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Israel pressed on with aerial operations over the northern Gaza Strip Saturday, as air force planes carried out two attacks aimed at halting Palestinian militant activity, security sources said.
   The attacks, shortly after midnight, targeted uninhabited areas, one near Jabaliya, the other near Beit Lahya. There were no reports of any casualties.
   The Israeli army confirmed the attacks, which it said were part of five similar air strikes launched in the area since Friday targeting armed Palestinian groups firing rockets on southern Israel.
   ‘These operations aim to prevent rocket fire coming from the Gaza Strip toward targets in Israeli territory,’ the army said in a statement.
   ‘The Israeli army will use all means at its disposal to assure the safety of Israeli citizens,’ it said.
   The defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, had ordered a resumption of targeted killing operations after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five Israelis outside a falafel stand in the town of Hadera on Wednesday.
   By launching regular air strikes on the northern Gaza Strip, Israel is keeping its territory out of rocket range and effectively creating a ‘security zone’ in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli public television’s military correspondent said.
   Last month’s Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip had raised hopes in the international community of a genuine breakthrough in the peace process but that optimism has largely evaporated amid the persistent violence.
   On Friday, one Palestinian militant was killed and another wounded as Israel pressed on with its deadly air campaign in the Gaza Strip.
   One missile slammed into a car ferrying members of the hardline Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades after nightfall in the northern Gaza Strip, one day after six civilians and two militants were killed in a similar air strike.
   The strike tore to pieces the body of 28-year-old Magid Natatt, who belonged to the nebulous faction that is loosely linked to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas’s ruling Fatah party, and reduced the vehicle to a mass of burnt metal.
   
   Pakistani team to visit Israel
   A 200-member delegation of Pakistani officials and businessmen is to visit Israel in early November, in a bid to bring closer the two countries which have no diplomatic relations, Israeli military radio said.
   The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, are to receive the Pakistani delegation of retired generals, religious leaders, politicians and business people, radio said, though there was no official confirmation.
   Relations between the second most populous Muslim country and the Jewish state were hostile for decades, but began to warm up after Israel offered aid to Pakistan following this month’s devastating earthquake.

Pakistani and Indian diplomats met Saturday to discuss opening the disputed border in quake-hit Kashmir amid UN warnings time is running out for thousands of survivors stranded in the Himalayan cold.
   While hopes are mainly pinned on more international emergency aid for more than three million people without shelter, officials expect two-way movement across Kashmir may help mitigate the suffering of victims in the quake devastated region.
   The Indian delegation arrived late Friday after the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, positively responded to the urgent call of Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, to ease the crossing of people on the heavily militarised frontier.
   Ahead of the talks Pakistan expressed the hope that an agreement would be reached in talks to allow crossing at specific points on the Line of Control which separates the two parts of Kashmir.
   Pakistani Kashmir bore the brunt of the massive October 8 earthquake that killed 55,000 people in Pakistan and around 1,300 in Indian-controlled part of the Himalayan region.
   The latest in more than 1,000 aftershocks came early Saturday when a tremor measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale rattled the quake-battered region at 02:34am (2134 GMT Friday).
   It was the largest of some 30 aftershocks in the past 24 hours and may have caused minor damage in quake-affected areas such as Muzaffarabad, seismological department head Qamaruz Zaman said.
   Jordan’s Queen Rania who visited quake-hit region of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir urged the world community to respond immediately to save lives.
   The queen, who brought with her a planeload of relief supplies, visited a makeshift hospital in Muzaffarabad and a tent school in nearby Narul village.
   ‘It is very urgent to intensify efforts for the rehabilitation of affected people,’ she told reporters during her visit to the school.
   Meanwhile, wealthy countries such as Spain and Austria as well as oil-rich members of OPEC have so far failed to contribute to a UN appeal for survivors of the earthquake in Pakistan, Oxfam said on Friday.
   The international aid charity ranked 22 nations from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development based on donations to the appeal.

The Indian foreign minister, Natwar Singh, Saturday rejected charges made in the Volcker report that he benefited from deals linked to the United Nations’ oil-for-food programme for Iraq.
   In a statement, Singh also denied any wrongdoing by his ruling Congress party in the 100-billion-dollar programme, which was set up by the UN Security Council amid fears ordinary Iraqis were suffering under international sanctions.
   The inquiry committee, headed by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, found that Saddam Hussein’s regime manipulated the programme to extract about 1.8 billion dollars in surcharges and bribes while an inept UN headquarters failed to exert administrative control.
   According to the 500-page report, 139 companies paid illegal oil surcharges to Baghdad and 2,253 firms gave Saddam’s regime kickbacks on humanitarian-related goods shipped to Iraq.
   The fifth and final Volcker report at the Independent Inquiry Committee’s official website www.iic-offp.org names Singh as a non-contractual beneficiary of four million barrels of oil allotted to a firm named Masefield AG.
   In addition the Congress party, India’s oldest political entity, is listed as beneficiary of a separate allotment of four million barrels of oil as part of the transactions.
   Reliance Petroleum Ltd, a subsidiary of India’s largest private sector group Reliance, is also among those who benefited from allotments now under scrutiny.
   Singh in his statement said the allegations were aimed at discrediting the Congress, which had friendly ties with Baghdad until 2003 when US-led forces toppled the Iraqi regime.
   ‘I am deeply shocked and outraged by these allegations which are baseless and untrue,’ Singh said in a statement at the end of his four-day visit to Russia.
   ‘This is obviously part of a continuing campaign to malign the Congress party and its senior leaders and functionaries,’ Singh said, adding that after examining the report he would meet the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, with his explanation.
   ‘My record in public life for the past 50 years and more has been an open book. My personal integrity has never been questioned,’ Singh said.
   Top Congress leader Ambika Soni rallied support for the foreign minister in New Delhi as party spokesman Anand Sharma denied any link between his party and the oil-for-food programme.

Fresh violence killed 21 people in insurgency-hit Afghanistan including 14 suspected militants and three men shot dead during Ramadan prayers, officials said Saturday.
   Four British soldiers travelling in the country’s north were also wounded when gunmen opened fired on them, witnesses and officials said.
   The militants were killed by US-led coalition and Afghan troops, supported by attack helicopters and aircraft, in battles on Thursday and Friday in which an Afghan soldier also died, the coalition said.
   Thirteen were shot dead in insurgency-hit Uruzgan province, where the soldier was killed, it said in a statement. A US soldier and an Afghan trooper were wounded but were in stable conditions.
   US troops killed another militant in eastern Paktika province Friday when he and others were spotted allegedly trying to plant a bomb, the coalition said.
   Patrolling soldiers ‘came across the four individuals placing improvised explosive devices in the middle of the road,’ it said in a statement.
   ‘US forces killed one individual attempting to escape and captured two others,’ the statement said. The captured men were handed to Afghan police.
   There are about 20,000 coalition troops in Afghanistan, most of them Americans, helping Afghan security forces root out Taliban and other insurgents waging a campaign against the government.
   The insurgency was launched after the hardline Taliban were removed from government in a US-led operation in late 2001 because they did not hand over Osama bin Laden for the September 11 attacks.
   The coalition force is mainly based in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the focus of the attacks, while a separate NATO-led International Security Assistance Force of about 10,000 soldiers patrols the capital and northern and western Afghanistan.

The World Health Organisation requested more information on the death of a 12-year-old girl in an area hit by bird flu as complaints of sluggish business emerged from big-city poultry markets.
   WHO has sent a letter, that Chinese health ministry officials will receive on Monday, asking for specific details about the girl who China claims died of pneumonia.
   ‘We need more information to confirm or deny any association with avian influenza or not,’ Beijing-based WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said.
   Earlier reports said the girl, He Yin, died after showing flu-like symptoms in a village in central Hunan province hit by the virus.
   She and her 10-year-old brother fell ill about a week ago at their home in Wantang village after eating a sick chicken that died, the reports said.
   China’s health ministry late Friday provided the WHO with information on the case, but it only contained very general data such as the time of the girl’s infection, Bhatiasevi said.
   ‘We do not know what samples were taken, what tests were conducted, when the tests were conducted,’ she said.
   ‘Also we would like to have more epidemiological information on the likelihood of the girl’s exposure to the poultry in that area or the poultry in her house which was said to have died,’ she said.
   The agriculture ministry Friday insisted that no human cases of bird flu—which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 – have so far been documented anywhere in China.
   China has reported three outbreaks of bird flu in the past week, in the northern region of Inner Mongolia and the provinces of Anhui and Hunan.
   The WHO does not have personnel in the part of Hunan affected by bird flu, but would like to go if given the green light, said Bhatiasevi.
   ‘We have offered assistance to the government. It depends on the government whether they would allow us to go to the field or not,’ she said.
   The WHO’s attempts to gain access to the region were taking place as a major state-run newspaper called on China to improve international cooperation on curbing bird flu.
   ‘It is important for us to work with major global health institutions such as the World Health Organisation,’ the China Daily said in an editorial.
   ‘We should also look at the broad regional stage where we could, and should, show a serious presence,’ it said.
   Meanwhile, business at poultry markets in major Chinese cities has declined steeply after this week’s series of outbreaks, state media said Saturday.
   Daily sales at Guantang, Shanghai’s largest poultry wholesale market, dropped nearly 80 per cent to around 20,000 birds, forcing vendors to slash prices, the China Daily reported.

The Indian Kashmir chief minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, quit his post in accordance with a power-sharing pact with the Congress party, which will now rule the troubled state for the next three years, officials said.
   ‘I have tendered my resignation to the governor,’ Sayeed told reporters on Saturday outside the residence of state governor SK Sinha in the Indian Kashmir summer capital Srinagar.
   Sinha is India’s top representative in Kashmir.
   Ghulam Nabi Azad, India’s urban development minister, will replace Mufti Mohammad Sayeed of the People’s Democratic Party.
   Sayeed was installed on November 2, 2002 in line with a power-sharing pact following landmark state elections in the Himalayan region.
   India’s ruling Congress party and the regional PDP ousted the National Conference and formed a coalition. The parties then agreed to split the six-year term between two candidates, one from each party.
   Azad will be sworn in on November 2 and until then Sayeed will continue to be in charge as acting chief minister.

The United States and Japan adopted plans Saturday to sharply cut US forces in Okinawa, deploy a powerful missile defense radar in Japan and bind their militaries more closely together in a major realignment of their alliance.
   The United States will move 7,000 marines from Okinawa to Guam, reducing the size of its force in Okinawa to 11,000 within about six years, a senior US defense official said.
   Japan committed to an expansion in the roles and missions of its defense forces, which would train, exercise, plan and operate alongside US forces, often in shared bases, the official said.
   Ono, visiting Washington for so-called ‘two-plus-two’ talks of foreign and defence ministers, told Japanese reporters there on Friday that the deal would be included in an interim report on the realignment of US troops in Japan.
   The move would nearly halve the number of US Marines in Okinawa from 15,000 to 8,000, according to major Japanese media.

A general strike shut down schools, businesses and transportation in the capital Friday in a protest of new laws restricting the media for criticising Nepal’s king.
   Nepal’s seven major political parties called the strike to oppose new regulations that let authorities shut down newspapers and radio stations and jail journalists.
   The new laws, imposed October 9, make publishing or broadcasting criticism of Nepal’s king punishable by up to two years in prison. They also raise the maximum fine for newspapers or journalists who criticise the royal government by 10 times to $7,000 and give authorities the power to revoke journalists’ credentials.
   About 1,000 journalists, activists, students, lawyers and teachers rallied in the centre of Katmandu, demanding the government withdraw the law. Police detained at least 50 activists at a separate demonstration earlier.

The outgoing UN envoy for Myanmar said Friday he is pessimistic that a longtime diplomatic standoff with the military junta will get any better if the West continues its tough approach.
   Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told reporters that ‘megaphone diplomacy’ wasn’t working with the increasingly isolated regime in Myanmar, and said human rights victims whom the West could help are being held hostage to politics.
   Pinheiro has not been allowed to visit Myanmar, also known as Burma, since November 2003. Appointed in 2001, his term expires in April.
   On Thursday, he told the UN General Assembly on Myanmar that the junta was holding more than 1,100 political prisoners, spoke of abuses against ethnic minorities and expressed concern about the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.
   During Firday’s news conference, he again faulted the regime but said it was unlikely to change in the current climate. He said that required a change in approach by the rest of the world.

Iran on Saturday slammed the UN Security Council condemnation of its president’s anti-Israeli remarks, which caused international outrage, but insisted there was no intention to attack the Jewish state.
   Amid an escalating war of words over the comment of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’, Iran said that a UN Security Council statement that condemned the remarks was ‘unacceptable’.
   But the foreign ministry also moved to repair some of the considerable diplomatic damage wrought by the remarks, saying the Islamic republic was bound by its UN commitments and had no intention to attack Israel.
   ‘The Islamic republic of Iran is committed to its engagements based on the UN charter and has never resorted to, nor threatened to resort to force against another country,’ the foreign ministry said in a statement quoted by the IRNA agency.
   This was the first such comment by Tehran since the straight-talking hardliner Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’ on Wednesday at a conference entitled ‘The World without Zionism’.
   Tehran also expressed its anger at the swift condemnation by the UN Security Council overnight, alleging that the statement had been dictated by Israel.
   ‘The declaration published by the Security Council—proposed by the Zionist regime to cover its crimes and give an image at odds with reality—is unacceptable,’ the foreign ministry said in a statement quoted by the agency.
   The ministry expressed surprise that the Security Council did not condemn the threats of military action made against Tehran by the United States and Israel or the ‘crimes’ of the Israeli regime.
   An earlier draft of the statement, initiated by Britain, had suggested that the council ‘strongly condemns’ the Iranian remarks but the word ‘strongly’ was deleted in the final version to ensure across-the-board support.
   Britain’s UN envoy Emyr Jones Parry described Ahmadinejad’s remarks as ‘appalling’ and ‘totally out of keeping with the charter of the United Nations’.
   Iran has found itself on the receiving end of almost unanimous international outrage since Ahmadinejad’s comments—not just from its customary foes like the United States and Israel.
   Britain, France and Germany—who earlier this year engaged in intense talks with Iran over a deal for its nuclear programme—have minced no words over their fury.
   But even close allies like Venezuela have distanced themselves from the comments while Russia—a key backer of Iran’s controversial nuclear programme—has expressed its displeasure.
   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 had openly demanded Israel’s destruction.
   It was also a major departure from the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, who had toned down anti-Western rhetoric and sought to bring Iran out of international isolation.
   However, Iran has been attempting to limit some of the diplomatic backlash by stating that its position is not to seek the destruction of Israel but rather to end ‘the occupation of Palestinian territory’.

The president, Fidel Castro, Friday blasted EU nations as ‘hypocrites’ after the European Parliament this week granted a group of wives, mothers and sisters of jailed Cuban dissidents, its top annual human rights prize, the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought.
   The Cuban leader, 79, lashed out at the EU saying Cuba ‘can look at you in the eye, keep on staring and accuse you: you are corrupt, immoral, exploitative hypocrites.
   ‘You are the ones who created modern slavery in recent centuries, after what was called the discovery of America,’ Castro said. ‘You created colonialism, and keep it in place even today, you created unfair trade, you steal riches.’
   ‘They are so low, as they always have been,’ Castro charged at an art teachers’ graduation ceremony.
   Castro said ‘that is the conduct, the lack of ethics, the shamelessness of the imperial system,’ complaining that EU nations were in Washington’s pocket, and not duly concerned about five Cubans whose espionage convictions in the United States had been revoked by a US federal appeals court in August.
   ‘We do not see anyone in Europe tearing at their shirts seeking freedom for these five patriots who are still in prison despite the fact a (US) judge or court said... their trial was illegal and unfair,’ Castro went on.

Five political coalitions based largely on sectarian or ethnic lines will dominate the campaign for Iraq’s December 15 general elections, the final stepping stone in the country’s transition to democracy.
   Iraqis prepared for the electoral campaigns as the US military announced that a soldier was killed Saturday when his vehicle struck a landmine near Baiji, in north-central Iraq.
   The soldier’s death brought to 2,009 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally.
   The main coalitions for Iraq’s December 15 elections are:
   The dominant Shia ‘United Iraqi Alliance,’ set up competes in January’s general election and which has a majority in Parliament.
   Two religious based parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party, form the backbone of the Alliance.
   Supporters of Shia firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr, who earlier rose in arms against the US military, have joined the Alliance.
   Two main Kurdish parties—the Democratic Kurdistan Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan—have renewed their alliance and fielded a common list, which also includes smaller formations. However the small Islamic Union of Kurdistan has split from the group and is running separately.
   The Kurdish alliance won 76 parliamentary seats in January.
   The Iraqi National List headed by former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi. The largely secular List includes Allawi’s own Iraqi National Accord party, the Communist Party, supporters of Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi, socialists, supporters of the Sunni deputy president, Ghazi al-Yawar, and other small secular groups.
   The Iraqi Concord Front, made up of three political groupings of Sunni Arabs. Sunnis make up about 20 per cent of Iraq’s population and largely boycotted the January general election.

Guerrillas used a land mine and a roadside bomb to kill three US Army soldiers and wound four on Saturday in attacks that brought to eight the number of American service members who have died in the last three days.
   The land mine that killed an US soldier and wounded four occurred early Saturday near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. Two other US Army soldiers died in south Baghdad on Saturday when their patrol struck a roadside bomb, the military said.

The indictment of a top White House aide for laying in a CIA leak probe, yet another setback for the US president, George W Bush, led European media on Saturday to ask: Why are American presidents plagued by scandals in their second terms?
   The question posed by Britain’s Guardian and other newspapers has prompted the European commentators to speculate on whether Bush can get his administration, and his legacy, to recover from ‘meltdown’ over the past few weeks.
   Since the re-election of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, ‘every second term has turned sour,’ the Guardian wrote.
   The Bush presidency’s scandal erupted Friday with the resignation of I Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, chief of staff of the vice president, Dick Cheney, who has been charged in a case about exposing CIA agent Valerie Plame, which has ignited fresh controversy over the US rationale for war with Iraq.
   The Financial Times said: ‘In the Hall of Shame, the Valerie Plame affair sits somewhere between Richard Nixon’s Watergate and Bill Clinton’s White-water.’
   And the press recalled other scandals, including Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and the Iran-Contra incident during Ronald Reagan’s administration. But for Bush, ‘it is difficult to find a precedent for someone who succeeded in being re-elected with such popular support and then fell so fast,’ wrote Madrid’s El Mundo.
   Bush’s second-term blues, the press pointed out, started before the indictment with other defeats: the fallout from the incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, the forced withdrawal of his Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, and this past week the 2000th US fatality in Iraq.
   The Iraq war probably accounted for Bush’s re-election as Americans do not like to change the general in the middle of a battle, the Paris daily Liberation said. ‘But with poor justification and preparation, it (the war) is undermining his second term.’
   The husband of CIA agent Plame, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, has claimed that her cover was blown to discredit him, after he questioned whether the Bush administration had ‘twisted’ intelligence in the push to war with Iraq.
   ‘The real question is to know if the White House led America to war in Iraq with deliberate lies,’ the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel commented.
   But with Bush’s term in office running until 2008, some commentators said there was still time for him to turn things around.
   The FT advised Bush to follow Reagan, who revamped his cabinet when faced with the Iran-Contra scandal. The financial daily suggested changing the heads of the Treasury and the Pentagon, namely John Snow and Donald Rumsfeld.
   ‘With three years left to go in his second term, Bush has plenty of time to re-energise his administration. But he needs to act soon,’ the FT editorial said.
   Bush was also urged to turn the scandal into a new start to avoid leaving the United States, and as a result the world, spending the rest of his term ‘stuck at the bottom of a hole,’ the editorial in German paper Suddeutsche Zeitung said.

The United States has invited three UN human rights reporters to its controversial Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention centre to show that detainees there ‘are treated humanely’, the State Department said Friday.
   ‘The invitation was extended in an effort to broaden understanding of US detention operations and to demonstrate that detainees at Guantanamo are treated humanely,’ the department said in a statement.
   The UN reporters, at the invitation of the Defence Department, will be allowed to observe Guantanamo operations and question accompanying command staff and US officials, the statement said.
   About 500 people are being held at the detention centre without charges as enemy combatants in the US war on terrorism, most of them captured in 2001 in Afghanistan.
   The three observers will include a special reporter on torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment, one on freedom of religion and faith, and one from a group which monitors arbitrary detentions.
   ‘The visit will include briefings by senior command staff, medical staff, and interrogation staff; visits to cells housing detainees; and observation of operations, including recreation, religious, cultural, medical, and nutritional practices,’ the department said.

Lebanon on Saturday eased away from a looming confrontation over pro-Syrian Palestinian militant bases that the army has surrounded by vowing to find a solution through dialogue.
   The prime minister, Fuad Siniora, pledged to use talks, not arms, as the Lebanese army on Saturday began rotating its troops surrounding seven Palestinian militant bases close to the Syrian border.
   ‘The matter will be resolved through dialogue and not confrontation,’ Siniora told reporters, but reiterated Beirut’s refusal to allow armed Palestinian presence outside the camps.

A tax battle has erupted in the Tory leadership race as David Cameron accused rival David Davis of planning tax cuts too soon before an election.
   Davis vowed to tear up the Tories’ past ‘timid’ tax policies as he unveiled plans for a cut of £1,200 a year for the average family.
   Davis wants £38bn a year tax cuts by the general election after next.
   But Cameron said it was ‘not sensible’ to unveil such plans four years before the next election.
   And he argued that Davis’s tax plans bore a ‘remarkable resemblance’ to those used by the Tories at this year’s election, and which had already been rejected by voters.

Only one-third of Americans give Congress good ratings for its ethics and honesty, according to an AP-Ipsos poll that found more evidence of the public’s longstanding disdain for the legislative branch of government.
   Investigations of two top congressional leaders have drawn more attention to Congress’ low standings, though analysts say other factors such as the Iraq war and gas prices are likely contributors to the dip this year in Congress’ ratings.
   Almost half in the poll, 45 per cent, give Congress poor marks for its honesty and ethics, and 21 per cent said congressional ethics were neither good nor poor.
   Congressional ethics have been in the spotlight recently with the probe of stock sales by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the indictment of Texas Republican Tom DeLay, former House majority leader, on charges of violating campaign finance laws. DeLay recently notified House officials that he has failed to disclose all contributions to his legal defence fund.

Amid the chaos that ensued as Hurricane Katrina struck the city, dozens of police officers and civilian employees left their posts unexpectedly and were not heard from again. On Friday, the New Orleans Police Department fired 51 of them — 45 officers and six civilian workers — for abandonment.
   ‘They either left before the hurricane or 10 to 12 days after the storm and we have never heard from them,’ acting police superintendent Warren Riley said.
   Police were unable to account for 240 officers on the 1,450-member force following Katrina. The force has been investigating them to see if they left their posts during the storm.
   The mass firing was the first action taken against any of the missing officers. Another 15 officers resigned when placed under investigation for abandonment.
   ‘This isn’t representative of our department,’ Riley said. ‘We had a lot of heroes that stepped up after the storm.’
   Another 45 officers have resigned from the force since the Aug. 29 storm.

Azerbaijan holds parliamentary elections over the weekend that are being watched closely by world powers as both a gauge of the ex-Soviet republic’s political maturity and as an indicator of strategic stability in the volatile and energy-rich Caspian Sea region.
   The ballot Sunday has been preceded by months of rising tension between the administration of the president, Ilham Aliyev, and an opposition that by most accounts has failed to coalesce into a unified force capable of presenting a serious threat to the ruling regime.
   Concern has nonetheless grown that the vote for a new Milli Mejlis, the 125-seat parliament in this Muslim country, could be accompanied by violence like that seen in the presidential election of 2003, which produced days of rioting.
   Western corporations have invested billions of dollars developing Caspian Sea oil in Azerbaijan since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union and Western governments have called for restraint ahead of the vote in a country sandwiched between Iran and the restive Russian Caucasus region.

Vietnam aims to launch first satellite in 2008
Vietnam has resurrected its delayed project to launch a satellite and now plans to put one into orbit in 2008, government sources said. Hanoi’s plans to put a satellite in space are a priority for the government which is keen to acquire a powerful symbol of its sovereignty and technological prowess. The prime minister, Phan Van Khai, has formally asked authorities to reopen an international tender for the construction of the country’s first satellite after months of standstill, sources said. The premier said the satellite carrying up to 20 communication modules would have to be launched before the second quarter of 2008 and earlier this month sent written instructions asking the state-owned Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Corp to go ahead with the bidding for the ‘Vinasat’ satellite.
— AFP

Thai PM holds security meeting on south
The Thailand prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, called a top-level defence meeting Saturday to discuss further tightening of security in the Muslim south as he prepared for another trip there next weekend. Thaksin met The defence minister, Thammarak Issarangkura Na Ayutthaya, the justice minister, Chidchai Vanasathidya, and all three armed forces chiefs at his official residence to discuss a crackdown on Islamic militants in the south. ‘Our security forces are still not strong enough. We have to adjust,’ Thaksin said on his weekly radio address Saturday before the meeting. ‘I will go again to the south on November 6 and 7 for merit making and will inspect how they (military chiefs) have improved their work since my previous trip,’ he said referring to his visit in early October.
— AFP

Cambodia king set to mark 1st anniversary
When he ascended to the Cambodian throne a year ago, his father, Norodom Sihanouk, promised he would be a calming influence on a fractious, troubled land — a mild-mannered former ballet teacher who would be ‘a neutral and impartial person who is not engaged in politics.’ But as 52-year-old Norodom Sihamoni marks his anniversary as king Saturday, he is caught in the middle of a political tussle between his strong-willed, outspoken father and the equally stubborn prime minister,
Hun Sen.
— AP

S Korea, China agree to cooperate with North
Top South Korean and Chinese envoys here Saturday discussed ways to ensure progress at the upcoming talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear programme, Seoul officials said. South Korea’s chief delegate to the six-party talks Song Min-Soon and his Chinese counterpart Li Bin agreed that all participants at the multilateral talks should pool wisdom to make the negotiations bear fruit. ‘The two sides agreed that (all the participants) should pool wisdom to keep up the momentum of dialogue and ensure progress,’ a senior South Korean foreign ministry official said of Song’s meeting with Li.
— AFP

Italian laboratory clones 14 pigs
The Italian researchers who produced the first horse clone have announced the birth of 14 cloned piglets. The animals were born several weeks ago at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology in Cremona. Research leader Prof Cesare Galli said the pigs would help in understanding animal to human organ transplants. Scientists have now cloned sheep, mice, cattle, goats, rabbits, cats, pigs, mules and dogs. The first horse clone - a Halflinger mare named Prometea - was born at the research laboratory in the summer of 2003. Cow clones have also been produced there. The latest experiment was carried out as part of a European Union project to study stem cells in cloned animals.
—BBC

US soldier kills suicide bomber
A US soldier shot and killed one of three suicide bombers who attacked the Palestine Hotel complex before he could reach his intended target and that probably saved lives in the building, the military said Saturday. In a statement on Monday’s attack, the military confirmed for the first time that guerrillas on the ground apparently lent support to the suicide bombers with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades in the well-coordinated strike on the hotel complex, where many foreign journalists live and work. The three powerful explosions killed 17 Iraqis who were in the area at the time and wounded several people in the complex, the government said.
— AP

UN agrees to boost UN force in Congo
The UN Security Council on Friday agreed to send an additional 300 troops to boost the United Nations force in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a bid to ensure greater security during the coming electoral campaign. In a unanimous vote, the 15-member council gave the green light for the temporary deployment of an infantry battalion comprising an air unit and medical support in the south-eastern province of Katanga. The battalion was slated to be withdrawn by July 1, 2006 at the latest. In his latest report to the Security Council, the UN chief, Kofi Annan, recommended boosting the MONUC force for a year until October 2006 with an additional 2,580 personnel, including two helicopter units.
— AFP

Two trainee priests murdered in Jamaica
Two trainee Roman Catholic priests from India and the Philippines were shot dead as they washed dishes at their missionary base in the Jamaican capital, police said Friday. Police said they believed the same bullet may have killed Suresh Barwa, who was from India, and Marco Laspuna, from the Philippines. Barwa died on the spot at the Missionaries of the Poor kitchen on Thursday night while Laspuna died in hospital four hours later. The incident happened about 9:00 pm in the missionary group’s Corpus Christi premises in the crime-riddled downtown district of Kingston.
— Reuters

Portuguese abortion vote denied
Portugal’s constitutional court has thwarted the government’s plan to hold a referendum next month on relaxing the country’s strict abortion laws. Judges said the vote could not be held before September 2006 because the same referendum had been rejected by the president in the current legislature. The government wants voters to decide whether abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy should become legal. Abortions are currently only legal in certain situations such as rape. ‘We want a law which is more modern and more European,’ said the prime minister, Jose Socrates, announcing that his government would propose a referendum for next September. The ruling Socialists had originally intended to hold the vote on 27 November.
— BBC