence establishment.’
   Moshe Keret, the head of the Israel Aircraft Industries, said he believed that there was some jealousy in the States.
   ‘In some areas we are indeed (world) leaders and perhaps rival manufacturers over there are a little irritated by this, but I think that’s normal,’ he told army radio from the Paris air show.

The current leaders of India and Pakistan must resolve a long-running row over Kashmir before leaving office and should not be distracted by violence in the region, the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, said on Tuesday.
   Musharraf, speaking a day after a deadly car bombing in Kashmir, said nobody could stop the violence, but he believed the best chance for peace lay in the relationship he had developed with the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh.
   ‘I think we should not be overly bothered about (the car bombing) and we should not allow it to affect the peace process,’ Musharraf said in an interview during the first visit by a Pakistani president to Australia.
   ‘I would go even to the extent of saying even if we reach peace and agreement, even after that there will be some extremists who may carry out such kind of extremist attacks. We should bear with that.’
   Kashmir has been at the centre of two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since winning independence from Britain in 1947, but relations between South Asia’s nuclear rivals are improving since they launched peace talks early last year.
   A car bomb exploded on Monday in Pulwama town, south of Srinagar, killing at least 14 people and wounding more than 100 in the latest incident of separatist violence in the territory.
   Musharraf said his ‘extremely cordial and extremely understanding’ relationship with Singh would be the key to resolving the dispute over Kashmir, which was why a deal needed to be reached before either leader left office.
   ‘There is no timetable, but there ought to be some timetable ... and I have told Manmohan Singh that the best timetable is that it must take place within our tenures,’ Musharraf earlier told Canberra’s National Press Club.
   ‘We have developed a kind of understanding between ourselves. There won’t be a guarantee that future leaders will have the same understanding, (that) future leaders will have the same focus.’
   Musharraf said he had a vision for self-governance for Kashmir but that independence for the region would be unacceptable to both Pakistan and India.
   ‘I have always said we need to have a solution which is acceptable to India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir,’ Musharraf said.
    ‘There is nobody who can exercise control on everyone and everything that is happening in Kashmir. I certainly don’t hold a whistle which I can blow and every bullet stops being fired,’ Musharraf told the press club.
   Separatist leaders from India’s side of Kashmir have been visiting Pakistan this month with New Delhi’s blessing, seen as another sign of improving ties between the neighbours.

The president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, who has staked her government’s future on a tsunami aid-sharing deal with Tamil Tiger guerrillas, is likely to survive a threatened walkout by her Marxist coalition partner, officials and analysts said Tuesday.
   Chandrika must choose between appeasing the communists or risking three billion dollars in foreign aid linked to her controversial plan to disburse relief with the help of Tiger rebels.
   Lanka’s main international donors Tuesday asked the Colombo government and Tamil Tiger rebels to take action to stop escalating violence and stem a wave of political killings undermining a fragile truce.
   The United States, Japan, the European Union and Sri Lanka’s peace broker Norway at a meeting in Washington expressed concern about the upsurge in violence on the island, said a joint statement released in Colombo.
   ‘We note with utmost concern that while full-scale hostilities have not resumed, respect for the ceasefire agreement has been undermined by persistent violence...,’ said the statement, issued after Monday’s meeting.
   It said there had been killings of individuals affiliated with both parties and asked the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to stop murdering rivals and government and military officials.
   The Tigers were also asked to stop recruiting child soldiers.
   Analysts said Chandrika has a better chance of manoeuvring out of the political insecurity following assurances of support from the main opposition to prop up a possible minority government in the short-term.
   On Monday she held talks with main opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe after discussions with other political leaders and secured guarantees of support for her administration, a source close to the talks said.
   ‘The message from the talks is that she should go ahead without fearing a collapse of the government,’ the source said.
   The Marxist JVP, or People’s Liberation Front, announced it will leave the government Thursday unless she backs off from the aid-sharing deal which donors are insisting must be in place before they will release cash.
   Buddhist monks who also oppose the deal have staged street protests.
   ‘We must not allow the bartering of the country for bags of dollars,’ said monk activist Kaluwelgala Chandraloka.

China stepped up pressure on the European Union Tuesday to lift its 16-year-old arms embargo, saying that the ban is a political obstacle to better relations.
   ‘The Chinese side has asked to remove the embargo with the aim at removing political discrimination against China and removing a political barrier to the development of bilateral relations,’ foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said.
   ‘We hope that the EU will demonstrate the political wisdom and remove this political barrier to our relations as soon as possible. This will not only benefit China, but the EU side as well.’
   Led by France and Germany, European leaders last December had instructed EU foreign ministers to draft an accord on removing the embargo by the end of June.
   However, strident opposition by the United States and an anti-secessionist law passed by China in March that opens the way for a military takeover of Taiwan has appeared to halt efforts to do away with the ban.
   In late March, Luxembourg’s junior foreign minister Nicolas Schmit, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said it would not be possible to remove the ban by June 30.
   He cited varying degrees of opposition from several countries including Britain, Sweden, Belgium and Italy.
   Liu reiterated Beijing’s position that it was not interested in buying weapons from Europe, but was only seeking respect as a ‘cooperative partner’ of the EU.
   ‘We are not aiming at importing arms from the EU, as strategic cooperative partners we hope that on the basis of equality and mutual respect to further our relations with the EU and we hope the EU will honour its political commitments and remove the arms embargo,’ he said.

Youths across East Asia and the Pacific want corporal punishment banned as part of wider efforts to stop violence against children, young delegates told a UN conference here Tuesday.
   The 26 children from 14 countries also recommended governments and communities share information about stopping sexual violence against children and supporting victims, at a meeting with 250 adults on the region’s response to the UN’s first global study on child violence.
   Children regularly face corporal punishment in the home or schools and it affects them psychologically and emotionally, delegate Samuela Raika, 17, from Naitasiri in Fiji, said.
   ‘Adults have told us that when they experienced violence when they were a child, that experience carries on and they repeat it over and over again,’ he said.
   ‘It’s a cycle of violence. So stopping corporal punishment and other forms of violence in the homes and schools is to break the cycle of violence among children.’
   Raika is a member of the conference’s working group on police brutality against children, and also of the Kidz Link children’s support group in the Fijian capital Suva.
   In newly independent East Timor, teachers regularly hit students with open or closed hands, or make them stand outside in the sun saluting the Timor Leste national flag, 16-year-old delegate Natalino Soares Ornai Guterres said.
   ‘We try to tell teachers when you want to educate students, don’t use physical abuse, educate us by dialogue, communicating to us with good words,’ he said.
   ‘We tell our teachers that teachers in other countries can’t use violence... but the teachers say ‘oh, you can’t compare other countries because they’ve had independence for a long time and know how to educate their students.’’
   Guterres recorded his interview and the conference sessions for his radio programme run by children’s rights organisation Criancas Unidas.
   Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the independent expert writing the UN’s global study, said despite worldwide criticism of child violence, the problem persists.

The Philippine president, Gloria Arroyo, appeared Tuesday to have ridden a political storm over allegations of electoral fraud that had fed rumours of a possible military coup, senior officials said.
   A pained Arroyo was at the same time forced to put out a written statement saying that her son had stepped down indefinitely from his seat in Congress to counter charges of illegal gambling against her family.
   ‘I am saddened by the incessant mudslinging that threatens the social fabric,’ said Arroyo.
   ‘Because of the personal attacks against him, Mikey (her son) has gone on leave of absence from Congress,’ her statement said.
   ‘This is a painful decision by a son to ease the suffering of his mother. This would allow an impartial investigation which I have duly ordered,’ she added.
   ‘The country comes first before my family.’
   Juan Miguel Arroyo filed a leave of absence from the House of Representatives a year into his three-year term after denying allegations that he took bribes from operators of a popular illegal numbers game called ‘jueteng’.
   A woman who said she collected payoffs from ‘jueteng’ operators testified at a Senate public hearing last week that she had personally delivered funds to Juan Miguel Arroyo and his uncle Ignacio Arroyo, also a member of Congress.

A suicide bomb attack on a US military convoy in southern Afghanistan which injured four American soldiers was likely the work of foreign militants, spokesman of the president, Hamid Karzai, said Tuesday.
   ‘The attack in Kandahar was a suicide attack and it is imagined the attacker was a foreigner, not an Afghan,’ spokesman Jawed Ludin told reporters at a news conference in Kabul.
   The Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack on the US convoy by a vehicle full of explosives. Only the suspected bomber’s head and legs were found afterwards, and no identification.

Survivors of one of the worst massacres during the 2002 sectarian riots in Gujarat filed a compensation claim against the western Indian state’s ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party.
   Over 120 people from the minority Muslim community were burnt or hacked to death by Hindu mobs in February 2002 in two separate residential colonies.
   A former member of parliament, Ehsan Jaffri, from the opposition Congress Party, was among those killed in the riots.
   ‘Today, I have filed a civil suit for compensation along with 24 other families of the Gulbarg Society who lost all in a single day of communal hatred,’ said his son Tanvir Jaffri.
   He said the victims were seeking total damages of seven million rupees (162,800 dollars) from the BJP state government as well as Hindu right wing groups.
   Representatives of the families whose kin were killed said the process of filing the compensation claim was delayed because of red tape.
   The Gujarati government was accused of turning a blind eye to the riots in which about 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, died.

A UN peacekeeper from India was killed and two others wounded during an exchange of fire between soldiers and an armed group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN said.
   The incident happened on Monday in North Kivu in the east of the DRC as soldiers from the DRC’s regular army exchanged fire with an unidentified armed group on a road at Sake, 30 kilometres, north of Goma, capital of North Kivu.
   The casualties were the result of stray rounds fired during the exchange, the United Nations Mission in the DRC said.
   The three peacekeepers were taken to hospital in Goma where one died from his wounds, according to MONUC spokesman Kemal Saiki.
   His death brings to 19 the number of UN peacekeepers killed in DRC since MONUC began operations there in 1999.
   ‘The MONUC vehicle was following closely behind a FARDC (DRC regular army) vehicle which was in pursuit of armed men,’ Saiki said.
   ‘These men, who have not been identified, opened fire on the FARDC. Several rounds hit the Indian peacekeepers.’

The interrogation of Saddam Hussein in the absence of his lawyers was ‘unlawful’, a member of his Jordan-based defence team said after a video was released Monday of the ousted Iraqi leader being quizzed by a judge.
   ‘What I saw on Al-Jazeera television were pictures of an interrogation, not a videotape, and this interrogation is unlawful because it is conducted without the presence of a lawyer,’ Issam Ghazzawi said.
   The Iraqi Special Tribunal charged with trying Saddam released a videotape showing the ousted leader being interrogated by a judge over alleged crimes against humanity.
   ‘I have given the approval to release the tape,’ the judge, Raed al-Juhi, a member of the panel, said without elaborating.
   CNN television showed brief footage of Juhi questioning a bearded Saddam who was wearing a tieless white shirt and a black vest.
   It said the judge was interrogating Saddam about the 1982 killing of 143 residents of Dujail, a Shia village northeast of Baghdad. He is accused of ordering revenge murders after villagers allegedly tried to assassinate him.
   Other footage broadcast on Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television shows an unidentified man in a blue suit sitting next to Saddam, who has been in US custody in Iraq since his capture in December 2003.
   ‘We don’t know when these pictures were taken, we don’t know if they are old or new,’ Ghazzawi said.
   Asked if the defence team was able to get in touch with Saddam’s Iraqi lawyer Khalil Duleimi for further information, Ghazzawi said: ‘Khalil Dulaimi should be coming to Amman within three days at the most.’
   Ziad Khassawneh, the defence team spokesman, said on Friday Saddam’s lawyers had been kept in the dark about preparations for his trial and not received a single document outlining the charges against him.
   An international committee for the defence of the rights of former high-level Iraqis held in jail, including former president Saddam Hussein, will be inaugurated Wednesday by former prominent French, Algerian, Malaysian and US citizens, a spokeswoman for the body announced Monday.
   The Emergency Committee for Iraq will be announced by former French foreign minister, Roland Dumas, Algerian president, Ahmed Ben Bella, Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, and US attorney general, Ramsey Clark, the spokeswoman, Sarah Sloan, said in a statement.
   ‘It is essentially about the legal rights of those, who have been detained, whose rights have been denied,’ Sloan said.
   ‘It is of the utmost importance to historic truth, public justice and peace that the United States respect the dignity and rights of president Saddam Hussein and all officials of the former government of Iraq with absolute fidelity,’ said Clark.
   ‘The Bush administration has deliberately deprived president Hussein and other officials of the right to counsel of choice, family visits, and any access to information,’ he continued.

The UN atomic agency unanimously re-appointed Mohamed ElBaradei as its chief Monday after Washington dropped its opposition to a man who had questioned US weapons intelligence on Iraq.
   ElBaradei told reporters he was ‘humbled and awed’ at his appointment by consensus to a third term as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and said he expected to be able to work well with the United States, which has also criticised him for being too soft on Iran.
   ElBaradei said when he had met in Washington last week with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, ‘We did not discuss the past. We did not discuss my election. We looked together forward. We agreed we have a lot of common objectives.’
   ‘We need to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We need to ensure the authority of the agency in terms of verification. We need to have better control over the sensitive (nuclear) fuel cycle (in countries worldwide) and we need to have a more efficient compliance mechanism (with safeguards of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty),’ ElBaradei said.
   ElBaradei said his talks with Rice were like those ‘with every member state.’
   ‘I get their input. They hear my views and at the end of the day, I do what I believe to be the objective, impartial, factual way to proceed,’ ElBaradei said, clearly implying that he was retaining his independence of action.
   The IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors ‘has reached consensus and appointed Dr ElBaradei to a third term,’ IAEA spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, told reporters. The decision is to be confirmed at an IAEA general conference in September.
   The vote was held up for some six hours by Japan’s objections to making it the first agenda item in a week-long board meeting that opened Monday but once this procedural issue was resolved the consensus decision took place almost immediately.
   The United States had set the stage for this when it last week reversed its opposition to ElBaradei and said it was ready to accept a third term for him despite past policy disagreements over both Iraq and Iran.
   Washington had in fact no backing from the 34 fellow members of the IAEA board for stopping ElBaradei, who is widely respected as a tireless and fair campaigner for non-proliferation, from continuing in office, diplomats said.
   The United States had resisted a new term for ElBaradei, who has run the IAEA since 1997, saying two terms was enough for running an international agency.

Foreign ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement called Monday for the United Nations to work through its reform plans to strengthen the role of the international body and to reject unilateralism.
   ‘They expressed their rejection of unilateralism, which could lead to the erosion and violation of international law, to the use and threat of use of force and to pressure and coercion, including unilateral sanctions by certain countries,’ they said in a joint declaration.
   The declaration was issued following a meeting by NAM foreign ministers on the sidelines of the G77 group of developing countries plus China meetings being held in the Qatari capital.
   ‘The ministers reiterated their commitment to multilateralism (and) the importance of the promotion and strengthening of the multilateral process,’ it added.
   The ministers ‘emphasised that all reforms within the United Nations system, including institutional reforms, should promote greater democracy, effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability.’
   The Malaysian foreign minister, Syed Hamid Albar, who chaired the meeting, said they also discussed the fight against terrorism, including looking at its root causes as well as trying to draw up a satisfactory definition.

A defence department analyst was charged with disclosing to a foreign diplomat classified information about a Middle Eastern country’s activities in Iraq, court documents showed on Monday.
   Lawrence Franklin was arrested in May on charges of illegally disclosing classified defence information. An indictment returned by a federal grand jury and unsealed on Monday gave further information on the charges, including that he disclosed secret information to the diplomat.
   Franklin, who worked on the Iran desk within the office of the secretary of defence at the time the government says he disclosed the information, was also charged with disclosing top-secret information about potential attacks on US forces in Iraq to two employees of a pro-Israel lobbying group.
   The six-count indictment charged Franklin, a defence department employee since 1979, with conspiracy to share classified information with people not authorised to receive it. One charge specified that he disclosed information to an agent of a foreign government.
   The indictment did not identify the diplomat or his nationality, but sources familiar with the investigation have said he was Israeli.
   Israel has denied any involvement in the Franklin case and the Israeli Embassy in Washington defended its diplomats.
   Our diplomats conduct themselves in full accordance with established diplomatic practice and did not do anything that would contravene these standards,’ embassy spokesman, David Siegel, said.
   Franklin pleaded not guilty to the charges on Monday. His trial date was set for September 6.
   The indictment charged him with disclosing top-secret national defence information to people who are not authorized to receive it—the two employees of the lobby group.
   The two individuals were not named in the court documents, but federal law enforcement officials have said they were both senior employees of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC fired the two men in April.
   The indictment said Franklin met the two to share classified national defence information ‘in an effort to advance his own career, advance his own personal policy agenda and influence persons within and outside the United States government.’
   It said Franklin started meeting them in February, 2003, and shared various types of classified information. It said in June, 2003, Franklin shared what he called ‘highly classified’ data related to potential attacks on U.S. forces from Iraq.

The United States is expected to scale back its biometric passport requirements to make it easier for foreign travellers from allied nations to enter the country without a visa.
   The new passport standards — requiring digital photographs to match with a person’s unique physical characteristics by October and an embedded identification chip later — would be similar to international biometric guidelines already in place.
   A Homeland security official said the department was expected to unveil the new standards soon.
   Initially, the United States considered requiring fingerprinting or iris identification features in biometric passports, making the documents virtually impossible to counterfeit. A 2002 law required visitors from 27 allied nations that are not required to apply for a US visa to carry the high-tech passports.
   But the visa-waiver nations, mostly in Europe, failed to meet the October 2004 deadline, prompting US officials to revamp their requirements.
   The new rules would allow the visa-waiver nations to comply with less stringent biometric guidelines set in 2003 by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, an arm of the United Nations. Those guidelines require digital photos and machine-readable chips to store identifying information in passports.
   The changes would come after months of negotiations between the United States and its international allies, and between the Bush administration and Congress.
   Visiting Brussels last month, the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to biometrics as a high-tech approach to security screening ‘compatible on both sides of the Atlantic.’
   ‘Right now, in many ways we are using the most primitive kind of screening — meaning we screen for names that match lists of terrorists and criminals,’ Chertoff said during that trip. ‘And of course, names are not the best way to identify people. They’re certainly not as good as biometrics.’
   Chertoff heads back to Europe this week.
   Also Monday, Canada’s ambassador predicted that the United States would drop a controversial proposal that would require travellers to show passports in order to cross the 4,000-mile border between the neighbouring nations.
   Discussions with the Bush administration, which introduced guidelines to crack down on potential terrorist travel across borders, indicates that ‘passports will not be the ultimate requirements,’ Canadian ambassador, Frank McKenna, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
   Currently, US and Canadian travellers need only driver’s licences to cross the border, although passports are often shown.
   Requiring passports, which only 20 per cent of Americans have, ‘would be a big change,’ McKenna said. ‘And it’s become clear to me that both sides of the border think it would be a very damaging change. ... This would cause real havoc to the economy.’

Britain will reduce the number of its troops in Iraq soon and send more to Afghanistan to fight remnants of the Taliban, a senior military officer said in remarks published Tuesday.
   The Iraq contingent will decrease in ‘battalion chunks’ following the elections expected at the end of the year, Air Marshal Glenn Torpy said, quoted by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
   By next year, the 1,000-man British force in Afghanistan is likely to be increased considerably as the army, backed by Royal Air Force Harrier jets, move into more dangerous parts of the country to combat the growing heroin trade and to hunt down remaining Taliban.

Turkey and the United States on Tuesday signed an agreement to cooperate in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and controlling the illegal trade of dual-use materials and technology, the foreign ministry here said.
   Under the deal, the United States will assist Turkey with expertise and technical equipment to identify dual-use materials in a bid to help overhaul the country’s national export control system and bolster border security, the ministry said in a statement.
   The agreement, which will come into force when both sides complete necessary national procedures, will be valid for three years with automatic one-year extensions unless prior notice is given to the contrary.
   Ankara and Washington have a long-standing political and military alliance, although bilateral relations between the two NATO members have cooled in recent years due to differences over the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The frontrunner in the turbulent race for Iran’s presidency, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, won high profile support on Tuesday from the oil and nuclear sectors but the election still appeared set to go into a second round.
   The run up to Friday’s vote, which will herald an end to the difficult reformist presidency of President Mohammad Khatami, also remained darkened by bomb attacks—with more blasts reported to have shaken the south-eastern city of Zahedan.
   As candidates accelerated their campaigns, Khatami advised voters to be sceptical of promises of more freedoms—a clear snipe at the campaigns of religious hardliners busy reinventing themselves as slick moderates.
   ‘Today all the candidates are talking about freedom, democracy, fighting censorship, the rights of the youth and women’s rights,’ said Khatami, near the end of his second and final term in office.
   ‘The important thing is to consider their records to see how committed they have been, and what practical plans they have to follow through with their promises.’

More than a million Americans were infected with AIDS at the end of 2003, with black, homosexual and bi-sexual men making up the largest group among them, according to government statistics made public Monday.
   African-Americans made up about 47 per cent of this group, whites 34 per cent, and Hispanics 17 per cent, according to a report by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released at a conference on HIV/AIDS being held in Atlanta, Georgia, June 12-15.
   Asian-Americans, Indians and native residents of Alaska make up only one percent of this group.
   Men accounted for 74 per cent of those infected by the AIDS virus.
   Homosexual men represented the largest group (45 per cent), followed by those infected through high-risk heterosexual relations (27 per cent) and drug addicts using syringes (22 per cent).

Srinagar shuts to protest bomb blast
A strike in protest against a bomb explosion that killed 15 people shut down schools, shops and businesses in Indian Kashmir’s main city on Tuesday. More than 100 people were wounded in Monday’s powerful car bomb explosion near a school in the town of Pulwama south of Srinagar. The police blamed Muslim rebels for the explosion, but no militant group claimed responsibility for one of the worst attacks in recent months. Schools and colleges were also closed in the strike called by Kashmir’s hardline separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and a Pakistan-based militant alliance, United Jihad Council.
— Reuters

Thai FM sees Suu Kyi freed early next year
Myanmar’s detained Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi could be released early next year after the military junta finishes drafting a new constitution, Thailand’s foreign minister said Tuesday. The ruling generals were likely to resume a stalled national convention to help draft the new constitution in November, and the work was expected to be completed by early 2006, minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said. ‘We expect that after finishing the draft, Aung San Suu Kyi will be released. There are some signs showing she will be freed after that time,’ Kantathi told reporters before a special cabinet meeting in northern Thailand. He did not elaborate on the signals the secretive junta had given to suggest that restrictions would be lifted on the pro-democracy leader, who turns 60 on Sunday and has spent the last two years under house arrest.
— AFP

Taiwan calls China for negotiations
The Taiwan premier, Frank Hsieh, has offered rival China a new olive branch by authorising negotiations on direct flights, fruit exports and visits by Chinese tourists, officials said Tuesday. The Taipei Airlines Association will be authorised to discuss direct flight issues, Hsieh on Monday told a group of Taiwanese entrepreneurs doing business on the mainland, according to a statement by the cabinet Tuesday. ‘Hopefully the Chinese mainland would come up with a concrete response as swiftly as possible,’ Hsieh said.
— AFP

Pakistani sentenced to death in Indonesia
An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced a Pakistani to death for drug trafficking, the latest in a series of death sentences against foreigners. Judges at a district court in Tangerang, southwest of Jakarta, ruled that Zulfikar Ali was guilty of trafficking 300 grams of heroin. Ali was arrested along with his Indonesian girlfriend last August. Indonesian courts have passed death sentences on at least 32 people, mostly foreigners, for drug offences since the year 2000.
— AFP

Annan for UN force mandate extension in Golan
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, in a report published Monday, recommended extending the mandate of a UN force monitoring the disengagement of troops in the Golan Heights. ‘The situation in the Israel-Syria sector has remained generally quiet,’ Annan said in his report to the Security Council. ‘Nevertheless the situation in the Middle East is very tense and is likely to remain so, unless and until a comprehensive settlement covering all aspects of the Middle East problem can be reached,’ he continued. ‘Under the prevailing circumstances, I consider the continued presence of UNDOF in the area to be essential.’ The force was set up in May 1974 to monitor a ceasefire between Syria and Israel.

14 illegal immigrants drown off Morocco
At least 14 would-be illegal immigrants drowned when their boat sank off Morocco’s coast as they sailed for Spain, local authorities in the port city of Tangiers said Monday. The bodies of 14 people including children were found washed up on a Mediterranean beach east of Tangiers in the north African country, and they were believed to have drowned when an overloaded inflatable boat capsized around dawn, the sources said. Other people on the boat, estimated to have had between 90 and 115 passengers, managed to swim to shore after the accident in high winds in rocky, relatively shallow water, the sources said. All the bodies—six women, six young children and two men—were those of black Africans who appeared to have made the long clandestine trip northwards across the Sahara hoping to get into Europe, they added.

Quake kills eight in Chile
A strong earthquake struck northern Chile, killing at least eight people, toppling 17 houses and sparking alarm on the country’s border with Peru, authorities said. The quake cut power in Iquique, 2,460 kilometres north of Santiago, on the Pacific Coast of South America. The United States Geological Survey measured the quake at 7.9 on the Richter scale. ‘A major earthquake occurred on Monday,’ the USGS said in a statement. ‘The magnitude 7.9 event has been located in Tarapaca, Chile,’ the service said, at a depth of 111 kilometres,’ the USGS said. The quake lasted for about 50 seconds, according to local reports.

Australian PM fails to avoid party revolt
A rebel government lawmaker pushed ahead Tuesday with a move to ease controversial immigration detention laws after failing to reach an agreement with Prime Minister John Howard. Veteran government member of parliament Petro Georgiou was presenting legislation to reform the laws to a selection committee Tuesday and it could be introduced in parliament as soon as Monday, his office said. Georgiou leads a group of more than 10 government MPs pressing for reforms of Australia’s policy of mandatory detention for illegal immigrants and asylum seekers after the exposure of a series of blunders and family hardships.

Briton charged with paedophilia
A court in Cambodia charged a British man Tuesday with having sex with three boys aged under 15, for which he could go to jail for up to 20 years if found guilty, a prosecutor said. Matthew Paul Hamilton, 24, entered Cambodia last month as a tourist and was arrested Saturday after being trailed by police on suspicion that he had had sex with numerous minors. He was charged with debauchery, the legal term for paedophilia in Cambodia, deputy prosecutor Nget Sarath told reporters. ‘According to the testimony of three boys aged under 15, they had sex with Matthew Paul Hamilton,’ Nget Sarath said.
— AFP