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Nepalese police arrested dozens of activists Friday during a one-day general strike called by an alliance of political parties against a government ban on FM radio news broadcasts, police said.
   Major markets, educational institutions and business houses remained shut while streets in the capital were mainly clear of traffic and many government employees were seen walking to and from their offices after public transport was reduced to a trickle.
   ‘About 70 students and party activists were arrested for trying to create obstructions in different areas of Kathmandu,’ said a police official.
   ‘During the day, the protestors also damaged at least eight vehicles for defying the strike call,’ he said.
   A number of protest rallies were also held by members of the political parties and student groups, but these passed off peacefully, witnesses said.
   The government Sunday banned FM radio stations from airing news-oriented programmes, a move that followed an October 9 media ordinance by King Gyanendra which imposed strict controls on ownership and fines and jail for criticism of the royal government.
   Gyanendra seized power in February from a four-party coalition government in an effort to stem a Maoist rebellion in the country that has claimed more than 12,000 lives since 1996.
   The alliance of seven political parties, which held daily protests in September against the king’s takeover that drew thousands, said it would rally to oppose the news ban and renew the demonstrations suspended for Dussain, a widely observed religious festival that ended October 17.
   On Thursday, at least seven student leaders were detained from a rally in Kathmandu called by student organisations to protest the media ordinance, witnesses said.
   The Supreme Court, meanwhile, Thursday ordered the government not to take any action against Kantipur FM until an appeal by the private broadcaster against a 24-hour ultimatum it was served to explain its alleged failure to comply with the new restrictions is heard on Sunday.
   The government had threatened to revoke the broadcasting licence of Kantipur FM, part of Nepal’s largest private media company Kantipur Publications.
   Last week police raided the station and seized vital equipment.
   ‘The court ordered the government not to take any action against Kantipur FM until Sunday,’ a court official said.
   The Supreme Court will hold a hearing on that day to decide on the appeal.

Israel’s hardline defence minister dismissed the Palestinian leadership as a partner for peace and ruled out any Palestinian state in the foreseeable future after a night of attacks into Friday by Israeli warplanes.
   In an echo of the Israeli stand against the late Yasser Arafat, defence minister Shaul Mofaz said: ‘I doubt very much that one day we can reach a peace accord with the present leadership of the Palestinians. We must wait for the next generation.’
   Quoted by the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, Mofaz added: ‘I don’t think that a Palestinian state will see the light of day in the coming years.’
   The minister, a close aide of the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, was speaking two days after a suicide bomber blew himself up in northern Israel and killed five civilians.
   As Israel forged ahead in the early hours with its offensive against militants, Palestinians on Friday prepared for the funerals of two militants and six bystanders killed in an airstrike late Thursday in the Gaza Strip.
   They died late on Thursday when Israeli planes slammed three missiles into a vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip, in a targeted operation against a senior Islamic Jihad operative and his assistant.
   Mofaz’s comments brought swift condemnation from chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat who accused the Jewish state of taking ‘one sided measures’ and not wanting a partner to revive the largely non-existent peace process.
   ‘Israel’s problem is not with a specific person, or with this generation, Israel’s problem is with all the Palestinians. There is a Palestinian partner who wants a real peace process to end the occupation,’ he told AFP.
   The Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip last month had raised hopes in the international community of a genuine breakthrough in the Middle East peace process but optimism was largely evaporated with no let-up in violence.
   The latest raid drew sharp condemnation from Palestinian officials, who called on Israel to end its bombing campaign.
   ‘This Israeli escalation will completely destroy the ceasefire,’ Erakat told AFP, referring to a tenuous truce that has been loosely adhered to by militant groups, but ignored by Islamic Jihad.

Talks on Saturday over how, where and when to open routes for earthquake survivors across the ceasefire line dividing Kashmir are likely to result in limited crossings for stranded villagers, political analysts said.
   Indian and Pakistani officials meet in Islamabad knowing their governments have been criticised for politicising the Oct. 8 disaster, which has killed over 54,000 people in Pakistan and more than 1,300 in Indian Kashmir.
   Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf proposed last week that the de facto border could be opened in some places to allow Kashmiris from the Indian side to come to the aid of their kin in Pakistani Kashmir, but an agreement in principle has been bedevilled by discord over details.
   Speaking to reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh insisted; ‘The delay is not on our side.’
   The delegations meeting to settle the modalities for transit across the border will be led by Syed Ibne Abbas, director general of the South Asia desk at Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, and Dilip Sinha, joint secretary at India’s Foreign Ministry.
   ‘I think they will arrive at some accord giving a limited access to the people,’ said Khalid Mehmood, a senior researcher with the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad.
   With the Himalayan winter just weeks away, there are fears for the lives of tens of thousands of homeless villagers in the mountainous region.
   Relief has still to reach many places, particularly valleys close to the frontier known as the Line of Control, and families have been left living in the open or under the most rudimentary cover, such as cotton and plastic sheets.
   Pakistan is accepting help from India, which said on Thursday it has offered $25 million of aid, but refuses to let Indian troops join the rescue work on Pakistani soil.
   Pakistan also needs more helicopters to drop aid and bring out casualties, but Musharraf told India he would accept them only if they came without crews given the political sensitivity.
   India said no.
   ‘They are just making politics. It is nothing but point-scoring,’ said Amanullah Khan, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, who wants independence from both.
   The quake’s destruction of roads to the Line of Control and bridges across rivers would limit any large scale movement of people, even in the unlikely event that the two sides could agree on such a thing.
   But if crossing points were sanctioned it could give some families cut off in valleys close to the border an easier way out before winter traps them.
   Pakistan asked for five points to be opened so that divided families could help each other through the catastrophe.

Five people died and thousands of people were evacuated from coastal areas as a powerful storm which had been hovering in the Bay of Bengal bore
   down on the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh,
   officials said.
   ‘Five persons have died due to rains and cold winds so far,’ said T. K. Dewan, the chief secretary of the state.
   ‘Relief and rescue operations have also been launched in the affected areas. Officers have been stationed at vulnerable places to monitor the situation.’
   In advance of the storm, the coastal areas of the state were put on cyclone alert and fishermen were warned not to venture out to sea.
   More than 10,000 people were evacuated from the state’s southern coastal areas and people were cautioned against crossing rivers and lakes which are overflowing.
   But the storm was weaker than expected when it hit the mainland, a weather official said, predicting it would dissipate over the next 48 hours.
   Heavy rains in the past three days have severely affected the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Military-ruled Myanmar has threatened to withdraw from the International Labour Organisation, saying the UN labour body’s efforts to help victims of forced labour infringe its sovereignty, the ILO said in a report Friday.
   In Yangon talks with the ILO last week, the Myanmar labour minister Thaung said the junta had already made the decision to withdraw, but had not yet formally notified the Geneva-based global labour body, the nine-page report said.
   The ILO warned that such a move could cause ‘far-reaching and extremely serious consequences’ for the country but told the minister that it was ultimately up to Yangon, it added.
   ‘It would be an admission of their inability or unwillingness to fulfill the obligations to which they had claimed to be committed,’ the ILO said in a statement.
   Although Myanmar’s laws ban forced labour, the ILO said in May that the ban had not been implemented and little progress had been made in ending the practice.
   The junta also told the ILO last week that the creation of a mechanism aimed at helping victims of forced labour was ‘unacceptable in principle to the Myanmar authorities as it constituted an ‘invasion of Myanmar’s sovereignty.’‘
   The ILO is allowed to maintain a liaison office in Yangon but the junta has sharply limited its activities. In August and September, the ILO office said it had received 21 death threats warning it not to interfere in ‘internal affairs.’
   From June to August, a series of mass rallies and meetings with speakers calling on the junta to withdraw from the ILO were held around the country almost daily, the UN labour body said.
   Myanmar’s military rulers are accused by rights groups and western nations of a barrage of abuses, including forced labour, torture, extrajudicial killings and massive forced displacements of civilians.

Sri Lanka has temporarily banned all poultry imports following the outbreak of bird flu in eastern Europe and parts of Asia.
   The country has never recorded a case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus. But Sri Lanka has increased checks on poultry farms and bird populations following the bird flu outbreak.
   The government says necessary measures have been taken to prevent the virus entering the country through migratory birds, which have started to arrive.
   Earlier this week, the Sri Lankan government had imposed a temporary ban on poultry imports from countries affected by the bird flu.
   ‘The world situation is changing everyday, so we have decided to temporarily restrict all poultry imports,’ an official of the Livestock Ministry, SKR Amarasekara, told the Reuters news agency.
   Most of poultry eaten in Sri Lanka is reared in the country.
   However, Sri Lanka imports about 500,000 live birds each year as chicks, which are then used as parent stock to breed nearly 80 million birds, Amarasekara says.
   ‘We will not issue (import) permits for the time being. In effect it is a ban, but we are assessing it every day,’ he said.
   ‘It is difficult for us to discriminate (between affected and unaffected countries).’
   Officials say if the infection is detected, a three kilometre area will be quarantined and all poultry within that area will be killed.
   A representative of the World Health Organisation in Sri Lanka said migratory birds from Russia, where a wildfowl has been killed by the virus, could carry bird flu to the island nation and the neighbouring country of India.

Congress minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will be the new chief minister of Kashmir, in line with a power-sharing pact with a regional party, a Congress spokeswoman said on Thursday.
   The urban development minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, will replace Mufti Mohammad Syed of the People’s Democratic Party, who took power in the troubled state following a historic state election three years ago.
   The Congress and the PDP, which run a coalition government in the disputed Himalayan region, had agreed to share power after they ousted the National Conference.
   ‘The Congress president has decided that for the next three years Ghulam Nabi Azad will be sent there under a Congress government,’ Congress spokeswoman Ambika Soni told reporters.
   Azad, 56, who will be sworn in on November 2, said he would pursue the peace process with Pakistan, with which India has fought three wars—two of them over Kashmir.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il said Friday his country would attend a fifth round of six-nation talks on its nuclear program ‘as scheduled,’ Chinese state television reported.
   ‘North Korea will attend the fifth round of six-party talks as scheduled, according to the commitments it has previously made,’ Kim was quoted as telling visiting Chinese president Hu Jintao.
   The next and fifth round of six-party talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States is expected in Beijing in November.
   ‘North Korea adheres to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, and adheres to a solution of the issue through dialogue,’ Kim was quoted as telling his Chinese guest.
   Kim was also quoted as thanking China, the host of the nuclear talks for the past four rounds, for its efforts to promote peace on the Korean peninsula.
   Hu, in North Korea on a three-day mission, told Kim to hold on to what has been achieved on the nuclear issue and work for more progress, according to the report.

The president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Friday dismissed international condemnation of his call for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’ as tens of thousands of Iranians massed to condemn the Jewish state.
   ‘They are free to talk but their words do not have any validity. It is natural that if a word is right and just it will provoke a reaction,’ Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
   The hardline president went on to criticise ‘international Zionism and the expansionist policies of the world arrogance’—terminology usually used to refer to the United States and Israel.
   ‘They are cheeky humans, and they think that the entire world should obey them. They destroy Palestinian families and expect nobody to object to them,’ Ahmadinejad said, asserting his comments ‘are the exact words of the Iranian people.’
   He was speaking as Iran staged its annual anti-Israeli hate fest and amid an international outcry over a speech he gave on Wednesday to a conference entitled ‘The World without Zionism’.
   Tens of thousands of regime loyalists took to the streets of Tehran for ‘Jerusalem Day’—a carnival-style event heavy on bloodthirsty slogans, flag burning and a chance for would-be militants to register for suicide bombing missions.
   The Palestinian fight against Israel is one of the central dogmas of the Islamic regime in Iran, but Ahmadinejad’s fiery speech was the first time in years that such a high-ranking official has openly demanded Israel’s destruction.
   His comments have been hugely damaging for Iran, already under intense Western pressure over its nuclear energy programme—suspected as being a cover for weapons development—and facing the prospect of seeing the issue referred to the UN Security Council.
   But Iran, which insists its nuclear intentions are peaceful, remains unapologetic—and banners saying ‘Israel must be wiped off the map’ were also seen outside Tehran University.
   Other slogans used included ‘Peaceful nuclear energy is our legitimate right’ and ‘The only way to combat the Zionist enemy is resistance and Jihad’.
   ‘What Ahmadinejad said is the sentiment of all Iranians,’ asserted Amir Hosseini, a 45-year-old Revolutionary Guards officer taking part in the rally.
   But he asserted there was ‘no need for military action’ against Israel: ‘What Ahmadinejad said was that elections should be held for Palestinian self-determination.’
   One Shia clergyman taking part, Mehdi Abu Talebi, told AFP that the real issue was that of ‘the genocide of the Palestinians’—adding that he was also sure that the holocaust under Germany’s Nazi regime never even happened.
   Revolutionary Guards spokesman Seyed Massoud Jazihiri has also backed Ahmadinejad by describing Israel as a ‘cancerous tumour’.
   Iranian media has largely ignored the international furore, while state television was Friday broadcasting continuous footage of Palestinians being beaten, shot or arrested by Israeli troops.
   The British prime minister, Tony Blair, said he felt ‘a real sense of revulsion’ over Ahmadinejad’s comments.
   ‘If they continue down this path, then people are going to believe that they are a real threat to our world security and stability,’ he told reporters after a European Union summit near London on Thursday.
   In an apparent reference to the United States, Blair said ‘we will have discussions with our main allies over the next few days’ on how to respond to Ahmadinejad’s remarks.
   ‘Their attitude towards Israel, their attitude towards terrorism, their attitude towards the nuclear weapons issue—it isn’t acceptable,’ said Blair.
   The French president, Jacques Chirac, was equally upset, calling his Iranian counterpart’s words ‘senseless and irresponsible’; while a joint EU statement said the remarks were ‘inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community.’
   The EU has been trying to lure Iran to abandon its nuclear fuel drive in exchange for trade and other incentives, but Tehran has rejected such a deal and the dialogue has been broken off since August.

The United States, France and Great Britain circulated late Thursday a revised draft resolution obliging Syrian cooperation in investigating the murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister.
   The new version, of which AFP obtained a copy, threatens Damascus with economic and diplomatic sanctions if it does not fully cooperate with the probe into the murder of Lebanese former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri.
   According to the draft, the Security Council ‘expresses its intention to consider further measures pursuant to article 41 of the Charter, if needed to ensure compliance by Syria.’
   Article 41 says the council may decide what measures other than the use of force may be used to assure compliance with its decision, that is, economic and political sanctions.
   The draft resolution triggered controversy within the Security Council, and three members were hostile. Veto-holders China and Russia joined Algeria in opposing the threat of sanctions.
   The draft would also call on UN member states to prevent entry of persons suspected of involvement in the murder as well as freezing of their assets.
   The travel restrictions would allow for humanitarian or religious needs.
   The draft would empanel a committee of the Security Council, with representatives of each of the 15 members, to oversee and supervise the application of the sanction on individuals.
   Another paragraph obliges Syria to allow questioning of any Syrian citizen or official as investigators see fit.
   Syria must also detain any officials or persons the commission suspects as being involved in the murder and make them available to the commission.

Some of the documents transmitted to Russia by the independent commission investigating alleged fraud in the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq bore falsified signatures, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov said.
   ‘The documents that they have shown us were falsified. They contained falsified signatures of Russian officials,’ Lavrov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.
   Lavrov said Russia had asked the UN commission to identify the source of the documents in question.
   His comments came a day after the inquiry commission, led by former US central bank chief Paul Volcker, published a list of prominent corporations and individuals from many countries linked to evidence of alleged illegal surcharges and kickbacks paid to Iraq under the UN programme.
   Several Russian politicians—notably Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party—have been among those accused of profiting from illegal oil-for-food contracts.
   Both men issued vehement denials of the accusations, with Zyuganov calling them a ‘canard’.
   ‘I have not seen the report itself,’ Lavrov said. ‘But I think the facts that may be in it need to be studied very carefully. I say ‘may be’ because we have been in contact more than once with the Volcker commission, at its request, and the documents that they have shown us were falsified.’
   Lavrov also said that part of the information sent by the commission to Russia was not backed up by any documented evidence.
   In addition to Russian companies and personalities, major firms in Europe and North America such as Siemens, Texaco, Volvo Group and BNP Paribas were among those named in the report published Thursday, backed up with copies of signed letters, bank transactions and interviews.

US forces in Iraq have swelled to 161,000, their highest level since the US invasion in March 2003, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.
   The increase was due to overlapping troop rotations, said Lawrence DiRita, the chief Pentagon spokesman.
   The previous high in US force levels was reached in January, when the number of US troops in the country rose to 159,000 during national elections.
   ‘The last number I saw was 161,000, but you’re going to start to see that come down pretty dramatically because that was in-place relief and holdovers,’ said DiRita.
   Lieutenant general John Vines, the number two commander in Iraq, said in September that the numbers would rise for the October 15 constitutional referendum by only some 2,000 troops from a base level of 138,000.
   He said at the time that the growth in the number of trained Iraqi security forces meant there was less need for a larger US troop build-up for the referendum, or for the upcoming December 15 national elections.
   In the past the US military has built up force levels during key political milestones in anticipation of rising insurgent violence.
   ‘For the next election, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go right back up to 160,000 based on puts and takes and in-place rotations and relief, and everything else,’ DiRita said.

Mars is set for a close encounter with Earth, approaching to within 69.4 million km (43.1 million miles) of earth in the early hours of Sunday.
   With good conditions and a lack of cloud, amateur astronomers will be able to get an unusually good look at Mars.
   The Red Planet will not swing this close to Earth for another 13 years.
   Small telescopes will be able to see Mars as a brilliant ball; observers with more powerful instruments will be able to see features on the surface.
   In August 2003, the Red Planet made an even closer approach to Earth, when it was at its nearest for about 60,000 years at a distance of 55.6 million km (34.6 million miles).
   But Mars will be higher in the sky than it was in 2003, meaning that the planet’s light will not be affected as much by the Earth’s atmosphere. This will make for better viewing in the northern hemisphere.
   ‘In the UK you will get a clearer view than you did a couple of years ago,’ Peter Bond, of the Royal Astronomical Society told the BBC News website.
   Through small and medium-sized telescopes, Mars will appear as a small, luminous ball.
   But Bond said amateur astronomers might be able to see Syrtis Major, a dark, triangular patch on the Martian surface near the equator. The planet’s southern polar cap might also be visible through telescopes.
   But the Red Planet is also going through its southern summer, with an accompanying increased risk of dust storms. This means surface features could be blotted out.
   Mars will continue to be the brightest object in the sky for the next month.
   It reaches opposition - when it is directly opposite the Sun in the sky - at 0820 GMT on 7 November. Mars will then rise in the east at sunset, reaching its highest position in the sky an hour after midnight.
   Earth and Mars are usually separated by about 225 million km (140 million miles).

The US president, Bush, eager to put a bruising brawl within his own party behind him, is expected to announce his new pick for the Supreme Court within days.
   Bush has offered no hint about his thinking on a new nominee, but he isn’t starting from scratch. The president already has vetted and interviewed several candidates, and White House officials wouldn’t rule out the possibility that an announcement could be made as early as Friday.
   Bush said Miers, the White House counsel, was the most qualified candidate to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. But for three weeks, his fellow conservatives criticised the Texas lawyer and loyal Bush confidante for having thin credentials on constitutional law and no proven record as a judicial conservative.
   That could point Bush back to a slate of federal appellate judges often mentioned as top contenders. That list includes Samuel Alito, J Michael Luttig, J Harvie Wilkinson, Alice Batchelder, Priscilla Owen and Karen Williams as well as Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan.
   Miers’ lack of judicial experience was not the key reason the president’s supporters opposed her.
   Bush had trumpeted his decision to pick someone outside the ‘judicial monastery’ and boasted Miers would offer a ‘fresh approach’ to the court. Instead, Miers’ critics complained there was no clear record to suggest how she would interpret the Constitution — something that is expected to be more evident with his next nominee.
   Bush might also turn to a current or past senator, such as Republican John Cornyn of Texas, because the Senate would be more likely to embrace one of its own.
   Other prospective candidates who are not judges include Maureen Mahoney, a frequent litigator before the high court. She sometimes is referred to as the ‘female version’ of John Roberts.

Cuba has accepted a US offer to send a disaster team to help with Hurricane Wilma - the first time in decades that Cuba has said yes to such an offer.
   A three-member disaster assessment team is set to go to the Cuban capital Havana, the US state department said.
   Cuban President Fidel Castro confirmed that Cuba did not object to the US visit, but said the country was not appealing for international aid. The two have not had diplomatic ties since Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
   The US has maintained a strict economic embargo in response to Cuba’s communist policies. It rejected Havana’s offer of medical help after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August.

A prominent Republican fund-raiser for the president, George W Bush, in Ohio has been charged with illegally funnelling money to Bush’s re-election campaign, a federal prosecutor said on Thursday.
   A federal grand jury in Toledo charged Thomas Noe with making illegal contributions in the names of others to the Bush campaign and with making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.
   The three counts lodged against Noe each carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine.
   The indictment alleged Noe had pledged to raise $50,000 for a fund-raiser for the Bush campaign held in Ohio on October 30, 2003. Tickets to the event cost $2,000 each. It said Noe disguised $45,400 in personal contributions by recruiting and providing money to 24 friends and associates who made the contributions in their names so he could avoid the individual campaign contribution limit of $2,000.

The late civil rights icon Rosa Parks will be the first woman to lie in honour in the US Capitol Rotunda, a tribute usually reserved for presidents, soldiers and politicians.
   The US Senate voted on Thursday to honour Parks and the US House of Representatives is set to approve the tribute on Friday.
   Parks, a black woman who helped spark the US civil rights movement when she refused to give her seat on an Alabama bus to a white man 50 years ago, died on Monday at the age of 92.
   According to the Architect of the Capitol, the Capitol Rotunda has been used for this honour only 28 times since 1852. In 2004, the remains of the president, Ronald Reagan, lay in state.
   Other Americans so honoured include presidents Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson; Pierre L’Enfant, who planned the city of Washington.

Saddam Hussein’s half-brother and co-defendant in a trial on charges of crimes against humanity has asked to his captors to free him so that he can seek treatment for cancer, an Arab newspaper said on Friday.
   The daily Asharq al-Awsat said Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti made his appeal in a letter to the US president, George W Bush, the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and Arab leaders to help win his release so he can be treated for spine cancer.
   ‘I plead to president, Bush–in the name of justice and the principles of democracy and human rights defended by the United States, to look into my humanitarian situation,’ the newspaper quoted Barzan as saying in the letter.
   The letter, which the London-based newspaper said was in Barzan’s handwriting, could not be immediately authenticated.
   Barzan, a former head of Iraq’s feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, said he could not receive proper treatment in prison, adding that some prisoners had died of cancer while in detention.
   Barzan, an adviser to Saddam, has denied the charges against him and insisted he was ‘an innocent person dragged into a matter that does not concern him, and on which his view is well known.’
   No. 38 on the US most-wanted list in Iraq, Barzan was captured in April 2003. As head of the intelligence service, he was accused of ordering mass murder and torture, and of personally taking part in human rights abuses, including the destruction of villages.
   US officials described Barzan as a member of what they called Saddam’s ‘Dirty Dozen.’

Police in Denmark said they had arrested four Muslims on suspicion of plotting a terror attack in Europe.
   ‘The information we’ve received is that they were apparently planning an attack in Europe. But we don’t know any more for the moment,’ police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.
   A Copenhagen court has placed the four, aged 16 to 20, in preventive detention until November 16 pending a full investigation.
   ‘One of them has Danish nationality and the three others are citizens of Middle Eastern countries,’ Munch said.

A British Royal Air Force officer facing court martial for refusing to serve in Iraq stands by his view that the conflict in the Gulf was ‘manifestly illegal’, his lawyer said on Thursday.
   Flight lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith was charged with ‘disobeying a lawful command’ by refusing a tour of duty in Iraq and has said he is prepared to go to jail over the matter.
   The 37-year-old, a medical officer at Royal Air Force base Kinloss, northeast Scotland, attended a private hearing before a judge on Thursday to set out a timetable for his trial.
   Speaking after the hearing at the Military Court Centre at Bulford Camp, in Wiltshire, southwest England, Kendall-Smith’s lawyer, Justin Hughestone-Roberts, told reporters: ‘He does not enter into this lightly.

Koizumi to reshuffle cabinet on Monday
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday he will pick reform-minded people when he reshuffles his cabinet on Monday, following his party’s landslide victory in a snap general election last month. ‘I will put the right people in the right places, people who are willing to reform,’ Koizumi told reporters at his office. The reshuffle, which had previously been expected on Wednesday, is also likely to be accompanied by a top personnel shake-up at the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, giving possible clues on who will succeed Koizumi. When asked if he would change all three party executive posts, Koizumi replied, ‘I will think hard about it over the weekend.’
— AFP

Fund to post-tsunami rebuilding in Ache
An agency tasked with rebuilding Indonesia’s tsunami-hit Aceh province said Friday it had set up a trust fund to speed up the transfer of foreign funds intended for reconstruction projects. The creation of the fund was prompted by the slow pace of the reconstruction effort, said Heru Prasetyo, donor and international relations director for the Agency for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh Province and Nias Island. ‘Indeed there are too many obstacles we are facing and they are slowing down the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Aceh,’ he told a press briefing. He hinted that officials and agencies involved in the reconstruction effort acked a sense of urgency.
— AFP

UK family visa scheme ‘under threat’
A scheme which allows hundreds of thousands of Commonwealth citizens to live in the UK could be threatened by a review of migration rules. Under the ‘ancestral visa’ system, people from Commonwealth nations, but who have a British grandparent, can enter and live in the UK. But a new points-based immigration scheme threatens to end that scheme. It will mainly affect people from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. More than 60,000 Commonwealth citizens have been permitted to enter the UK under the ancestral visa system over the past five years - and almost 20,000 have been allowed to stay.
— BBC

Taiwanese media group folds
evening paper
One of Taiwan’s leading media groups China Times Inc Friday announced it will close its evening newspaper next month, as the paper’s staff launched strong protests against the abrupt decision. ‘China Times Express will be folded on November 1 and we wish to express our deepest respect and gratitude to our readers in the past 17-and-a-half years and our apologies for being unable to provide them any more service,’ said Chen Kuo-hsiang, head of the evening paper. He did not provide any reasons for the closure but reports suggested the group’s financial woes in recent years could be behind the decision.
— AFP

Bush makes post-Wilma visit in Florida
The US president, Bush, got his first look at the damage wrought by Hurricane Wilma as residents of South Florida continued to wait in lines for water, gas, ice and insurance help. The president and his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, took a helicopter tour Thursday of the area assailed by Wilma’s damaging winds. The president also visited the National Hurricane Centre in Miami and made a surprise stop at a Baptist church where volunteers served storm victims a barbecued pork lunch. ‘People are getting fed,’ the president said. ‘Soon more and more houses will have their electricity. Their life will get back to normal.’ But three days after the storm made landfall, many gas stations that had fuel were still without electricity, and others that had power ran out of supplies.
— AP

Court considers Berlusconi charge
A Milan court is set to begin hearings today to decide whether the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, should stand trial on corruption charges. The court will also decide whether 13 other people should be tried alongside Berlusconi for alleged tax fraud, embezzlement and money laundering. British lawyer David Mills, the husband of UK government minister Tessa Jowell, is among those under investigation. All the accused deny any wrongdoing and are unlikely to attend today’s hearing. Berlusconi has been fighting legal battles in the courts in Milan for many years. He has been on trial at least seven times on corruption charges relating to his business activities. But he has never received a definitive guilty sentence and in most cases has been acquitted under the statute of limitations.
— BBC

Polish PM designate battles to save coalition
Poland’s conservative prime minister designate made a last ditch effort Friday to get a junior party to resume coalition talks, saying he had new tax and health service proposals to put to the liberal group. ‘I have a very concrete offer for PO. I will present a modified economic programme today,’ Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz from the larger Law and Justice party said in a radio interview with privately-owned RMF-FM. The programme would introduce two rates of personal income tax, one corporate tax rate and two VAT sales tax rates, the prime minister said. PO campaigned in last month’s legislative election on a single, across-the-board rate of taxation, pegged at 15 per cent.
— Reuters

Anger at Tanzania election delay
Tanzanian presidential candidate Freeman Mbowe of Chadema has criticised a decision to postpone elections which were due take place on Sunday. Under electoral laws, due to the death of his running mate Jumbe Rajab Jumbe, they will now be held on 18 December. But Mbowe says a week’s delay would have sufficed and his party cannot afford to finance extra campaigning. Polls for the parliament and president of the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar may also be postponed. The Zanzibar Electoral Commission is set to make an announcement shortly.
— AFP

Zimbabwe’s opposition defies its leader
On a continent where political opposition to autocratic leaders is often plagued by infighting and divisions, Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change has in its six years of existence presented a remarkably unified front. Led by Morgan Tsvangirai, a popular former trade unionist, the party was the first to seriously challenge the increasingly dictatorial rule of the president, Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. But now, with controversial elections for a new senate fast approaching, the MDC appears for the first time deeply - and publicly - divided.
— AP