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Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territories drew fierce criticism Friday from Arab countries which also lambasted world leaders’ inaction amid fears of a regional conflict.
   ‘This crazy adventure will light more than one big fire instead of containing a small issue over the abduction of the Israeli soldier,’ read an editorial in Egypt’s state-owned Al-Ahram daily.
   Israel carried out dozens of air raids on the Gaza Strip overnight with 5,000 troops waiting to move in to the impoverished territory as part of a plan to free an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants on Sunday.
   Israel has also threatened to target Palestinian militant leaders in Syria and raised its state of alert along the Lebanese-Israeli border amid fears of an attack by Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah.
   Egypt’s state-owned Al-Gomhuria slammed Israel’s detention of Hamas ministers and MPs as ‘proof that it is a state which (operates) outside the law.
   The head of the Egyptian parliament’s foreign affairs committee warned on Thursday that his country’s peace deal with the Jewish state might even be jeopardised by the offensive.
   ‘Israel should not think that the peace reached with an Arab country can be guaranteed while it continues to perpetrate its crimes and aggressions,’ Mustafa al-Fekki told AFP.
   Jordan, which along with Egypt is the only country in the region to have signed a peace deal with Israel, also warned of a broadening conflict after Israel threatened to target Hamas leaders in Syria.
   ‘Jordan condemns the Israeli insistence on continuing its aggression against the Gaza Strip, its punitive actions and its arrest campaign and asks it to end this escalation,’ said government spokesman Nasser Jawdeh.
   ‘We warn against increasing regional tension and we call on both parties to show restraint,’ Jawdeh was quoted as saying by the official Petra agency.
   ‘True to form, Washington expressed support for the unleashing of the Israeli military machine against the Palestinian people under the usual pretext that ‘Israel has the right to self-defence’,’ the Dubai-based Al-Bayan wrote in its leader.
   Saudi daily Al-Watan blasted the US and the European Union, the former for ‘blaming Hamas for driving matters to the current situation’ and the latter for ‘expressing deep concern about the deterioration of the security situation in the Middle East and calling for the release of the Israeli soldier.’

A strong showing by Kuwait’s opposition in parliamentary polls presents the government with tough choices, analysts said Friday, and risks dragging the oil-rich Gulf state into a new political crisis.
   The opposition, a loose alliance comprising Islamists, liberals and nationalists, scored a resounding victory in Thursday’s elections by claiming absolute majority after winning 33 of the 50 parliamentary seats up for grab.
   A further 15 seats in the 65-members parliament are unelected appointees.
   Sunni Islamists clinched 17 seats, three more than in the previous parliament, while Shia Islamists maintained their strength of four seats.
   ‘I believe the voters have sent a strong message to the government that they are frustrated with its wrong policies ... The message is that they want to see all corruption symbols dropped,’ analyst Jassem al-Saadun said.
   ‘If the government gets the message, brings a clean cabinet and takes a step toward reform, things will go smoothly,’ Saadun told AFP.
   ‘But if it decides to continue with its old style, we are certainly headed for a confrontation and a crisis.’
   Under Kuwaiti law, winners of elections do not form the government because the emirate’s political system is not based on a multi-party setup and political parties are not even legal, though political groupings operate openly.
   Since a semblance of democracy was introduced in the OPEC-member in 1962, a senior member of the Al-Sabah ruling family has headed every cabinet while other members held the so-called sovereign ministries like interior, defence and foreign affairs.
   Parliament has legislative and monitoring powers but it cannot unseat a government, though its can quiz the prime minister and declare non-cooperation with the cabinet.
   In this case, the emir has the option of dissolving parliament or dismissing the cabinet. In most previous cases, it has been the first alternative.
   Thursday’s legislative polls—in which women took part for the first time but without any female candidate succeeding—were called one year ahead of time after Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved parliament on May 21 following a dispute between the government and opposition MPs.
   The opposition pressed for a bill calling to slash the number of constituencies to five from the current 25, saying the measure should be a prelude to wider political reforms, which the government opposed.

A landmark civilian nuclear cooperation accord with India won backing from a second US congressional committee on Thursday, adding momentum to a deal critics fear will weaken nonproliferation efforts and supporters call a vital opening to a new ally.
   The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved bipartisan legislation endorsing the deal and setting rules for final approval by a 16-2 vote.
   There was only brief public wrangling over nonproliferation concerns that have dogged months of debate over the agreement.
   The agreement with nuclear-armed India, often a US adversary during the Cold War, ‘is the most important strategic diplomatic initiative undertaken by president George W Bush,’ said the legislation’s prime sponsor, Republican Committee Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana.
   The deal, granting India access to US nuclear fuel and reactors for the first time in 30 years, was agreed to in principle by Bush and the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, last July.
   Many nonproliferation experts are concerned the deal would allow India to increase nuclear weapons production and undermine international nonproliferation standards.
   The Bush administration has decided democratic India is a key pillar in an evolving geopolitical power arrangement and senators from both parties affirmed that.
   ‘There is no other bilateral relationship that is more important,’ said senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel’s senior Democrat and the bill’s co-sponsor.
   He said the legislation permitted civilian nuclear trade with India ‘without seriously jeopardising the hard-won nonproliferation gains of the past four decades.’

Malaysia’s ruling party was trying to mend the sour ties between the prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and his unhappy predecessor Mahathir Mohamad, a senior minister said Friday.
   Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin said the ruling United Malays National Organisation, which is led by Abdullah, was working to bring the two together to patch up their differences.
   Zainuddin said he had enlisted the assistance of an individual who is ‘dear’ to both Abdullah and Mahathir to put relations back on track.
   ‘I’ve contacted the individual,’ he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency, without elaboration.
   A senior cabinet minister Nazri Aziz on Wednesday accused Mahathir of trying to bring down the government and destroy UMNO, which has headed the ruling coalition for half a century.
   Mahathir still commands influence in UMNO, but in a sign of his fading importance, political figures have lined up to condemn his campaign against the government which included comments that it lacked ‘guts’.
   UMNO is the largest political party in the country.
   Mahathir began his attack on Abdullah’s administration in May after it scrapped a project to build a bridge to Singapore due to the island republic’s opposition.
   The former premier also questioned state-owned car-maker Proton Holdings Bhd’s decision in December to sell indebted Italian motorcycle unit MV Agusta for one euro.
   Mahathir said he was merely ‘sticking his neck out’ because many people had approached him ‘to do something about the situation in the country,’ as they had been ‘feeling the pinch.’
   Abdullah has avoided confronting Mahathir directly, a typical approach in Malay culture to respect an elder, but has used his deputies to rebut his predecessor.
   Analysts have said that Abdullah’s position remains intact with the economy on track and the next election not due until 2009.

Military-run Myanmar on Friday condemned the United States for using the United Nations to increase international pressure against the nation, one of the world’s most isolated and poorest countries.
   The junta accused Washington, which it refers to as ‘a certain Western power’, of also using ‘expatriates and fugitives’ to oust the ruling military government, the official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
   ‘At the same time, it is using the UN Security Council and the International Labour Organisation as a means to attack the ruling government with slanders backed by the perpetration falsely portraying Myanmar’s objective conditions,’ it said.
   The United States, a vocal critic of Myanmar, is pursuing an unprecedented UN Security Council resolution calling on the junta to change its repressive policies, including the house arrest of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
   Myanmar in May extended her detention for another year, defying an international outcry demanding the release of the 61-year-old Nobel peace laureate.
   The United States also imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar, while the State Department branded the military-run nation as among the world’s worst offenders for trafficking in humans. The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962.

Seventeen Taliban were killed and 14 were arrested in violence in southern and eastern Afghanistan, while rebels kidnapped an Afghan security worker, police and officials said Friday.
   Fourteen Taliban militants were killed when Afghan and US-led coalition forces destroyed their hideouts in the mountainous eastern province of Nuristan on Friday, the US military said in a statement.
   ‘A coalition patrol tracked a band of 14 extremists traveling with AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades,’ the statement said.
   ‘The extremists were observed hiding and then coalition forces attacked them ... Afghan National Army and coalition forces seized the compound and identified 14 dead enemy combatants,’ it added.
   It said that the compound where the rebels were hiding was destroyed. There were no coalition or Afghan casualties, it said.
   Separately the guard employed by USPI, a US private security firm, was abducted Thursday in the southern province of Ghazni which has seen frequent Taliban attacks, provincial police chief Tafsir Khan said.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rebels have taken advantage of a power vacuum and grown stronger because the world’s attention has been distracted by Iraq, the commander of NATO forces in the country said.
   British general David Richards said he was ‘optimistic’ of defeating the movement, whose recent resurgence has led to the worst violence in Afghanistan since the Taliban were toppled by US-led forces in late 2001.
    ‘There’s no doubt there is a resurgent Taliban problem,’ he told the BBC’s Pashtu-language service late Thursday.
    ‘Why? Largely it’s because people took their eye off this ball and a vacuum was allowed to develop and that vacuum was filled by the Taliban.
    ‘I think, probably internationally, for a while Iraq absorbed people’s interest and resources.’
   Richards’ comments follow criticisms by president Hamid Karzai of the way anti-terror operations have been conducted. Karzai last week said it was unacceptable that hundreds had been killed in Afghanistan, even if they were Taliban.
   Richards will take command at the end of July in southern Afghanistan, where the rebels are most active and where he said too little effort had been expended in the past.
    ‘I’m critical of the whole international community for not listening sufficiently closely to all Afghans, in particular the Afghan government,’ Richards added.
   ‘Probably we all underestimated the potential for a resurgence. But that is no longer the case.’
   US-led coalition and Afghan forces in the middle of last month launched a major offensive against the Taliban called Operation Mountain Thrust. Since then more than 600 people have been killed, most of them militants.
   Richards said that ‘is not too late to put the Taliban back in the box.’
   ‘As well as the stick, we need to offer many more carrots,’ he added, saying the NATO force would be able to offer development and humanitarian aid.
   US-led coalition and NATO forces have been in Afghanistan since late 2001 when the fundamentalist Taliban were toppled for failing to hand over al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks on the United States.
   But US resources were stretched by the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and Washington has been pressing for other countries to take the burden of operations in Afghanistan.

About 30 Hindus are holding a rotating vigil at a 60-year-old temple near the Malaysian capital to prevent it being relocated to make way for development, an activist said Friday.
   ‘We are prepared for a standoff. The devotees are taking turns to guard the temple to ensure the statues are not removed,’ said Uthaya Kumar, legal advisor to the Hindu Rights Action Force, a non-governmental organisation opposing the destruction of temples.
   Uthaya said the temple, built on land owned by the Selangor state government, was being forced to shift to make way for housing.
   Authorities were trying to force it to a controversial location across a highway next to a sewerage pond and a power station, he said.
   ‘Some 5,000 families pray at the temple. If it shifted, it will cause problems to the devotees,’ he said, adding it was the only temple in the area.
   The temple is in Lindungan village, west of Kuala Lumpur, where most residents are manual workers.
   In recent weeks, activists
   have held rare demonstrations to protest temple destruction. They say that in the past
   three months some 17
   temples have either been destroyed or threatened with demolition.
   Issues related to race, religion and language are sensitive in multiracial Malaysia where
   some 60 per cent of the population of 25 million are Malays. Chinese and Indians account for 26 per cent and 8.0 per cent respectively.
   Many temples were built by Indian migrant labourers on private land since acquired by local and state authorities
   that now say they are illegal buildings.

Fourteen people, including 11 suspected Islamic militants, were killed in a surge of violence Friday in Indian-administered Kashmir, the army and police said.
   Eight rebels were killed after they infiltrated into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani zone of the divided state, the army said.
   ‘The eight were killed during a gunbattle in the early hours of Friday in (northern) Keran sector,’ Indian army spokesman colonel Hemant Joneja told AFP.
   He said the heavily-armed group was sighted along the Line of Control -- the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan—through night vision goggles.
   ‘They were allowed to enter our territory and shortly after they were asked to surrender,’ Joneja said, adding the rebels instead opened fire which was returned by the troops, sparking a battle that lasted several hours.
   ‘This is one of the biggest infiltration attempts by militants this year which we have foiled,’ he said.
   Meanwhile, an army lieutenant colonel, two militants and a civilian were killed during a fierce gunbattle in northern Bandipora town Friday, he said.
   ‘The fighting erupted when soldiers raided a residential house where militants were hiding,’ Joneja said.
   Troops also gunned down a militant in southern Pulwama district on Friday, a police spokesman said.

The State Department said on Thursday it had notified the U.S. Congress of plans to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan in a multibillion-dollar deal with US aerospace company Lockheed Martin Corp.
   A State Department official said consultations with Congress were finished last week and notification was sent to Capitol Hill late on Wednesday about selling 16 new F-16s to nuclear power Pakistan and refurbishing used ones.
   ‘There is also an option on an additional 18 aircraft and a support package for up to 26 used F-16s, a munitions package and an upgrade package for Pakistan's current fleet of 34 F-16s,’ the official said.
   The deal, estimated to be worth about $5 billion, also includes logistic support for the aircraft.
   The State Department said the sale was part of a greater effort to broaden Washington's strategic partnership with Pakistan and to advance US national security and foreign policy interests in Asia as a whole.

At least six people were killed earlier this week in Sri Lanka’s embattled northeast, the rebel Tamil Tigers said Friday, as Nordic truce monitors mulled their future role on the troubled island.
   The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said three civilians were killed in a Claymore mine attack in the rebel-held area of Kokkupadaiyan on Wednesday, blaming the Sri Lankan military for the blast.
   They said another three men were gunned down in the east of the island later that night, just hours before a key meeting of five Nordic nations to decide the future of their monitoring mission in Sri Lanka.
   The Oslo-arranged meeting in the Norwegian capital lasted five hours on Thursday but ended without an announcement of a breakthrough to end the crisis over truce monitoring.
   The meeting was called after the LTTE demanded that monitors from European Union nations Denmark, Finland and Sweden quit the mission, saying they could no longer be neutral after the EU labelled the group a terrorist organisation.

Bush administration refused to abandon military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay inmates despite the Supreme Court ruling the ‘war on terror’ trials illegal, which leading newspapers called a victory for law.
   In a stunning blow to the legal strategy pioneered in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001, the high court ruled Thursday that President George W Bush had no authority to order such tribunals, which it said contravened the Geneva Conventions.
   In a 5-3 vote, the high court warned the administration had no ‘blank check’ to decide how to try terror suspects, as it reversed an appeals court ruling on a tribunal for Osama bin Laden’s former driver Salim Ahmed Hamdan.
   But the White House and other administration officials quickly signalled they would try to consult with Congress to refine rules for such commissions, in line with the landmark Supreme Court judgement.
   They also stressed the decision did not mean Guantanamo would quickly shut down.
   ‘Nobody gets a ‘get out of jail free’ card,’ said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
   The Washington Post and The New York Times on Friday hailed the decision as ‘a victory for law,’ while the ultraconservative Washington Times condemned it as a dangerous restriction of presidential authority.
   The first tribunals were set up June, 2004. Officials said Thursday that between 40 and 80 Guantanamo detainees were considered eligible for war crimes trials. Only 14 have been publicly identified and of those only 10 have been charged, including Hamdan.
   The Senate Armed Services Committee meanwhile said it would hold a series of hearings on what to do next, to prepare the way for possible legislation in September.
   Committee Chairman Senator John Warner said he would make the issue a ‘top priority.’
   The idea that Bush could ask Congress to approve a remodelled tribunal set-up was first mooted by Supreme Court justices themselves, in a concurring document to the court’s main opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens.
   ‘Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary,’ wrote Justices Breyer, Kennedy, Souter and Ginsburg.
   A senior official later Thursday argued that the court had ‘emphasised these problems can be cured and invited the president and Congress to do just that.’
   The Supreme Court found that tribunals created by Bush infringed US law. It rejected administration claims that Congress had authorised them by granting Bush sweeping war powers after the September 11 attacks.
   Justices also rejected the administration argument the Geneva Conventions do not apply to tribunals of suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees as they are not prisoners of war but ‘enemy combatants.’
   ‘Whether or not the government has charged Hamdan with an offence against the law of war, cognisable by a military commission, the commission lacks power to proceed,’ the court said in the majority opinion.
   The concurring opinion signed by the four justices rejected claims the decision would undermine the ‘war on terror.’
   ‘The Court’s conclusion ultimately rests on a single ground: Congress has not issued the Executive a ‘blank check.’’

A top Iraqi Sunni leader said that most leading guerrilla groups fighting US-led forces in the war-torn country have rejected prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s peace plan.
   Muthenna Hareth al-Dari, leader from the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni religious body, said the groups have rejected the plan as ‘it fails to offer a timetable for withdrawal of foreign troops’ from Iraq.
   ‘This initiative is a campaign of public relations for the government,’ Dari said late Thursday.
   ‘What Maliki said is confirming that the initiative is meaningless because he has excluded everyone,’ he said referring to Maliki’s statement that those who have killed coalition troops and Iraqis will not be eligible for amnesty under the peace plan.
   On Wednesday Maliki said ‘those who targeted coalition troops, foreigners and journalists will not be offered amnesty as they have spread terror.’
   That was in apparent response to unease expressed by some US senators to the possibility that he might pardon those who attacked US troops.
   In contrast, Maliki said that ‘those who have no blood of Iraqis or security forces on their hand, our doors are open for them.’
   ‘Neither the principle armed groups of resistance nor the political organisations like ours have accepted this plan which is ignoring essentially a timetable for withdrawal of troops,’ had he said.
   He said the main Sunni groups who rejected the proposal were Brigades of 1920 Revolution, Rashedeen Army, Islamic Movement of Iraqi Mujahedeen, United Iraqi Jihadist People and Jaish-e-Mujahedeen.
   ‘The so-called organisations mentioned in the government mouthpiece Al-Sabah are those who nobody knows, the armed groups mentioned are also unknown,’ he said referring to rebel groups mentioned in the daily after Maliki said he was approached by a number of groups to lay down their arms.
   Dari said the reconciliation plan was ‘essentially addressed to political groups like ours who are not part of the political process.’

The British prime minister, Tony Blair, and his Conservative rival David Cameron both suffered disappointing results in by-elections on Friday.
   Independent Dai Davies defeated Labour’s candidate in the Welsh district of Blaenau Gwent, thwarting Blair’s hopes of winning back one of Labour’s heartland seats.
   Blair received further bad news after a newspaper poll found he had slipped behind Cameron in the popularity stakes.
   Blaenau Gwent had been safely held by Labour for years until Labour stalwart Peter Law quit the party and ran as an independent at the last election, refusing to step aside when Labour leaders said the party’s candidate must be a woman.
   After Law died of cancer, Labour hoped to win the seat back, and dispatched high profile cabinet members to campaign there, to no avail.
   The early morning results also brought bad news for Cameron, who took over the Conservative leadership seven months ago.
   A Conservative candidate nearly lost the seat of Bromley, scraping by with just a few hundred votes in a seat which had been held strongly by the Conservatives since 1945.
   Labour placed an embarrassing fourth, with fewer than 2,000 votes, behind the fringe anti-European UK Independence Party.
   Pollsters YouGov, in a survey commissioned by the Daily Telegraph newspaper, found 30 per cent of Britons thought new Conservative Party leader David Cameron would make the best prime minister, against 28 per cent who preferred Blair.
   The Telegraph said it was the first time any of five successive Conservative leaders had been preferred to Blair since Blair took the helm of the Labour party in 1994 as opposition leader under Conservative prime minister John Major.
   According to the Daily Telegraph poll, 39 per cent of respondents would vote Conservative if there were a general election tomorrow, against 33 per cent who would vote Labour. That compares to 35 per cent backing Labour in April, with 33 per cent saying they would vote Conservative.
   Blair, who led Labour to an unprecedented third consecutive general election victory last year, has pledged not to seek a fourth term. But a series of government scandals over sex, sleaze and mismanagement has led to calls for him to step down soon in favour of finance minister Gordon Brown.

A meeting of G8 foreign ministers this week showed that the United States is ready to mute its criticism of Moscow on questions of democracy in exchange for Russian support on the Iranian nuclear issue, a leading broadsheet said Friday.
   ‘The United States is ready not to note Russian problems in exchange for support on the Iran question,’ the Kommersant daily said.
   The newspaper noted that complaints about human rights and state control over the media in Russia got relatively little attention in the closing comments of the Group of Eight ministers who met in Moscow on Thursday to prepare for a G8 summit on July 15-17.
   The visiting foreign ministers ‘conceded all the demands of Russia and’ in their closing declaration ‘kept to a minimum mention ... of questions that in some way bother Russia,’ the newspaper said.
   Thursday’s meeting followed pressure from leading US lawmakers for President George W Bush to take a tough stand on Russian democracy at next month’s summit, the first to be hosted by Russia.
   But Washington’s demands for support on the Iranian nuclear standoff might prove hard for Moscow to stomach, the paper said.
   Moscow remains an ally of Tehran and has called for a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.
   
   Iran rejects calls to give
   speedy response
   The Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, on Thursday rejected calls from the six major powers to give a speedy answer to proposals to end the crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme.
   Foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrial powers, meeting in Moscow, said earlier that they wanted a ‘clear and substantive’ answer next Wednesday when EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani meet.
   Speaking at the United Nations, Mottaki said Iran’s response ‘will be clear and substantive. But the proposed package contains questions and ambiguities which must be cleared.’
   He said Solana may be able to answer some of Tehran’s questions, but reaffirmed the Iranian leadership’s insistence that there would be no firm response until the end of August.

The US president, George W Bush and the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, used a White House summit on Thursday to warn North Korea against test-firing a long-range missile.
   The two leaders, underscoring security threats that have bound their countries closer together, called on Pyongyang to fulfill its ‘denuclearization pledges’ amid signs it may soon test a missile capable of reaching the United States.
   While highlighting the chummy relationship he has developed with Koizumi over the past five years, Bush took the opportunity to build on earlier US threats of a harsh response if North Korea goes ahead with a secrecy-shrouded launch.
   ‘We both agreed that it’s very important for us to remain united in sending a clear message to the North Korean leader that, first of all, launching the missile is unacceptable,’ Bush said at a joint news conference with Koizumi.
   ‘There have been no briefings as to what’s on top of the missile. He hasn’t told anybody where the missile’s going. He has an obligation ... to those of us who are concerned about this as to what his intentions are,’ Bush said.
   Koizumi said if North Korea fired off the missile ‘we would apply various pressures But he declined to give details on any measures he had discussed with Bush. US officials have said the North Koreans
   may have finished fuelling the missile.
   Experts say North Korea is developing long-range missiles to have the capability one day to deliver a nuclear bomb, but add Pyongyang is years away from having such a weapons system.

The House of Representatives has backed the president, George W Bush, in a tussle with US media over the secrecy of banking surveillance meant to stop terrorists.
   In a 227-183 vote, the lower chamber late Thursday adopted a non-binding resolution condemning several news organisations, in particular the New York Times, a long-time critic of Bush and the first to report on the banking espionage.
   ‘The front-page story in the New York Times cut the legs out from under this programme,’ said resolution author Michael Oxley.
   ‘Now, the terrorists are well informed of the details of our methods and will find other ways to move money outside of the formal financial system.
   ‘Now, the terrorists will be driven further underground, and we will have to invest further years of work to uncover the new methods,’ he said.
   Opposition Democrats voted against the text, calling it a political manoeuvre just four months away from November legislative elections.
   The New York Times and several other US dailies reported a week ago on an ultra secret CIA programme since 2001 to spy on international banking through Swift, a transaction house based in Belgium.
   The disclosure enraged Republican lawmakers with some calling for a ban on New York Times reporters in Congress and others for the newspaper is prosecuted for treason.

Britain discussed the possibility of a nuclear attack on China in 1961 to defend Hong Kong, its former colony, secret documents from the British government revealed Friday.
   Letters circulated to then prime minister Harold Macmillan recommended nuclear force as the only real alternative to abandoning the territory in the event of an attack by the neighbouring Chinese.
   British officials discussed how to ensure that Beijing understood any attack would be met by the United States dropping nuclear bombs on China.
   At the same time, the plan needed to avoid laying Hong Kong open to the claim that it was becoming a military outpost of the United States.
   Details of the discussions emerged from records of Macmillan’s office between 1957 to 1961, which were made public by the National Archives.
   The suggested nuclear strategy followed communications on how best to strengthen Hong Kong’s defences amid growing uncertainty about the intentions of its communist neighbour.
   Hong Kong was particularly vulnerable, not least because its water and food supplies from China could be cut off at any time.
   On February 22 1961, then foreign secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home wrote a letter marked ‘top secret’ to defence minister Harold Watkinson and the prime minister.
   In it, he said: ‘It must be fully obvious to the Americans that Hong Kong is indefensible by conventional means and that in the event of a Chinese attack, nuclear strikes against China would be the only alternative to complete abandonment of the colony.
   ‘In these circumstances it is perhaps not so much formal staff talks with the Americans that we need so much as an informal exchange of views involving a discussion of the use of nuclear strikes.
   ‘I need hardly say, however, that I agree entirely with your view that while we should encourage the Chinese to believe that an attack on Hong Kong would involve nuclear retaliation, we must avoid anything that would allow the Chinese to claim that the colony is a military outpost of the Unites States.’
   Secret meetings with US officials took place in Hawaii and it was advised in 1961 that further talks should be held on board a US naval carrier, which frequently visited Hong Kong.
   Another letter, from Watkinson to Douglas-Home and Macmillan, advised on how Lord Louis Mountbatten, chief of defence staff, should approach talks with admiral Harry Felt, commander-in-chief of the US Pacific forces.

A US Islamic civil rights and advocacy group urged world leaders Thursday to be far more critical of Israel following its detention of top Palestinian ministers and Gaza Strip incursions.
   The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice’s expression of ‘concern’ over the Israeli action too lenient on the Jewish state.
   ‘Again we see Israel carrying out acts of state terror and the international community offering only a mild and indirect response that will be taken as a ‘green light’ by Israeli officials,’ CAIR board chairman Parvez Ahmed said in a statement.
   Ahmed said such an approach undermined President George W Bush’s efforts to introduce democracy throughout the Middle East.
   ‘America’s push for democracy in the Muslim world may be dead in the water unless
   the Bush administration pressures Israel to release the hostages and end its collective punishment of the Palestinian people.’

Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende submitted his government’s resignation Friday, clearing the way for a possible election, after a simmering immigration debate spilled over into a full-scale political crisis.
   Balkenende tendered the resignation to the head of state Queen Beatrix, who must now consult political leaders to determine where to go next.
   The move comes after
   D66, a junior coalition partner, withdrew its support for the centre-right government in a row over the handling of
   the citizenship of Somali-born former lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
   As well as focusing on the particular personality of Hirsi Ali, the dispute has exposed a wider immigration debate that has been simmering since the 2002 assassination of anti-immigrant leader Pim Fortuyn, whose party then entered a governing coalition.
   Queen Beatrix will now consult with political leaders to determine whether new elections should be called or if Balkenende’s Christian Democrats can form a temporary minority government with its other coalition partner, the liberal VVD.

17 dead as India bus falls into gorge
At least 17 people died and 18 were injured when a bus plunged into a gorge in India’s Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, police said Friday. The injured were taken to hospital in Shimla, the state capital, police chief Anand Pratap Singh said. It was not immediately known how many people were on the bus when it fell into the 150-foot (46-metre) gorge just outside Shimla as the driver was trying to overtake another vehicle on a sharp mountain bend. Road accidents are common in India, many caused by rash driving and old vehicles.

Philippines FM to visit Myanmar
The Philippines foreign secretary, Alberto Romulo, will seek a meeting with the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi when he visits Myanmar next week, official sources in Manila said Friday. They said the July 5-9 trip was at the invitation of Myanmar’s reclusive military rulers last year. The Philippines takes over in mid-July the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that also includes Myanmar, and Romulo said earlier this year that Manila was committed to pushing for democracy there. ‘He was invited, but he is not going there to represent the ASEAN,’ one Philippine government source told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Sri Lanka offers duty free cars to journalists
Sri Lanka’s government Friday said it will offer duty free cars and motorcycles to accredited journalists in a bid to ensure the ‘freedom’ of the media. The plan implementation ministry secretary, Nivard Cabraal, said a scheme to offer tax free cars, motorcycles and computers to journalists would be implemented before the end of the year. ‘Details will be included in the (annual) budget’ customarily presented to parliament by November, he said. ‘The freedom of the media could be truly established only if the living conditions of the media personnel are raised,’ president Mahinda Rajapakse said in his election manifesto.

Japan world’s
oldest country
Japan has outpaced Italy as the world’s oldest country, with the elderly population hitting a new high and fewer young people choosing to start families, according to census figures released Friday. Japan has been racing to find ways to motivate people to have more children amid fears of a future demographic crisis as a smaller working population supports a mass of pensioners. Japan’s elderly population rose to 21 per cent, or 26.82 million, of the total population of 127.76 million in 2005, up 3.7 points from the previous census taken in 2000, the internal affairs ministry said. The rate topped the one in Italy, where the elderly form 20 per cent of the population. The third oldest country was Germany, where the elderly—defined as people aged 65 or older—accounted for 18.8 per cent, it said.
— AFP

Annan decries lack of political will on Darfur
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has decried a lack of ‘political will’ among world leaders to end the Darfur crisis, in an interview with BBC television to be aired later Thursday. Speaking ahead of an African Union summit in Banjul to discuss Sudan’s refusal to accept a UN force in Darfur, Annan said it was ‘in the interest of Sudan to cooperate with the UN and the international community in Darfur’. ‘We are not strangers,’ the secretary general said, recalling that the United Nations has previously deployed troops in southern Sudan, scene of a separate long-running militancy.
— AFP

US urges Somalia’s Islamists to halt expansion
A top US official pressed Somalia’s radical Islamists on Thursday to halt expansion across the war-ravaged African nation and join talks with a teetering new transitional government. Jendayi Frazer, assistant US secretary of state for African affairs, said the latest activity by radical Islamists known as the Somali Supreme Islamic Courts Council was sparking worries in neighbouring states and fomenting a humanitarian crisis. She pressed the group to expel terror suspects with reported links to al-Qaeda believed to be based in Somalia so that a spell of political stability could ease growing humanitarian concerns.
— AFP

Russia puts bounty on Iraq killers
Russia offered a $10 million reward Friday for information on the killers of five Russian Embassy staff workers in Iraq, according to a report. The offer came two days after the president, Vladimir Putin, ordered special services to hunt down and ‘destroy’ those responsible for the deaths. The slayings shocked Russia and prompted an angry outcry against the US-led coalition. Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday that four Russians seized in early June had been killed.
— Reuters

Bad weather may delay Discovery launch
NASA officials kept a close eye Thursday on a storm threatening to delay Discovery’s controversial launch set for Saturday, only the second flight since the Columbia tragedy. US space agency officials said the shuttle was ready to rocket into orbit if weather permits and again defended their decision to go ahead with the mission despite lingering concerns over safety. With the Columbia’s memory still fresh at NASA, another catastrophe could put an immediate end to the 25-year-old shuttle programme, which is scheduled to retire in four years.
— AFP

Jordan must outlaw torture: UN
UN special reporter on torture Manfred Nowak urged Jordan Thursday to criminalise torture and close special courts that protect police and intelligence offenders. ‘I feel there is a general impunity in relation to torture in the country. Impunity is a major reason for why torture happens,’ Nowak told a news conference after a two-day fact-finding mission in Jordan. ‘Torture must be made a crime,’ he said, adding that he will file a report with his recommendations to the UN’s reformed Human Rights Council—of which Jordan is a vice chair—and the UN General Assembly. Nowak singled out the detention facilities in Amman of the General Intelligence Department and the Central Investigation Department of the Public Security Forces as ‘notorious’ torture centres.
— AFP