Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
Business «
Sports National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplement «

Almost a month after capturing an Israeli soldier, Hamas's armed wing says the Gaza crisis could go on for months and deplores the 'shameful' passivity of the international community.
   'This crisis can last weeks or months, until Israel accepts to negotiate with the Palestinian resistance,' Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the ruling Palestinian faction, told AFP in an interview conducted by telephone 'for security reasons.'
   'Israel has realised that the military action in Gaza will not let it achieve its objectives,' he said in reference to a campaign launched by Israel on June 28, three days after an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinian armed groups in an attack on a checkpoint.
   'Since June 25, they have no more news of their soldier captured in Gaza and the number of rockets fired on its territory has tripled,' he said of the campaign that has left 106 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier dead.
   Abu Obeida insisted captive soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit would be freed only in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
   'Our priority is the liberation of our prisoners, by diplomatic channels or other means.'
   He declined to discuss the soldier's condition. In its last announcement, the militant group had said he was alive and being well treated, even if the Gaza offensive was complicating potential negotiations.
   'What we find shameful is the attitude of the international community which has moved heaven and earth to denounce the capture of one soldier and does nothing to avoid the deaths of Palestinian civilians,' Abu Obeida said.
   'All human lives are not worth the same.'
   The Brigades were also keeping mum on the condition of their leader, Mohammed Deif, wounded in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on July 12 in which nine members of the same family, including seven children, were killed.
   'Mohammed Deif's presence in the building does not justify such a massacre. If Israel has military intelligence able to locate our leader, they must also realise there are women and children inside,' Abu Odeida said in a first admission of the Brigades leader's presence at the strike site.
   'The captured soldier is Israel's excuse for intensifying its crimes. Bombarding the power station and bridges, killing innocent civilians, is that supposed to accelerate his liberation?'
   Abu Obeida denied any coordination between Hamas and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which on July 12 sparked another crisis and a second front for Israel by capturing two soldiers in the north of the country during a cross-border raid.
   Israel's offensive in Lebanon, again aimed at freeing the troops and ending rocket attacks against its territory, has killed more than 341 people in Lebanon, with 33 Israelis also killed in the cross-border fighting.
   'Israel knows that Hamas and Hezbollah are two different things but is incapable of admitting to public opinion two military defeats in a matter of weeks and prefers to show only one,' Abu Obeida said.
   He deplored the fact that the Lebanese bombardment had relegated 'the Gaza tragedy' to the background, despite the mounting civilian casualties.
   'Lebanon is in a new situation and it's normal for the world's attention to be concentrated over there but, with or without the television cameras, a painful battle is continuing in Gaza.'
   The Lebanese offensive 'will be limited in time', he said, and Israel will then begin again to use all its military force against Gaza.
   'The struggle in Palestine is the heart of the battle against Israel and has a special significance for all Muslims in the world. Our resistance will only increase.'

Angry Indian Muslim leaders claim their community is the target of a witch hunt by police investigating the Mumbai train bombings last week which killed 183 people and wounded 800.
   They say Muslims are being targeted by authorities who have rounded up hundreds of people for questioning from different parts of the country although police deny Muslims are being singled out.
   The crackdown follows investigators saying the attacks bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
   The group is being scrutinised along with a banned Mumbai-based organisation called the Students Islamic Movement of India.
   And some within India’s intelligence community reportedly suspect the blasts to be the handiwork of Muslims wanting revenge for sectarian riots in western Gujarat state in 2002 in which some 2,000 members of their community were killed.
   Police said Friday they had arrested three people as part of the inquiry, the first since the July 11 blasts, but raids in Muslim-dominated pockets of India continue.
   The apparent close scrutiny Muslims are coming under has not gone unnoticed by leaders of India’s 135 million to 140 million strong Islamic community.
   ‘Of course this is a deliberate targetting of Muslims,’ said Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric of India’s largest and most famous mosque—the Jama Masjid in New Delhi.
   Bukhari’s views are echoed by Rahat Mehmood Choudhury, a Muslim leader from India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.
   ‘The investigating agencies are not being fair. There is (still) no evidence to suggest who carried out the blasts. But Muslims are being detained for questioning,’ he said.
   In Maharastra, of which Mumbai is the capital, the police have rounded up hundreds of suspects but freed most after questioning to try to prevent further attacks and tensions in a city with a history of communal clashes.
   Anees Durrani, a former member of India’s Haj Committee, said the Maharashtra police are ‘very biased against Muslims.’
   ‘You can see that very plainly by the way the investigations are proceeding. Leaders of Indian Muslims have condemned the Mumbai blasts and others before July 11. No one knows who carried out the blasts but the needle of suspicion is always pointed towards us,’ he said.
   In the northeastern state of Assam, police this week arrested six Muslims on suspicion of having links with groups planning attacks in the state.
   But they were also being investigated for possible involvement in the Mumbai blasts, police spokesman Rajen Singh said.
   In neighbouring Tripura state, 39 people were detained for questioning including 11 from Maharashtra who said they were in Tripura on a mission to preach Islam. The 11 were interrogated for a week by special anti-terrorist officers and released after the Tripura government confirmed they were ‘genuine preachers’ and ‘not involved in unlawful activities’.
   The other 28 have also been released but remain under surveillance.
   In the Andaman Islands, police this week rounded up 20 supposed Bangladeshi nationals and were questioning them for possible links with the Mumbai blasts, Jaspal Singh, superintendent of police in the Andamans said.
   Mumbai’s joint commissioner of police Arup Patnaik said complaints of discrimination were not new to the force after a series of bombings in 1993 that left more than 250 dead was blamed on a nexus of underworld figures and Islamic militants.
   He said round-up operations were continuing after the Mumbai train blasts alongside the main probe but were not specifically targeting Muslims.
   ‘Certain areas have many Muslims staying there,’ he said, but had no details on the religious make-up of those that had been picked up.
   Zarar-ul Islam Khan, a prominent New Delhi-based Muslim leader who runs a website for Indian Muslims said: ‘Just because a few Muslims could be part of the attacks, it is unfair to criminalise the whole community.’

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on Saturday vowed to continue his campaign against his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, saying that Malaysia was losing its self-respect.
   ‘This is a free country. Anyone can say anything. What is that you (the government) want to hide?’ Mahathir, 81, told a crowd of some 600 noisy supporters after returning home from a two-week holiday in London and Turkey.
   ‘This is a transparent government. Anyone can say anything. If I want to speak, I will speak,’ he said after landing in a private jet at a military airport in Kuala Lumpur.
   The supporters, many of them members of the ruling United Malays National Organisation, carried banners reading ‘Mahathir Save Malaysia,’ and ‘Wipe out the traitors of religion, race and the country’.
   Abdullah is the president of UMNO, the largest and most powerful political party in Malaysia with some 3.0 million members.
   Mahathir has levelled a number of criticisms at Abdullah in recent weeks, including suggesting that Abdullah’s advisors and his son-in-law Khairy Jamaluddin are controlling the administration.
   Mahathir said his attacks on Abdullah’s administration were in the interests of the country he led for more than two decades.
   ‘Already the country is not doing well. Already we have lost our self-respect. I am not looking for people to pat my back,’ he said.
   As the crowd shouted ‘Long Live Mahathir,’ the ex-premier lamented what he said were attempts to silence him, saying that he had been prevented from speaking to UMNO members.
   Mahathir, who is responsible for turning Malaysia from an agriculture-based economy to one of Asia’s most industrialised countries, expressed concerns about the health of the economy.
   ‘Already, the country is not doing well. Already we have lost respect among the developing countries,’ he said.

The death toll from this week’s tsunami on the main Indonesian island of Java rose Saturday to 654, as the beachside resorts hardest hit began slowly moving back towards normalcy.
   The country’s national disaster agency said 101 new bodies had been found following Monday’s disaster, which was triggered by a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake.
   The agency said another 329 were still missing and that 978 people were injured. Just under 110,000 people remain displaced, mainly around the sleepy tourist resort of Pangandaran which bore the brunt of the giant waves.
   For the first time since the tsunami struck, a semblance of normalcy returned to Pangandaran on Saturday as businesses and restaurants reopened and people returned home during the day-time.
   In the Ciamis district, residents were flocking to the town’s main market and shopkeepers were already lifting their shutters, said district spokesman Wasdi bin Umri.
   ‘The market and many shops are already opened today and although they are not operating fully, things are slowly returning to normal,’ bin Umri told AFP.
   He said a Friday night town meeting had instructed workers to begin cleaning up debris and rubble to allow home owners and business owners to salvage whatever belongings they could.
   ‘This is in accordance with instructions from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,’ said bin Umri, referring to the Indonesian leader who made a whirlwind visit to Pangandaran on Friday.
   Bin Umri said officials had also instructed army-led rescuers to continue searching for bodies trapped under the rubble on both the eastern and western sides of Pangandaran’s beach.
   ‘While continuing to clean up the beach, we are also carrying on the search for bodies for another two weeks,’ he said.
   However, while town life was picking up during the day thousands of residents were still preferring to spend the night in special camps set up for survivors rather than returning to their homes, the spokesman said.
   ‘We are calling for residents whose homes are still intact to return home so that we can focus more on those who are homeless,’ he said.
   Soldiers on Saturday were still scouring the beaches for bodies.
   ‘We do not expect to find a large number of corpses in one particular place but we are still finding one or two bodies every hour or two,’ army officer Deden Drajat, leading a 27-strong rescue team, told AFP.
   Many small business owners said they wanted to go back to work because their customers needed to buy provisions and they needed to make some money.
   ‘About 70 per cent of shops and stalls have reopened for business. On Wednesday, those who dared to open numbered less than 20. More opened on Thursday but the market is really alive today,’ said rice seller Mamat Rahmat.

Afghan and coalition forces Saturday kept up a hunt for rebels who briefly captured two southern districts last week, killing 13 Taliban in the latest strikes, an official said.
   Another 15 were wounded in the operations, including air strikes, around Helmand province’s Garmser and Naway-i-Barakzayi districts, provincial spokesman Moheedin Khan told AFP.
   On Friday Khan announced six other Taliban had been killed in the same area after hundreds of extra security forces were deployed to the desert region following the capture of the district headquarters late Monday.
   Dozens of rebels overran the headquarters at Garmser town, pushing out 40 police who officials said had been putting up resistance for two weeks.
   The militants torched the Afghan flag above the building and hoisted that of pro-Taliban Pakistan religious party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, officials said.
   They also captured the district headquarters of adjoining Naway-i-Barakzayi, further north.
   Security forces re-established control of Naway 24 hours later and Garmser on Wednesday after meeting little resistance.
   The coalition confirmed it dropped a bomb Friday on a building in Naway from which a group of Taliban were firing on a coalition patrol with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.
   There was not yet an assessment of the casualties, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick told AFP.
   There had been another skirmish early in the day in which Canadian troops had returned fire on about five attacking Taliban, he said. It was unclear how many were killed, he said.
   Coalition and Afghan forces were keeping up patrols the area, coalition spokesman Major Scott Lundy said.
   ‘We are conducting operations in and around Garmser as you would expect soon after taking control,’ he told AFP. ‘We will continue doing so for the foreseeable future.’

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, called North Korea Friday ‘a completely irresponsible state and dangerous’ for its July 5 missile tests.
   ‘When you look at them testing missiles, not telling anybody they’re firing them in all different directions, and they’re saying that they have a nuclear weapons capability ... that they could make those together is very dangerous,’ Rice told a group of Asian journalists.
   Rice stressed that last week’s UN Security Council resolution criticising Pyongyang’s test launches shows ‘that this is a problem that North Korea has with the entire international community.’
   She added that she would be happy to attend a meeting of the six parties trying to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem if it is organized during the Association of South East Asia Nations Regional Forum next week in Kuala Lumpur.

Different international organisations condemned the recent attacks against Lebanon and Gaza by Israel.
   The International Commission of Jurists, in a letter, called upon the United Nations to take immediate steps to protect the civilians in Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip, said a press release.
   In a separate statement, the World Forum for Democratisation in Asia said it was extremely disturbed by the recent attacks by Israel against Lebanon.
   ‘The widespread lethal impact of the Israeli armed operations on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure has to stop immediately,’ said Federico Andreu-Guzman, deputy secretary-general of the ICJ.
   The ICJ called on the Security Council –or the General Assembly if the Security Council is unable to come to an agreement– to take immediate and effective measures to stop the military escalation in which civilians have already paid a huge price. ‘Such measures may include the dispatch of a new UN multinational force or a drastic strengthening of the mandate of UNFIL, and a substantive enlargement of its personnel,’ added Guzman.
   For the past ten days and nights, the Israeli air forces have destroyed countless civilian buildings, infrastructure and means of transportation in operations that have killed over 300 people and displaced more than half a million people.
   The World Forum for Democratisation in Asia said the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has already had terrible political impacts in the Asian region.
   It has raised tensions between followers of different faiths, and it has also caused enmity against those countries, especially the United States, which are perceived to be unfairly biased towards Israel, the statement added.
   The WFDA called on Israel to cease its aggression against Lebanon immediately and unconditionally.
   The organisation also urged the international community to condemn the attacks and move swiftly to restore peace.

Seventeen people died and 41 were injured when an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 on the Richter scale shook a mountainous area in southwest China Saturday morning, officials said.
   The epicentre of the tremor, which struck at 9:10am (0110 GMT), was in Yanjin county, part of Yunnan province, the seismological bureau of Yunnan’s Zhaotong city said on its website.
   A total of 17 people had died as a result of the quake, the bureau said, citing preliminary counts from towns and villages in the remote area.
   ‘Some were crushed inside their homes, others were killed by rocks falling from the mountains,’ said a Yanjin county earthquake administration official surnamed Zhan when contacted by AFP by telephone.
   Forty-one people were injured and taken to hospital, state-run Xinhua news agency said. It added 56 houses had collapsed because of the quake.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels are being unreasonable in demanding the exit of truce monitors from European Union nations, and the observers will have to pull out unless their safety is guaranteed, a top Swedish envoy said.
   The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have given monitors from EU nations—Sweden, Denmark and Finland—until Sept 1 to leave Sri Lanka in light of a new EU ban against them, which analysts warn would leave a dangerous vacuum as growing violence kindles fears of renewed civil war.

Iraq's president and prime minister announced the formation of a 30-member commission Saturday to promote national reconciliation, even as the speaker of parliament said coalition forces should leave the country.
   ‘The commission will immediately begin its work, holding conferences and meetings, and it will prepare a media campaign for reconciliation,’ the president, Jalal Talabani, told a joint news conference with the prime minister.
   ‘This is an Iraqi initiative for those who are part of the political process,’ the prime minister Nuri al-Maliki said, adding that there was much interest in the initiative from people outside the process, including disaffected army officers.
   The announcement moves forward Maliki's programme of reconciliation first presented on June 25 to bridge sectarian gaps that threaten to tear the country apart and have taken it to the brink of civil war.
   ‘I don't think al-Qaeda has been successful in its objective (to promote civil war),’ said National Security Advisor Ahmed al-Rubaie, ‘but I admit there are cracks in national unity.’
   Parallel with the announcement, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq opened a conference on transitional justice and national reconciliation meant to support the government efforts.
   Parliament speaker Mahmud Mashhadani gave the opening speech and made very clear that he did not see much of a role for foreigners, especially coalition forces, in any reconciliation process.
   ‘Just get your hands off Iraq and the Iraqi people and Muslim countries, and everything will be all right,’ the conservative Sunni Islamist said, addressing coalition forces.
   The two-day conference, which was originally to have been opened by Maliki, will address the issue of dealing with the crimes of previous Iraqi regimes and a plan to reconcile the country's warring factions.
   Mashhadani bluntly told his audience of UN officials, foreign experts, politicians and civil society representatives that the Iraqi people had little use for foreign advice on running the country or foreign-sponsored conferences.
   ‘If a reconciliation project is going to work it has to talk to all the people,’ he said. ‘It must go through our Iraqi beliefs and perceptions. What we need is reconciliation between Iraqis only -- there can be no third party.’
   The speaker invoked the revered Shiite figures Hassan and Hussein, grandsons of the Prophet Mohammed, as the example for Iraqis -- a significant gesture by a conservative Sunni.
   The UN representative who then opened the conference subsequently referred to Mashhadani's speech as ‘spirited’, but was quick to emphasise that the UN was not interested in dictating any reconciliation policy to Iraq but was rather there to advise and offer examples from other transitional countries.
   ‘Transitional justice is the key to creating the conditions for national reconciliation and dialogue,’ said Gianni Magazzani, head of the UNAMI's human rights office.
   An Iraqi politician at the conference, who declined to be named, said that while Mashhadani's sentiments echoed those of most Iraqi people, they did not necessarily help the situation.
   ‘You can't imagine how difficult it is to solve Iraq's problem with people with this mentality leading,’ he said, adding that people in power are appealing to narrow sectarian bases rather than for the good of the wider people.
   ‘This is an educational process for the people -- the people in power need to know about transitional justice and the steps that have to be taken,’ he said, lamenting the absence of senior officials at the UN conference.
   National security advisor Rubaie, one of the few senior officials at the conference opening, maintained that the UN still had a role to play in Iraq.

The Ousted Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, and three of his aides are pursuing a hunger strike they began almost two weeks ago and are risking their health, defence lawyers said on Friday.
   The former leader and seven former aides in his regime are on trial over the killing of southern Iraqi Shias following an assassination attempt on the then Iraqi leader in 1982.
   ‘President Saddam Hussein and his (three) co-accused are pursuing their hunger strike which is threatening to jeopardise their health,’ said a statement by the defence committee sent to AFP in the Jordanian capital.
   The committee blamed the ‘American occupation forces’ which were the only authority able to take decisions over the detainees.
   Last week, US spokesman lieutenant colonel Keir Kevin Curry said: ‘Saddam Hussein and his three co-defendants have now refused meals
   since their evening meal on July 7.’
   The three aides who are striking with Saddam, are his former secret police chief Barzan al-Tikriti, vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and head of the former revolutionary court Awad al-Bandar.
   ‘All are apparently protesting the Iraqi High Tribunal procedures and security for
   the defence attorneys,’ added Curry.
   ‘Saddam Hussein is drinking coffee with sugar and water with nutrients,’ he said, saying all the defendants were in good health and receiving additional medical care.
   On Friday, the defence team called for pressure to ensure a fair trial and an inquiry into
   the deaths of three defence counsel who have been killed since the trial opened in October 2005.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated Friday she would not formally respond to a letter from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying it contained ‘totally unacceptable’ criticism of Israel.
   Speaking in an interview with ZDF television, Merkel said Ahmadinejad's missive ‘constantly put in question’ Israel's right to exist and avoided any comment about Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
   ‘It is not in order and it's for this reason that the letter does not merit a response,’ she said.
   Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm earlier said the letter contained ‘a lot of declarations which are unacceptable to us, in particular on the right of Israel to exist and the Holocaust’.
   The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had sent a letter to Merkel, two months after he had written an angry note to US President George W. Bush.
   Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush in early May interrupted a 26-year break in top-level contacts with arch-foe the United States, but offered no concessions in the nuclear dispute raging between Tehran and world powers.
   In his 18-page message, the firebrand leader lashed out at the US-led invasion of Iraq, questioned Israel's right to exist, mapped out Iran's unswerving drive to master nuclear technology and even told Bush, a born-again Christian, he should be more pious.
   In a speech carried on state television in April, Ahmadinejad complained that Germany was being exploited by ‘greedy Zionists’ more than 60 years after World War II.
   ‘Look at the German people. Three generations ago, there was a war. But today an intelligent people is still a hostage of World War II,’ he said.
   The Iranian president has repeatedly cast doubt on the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis in World War II, describing the Holocaust as a ‘myth’.

Major South American economic powers threw their support Friday behind anti-US crusader Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in his fight against Washington for a UN Security Council seat, reports AP.
   Led by the two leading South American powers, Argentina and Brazil, and backed by Uruguay and Paraguay, the Mercosur bloc said at the close of a two-day summit that Venezuela would make an important contribution to the council.
   Venezuela inducted as a full member of Mercosur on Friday, ‘will promote respect for the rule of international law’ and provide balance if it gains a seat, bloc countries said in a statement.
   Venezuela has occupied a Security Council seat four times, but the US government is lobbying hard to thwart Chavez’s bid by supporting Guatemala’s candidacy.
   Critics have expressed reservations that Chavez, a harsh and frequent critic of US policy, would disrupt the Security Council. Others have said the strong US lobbying effort could backfire when the UN General Assembly votes in October.
   Washington argues that its campaign is not anti-Venezuela but pro-Guatemala, which has never had a seat but is a leading contributor of troops to UN peacekeeping missions.
   Ten of the council’s 15 seats are filled by regional groups for two-year terms. The other five are occupied by its veto-wielding permanent members; Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
   Normally, the Latin American group would fill the council seat with its own choice. But this year, because both Guatemala and Venezuela want the seat, the vote will be by secret ballot.
   The UN’s 33-nation Latin American bloc already was expected to support Venezuela.
   Mercosur is a customs union among Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela. Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have associate member status.
   Chavez heads to Moscow seeking friends, weapons
   
   The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, travels to Belarus and Russia starting Saturday as part of a world tour seen by some analysts as having an anti-American slant, reports AFP.
   In Belarus, a foreign ministry spokesman said Chavez would hold talks with president Alexander Lukashenko, whose ex-Soviet nation Washington has described as Europe's ‘last dictatorship’.
   No kind of ‘confrontational issues’ would be discussed, said the spokesman, Andrei Popov, but the two would discuss cooperation within the Non-Aligned Movement–a group of states that has sought to resist US influence and that includes both Belarus and Venezuela.
   Belarussian and Venezuelan officials would be examining cooperation in agriculture, machine building and energy, Popov said.
   Travelling to Russia on Tuesday, Chavez will meet President Vladimir Putin and mark a deal under which Russia will supply 30 Su-30 fighter jets and 30 helicopters to Venezuela.
   The price is over one billion dollars, the Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov said, announcing the deal Friday.
   The Vedomosti newspaper described it as a ‘historic’ breakthrough in South America for Russia's arms industry.
   Russia has seen resurgence in its arms exports, selling weapons to 61 countries last year for more than six billion dollars.
   The Venezuelan leader is due to visit a number of Russian arms factories, notably the Barrikady company in Volgograd, Vedomosti said.
   Viktor Kremenyuk, an analyst at Moscow's Institute for US and Canadian Studies, detected an anti-American agenda in Chavez's tour, particularly his visit to Belarus.
   Russia, he said, might see the visit as a way to reassert its independence from the West after successfully hosting a summit of the G8 (Group of Eight) industrialised countries this month.
   ‘It's maybe an attempt... by Russia to demonstrate to what extent it can be flexible and talk to other audiences,’ he said. ‘One day some people in the West may think they've had enough of this flexibility.’

Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees charged Friday that US authorities had seized huge stocks of documents protected by laws on client-attorney confidentiality while probing three suicides at the detention centre.
   In more than 100 petitions filed with courts in Washington, they said US authorities launched an illegal investigation into the June 10 suicides to see how they had been prepared and whether new ones were being planned.
   In all, 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of documents have been seized from lawyers and ‘war on terror’ detainees during the investigation, the petitions said.
   The Yemeni lawyers of five Guantanamo prisoners presented one document in which investigators argued before the Justice Department that ‘the attorney-client (relationship), while venerable, is not without limits.’
   ‘For four and a half years, our government has done all exactly that was possible to prevent’ a privileged attorney-client relationship from being established, the five lawyers wrote.
   They said documents had been seized from some 440 prisoners at the Cuba island centre, following a ‘guilty by association’ theory without providing evidence that the detainees were somehow linked to the suicides.
   The US Supreme Court ruled last month that tribunals planned by the government for the detainees violated the Geneva Convention and US military law.

Ethiopia on Saturday vowed to ‘crush’ the powerful Somali Islamic courts, a day after they threatened a holy war against Addis Ababa, which they accuse of sending troops to protect Somalia's weak interim government.
   The warning came as witnesses reported an incursion of Ethiopian troops into a second Somali town close to Baidoa, the seat of the country's toothless government, ostensibly to protect it from any advance by the Islamists.
   Residents in the town of Wajid, some 100 kilometres south of the Somali-Ethiopian border, said about 250 heavily-armed Ethiopian soldiers had arrived there early in the day.
   ‘Ethiopian troops numbering about 250 arrived in Wajid town in Bakol region,’ said local resident Ahmed Issa.
   ‘They came in 30 armed vehicles and lorries,’ he added.
   ‘The Ethiopian troops arrived early morning in Wajid, with heavily-armed troops securing the area where they camped,’ another resident said on condition of anonymity.
   But a district official in Wajid denied the presence of the troops. At the same time, Addis Ababa vowed to ‘crush’ the Islamic militia if they dared cross into its territory.
   ‘Ethiopia has made it clear on several occasions that there is a border line they don't have to cross, if they do they will be crushed,’ a senior government official said on conditions of anonymity.
   ‘I don't think they will dare to do anything as they know that there is a force that can do what it says, a force that will crush anyone in the real meaning of the word,’ added the official.
   Ethiopia and the Somali government have denied any incursion by Addis Ababa's troops despite numerous eyewitness .
   Meanwhile, a senior Somali government official called for the disarmament of the Islamists, saying they posed a threat to the government that has been unable to extert its authority across the country since relocating from exile in Kenya last year.
   ‘The Islamic courts present a threat to the transitional federal government if they are not disarmed,’ said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
   ‘Islamic courts are part of this community–They have no right to keep weapons,’ the official added.
   On Friday, the leader of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia vowed a holy war against Ethiopia, a call some observers said was merely populist rhetoric.

The coroner in charge of a British inquest into the 1997 death of Princess Diana in Paris has pulled out of the case, citing a ‘heavy and constant’ workload.
   In a statement, a spokeswoman for Michael Burgess said he wanted to pass on responsibility for the inquest before a report from former Metropolitan Police commissioner John Stevens is available.
   It remains to be seen who now will handle the inquest into the August 1997 death of Princess Diana. But the spokeswoman said Burgess has proposed that a ‘senior judicial figure’ be put on the case.
   French investigators have blamed the crash on driver Henri Paul, who was also killed, saying he was driving too fast under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs, as the car was being pursued by photographers.

The US capital will introduce a 10:00pm curfew for teenagers and deploy more police officers following a crime wave that saw 15 murders at the start of the month, Washington mayor Anthony Williams said Friday.
   Washington DC’s crime wave included the murder of a young British national, who was slashed to death in the throat on July 9 in the upscale tourist district of Georgetown. The US capital plans to deploy additional 300 police offers, install monitoring cameras and introduce an evening curfew on teenagers under 17, the city said.
   It will also launch a ‘violent crime task force’ staffed by local police officers, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
   ‘The city is much safer than 10 years ago but we can do better,’ Williams said, adding that the crime rate in the capital was lower last year than at any point since the late 1960s.

Naomi Campbell was arrested after allegedly causing a disturbance outside a former boyfriend's home, a British newspaper reported Friday.
   The Sun tabloid said police were called after Campbell, 36, arrived at the house in the early hours of July 10 seeking the return of some belongings.
   The Metropolitan Police confirmed that a 36-year-old woman had been detained for breach of the peace after ‘reports of a woman causing a disturbance’ in London's Belgravia district.
   She was freed without charge several hours later. Police retrieved the belongings, ‘and the woman left the scene,’ the force said in a statement. ‘No further action will be taken.’
   Campbell’s representatives did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
   Campbell has a history of volatile behaviour. Last month the London-born model appeared in a New York court to face allegations that she threw a cell phone at a maid in a dispute over a missing pair of jeans.
   In 2003, the supermodel was sued by a former administrative assistant who said Campbell had thrown a phone at her during a tantrum.
   In August 2004 Campbell and her maid came to blows, with the worker claiming the supermodel slapped her across the face. Campbell accused maid Millicent Burton of instigating the fight.

The Pentagon on Friday approved an agreement that will let Saudi Arabia buy up to $276 million in spare parts for its M1A2 Abrams tanks, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and other equipment from US stocks.
   In a mandatory notification to Congress, the Defence Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees major arms sales, said the deal would help improve the security of Saudi Arabia.
   Congress has 30 days to block the deal, although such action is rare.
   ‘The uninterrupted supply of spare parts will allow Saudi Arabia to keep its vehicle fleet at the highest state of readiness,’ said the agency, which oversees major arms sales.

Thai PM urges opponents to take part in elections
The Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, on Saturday urged his opponents not to boycott new elections in October, which were endorsed by the country’s revered king after months of political turmoil. ‘I urge all eligible voters to exercise your voting rights to show that Thai people respect democratic rules and people’s decision is the ultimate rule’ for the country, Thaksin said in his weekly radio address. Thailand, which has been mired by the months-long political crisis over the leadership of Thaksin, Friday officially set new elections on October 15 after King Bhumibol Adulyadej endorsed the election date on Thursday. The English-language Bangkok Post said Thaksin would not accept the premiership after the October 15 elections.
— AFP

Taiwan president vows to stay in office
Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-bian has vowed to stay in office as his Democratic Progressive Party opens its annual congress Saturday amid a string of corruption scandals that analysts said have tarnished its image. ‘In the past six years, A Bian and my team have faced difficulties every day and together with recent troubles it would be an easy way out... if (I) resign,’ Chen said in a statement issued late Friday night, calling himself by his nickname. ‘I am willing to thoroughly and humbly reflect on myself and correct the mistakes and ask the people to give me strength to continue and fulfill the unfinished mission.’
— AFP

12 killed in West Bengal road accident
At least 12 people were killed and 52 injured when a truck taking them home from a wedding party overturned in West Bengal, police said on Saturday. The accident occurred late on Friday when the driver lost control of the vehicle in Malda district, about 375 km north of state capital Kolkata. ‘Many are critically wounded and the toll may go up,’ said Dilip Mondal, a senior police official. Trucks and other commercial vehicles are often used to ferry passengers during marriages and other family functions in rural India.
— Reuters

Six killed in in Philippines
Five communist guerrillas and a coast guard were killed on Saturday when the rebels launched attacks on military and police installations southeast of the Philippine capital, a police report said. About 50 guerrillas of the communist New People’s Army commandeered a bus and attacked the police station and army camp in the coastal town of Matnog on the Bicol peninsula before dawn, triggering a lengthy gunbattle. Government forces fought the rebels off, killing five of them but a member of the coast guard, whose base is beside the police station, was slain as well. Five NPAs and two civilians were wounded in the battle, the police report said.
— AFP

Bush pledges US help to Turkey over Kurd rebels
The US president, George W Bush, told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday that the United States will help Turkey in the face of attacks by Kurdish rebels, the White House said. The two leaders also discussed the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice’s upcoming trip to the Middle East and ‘ways to address the humanitarian needs of the Lebanese people’ amid Israeli strikes, said spokeswoman Dana Perino. ‘They also discussed the continuing PKK terrorist attacks against Turkey. The president told the prime minister that the United States will work with Turkey to deal with this terrorist threat,’ said Perino.
— AFP

Last 9/11 detainee released
An Algerian man believed to be the last domestic detainee still in custody from a national dragnet after September 11 — and who was cleared of links to terrorism in November 2001 — was set free this week, his lawyer said Friday. Benemar Benatta, 32, went to Ontario, Canada, where he is seeking political asylum, after being released from a Buffalo immigration lockup Thursday, attorney Catherine Amirfar said. ‘After five years, he had become all but hopeless,’ she said. ‘Now he's cautiously optimistic.’ Benatta was among 1,200 mostly Arab and Muslim men detained nationwide as potential suspects or witnesses in the investigation following the terrorist attacks.
— AP

Eight killed in Haiti gun battles
Eight people were shot dead and four others injured in gun battles over the past three days between armed Haitian assailants and the United Nations peacekeeping force, UN officials said Friday. The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti said in a statement that armed groups have attacked stations belonging to the Haitian police and UN peacekeepers. They did not say if there were any casualties among police or peacekeepers. The peacekeepers and Haitian police ‘responded to the attacks, killing eight of the assailants and wounding at least four others,’ the statement said. Late Thursday, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan's special representative in Haiti, Edmond Mulet, met with the Haitian president, Rene Preval, and the prime minister, Jacques-Edouard Alexis to discuss the government’s policy toward the renewed wave of violence in the capital, the statement said.
— AFP

Fans turn their back on Live 8 hero Geldof
Live 8 hero Bob Geldof has been forced to cancel two concerts in Italy because of lack of public interest, after only 45 people turned up to see him perform in Milan, Italy's La Stampa newspaper reported Saturday. Geldof walked out of Milan's 12,000-capacity Arena Civica on Friday without playing, given the paltry attendance. His manager explained that a concert for less than 400 people would not be viable, the newspaper said. The 54-year-old Irish rocker, who said he had flown in from South Africa for the gig, sought to placate angry fans afterwards by promising to give a free concert in September. A scheduled performance in Rome on Saturday night, for which 300 tickets had been sold, was also cancelled, La Stampa said.
— AFP

Actor Jack Warden dies at 85
Jack Warden, nominated twice for an Oscar and known for his portrayal of a juror in the 1957 film ‘12 Angry Men’, has died at age 85, his business manager said Friday. Warden died Wednesday in a New York hospital, said Sidney Pazoff, the actor's Los Angeles-based manager. Warden had been in poor health with heart and kidney problems, Pazoff said. ‘Especially in the last month or so, he'd been going downhill,’ he said. The actor, whose real name was John Lebzelter, was born in 1920 in Newark, New Jersey, and at first took up professional boxing.
— AFP