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Militant groups have agreed to halt their attacks as they near a final cease-fire deal with the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and await Israel’s response to their moves, a senior Palestinian official said Monday.
   Ziad Abu Amr, the Palestinian official who is overseeing the dialogue with the militants, said ‘the Palestinian parties have agreed to calm the situation and we are waiting to see if Israel is ready to respond to that and then to hold a truce.’
   Abu Amr spoke to Voice of Palestine radio hours after Abbas said in a TV interview that he was close to sealing a cease-fire deal with the militant groups.
   ‘They (the armed groups) have calmed things down on the ground for a few days and they will continue doing that for some time to see if Israel is ready to accept demands and hold the truce,’ Abu Amr said.
   Now Israel must take concrete steps, including withdrawing troops from Palestinian cities, stopping military operations, home demolitions and arrest raids, Abu Amr said. Palestinians also want a release of prisoners from Israeli jails, he added.
   ‘What has happened so far is a Palestinian-Palestinian understanding in the framework of the dialogue on our way to reaching a comprehensive national agreement that includes reforms, political partnership and truce,’ Abu Amr said.
   The prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and the defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, both said Sunday Israel would refrain from conducting military operations in Palestinian areas if the militant groups halt attacks.
   In the past month, Israeli military officials have indicated the army would withdraw troops from West Bank and Gaza Strip areas that are under the control of the Palestinian security forces.
   On Monday, a senior Israeli official said Israel would be willing to consider a release of Palestinian prisoners within the context of formal discussions with Palestinian leaders. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not elaborate.
   “The Israel’s powerful finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Monday that the onus should be completely on the Palestinians to end the violence and that there was no need for Israel to make any reciprocal gesture.
   Sources close to the talks between Abbas and the factions said there was already an agreement for a limited ‘cooling down’ period, with Palestinian security forces fanning out across Gaza with orders to stop rocket attacks against Israeli targets.
   Abbas is understood to be trying to persuade Hamas to end its campaign of attacks by participating in the political process.
   Israel, which intends to pull out of occupied Gaza later this year, says it would be unrealistic to expect it to give up large settlement blocs in the West Bank, a position backed by Washington.
   In a further sign of a lull in violence, Sharon held a cabinet meeting on Sunday in Sderot, a southern Israeli town that had been frequently hit by rocket fire from nearby Gaza until a few days ago.

The United Nations warned Monday that tsunami survivors could develop ‘dependency syndrome’ as they became reliant on foreign aid after the destruction of their livelihoods.
   UN relief coordinator for the badly-hit Indonesian province of Aceh, Joel Boutroue, said that with plenty of supplies now reaching most affected by the December 26 disaster, long-term plans were needed to ensure a stable future.
   ‘I would say that now we need to sit down and plan for the middle- and long-term so that we are ensured that the population does not develop a dependency syndrome,’ Boutroue told reporters in the devastated city of Banda Aceh.
   The United Nations urged international donors to stump up almost one billion dollars of emergency aid to help people affected by the tsunamis, which killed 227,000 people on shorelines around the Indian Ocean.
   A huge humanitarian operation was mounted to bring food, medical and water supplies to millions left with nothing by the disaster.
   Boutroue said at least two-months of rations had now been distributed to most families, but although aid should continue, it needed to be diversified.
   ‘We are now ready to sit down with the government to discuss the type of assistance we want or should be given, to avoid any dependency syndrome while also avoiding having people vulnerable,’ he said.
   He gave no timetable but said assistance would continue until ‘the population can feed itself or has the purchasing power to feed itself’.
   Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation warned Monday that a major outbreak of diseases remained a threat in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province, saying that clean water is key to preventing the menace.
   So far there have been no major outbreaks of diseases in refugee camps for the tsunami victims despite earlier fears thanks to effective disease monitoring and quick treatment, WHO special envoy Eigil Sorensen.
   But he said there was no room for complacency with a need to ensure clean supplies of drinking water to affected areas.
   ‘There is still a concern particularly related to water sanitation. There is still a risk that disease outbreak can occur if the issue of water sanitation is not properly addressed,’ Sorensen told a press conference.
   ‘WHO... is emphasising that this is a high priority,’ he said.
   Sorensen said there had been several cases of measles and tetanus in refugee camps but teams of local and international health workers had been able to treat the diseases and prevent them from spreading.
   ‘At this stage we have a robust system for disease surveillance and outbreak response capacity in place,’ he said, adding that cases of infections continued to decline.
   He said focus in the health sector had now shifted to efforts to reestablish health services which collapsed following the December 26 tsunami.
   ‘This is a big task especially as many of (local) health workers perished in the disaster,’ he said.

The Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives will accelerate political reforms and will be a multi-party democracy within a year, the president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, said here Monday.
   The newly-elected parliament was expected to finalise a constitution that will allow political parties for the first time in this archipelago of 300,000 Sunni Muslims, before the end of the year, he said.
   ‘I think within one year’s time we should be able to complete the constitutional reform process... I am hoping that the majlis (parliament) will be able to complete their work within one year,’ the 67-year-old Gayoom said.
   He said he himself was a ‘reformist’ despite criticism of his iron-clad hold on power and argued that he had been ‘reforming’ the country since he became president in 1978.
   ‘Reform is making things better.... I consider myself a reformist because when I took office in 1978 it was so different. I began my reform programme. it has been a continuing process for the past 26 years.
   ‘Now I see that the time is right for more sweeping changes. That is why I have proposed a new package of reform in which I envisage a multi-party political system, as well as the office of the prime minister, a supreme court and also that the president should be elected directly by the people.’
   The present parliament does not have a premier and even the speaker is a nominee of the president.
   Only 42 members of parliament are elected by the people while the president nominates eight members to the assembly which in turn votes for a president for a five year term. Gayoom is now on his sixth term.
   Pro-democracy activists have been clamouring to change Gayoom despite him being credited with turning this once backward fishing community into South Asia’s most prosperous nation per capita with a GDP of 2,400 dollars per person.
   Gayoom said he was willing to work with the radical reformists who have been trying to upstage Asia’s longest serving leader but who have had little success except in seeing their members jailed.
   Saturday’s parliamentary election, conducted on a first-past-the-post basis saw two pro-democracy activists winning both seats in the capital island Male.
   Gayoom said he was willing to work with those who opposed him and hoped they could unite in the interest of political change in a country where even public speaking is an election offence.
   ‘I am very ready to cooperate with anyone,’ Gayoom said at his sea-front presidential office. ‘I myself have been ready to go half way and meet with people who hold different views from my own, to talk to them and to work together to improve our constitutional and political systems.’
   An arch rival, Ibrahim Ismail, who became the top member of parliament from Male said Sunday that friction was not in the best interest of the country and he was willing to work with the president.
   ‘I am very happy to hear that members elected are in that frame of mind,’ said Gayoom, who telephoned Ismail Sunday to congratulate him on his victory over a presidential loyalist.
   ‘There is no way for a small country like the Maldives to be divided and achieve anything,’ Gayoom said. ‘We have to be united although we might hold different outlooks.
   ‘But, still we have to work together and build consensus and be united in our efforts for reform.’
   He said the international community and human rights groups had been critical of his administration based on ‘various reports from individuals,’ but he was open to scrutiny.
   ‘I know we have been criticised in the past for alleged human rights abuses... but these rights groups have not had their own investigations. Last year we did receive an Amnesty International team.’
   ‘I think now they have a better idea.’
   He conceded there may have been individual cases of excesses, but the administrative mechanisms were in place to punish offenders. He said some officers responsible for the death of a prisoner were already facing trial.

One month on, India’s go-it-alone policy has paid strategic dividends and buried for good a begging-bowl past as ordinary people opened their hearts and wallets to aid the hundreds of thousands of tsunami victims.
   While India rapidly deployed military assets in superpower-style to assist neighbours afflicted by the killers waves, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, called on Indians at home to unite to help their suffering compatriots.
   And millions, benefiting more and more from an upbeat economy, responded with unprecedented generosity.
   The government itself has announced relief packages of more than 700 million dollars while the premier’s aid fund alone has hit 5.5 billion rupees (122 million dollars)—huge sums in a country where a majority still live off less than a dollar a day.
   With more than 16,000 dead and a trail of destruction stretching thousands of kilometres across the south-eastern coast and the Andaman and Nicobar islands, the government called an all-party meeting and deliberately decided to go ahead with all the pomp of Republic Day on January 26.
   It’s the biggest day of the official calendar when the once impoverished country celebrates not only independence but also its military and political clout as an increasingly important player on the world stage.
   This year the big day will also witness India’s first telethon with stars bidding to raise more funds for the three million people affected by the tsunamis on the sub-continent.
   ‘Too often we’re daunted into apathy by the staggering scale of the problems we face as a nation,’ said Ingrid Srinath, chief executive officer of Child Relief and You which is organising the seven-hour televised fundraiser.
   But not this time.
   ‘Tangible, irreversible change is not only possible, but inevitable when ordinary individuals come together,’ she said, echoing the new self-assured spirit.
   ‘The telethon is our attempt to include as many Indians as we can ... the money we hope to raise will change the lives of thousands of children forever.’
   Countless numbers of Indians have already joined a cathartic rush to give.
   Meanwhile, a strong undersea earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale rattled India’s Nicobar Islands on Monday but there were no reports of casualties, the meteorological department said.
   ‘The epicentre lay at 7.5 degrees north and 9.5 degrees east at 220 kilometres west of Indira Point,’ the southern tip of India, the meteorological officer, DC Gupta, said in Port Blair, capital of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
   ‘This is closer to Srilanka than India and is just a part of aftershocks felt after the tsunamis,’ he added.

Most Malaysians say they are reasonably happy, healthy and calm, but ethnic Chinese report more stress than Malays and Indians in this multicultural country, survey results showed Monday.
   A large majority – 70 per cent – of all Malaysians surveyed said they led calm lives, according to the poll by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for the New Straits Times.
   ‘Across ethnic lines, Malays appeared calmest, followed by Indians. However, one in five Chinese said they were stressed,’ the paper said.
   Malays make up some 55 per cent of Malaysia’s population, with 25 per cent ethnic Chinese and 7.5 per cent ethnic Indians.
   The paper said a probable explanation for the difference in stress levels was that ‘many Malay respondents were from the rural areas where life in pastoral settings is slower and more gratifying.’
   Another reason was that ‘sociologists say Malays and Indians are generally more willing to count their blessings, whereas the Chinese tend to be more driven and determined about goals and ambitions’.
   The survey showed that poor people were just as likely to say they were happy as those with more money and that happiness tended to increase with age.
   Without giving a breakdown of the figures, the report said those over 55 were twice as likely to feel happy as those under 30, while married people were also happier and more at peace with themselves and the world.

Asian giants India and China opened a first round of ‘strategic dialogue’, officials said, as their regional and international influence surges despite a nagging border dispute.
   The talks were being held between delegations led by the Chinese vice foreign minister, Wu Dawei, and the Indian foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, a fluent Mandarin speaker, officials said.
   ‘The talks have begun, they will continue over lunch. This is an important element in the process of engagement with China,’ a foreign ministry official said.
   The two-day New Delhi dialogue, which the officials said had no ‘fixed agenda’, aims to broaden the scope of the Sino-Indian relationship allowing both sides to exchange notes on global and regional security issues.
   The talks were also expected to prepare the ground for a visit to India by the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, set for March.
   The neighbours already have in place a joint working group on a long-standing boundary dispute which is to come up for review.
   India and China fought a brief border war in 1962 that left their relations in shreds. But in recent years they have played down their territorial dispute to focus on improving commercial and other ties.

Funeral arrangements for the deposed Chinese leader, Zhao Ziyang, are still in dispute between his family and the government almost a week after his death, a close family member said.
   Zhao, who died in a Beijing hospital last Monday aged 85, was ousted for opposing the military crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed.
   According to Chinese funeral custom, the deceased must be buried on the fifth or seventh day after his death but plans for Zhao’s funeral were still not settled on the seventh day on Sunday.
   The family and the authorities cannot agree on what his biographical details should say, according to a family member.
   ‘We want it (the funeral) to take place as soon as possible but we can’t agree on his biography, that is, details of what he did in which year,’ the family member said.
   Asked whether the family would accept the authorities’ verdict that the reformist leader made a ‘grave mistake’ in sympathising with the students in 1989, the family member said Zhao had never accepted the verdict.

Four men and a woman were killed after Indian soldiers hurled them out of a compartment of a stationary train and into the path of a speeding train on an adjacent track, The Times of India reported on Monday.
   Two people were seriously injured in the incident at a station in Shikohabad in northern Uttar Pradesh state after troops objected to civilians boarding a compartment that they said was reserved for military personnel.
   ‘After an altercation, the jawans (soldiers) threw seven people out of the train,’ the newspaper quoted senior police officer Ram Kumar as saying.
   Brawls and arguments are common in crowded Indian trains but it is rare for soldiers to be involved in such a deadly fracas.

Iran said Monday it was not taking talk of a US attack seriously, but nevertheless cautioned Washington that any military action against the Islamic republic would be a ‘major strategic blunder’.
   ‘It’s nothing new. Once in a while America starts a psychological war,’ the spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said reporters in response to a hardening of the tone by the US officials against Iran.
   ‘The Islamic republic is strong enough and has the capability to defend itself, so we feel no danger or threat. We do not see it (a US attack) as likely, unless someone wants to make a major strategic blunder,’ he warned.
   The perception that the United States is embarking on a course of confrontation with Iran has grown since The New Yorker magazine reported that the US commandos have been operating inside Iran since mid-2004, secretly scouting targets for possible air strikes.
   The Pentagon attacked the story by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh as ‘riddled with errors of fundamental fact’ but did not expressly deny conducting covert reconnaissance missions.
   Last Monday, the US president, George W Bush, said he could not rule out using force if Tehran failed to rein in its nuclear plans, which he says is a cover for the production of a nuclear bomb.
   And then the vice president, Dick Cheney, said Iran was ‘right at the top of the list’ of global trouble spots and warned that Israel might launch a pre-emptive strike on its own to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme.
   Asefi said the US administration has embarked on a policy of ‘force and bullying’ and was waging a ‘cultural and religious war’.
   As for Cheney’s warning of a possible Israeli attack, Asefi said this only served to prove that ‘the Zionist lobby is strong in the United States’.
   ‘This will isolate the US more than before,’ Asefi told reporters, adding that it was now the task of ‘international bodies’ to keep the US administration in check.
   ‘International bodies have been formed to stop such policies and to bring such countries into compliance with international standards, so we expect that they will pay more attention to this in the second term of the Bush administration,’ he said.
   While Iran insists its nuclear activities are strictly for peaceful purposes, the European Union’s ‘big three’—Britain, France and Germany—are engaged in a diplomatic effort aimed at securing long-term guarantees the clerical regime will not seek the bomb.
   The United States has so far refused to join the EU effort, having had no diplomatic ties with Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
   But Asefi said the talks with the European Union were ‘moving forward in a positive way and as long that continues and that there is no time wasting, they should continue.’
   Iran has agreed to suspend its work on the sensitive nuclear fuel cycle—a process that can be geared to both civil and military purposes—for the duration of the talks with the EU.

The US president, George W Bush, had barely put away his tuxedo from the inaugural festivities when deadly bombings in Baghdad presented a stark reminder of the grim backdrop against which Iraq will hold a national election.
   The vote this coming Sunday to pick a 275-member National Assembly is an important test for Bush’s mission to spread democracy through the Middle East.
   Even if the elections take place with a minimum of violence, however, military and diplomatic headaches are ahead for the Bush administration and for the fledgling Iraqi government.
   The national assembly has to take office, elect a prime minister and form a government and field a police force able to maintain security. Then it must write a constitution that will facilitate more elections, either in late 2005 or in 2006.
   The United States must think about when it can begin to bring home some of the 150,000 troops now in Iraq and, ultimately, withdraw from the country.
   ‘Simply having a vote by itself is relatively meaningless. The question is whether the people who are elected can do the job,’ said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst and Iraq expert with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
   ‘Merely having people go to the polls can always be claimed to be a success. And I’m sure the administration will claim just that, while a good part of the Arab world will claim it’s a failure,’ he said.
   Bush did not mention Iraq in his inaugural speech Thursday, although he alluded to it, saying ‘Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfil and would be dishonourable to abandon.’
   The administration and Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, have insisted that the elections will go ahead despite the threat of violence and the expectation that a large portion of the county’s Sunni Arabs will not participate.
   Low turnouts will increase the likelihood that declared winners will be challenged after the vote.
   Administration officials have sought to lower expectations, both for the turnout and the outcome. They have emphasised the importance of other steps to be taken later to guide Iraq’s transformation.
   John Negroponte, the US ambassador in Baghdad, noted Sunday on CNN’s ‘Late Edition’ that the election will be Iraq’s first in several decades. ‘I think there’s a great deal of excitement about its implications for Iraq’s democracy,’ he said.
   ‘They’re going to elect–a national assembly, which in turn will select a new government, so there will be an elected government instead of an appointed one. They’re going to draft the constitution, and that is going to go to a referendum in October. And a definitive government is going to be elected by the end of this year.’
   Increasingly, the US officials have acknowledged miscalculations about Iraq. While Bush declared on May 1, 2003, that major combat had ended in Iraq, the US death toll still climbs steadily.
   National security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s nominee to be secretary of state, said ‘there were some bad decisions’ on Iraq, although she would not spell them out. Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the most ardent advocates, before the war, of invading Iraq, said he overestimated the pace of Iraq’s recovery and ability to govern itself.
   Nearly 1,400 members of the US military have died since the US-led invasion that began in March 2003.

President Bush’s inaugural address, with its emphasis on spreading democracy and eliminating tyranny throughout the world, was not meant to signal a new direction in the US foreign policy or to portray America as arrogant, his father said Saturday.
   ‘People want to read a lot into it — that this means new aggression or newly assertive military forces,’ former president Bush told reporters during an informal visit to the White House briefing room. ‘That’s not what that speech is about. It’s about freedom.’
   In Thursday’s speech, Bush said: ‘we will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right.’
   That raised the question whether Bush intended to apply new standards to allies or partners who keep democracy at arm’s length and have poor records on human rights.
   Did that mean he would pursue democracy in places like China? Would he try to reverse moves toward reinstating authoritarian rule in Russia? How far will he go to challenge the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran?
   ‘It doesn’t mean instant change in every country — that’s not what he intended,’ Bush said about his son’s second inaugural address.
   The United States has maintained strong ties, however, with governments whose policies it criticises. For example, the State Department says some allies in the war against terror — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan — engages in political repression to varying degrees.
   ‘As I stated in my inaugural address, our security at home increasingly depends on the success of liberty abroad,’ the president said in his weekly radio address Saturday.
   ‘So we will continue to promote freedom, hope and democracy in the broader Middle East — and by doing so, defeat the despair, hopelessness and resentments that feed terror.’
   Some Asian nations have expressed suspicion that the inaugural speech pointed to a more aggressive foreign policy that could worsen global tensions.

Key Republicans in Congress on Monday questioned White House assertions that the Social Security system was in crisis, justifications of the president, Bush, for acting now on private accounts, and said new taxes should be considered.
   House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that Congress should ‘look beyond’ the payroll tax to fund the Social Security retirement system and consider a value-added tax and other changes.
   Though Bush said he will oppose tax increases for Social Security, senator, John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ that a hike in payroll taxes ‘has got to be on the table’ along with other financing options.
   Thomas called the retirement system’s finances a ‘problem’ rather than a crisis, distancing himself from the crisis terminology used by the White House in seeking public support for creating private accounts.
   ‘I think ‘problem’ really is what we’re dealing with,’ said Thomas, when asked if he thought it was a crisis.
   In a separate interview, moderate Republican senator Olympia Snowe, of Maine, questioned the White House’s proposals and strategy, a sign of trouble for Bush in the Senate.
   Snowe said she does not object to personal savings accounts ‘per se,’ but told CNN: ‘I’m certainly not going to support diverting $2 trillion from Social Security into creating personal savings accounts.’
   A member of the Finance Committee, which will craft any Social Security legislation in the Senate, Snowe complained that the ‘public discussion thus far, without a specific proposal, has created and enhanced a lot of confusion and fear among seniors.’
   She said there are ‘various scenarios and interpretations’ about the ‘urgency’ of the Social Security problem, despite White House assertions.
   The comments—coming days after Bush’s second inauguration—cast doubt on the prospects of his Social Security plan. He will need moderate Republicans like Snowe to overcome stiff Democratic opposition in the Senate.
   Democrats and other critics say Bush, by warning of a crisis, is trying to scare Americans into supporting his plan to let workers shift part of their Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts to invest in stocks and bonds.

An important part of the president, Bush’s second-term plans went slightly off the rails during an inauguration week that ran pretty much on time.
   If the White House had its way, Condoleezza Rice would have been confirmed by the Senate as secretary of state on Thursday, when Bush took the oath of office and gave his inaugural address.
   Rice easily won a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but Democrats stalled a vote by the full Senate on her nomination.
   The delay probably says something about Rice’s sometimes indignant responses to tough questions during two days of confirmation hearings last week, and something about the hair-trigger atmosphere in the highly polarised Congress, said Paul C Light, a New York University professor and fellow at the Brookings Institution.
   Rice did not have much direct experience with Congress as White House national security adviser the past four years. This was the first time she has gone through the sometimes rigorous and exhausting confirmation process.
   ‘Condoleezza Rice may have been in the chair, but some may have seen the president, George Bush, sitting there, so there was a face to face confrontation, some important questions,’ the committee chairman, GOP senator, Richard Lugar of Indiana, said Sunday on CNN’s ‘Late Edition.’
   The Senate planned to debate the nomination on Tuesday, with a vote set for Wednesday.
   Rice’s quick move to the State Department was so widely expected that department employees had been told to get ready for a welcome session at the building last Friday. The greeting was to take place in the same mezzanine area where the president’s first secretary of state, Colin Powell, bade farewell to employees last Wednesday.
   Still on duty, Powell represented the United States at the inauguration on Sunday of Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yushchenko.
   Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada denied Republicans’ suggestions that Democrats are playing politics with Rice’s nomination.
   ‘To suggest that the Senate should not have any debate about Rice’s performance and the future direction of American foreign policy shows not only a high level of arrogance on behalf of some Republicans, but also a blatant disregard for our constitutional responsibilities,’ the Democrats said.
   Biden was one of Rice’s most persistent questioners during last week’s committee hearings. Biden was among 16 committee members who vote to recommend Rice’s confirmation. He also told her he was exasperated by her responses to some questions about Iraq and other topics.

The leader of Britain’s main opposition party rejected suggestions of racism Monday as he unveiled a tough crackdown on immigration as a key platform for the looming general election.
   But the European Union warned Monday that the plans by Britain’s opposition Conservative Party to impose quotas for asylum seekers would be illegal under EU law.
   A spokesman for EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini said the plan, outlined Sunday as part of the Conservatives’ campaign for a general election expected in May, would run counter to the 1951 UN convention on refugees.
   Britain would pull out of the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees and impose an annual quota on people claiming political asylum if his Conservative Party took power, Michael Howard said.
   ‘There are literally millions of people in other countries who would like to come and live here. Britain cannot take them all,’ Howard said in a keynote speech at his party’s headquarters in London.
   Under the prime minister, Tony Blair, Howard charged, Britain had seen ‘an unprecedented rise in immigration’, with almost 160,000 extra people settling in the country each year.
   ‘I think most people would agree that Britain has reached a turning point,’ he said.

Viktor Yushchenko was sworn in as Ukraine’s new president Sunday, bringing an end to months of political turmoil and uncertainty triggered by a presidential election crisis.
   The 50-year-old former banker took oath of office shortly afternoon Sunday inside the parliament and showed his intentions later to push for Ukraine’s closer integration with the European Union.
   ‘Our way to the future is the way of a united Europe. We, along with the people of Europe, belong to one civilization. We share similar values,’ Yushchenko told a crowd of supports after the inauguration in a downtown square.
   Ukraine’s Central Election Commission formally declared Yushchenko the winner of the presidential run-off on Jan. 10 with 51.99 per cent of the vote, beating then Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych by 8 percentage points.
   But Yanukovych raised a series of legal challenges to the re-vote, the last of which was rejected by the high court on Thursday, paving the way for the inauguration.
   Yushchenko, who will become the third president of independent Ukraine, has pledged to steer Ukraine on a new course, fighting corruption and forging closer ties with the European Union while maintaining traditional good relations with Russia.

An Italian pensioner committed suicide after his wife fell into a coma, but just hours after he killed himself the woman woke up, Italian media reported on Saturday.
   Recalling the end of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ the 70-year-old man, Ettore, who had sat by his wife’s bedside for four months after she slipped into a coma following a heart attack, finally gave up hope and gassed himself in the garage of his family home.
   Less than a day later, his wife, Rossana, woke up in her hospital bed in Padua and immediately asked for him.
   The northern town of Padua lies just 40 miles from Verona, where star-crossed lover Romeo killed himself believing Juliet to have died. But minutes later Juliet woke up and seeing Romeo dead, stabbed herself.

A majority of Japanese voters want Tokyo to pull its troops from Iraq by March, when Dutch troops ensuring their security are due to leave the country, a survey has found.
   In a Kyodo News telephone survey responded to by 1,056 people, 34.5 per cent said the Self-Defence Forces should withdraw immediately after Iraq holds parliamentary elections on January 30.
   On top of this, 20.8 per cent said the Japanese troops should pull out with the Dutch troops, who are scheduled to leave by March 15, said Kyodo.
   The survey shows the Japanese is increasingly concerned about the unstable security situation in Iraq after the Japanese military’s camp in Samawa, southern Iraq, has come under attacks, Kyodo said.

Myanmar opens military intel trials
Trials for more than 300 people linked to Myanmar’s disbanded military intelligence unit began Monday under a cloud of secrecy inside the notorious Insein prison, a legal source said. ‘The trials have started today,’ the source said. ‘No less than 16 special tribunals being presided over by 16 divisional and district-level judges were set up inside the jail premises,’ said the source, who went inside the prison. Some 30 special courts are expected to eventually be operating within the prison walls, and the trials are expected to be concluded within 45 days.

Bhutan king pays state visit to India
The Bhutan’s king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, on Monday began a six-day state visit to India as the two neighbours seek to consolidate close ties. The king held talks with the foreign minister, Natwar Singh, and was due later to see the home affairs minister, Shivraj Patil, and the vice-president, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. The monarch, who will be chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade on Wednesday, was to meet the prime minister, Manmohan Singh and the president, Abdul Kalam on Tuesday.

Taiwan’s cabinet resigns en masse
The Taiwan’s premier, Yu Shyi-kun, and his cabinet resigned en masse Monday following the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s defeat in December’s parliamentary election. The resignations will allow the president, Chen Shui-bian, to reshuffle the cabinet, with the new line-up expected to be endorsed by the opposition-dominated parliament after it opens on February 1. The new premier is tipped to be Frank Hsieh, mayor of the island’s second biggest city Kaohsiung, while Yu is likely to be named Chen’s chief aide, sources said.

Two Indonesian cops killed in blast
Two policemen from an elite paramilitary unit that had just returned from duty in disaster-hit Aceh province were killed Monday when a grenade exploded in their rented house in Jakarta, officials said. The commissioner, Sudaryo, said the circumstances surrounding the incident were not immediately clear, although local media reports said it may have been an accident. Sudaryo said the officers were members of a bomb squad of Indonesia’s Brimob paramilitary unit and had just returned from Aceh.

House collapse kills seven in Pakistan
Seven members of the same family were buried alive when the roof of their mud house collapsed Monday due to heavy rain and snow in northwestern Pakistan, officials said. The incident happened while the victims were sleeping early Monday in the village of Aldo, about 65 kilometres northwest of the capital, said the Minister of State for Information, Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli. ‘This unfortunate incident occurred today when the roof of a village house collapsed due to heavy rain and snow,’ she said in a statement. Police said a couple, their two sons, two granddaughters and a three-year-old boy all died.
— AFP

Indonesia to deport American journalist
An American journalist will be deported from Indonesia after immigration officers said he entered the country illegally, despite granting him a visa when he arrived three weeks ago, the immigration department said. William Nessen, who is from New York, was detained Sunday after visiting the tsunami-ravaged Aceh region. In 2003, the freelance journalist was imprisoned in Indonesia after he spent three weeks on the run with separatist rebels in the province. Immigration spokesman Muhammad Indra said airport officials issued a visa to Nessen because they were not aware that a ban on his entry had been extended from August 2004 until August 2005.
— AP

US envoy urges Japan to work with China
The outgoing US ambassador urged Japan on Monday to find a way to cooperate with China, saying Tokyo’s biggest challenge is how to handle its giant neighbour amid increasing friction. Howard Baker told a forum at the headquarters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that China ‘is growing in economic and political interest.’ ‘The real challenge for Japan in my view comes from how you arrange your relationship with China,’ Baker said. ‘Japan and China have a mutual responsibility, I think, to find ways to work together productively,’ he said. The Asian countries, which have been jockeying for energy resources and regional influence, have seen their relations nosedive in recent months.
— AFP

US behind Colombia rebel arrest: Chavez
Thousands of demonstrators backed the president, Hugo Chavez, who accused the US and Colombian officials of provoking a diplomatic crisis between the Caribbean neighbours. ‘I know where this provocation comes from: from Washington, not from Bogota!’ Chavez said before a crowd of cheering supporters. Chavez said Sunday that the United States was behind Colombia’s arrest, on Venezuelan territory, of a Colombian rebel, triggering a diplomatic crisis with Bogota.
— AFP

Crisis talks after Somali killing
Somalia’s exiled government is meeting to discuss the security situation in the capital, Mogadishu, following the assassination of the police chief. The prime minister, Ali Mohammed Ghedi, said he was shocked by the killing of the man in charge of the government’s security arrangements. Ghedi is due to return to Mogadishu from Kenya by 1 February but this could now be delayed, correspondents say. Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991. The cabinet is discussing a report prepared by a team of MPs who have just returned from Mogadishu. None of the many rival militias operating in the Somali capital has claimed responsibility for the killing of General Yusuf Ahmed Sarinle.
— AFP

South Sudanese in unity challenge
Sudan’s former southern rebel leader John Garang has challenged the north to say why the country should stay united. Garang told reporters in his interim capital, Rumbek, that northerners would now have to accept the southern Sudanese as their equals. Southerners have been given a large degree of autonomy as part of the peace deal that ended 21 years of civil war. They are scheduled to hold a referendum in six years to decide whether they want to seek full independence. Garang was speaking a day after returning to his base for the first time since signing the historic peace deal earlier this month. He led southern rebels against the government in Khartoum in a bloody civil war until the peace agreement was signed in Kenya.
— Reuters