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Newsweek’s apology for its controversial Qur’an desecration story was greeted with scepticism and scorn both at home in the US and across the Muslim world on Monday.
   From the White House to remote Afghan hamlets, critics responded furiously to the magazine’s initial admission that it had been wrong to claim US officials discovered that interrogators in Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Qur’an down the toilet.
   Following criticisms on Monday from the White House and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Newsweek made a full retraction of the story.
   ‘Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur’an abuse at Guantanamo Bay,’ the editor, Mark Whitaker, said in a statement.
   In Afghanistan, where the 200-word story sparked riots that left 17 dead and more than 100 injured, many Muslims said the apology smacked of a US government cover-up.
   ‘We will not be deceived by this [retraction],’ said Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman, one of a group of clerics who threatened on Sunday to wage a holy war against the US for the alleged abuse.
   ‘This [decision] comes because of American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands that and won’t accept it,’ he told Reuters.
   A spokesman for the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, expressed ‘in the strongest terms our disapproval of Newsweek’s approach to reporting, which allowed them to run the story without proper examination beforehand’.
   Anti-American militants, who gained political capital from the protests, also rejected the mea culpa. ‘Newsweek is changing its story because of pressure from the US government,’ said a Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi.
   In Pakistan, officials reiterated a call by the president, Pervez Musharraf, for the US to mete out ‘exemplary’ punishment to the alleged culprits.
   ‘We have asked for a thorough investigation conducted by the US administration and we would expect the results of the official investigation to be shared with us,’ said a foreign ministry spokesman.
   A powerful Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said it was going ahead with street protests planned for May 27.
   Newsweek said it was let down by an anonymous US government source who falsely claimed an inquiry into abuse at Guantanamo Bay found that a Muslim holy book was dropped into a toilet.
   ‘We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst,’ wrote Whitaker.
   But Newsweek also insisted that the abuse claim was true in substance, citing several former Guantanamo detainees who say US officials repeatedly dishonoured the Qur’an.
   Although the Pentagon insists the story is untrue, the US military in Afghanistan said it would continue a full investigation into the claims.

Inter-Korean talks were deadlocked over the nuclear standoff after North Korea sidestepped a new proposal from South Korea to jump start six-party talks, officials said.
   Plans for a joint lunch were abandoned following a morning session that left the South Korean chief delegate, the vice unification minister, Rhee Bong-Jo, looking grim, pool reports said.
   ‘As we did yesterday (Monday), we again urged North Korea to make the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons and take part in six-way talks as early as possible,’ Rhee was quoted as saying.
   ‘Efforts have been made to find common ground, but more discussions will be needed on the nuclear issue.’
   Rhee made what he described as an ‘important offer’ to entice North Korea back to the six-party talks on Monday but received no word in reply as the two-day session drew to a close.
   ‘The talks are bogged down,’ an unnamed North Korean delegate was quoted as saying.
   The vice-ministerial talks in the North Korean border town of Kaesong were the first high-level face-to-face dialogue held in 10 months between the two Koreas and raised hopes for a resumption of six-party talks to end the nuclear standoff.
   Washington warned Pyongyang Monday it would pay a price for a further escalation of the nuclear standoff. North Korea claimed that it possessed nuclear weapons in February and last week said it had unloaded spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactor, in a step towards making more nuclear bombs.
   Washington said it had not been consulted on the new South Korean offer but expressed no opposition to the bid to break a year-long deadlock in the standoff.

More than one-fourth of Gaza Strip settler families have agreed to relocate to southern Israel, a settler leader said Tuesday — the biggest crack so far in the formidable wall of opposition to the Gaza pullout this summer.
   But while some settlers were beginning to reconcile themselves to the notion of being uprooted, die-hard opponents claimed victory after snarling traffic at more than 100 intersections with burning tires and sit-down strikes Monday evening.
   Their objective: to tie up police for hours in a dress rehearsal for diversionary operations designed to scuttle the evacuation.
   The post-pullout planning and the street protests indicated a growing rift among settlers over strategy. Initially, settlers had overwhelmingly refused to cooperate with the government’s withdrawal plan. However, with the mid-August dismantling of all 21 Gaza settlements and four in the northern West Bank approaching, some of the more than 1,600 settler families have decided to plan for the day after.
   The government has offered to move the Gaza families as a group to Nitzanim, a desirable coastal area near Gaza. Last week, some settler leaders circulated the government’s offer among Gaza settlers, said Yoav Elul, chairman of the Gadid settlement council and a supporter of the plan.
   As of Monday, 430 families had signed on, and an additional 600 are expected to do so within a week or two, Elul said. Having exhausted all the possibilities in their fight against the pullout, settler families now ‘have to worry about an insurance policy,’ he said.
   The Gaza settlers’ official leadership disputed Elul’s figures, and said no more than 150 families have agreed to move to Nitzanim. ‘It’s irrelevant,’ spokesman Eran Sternberg said. ‘Out of 1,600 families, it shows where the overwhelming settler sentiment lies.’

At least one man was killed and four wounded in fresh violence in Sri Lanka Tuesday, police said, as international aid donors tried to nudge the island’s warring parties to revive peace talks.
   An indefinite curfew was clamped in the north-eastern port district of Trincomalee after two grenade attacks amid a strike called by Hindus protesting the setting up of a Buddha statue in the area, a police official said.
   ‘The curfew was imposed because of rising tension in the Trincomalee town area,’ a local police official contacted by telephone said. ‘There were three bomb-throwing incidents.’
   Shops and offices closed and public transport was at a standstill in Trincomalee, 260 kilometres northeast of here, as ethnic Tamils who are also Hindus objected to the statue, residents said.
   The violence was not linked to protests over a two-day aid review meeting by bilateral donors and multilateral lending institutions, but underscored the underlying tensions in the country, diplomats and officials said.
   Donors meeting in the central town of Kandy have been trying to nudge the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels to revive their peace talks which have been stalled since April 2003.
   Donors held a second and final day of talks here as they sought to nudge warring parties to share aid and rebuild the war- and tsunami-devastated nation.
   Donors who have promised up to 2.5 billion dollars for tsunami-related reconstruction were keen that the Colombo government and Tamil Tiger rebels work together, a senior diplomat at the talks said on Tuesday.
   ‘We feel a joint mechanism (between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels) will make it quicker to deliver aid and also make it easier for donors to give more,’ the Dutch ambassador to Sri Lanka, Susan Blankheart, said.
   She said European Union nations backed moves to swiftly establish a proposed ‘joint mechanism’ that the president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, promised Monday after saying she would do it even at the risk of her life.
   Praful Patel, the World Bank’s vice president for South Asia, said donors were keen that Sri Lanka’s faltering peace process be revived and noted despite a talks deadlock, both sides have abided by a truce since February 2002.
   ‘For many development partners, the peace process is at the core of their interest in Sri Lanka,’ Patel said, adding international lenders were also backing the initiative as it was the only way to ensure economic development.

An anti-graft body appointed by Nepal’s king Gyanendra has charged several senior politicians with fraud in government contract deals that could lead to millions of dollars in fines and jail, a commission spokesman said.
   ‘The royal commission has formally charged ex-premier Sher Bahadur Deuba, ex-minister Prakash Man Singh and four other officials with involvement in irregularities and asked them to pay a sum of 370.6 million rupees (5.2 million dollars),’ spokesman Prem Raj Karki said.
   ‘In the charge sheets, the investigation official has asked them to be jailed for 10 years and deposit the amount involved in the case,’ Karki said.
   ‘They will be produced again before the commission for the hearing on the case. They have been sent to further detention,’ he said.
   The commission, which has sweeping powers of arrest and punishment, investigated a government contract for a 13.1-million-dollar road project that was part of the 464-million-dollar Melamchi Water Project to supply drinking water to the capital.
   Deuba, fired by Gyanendra when he seized power on February 1, was also charged on May 5 with allegedly siphoning off 4.1 million rupees in public funds for party supporters.
   Deuba was arrested last month after refusing to testify before the commission which he accused of waging a vendetta against politicians opposing Gyanendra’s takeover. He has denied any wrongdoing.
   Deuba is the most senior politician to be detained by the body.
   The charges against Deuba followed an announcement last month by Gyanendra that he was ending the emergency rule he imposed when he took over.
   Gyanendra has said he grabbed power after squabbling politicians failed to end an increasingly bloody Maoist insurgency in the Himalayan nation. The nine-year revolt has claimed more than 11,000 lives.
   Since the emergency rule ended, several political leaders have been freed but hundreds of other party officials remain in jail.
   India, Kathmandu’s biggest military donor, which has resumed arms supply suspended after the takeover, Monday backed Nepal’s seven opposition parties which last week joined forces to launch a campaign for the restoration of democracy.

The first ever study into child abuse in China suggests it is widespread, with children raped, molested and bullied, state media said.
   The study, conducted in the past two months on 3,500 college students in five provinces and one municipality, found 9.7 per cent of boys and 13.5 per cent of girls had been molested.
   Sponsored by the All-China Women’s Federation, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Peking University, it also revealed 1.7 per cent of boys questioned and 2.1 per cent of girls said they had been raped.
   In addition, the survey found 54.6 per cent of boys and 32.6 per cent of girls had been bullied, or endured some sort of violence.
   Chen Jingqi, an associate professor with Peking University, was cited by China Daily as saying the level of abuse had a lasting and damaging impact on children’s mental health.
   ‘The study shows there is a clear association between history of child maltreatment and mental health,’ said Chen, who headed up the survey.
   ‘Young people with multiple abuse experiences had significantly lower scores and higher levels of depression and suicidal intention, compared with other students.’
   Chen said it was the first of its kind to attempt to gauge the level of abuse in the country. The findings were revealed at the ongoing National Consultation on Violence against Children in Beijing.
   Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, appointed by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to prepare a global in-depth study of violence against children, praised China for bringing the issue into the open.
   ‘Chinas engagement with the issue would contribute substantially to the development of a concrete and successful response to violence,’ he said.
   ‘Breaking the silence does not mean merely compiling shocking stories, but requires efforts to understand the root causes of violence, the factors that allow it to occur so frequently.’

New emergency legislation will replace martial law in Thailand’s south next month, the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, said as violence continued to plague the region.
   Martial law was declared in most districts of Songkhla, Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani provinces on January 5, 2004, a day after a deadly raid on an army depot triggered unrest that has claimed more than 670 lives since.
   Religious figures in the majority-Muslim far south, as well as a national reconciliation commission tasked with investigating scores of deaths there, have said martial law is a key obstacle to peace in the region.
   ‘The new law will be ready in June and will replace martial law, so the martial law will no longer be needed,’ Thaksin told reporters ahead of a weekly cabinet meeting, held in the north-eastern province of Buri Ram.
   Thaksin’s deputy premier, Wissanu Krea-Ngam, said the legislation ‘is likely to be an emergency law’ which may authorise telephone tapping on a case by case basis and with the approval of a judge.
   A total of 36 arson attacks on schools, bus stops and phone booths and several bombings were reported in the south on Sunday and Monday nights. Schools re-opened Monday for the new academic year.

Indonesia’s government and parliament have agreed to lift tsunami-devastated Aceh province’s one-year-old state of civil emergency this week, a report said.
   ‘After the government’s briefing on the evaluation on the implementation of the state of civilian emergency and its analysis on the existing development, the leadership of the parliament and the government agree to end the state of civilian emergency in Aceh,’ the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said in a report.
   Yudhoyono was quoted by the Kompas newspaper as having told journalists Aceh would revert to normalcy when the current state of civilian emergency ends at midnight Wednesday.
   ‘The parliament’s leadership also agreed that the existence and presence of troops of the Indonesian armed forces will be retained to assure a feeling of security for people of Aceh and guarantee the implementation of recovery programs as well as the post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction,’ he said.

Military-ruled Myanmar’s main opposition party plans to file a complaint with police over the mysterious death last week of one of its members, the National League for Democracy said Tuesday.
   NLD youth member Aung Hlaing Win, who was believed to be about 30 years old, disappeared on May 1 and died under unknown circumstances the following week, a party source said.
   Junta officials have not provided a plausible explanation for his death, according to sources in the party that is headed by detained pro-democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Russia is prepared to reduce its strategic nuclear arsenal below 1,500 warheads, less than the level agreed to with the United States, but Moscow is concerned about nuclear threats on its border, two senior Russian officials said Monday.
   Director of the foreign ministry’s department for security and disarmament, Anatoly Antonov, and deputy director of the defence ministry’s department of nuclear safety and security, Lt Gen Vladimir Verhovtsev, stressed Moscow’s commitment to nuclear disarmament — provided that Russia’s security is assured.
   The May 2002 US-Russia Treaty requiring each side to cut its deployed warheads by about two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012, will be the focus of Moscow’s efforts over the next decade, Verhovtsev said.
   ‘We stand ready to take further constructive steps,’ he told a briefing on the sidelines of a UN conference to review the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, adding that Russia is ‘ready to reduce to 1,500 warheads or less.’
   But Antonov said Russia needs international peace and security and ‘a situation where there are no new nuclear threats on our border.’
   The United States and Russia are the only countries that have taken serious steps to limit their nuclear arsenals, he said.
   ‘What about other countries that continue to work on nuclear weapons?’ Antonov asked, voicing concern about missiles and weapons being developed on Russia’s borders but refusing to identify any country by name. China is the main nuclear power on Russia’s border, but North Korea also claims to have nuclear weapons and is suspected of preparing for a nuclear test.
   At the opening of the treaty review conference earlier this month, the secretary general, Kofi Annan, called on Washington and Moscow ‘to commit themselves — irreversibly — to further cuts in their arsenals, so that warheads number in the hundreds, not the thousands.’
   Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, nations without nuclear weapons pledge not to pursue them, in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear states — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — to negotiate toward disarmament. The treaty guarantees countries that renounce nuclear weapons access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
   Some nuclear ‘have-nots’ complain that the nuclear states are moving too slowly toward disarmament.
   But Antonov said the environment for disarmament ‘depends on all of us,’ not just the United States and Russia. ‘We’re telling our partners we can’t close our eyes’ to what’s happening on Russia’s borders and elsewhere in the world, he said.
   Russia is against new states acquiring nuclear weapons and backs an early diplomatic solution to the North Korean threat, preferably through a resumption of six-party talks that have included Moscow, Antonov said. Russia also supports European-led talks to resolve questions about Iran’s nuclear program and wants Tehran to provide clear assurances it is peaceful, he said.
   The Russians presented a booklet outlining steps that Moscow has taken to cut its arsenal of nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles, to eliminate intermediate- and short-range missiles, and to reduce tactical nuclear weapons.

The prime minister, Tony Blair, unveiled a packed agenda on Tuesday for what should be his most challenging parliamentary session yet after British voters, many angry over the Iraq war, slashed his majority this month.
   The programme for Blair’s third term — featuring contentious policies ranging from identity cards to new immigration controls — could mark his last chance to secure a lasting legacy before stepping down.
   But his fate lies in the hands of Labour Party rebels.
   Defeat on key bills could fatally undermine the power of a leader who already risks becoming a lame duck after he said he would not stand at the next election.
   ‘My government will build on its programme of reform and accelerate modernisation of the public services to promote opportunity and fairness,’ Queen Elizabeth said in a ceremony in parliament’s opulent House of Lords, raising the curtain on a historic third straight term for the centre-left Labour party.
   Eager to show he has not run out of ideas, Blair’s agenda contains 45 bills and five draft bills for a long, 18-month session.
   Blair has said he wants to serve a full term of four to five years but many analysts say he could be gone by the end of 2006.
   His ability to pass legislation with his majority cut to 67 from a huge 161 will define his final years in office.
   Plans to introduce compulsory identity cards, aimed at stopping abuses of free public services and fighting terrorism, could face a rough ride from Labour left-wingers.
   Controversial policies on education and anti-terrorism only scraped through in the last parliament.
   This time round, a hard core of 30-40 rebels, many of whom blame Blair and Iraq for Labour’s looser grip on parliament, are spoiling for a fight and want to force a swift handover to finance minister and heir apparent Gordon Brown.

Uzbekistan’s autocratic leader Islam Karimov faces increasing international pressure as the reported toll from a military crackdown in the eastern town of Andijan rose to 745.
   Four days after soldiers fired into crowds protesting against Karimov’s iron-fisted rule over this impoverished Central Asian nation, the Soviet-era leader found himself Tuesday facing rare tough words from the United States, which considers him an ally in its war on terror.
   US state department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said late Monday that the United States was ‘deeply disturbed’ by the reported violence.
   ‘We had urged and continue to urge the Uzbek government to exercise restraint, stressing that violence cannot lead to long-term stability,’ he told reporters.
   The comments came on the heels of two days of statements by Britain’s foreign minister, Jack Straw, which called the Andijan violence ‘a clear abuse of human rights’ and ‘totally condemned’ the alleged firing on civilians by Uzbek soldiers.
   The United Nations has also called for restraint following the clashes, while France encouraged dialogue. The Swiss government said it would review its development aid contributions for Tashkent, some 11.5 million Swiss francs (9.4 million dollars, 7.4 million euros) for this year.
   In one of the first public protests following the violence, 15 supporters of the Free Farmers party, a secular opposition group, gathered in front of the US embassy in Tashkent.
   ‘The United States is partly to blame for the situation in Uzbekistan because they supported, and support, the Uzbek regime,’ one of the organisers, Akhtam Shaimadanov said.
   However, he added that the protestors had chosen the site of the US embassy because they had less reason to fear retribution from the Uzbek authorities, in full view of their US allies.
   ‘We would be beaten if we had this protest near a government building – we had it here because the Uzbek authorities don’t want to spoil their reputation,’ he said.
   Protests are rare in Uzbekistan, a poor nation of 24 million people, where Karimov had effectively stamped out all opposition during his rule.
   Although human rights groups have long accused his government of using systematic torture in police stations and prisons, Western criticism has been tempered, as Tashkent was seen as an ally in Washington’s war on terror having agreed to host a US air base following the September 11 attacks.
   The Free Farmers party on Tuesday said that as many as 745 people had been killed in Friday’s clashes in Andijan, based on a survey of residents in the city and its suburbs, the highest toll so far from the violence.
   ‘We started house-to-house checks two days ago and this figure of 745 was for yesterday (Monday). Today we’re checking again and it might be more,’ the group’s leader Nigara Hidoyatova said.
   The latest official government toll, given by Karimov last Saturday, suggested as few as 30 people had died in the clashes.

Anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr came out of hiding Monday for the first time since his fighters clashed with American forces in August, delivering a fiery speech demanding that coalition forces leave Iraq and that Saddam Hussein be punished.
   Al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric whose militia battled US forces in Baghdad and Najaf last year, held a press conference in his father’s home in this holy Shia Muslim city, 100 miles south of Baghdad. Al-Sadr criticised the American-led occupation and called for an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
   He also demanded punishment for Saddam, who brutally suppressed Shias during his three-decade rule and now is being held in a US military detention facility in Baghdad awaiting trial on war crimes charges.
   ‘I demand several things, including punishing Saddam and calling on the Iraqi government, religious movements and political factions to work hard to kick out the occupier,’ al-Sadr said.’
   Al-Sadr’s reappearance coincides with mediation efforts involving the deputy prime minister, Ahmad Chalabi, to get murder charges against the cleric dropped. An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant charging al-Sadr and his key lieutenant, Riyadh al-Nouri, in the 2003 assassination of moderate cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei.

The Dalai Lama, former US president Bill Clinton and Hollywood actor Richard Gere will be among the Nobel laureates and celebrities gathering in the ancient Jordanian city of Petra this week with the lofty goal of trying to fix the world’s woes.
   A total of 36 of the world’s top thinkers in economics, medicine, physics and literature are expected to attend the May 18-19 conference, being hosted by Jordan’s king Abdullah II and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel.
   ‘The whole initiative is to bring the best of minds together to think about where the world is going,’ Jordan’s finance minister, Bassem Awadallah, said Monday.
   ‘They are coming in from various disciplines in order to discuss issues because they believe the world is in real danger.’
   Over the course of two days, the 29 laureates and other leaders will examine and try to find solutions for problems in four main areas, including terrorism and peace, economic development and poverty, health and environment, and education and media.
   ‘They might come up with a process,’ said Awadallah. ‘Maybe they will agree to meet once every year for two years, to launch a website.’
   The conference will take place amid centuries-old rose-coloured ruins of Petra, a World Heritage Site some 200 kilometres south of the capital Amman.
   It is being held just days ahead of a World Economic Forum summit on the banks of the Dead Sea in Jordan.
   Awadallah said Jordan was chosen as the venue for the Nobel meeting because ‘they think Jordan is a country of moderation where they can bring people from all hopes of life, thinking about the future in a very ancient setting of achievement, Petra.’
   ‘They saw in King Abdullah a young leader who is committed not only to modernise his country and to stabilise the region but also to contribute to global peace, security and development.’
   King Abdullah told reporters when the conference was first announced in March: ‘Today, more than ever, we need creative minds to address the issues of the age. And one of the most urgent is this: How can humanity know so much, achieve so much, and still fail so many people so badly?’
   Organiser Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and writer, co-sponsored a similar conference in 1988, when he French president, Francois Mitterrand, hosted some 75 Nobel laureates.
   ‘Can we effect a change?’ said Wiesel in promotional materials for this year’s conference. ‘Can we bring about a ‘merger’ between power and morality? We are on a runaway train hurtling toward the abyss. Do we have the determination to stop it? It will not be easy but we must, lest our past become our children’s future.’
   Other conference attendees include the Israeli deputy prime, Minister Shimon Peres, who won the 1994 peace prize, former Northern Ireland Protestant leader David Trimble, a 1998 peace laureate, and author Wole Soyinka who won the 1986 literature prize.

A military jury on Monday found Army reservist
   Sabrina Harman guilty of all but one charge related to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib in a scandal that badly damaged America’s image abroad.
   Harman, 27, appeared in some of the most notorious Abu Ghraib prison photographs, including one in which she posed with a pyramid of naked detainees.
   The jury found Harman guilty of one count of conspiracy related to that incident, which was broadcast across the world’s media a year ago.

Chinese vice premier to meet Koizumi
The Chinese vice premier, Wu Yi, who began a week-long visit to Japan Tuesday, will meet the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, as both sides try to improve relations after violent anti-Japanese protests across China. Wu would also meet Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Shoichi Nakagawa during the visit, which runs to May 24, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said. He declined to give details on the focus of discussions. Relations have been troubled by a series of disputes including anger in China at Koizumi’s annual pilgrimage to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are honoured along with Japan’s approximately 2.5 million war dead.
— AFP

Jenkins gets US passport
Charles Jenkins, the US soldier who deserted to North Korea, has been issued a US passport giving him the chance to return to the United States for the first time in four decades, officials said. Jenkins, 65, who left North Korea last year to settle in Japan with his Japanese wife he met in the Stalinist state, wants to go to his native North Carolina to see his mother who is in her early 90s. ‘We confirm we have given him a passport,’ a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Tokyo said. Jenkins has not seen his mother since before 1965, when as a 24-year-old sergeant he left his army post in South Korea and crossed the border in a drunken stupor.
— AFP

Dozens feared dead in Orissa heat wave
Dozens of people were feared dead in a heat wave in Orissa, an official said on Tuesday, at the start of the harsh summer in which temperatures hit around 50 degrees Celsius. The government official confirmed seven heat wave deaths in Orissa and said the government was investigating at least 71 more cases. Details were unclear, but officials say deaths are normally caused by dehydration and sunstroke. High temperatures are hitting most of India, including the capital, New Delhi, but no deaths have yet been reported. In the summer of 2003, more than 1,400 people - most of them homeless, beggars or street hawkers - died in the worst heat wave to hit large parts of India in several years.
— Reuters

Court upholds Bashir’s terrorism conviction
An Indonesian court has upheld a 30-month jail sentence for Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for involvement in a conspiracy that led to the Bali bombings, one of his lawyers said. Wirawan Adnan said the Jakarta High Court had rejected the lawyers’ argument and the cleric would now appeal to the Supreme Court in another attempt to overturn the sentence. ‘The judges clearly ignored the facts revealed during the trial,’ he said. The High Court’s spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment. Bashir’s lawyers had argued the guilty verdict against Bashir was solely based on an unproved police statement during the trial that was purportedly made by a convicted Bali bomber named Mubarok.
— AFP