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The United States appealed on Thursday for calm in Lebanon and reiterated concern that ‘irresponsible’ forces were working to topple the government of embattled the prime minister, Fouad Siniora.
   In November, the White House warned that Syria and Iran, acting through the Hezbollah group of Shia Muslim militants, might be on the verge of an attempted coup in Lebanon.
   State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned the latest violence in which at least four students were shot and killed in clashes between pro- and anti-government activists in the capital, Beirut.
   ‘There are certain irresponsible parties in Lebanon who have been provoking an atmosphere of confrontation and antagonism within the political system,’ he said.
   ‘The links between those individuals and groups and outside entities are well known. And they have been engaged in a cynical manipulation of public perceptions in the political process.’
   Asked whether the United States still saw the activities of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah as a threat and whether it was nervous about the safety of Siniora himself, McCormack said nothing had changed since November.
   ‘Certainly there are forces that want to stop progress toward a free, democratic, prosperous Lebanon. We’ve seen that. We’ve seen them assassinate and attempt to kill numerous individuals,’ he said.
   ‘We have no reason to believe that threat has abated in any way.’
   McCormack said Siniora, whose support base is largely among Sunni Muslims, has been a strong advocate for political reform in Lebanon, despite the ‘best efforts’ of Syria and Iran to prevent this.
   The United States is working to bolster Siniora’s government by helping him politically and militarily.
   Lebanon, which suffered a civil war in 1975-90 and has long been the target of Syrian influence, won more than $7.6 billion in grants and $770 million in soft loans from the United States, as well as $1.1 billion from Saudi Arabia, at a donor’s conference in Paris on Thursday.

Sri Lanka rejected Friday allegations by a New York-based human rights group that its security forces supported recruitment of child soldiers but pledged an ‘independent’ probe into the charges.
   The government said the Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday had relied heavily on ‘unsubstantiated’ claims by a UN official who first made the allegations of child recruitment in November.
   UN special representative Allan Rock accused Sri Lanka’s military last November of helping a breakaway Tamil rebel faction to recruit child soldiers in their battle against the main rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
   The government said in a statement there were ‘inherent weaknesses’ in the inquiry procedure and approach of Rock whose findings were cited by the human rights group.
   However, the government added it had decided to ‘engage an independent and impartial process to investigate the allegations made. This process will be conducted to determine the facts.’
   It did not say who would conduct the inquiry or when it would start. The government promised a similar probe in November soon after Rock’s charges.

With marching elephants and hi-tech tanks, India hosted the Russian president,Vladimir Putin, in Republic Day celebrations on Friday as security forces stayed on high alert amid a restive northeast and Kashmir.
   Streets were deserted across the northeastern state of Assam after separatist rebels asked people to boycott the celebrations, while shops and businesses in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar were closed after militant groups called for a general strike.
   Adding to jitters, police in New Delhi said they arrested late on Thursday an explosives-laden militant from a group battling Indian rule in Kashmir. Indian and Pakistani troops also exchanged small arms fire across their disputed border.
   Putin, visiting India to cement ties between the two long-term allies with lucrative nuclear power and arms deals, joined the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and thousands of spectators at a military procession in New Delhi that celebrates the 1950 founding of India’s republic.
   ‘We are keeping an eye on threats. We all know–the country– and the kind of security environment we are living in,’ said New Delhi police spokesman Deependra Pathak. In the past separatists have marked the day by attacking security forces or the celebrations themselves.
   The New Delhi parade, a showpiece of military might and cultural diversity, finished peacefully–the only ‘violence’ being a carnivalesque reenactment of Indians killing British officers during an 1857 rebellion against colonial rule.
   Tight security arrangements were in place in Delhi, which was the scene of three bomb explosions in 2005 in which 66 people were killed–although these attacks did not occur on Republic Day. The attacks were blamed on Islamic militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
   Police said they arrested a suspected militant from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group battling Indian rule in its part of Kashmir, who was carrying more than 2 kg (4.4 lb) of explosives and two detonators outside a New Delhi metro station.
   Late on Thursday a suspected member of a powerful rebel group in Assam, the United Liberation Front of Asom, was killed when a bomb he was carrying exploded, while two other blasts left one dead and at least seven wounded.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, wrapped up a two-day summit here Friday that was marked by much pomp but little substance, as both sides said commercial ties should be much greater.
   Putin’s visit, together with a raft of Russian ministers and businessmen, was meant to breathe new life into a Cold War-era friendship based on billions of dollars in arms deals.
   But the traditional strong point of bilateral relations has shifted in recent years as India looks increasingly to the United States and other Western countries for its huge military needs.
   Putin’s trip, which culminated Friday in an elaborate Republic Day parade exhibiting India’s largely Russian-made military might, brought a 250-million-dollar contract for joint production of jet engines.
   But other deals were few and far between.
   On the key area of energy cooperation, India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp and Russian state oil giant Rosneft agreed to jointly bid for exploration and refining projects in India, Russia and other countries.
   ONGC and Rosneft said in a joint statement they would build on their existing partnership in Russia’s vast Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said on Friday it should take no more than three weeks to reach agreement with Hamas Islamists on forming a national unity government,
   Abbas repeated his threat to call for parliamentary and presidential elections if talks fail, but he did not say three weeks was a deadline for requesting a new ballot.
   ‘We are at a junction now, either yes or no. I would tell you, this doesn’t need more than two weeks, maximum three weeks,’ Abbas told a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
   Palestinian factions resumed talks this week on forming a new coalition with the aim of ending a Western aid embargo on the Hamas administration. Sanctions are designed to force Hamas to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past peace deals.
   Similar talks broke down last year between Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas, which won elections a year ago.
   ‘If we fail to achieve a national unity government that allows us to lift the siege, I will call for presidential elections,’ Abbas said.
   The Palestinian president also said he expects to hold talks with the United States and Israel within a month on the framework for establishing a Palestinian state.
   Any agreement reached on the final borders for a Palestinian state, which Abbas said must recognise the pre-1967 borders of Israel, would be sent to a referendum of the Palestinian people, he said.
   Tensions rose in the Gaza Strip on Friday after renewed clashes between the ruling Hamas movement and president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party killed three people in less than a day.
   A Fatah loyalist and Hamas member were killed in the volatile coastal strip on Friday, while another Hamas loyalist died of wounds received in an attack the previous night, medics said.
   The clashes come after two weeks of relative calm in fighting between the two bitter rivals, which had killed more than 30 people since mid-December.

A US trade official said Friday China’s recent anti-satellite weapon test had contributed towards mistrust between the two countries, citing it as a reason for tighter US rules on high-tech exports.
   ‘Things like that contribute to international anxieties about China’s military intentions and capabilities,’ said Christopher Padilla, the assistant secretary for export administration under the US Commerce Department.
   ‘And the lack of transparency about this test, like the lack of transparency about China’s military modernisation in general, contributes towards international concerns about what the purposes and intentions of this build-up are.’
   Padilla said he told Chinese officials during his visit that this was one reason why the United States had to be wary about the export of sensitive high-technology goods to China.
   ‘I raised the point that the test is one more example of how a lack of transparency and clarity requires the US to hedge its relations with China,’ he said.
   Padilla is in China to explain a proposed new policy to tighten controls on high tech US exports to prevent them from being used to advance China’s military.
   He said the policy was also designed to facilitate US exports for legitimate civil uses.
   Padilla declined to give a date for when the policy would come into force.
   But he said US exporters would have to apply for a licence to export products on a government list of 47 goods if they know the items are destined for a military end-use in China.
   The US government is also proposing a ‘trusted customer programme’ that enables licence-free exports to customers in China with a record of not using US goods for military purposes.
   The US government has said the new policy would spare US exporters in critical sectors, such as semiconductor equipment and electronics, from applying for licenses for sales to companies in China.

The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said Friday that Japan will never tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea.
   Abe, who built his career as a hardliner on North Korea, spoke ahead of the expected resumption of six-nation talks on ending the communist state’s nuclear arsenal.
   ‘Our country will never tolerate North Korea’s nuclear weapons development,’ Abe said in a policy speech to parliament.
   ‘With a policy of pressure and dialogue, we will cooperate with the countries concerned to seek a concrete response from North Korea,’ he said.
   North Korea tested its first atom bomb on October 9, days after Abe took office with a conservative agenda including revising the post-World War II pacifist constitution.
   Abe, despite his calls for a more assertive Japan, said the country was cooperating with the United States to build a missile defence shield.
   ‘By cooperating with the United States, we will work to hurriedly set up a system to protect our country from ballistic missiles,’ Abe said.
   Japan feels a direct threat from North Korea, which fired a missile over its main island in 1998, prompting Tokyo and Washington to team up to build a missile defence shield.
   The US military also installed Patriot surface-to-air missiles in Japan after North Korea test-fired missiles in July.
   Abe rose to prominence campaigning against North Korea for its abductions of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies. Japan insists that some of them are alive and kept under wraps in North Korea.
   ‘Normalisation of ties between Japan and North Korea cannot be realized without the resolution of the abduction issue. We will strongly demand North Korea let all the abductees return home swiftly,’ Abe said.

The battle to succeed Israel’s disgraced president got under way Friday, with veteran statesman Shimon Peres in the lead so far to gain the prestigious post that slipped from his grasp seven years ago.
   The prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has proposed an amendment that would change the way parliament votes for the head of state from a secret to an open ballot–a move thought to boost the chances of the election of the deputy prime minister to the seven-year post, a senior official said.
   ‘Olmert wants to advance the candidacy of Shimon Peres’ for the largely ceremonial post, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Six months after thousands of tonnes of fuel oil spilled into the Mediterranean when Israel bombed a Lebanese power plant, the waters are still spitting out black poison despite efforts to clean up the mess.
   ‘The rain and the low tide have created new pollution zones,’ Ahmed Kojok of the Sea of Lebanon association said.
   On Beirut’s sun-splashed Ramlet al-Bayda beach, a human chain passed buckets filled with large black chunks–mixtures of fuel oil, sand and debris–which were emptied by a volunteer into large white watertight bags.
   ‘It’s sad,’ muttered a fisherman who works for the association, running his fingers over dozens of seashells mucked together in a sticky glob.
   The coast was polluted by around 15,000 tonnes of fuel oil after the Israeli military bombed Lebanon’s southern Jiyeh power plant in mid-July during its 34-day offensive against the Shia militia Hezbollah.
   Since then, local and international civic groups and the Lebanese environment ministry have been waging a long battle against the black sludge that seeped into the sea.
   A recent report by the European Commission’s Monitoring and Information Centre said ‘virtually all free oil at sea or in the harbours and marinas had been recovered by the end of September (2006)’. And the historic port of Byblos north of the capital has filled anew with fishermen.

Thailand’s aviation authority decided Friday not to renew an international safety certificate for Bangkok’s new airport, in the latest setback for the air hub since it opened just four months ago.
   The certificate is not required by law for the airport to operate, meaning it can stay open at least for the moment while the problems are sorted out.
   The Department of Civil Aviation had been scheduled Friday either to issue a permanent Aerodrome Certificate for Suvarnabhumi Airport, or renew an interim document awarded on July 25.
   Instead it opted to postpone the decision.
   The DCA certificate assures that the airport meets the standards of the UN International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
   DCA director general Chaisak Angkasuwan said they would wait until Thailand passed a law due within months requiring all airports to meet ICAO standards, and then reassess the situation at Suvarnabhumi.

An unidentified gunman shot dead a member of Afghanistan’s parliament and former Taliban governor as he walked to a mosque in the capital Kabul Friday, police said.
   Mawlawi Islam Mohammadi had just left his house and was on his way to attend Friday prayers with his bodyguard as he came under attack, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
   ‘Mohammadi, a member of Parliament, was killed by an unknown attacker today as he was on his way to the mosque. His bodyguard is also wounded,’ said Bashary.
   The attacker was waiting on the roadside on foot pretending to be a mason and had an assault rifle hidden in a bag of construction tools, criminal investigation police chief Ali Shah Paktiawal told AFP, citing witnesses.
   Police had launched an investigation into the incident and a suspect from a house nearby was arrested with a loaded AK-47 rifle, said Bashary.
   Mohammadi was a legislator from the northern Samangan province of Afghanistan.
   He had also served a governor of central Bamiyan province under the Taliban before the Islamist regime was driven from power by US-led forces in 2001.
   Officials said it was not known if Mohammadi had any personal feuds that might have led to the attack or if it was the work of Taliban insurgents who have frequently attacked government figures.
   ‘It is premature to talk about nature of the incident, whether it is the work of the Taliban or a personal feud. This will become clear after investigations,’ Bashary added.

UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed El Baradei on Thursday urged an end to talk of a military solution to the Iran nuclear crisis, saying any strike against Tehran would be ‘catastrophic’.
   ‘I hope we will stop talking about military action,’ El Baradei said during a discussion on nuclear proliferation at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
   ‘Military action against Iran would be counter productive and catastrophic,’ he said, stressing that the International Atomic Energy Agency was unaware of any facility in Iran capable of producing nuclear weapons.
   ‘Do they have the knowledge? Sure, they have the knowledge. Are you going to bomb the knowledge?’ he said.
   The UN Security Council passed a resolution last month imposing sanctions on Iran for its repeated refusal to cooperate fully with the Vienna-based IAEA or to suspend uranium enrichment.
   Iran insists that its nuclear programme is solely aimed at meeting peaceful energy needs, but the West fears it could be diverted towards building an atomic bomb.
   In Vienna on Thursday, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency had asked Iran to ‘to reconsider their decision’ to ban 38 IAEA inspectors from working in the country.
   IAEA inspectors regularly visit Iranian nuclear sites under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory.
   Meanwhile, influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani called on Iranian officials on Friday to act with caution against US threats aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
   ‘It is not a normal situation; the enemy imagines it wants to enter with power, with psychological warfare ... our caution should be proportionate to the events around us,’ Rafsanjani said in his Friday prayer sermon carried live on state radio.
   ‘We need caution in this situation, being aware, more far-sighted and talking more carefully,’ he said, describing mounting international pressure on Iran to freeze controversial nuclear work as an ‘evil movement to intimidate our nation.’
   He said the United States would gain nothing by attacking Iran, amid speculation that arch-enemy Washington could be planning a strike on Iran’s nuclear installations.
   ‘I do not think they will reach any results even if they take any kind of measures. How much could they gain in Afghanistan and Iraq?’ asked Rafsanjani, who is known as a pragmatic moderate cleric.
   He advised Washington to learn from history, citing the massive US presence in the Iranian army and intelligence service before the 1979 Islamic revolution which could not prevent the fall of US-backed Shah’s regime.
   ‘What more could a government, which had so much in Iran then, wanted to gain?’
   Rafsanjani’s comments came days after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the possibility of an attack, saying Washington was ‘in no position to hurt’ Iran.
   Ahmadinejad has been under criticism from both conservatives and reformists for his handling of foreign and domestic policy, including Tehran’s disputed nuclear drive.
   The United States has been at the forefront of the campaign to stop Iran’s nuclear programme, saying it could be a cover for efforts to build atomic weapons, a claim vehemently denied by Tehran.
   Iran has insisted it will not be diverted from its right to nuclear technology, despite a UN Security Council resolution last month which imposed sanctions over Tehran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
   Washington says it wants a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff but has never ruled out a military option to stop Iran’s nuclear drive.

A bomb hidden in a pigeon carrier box tore through Baghdad’s famous pet market Friday, killing 15 people as part of an insurgent campaign targeting shopping areas that has killed more than 150 people in the past week.
   The mayhem in the Al-Ghazil market of central Baghdad came as embattled prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, vowed to crack down on insurgents and militiamen who have unleashed a reign of terror in the capital.
   Insurgents hid the bomb in a pigeon box which had air holes punched in it and blew it up in the animal market, killing at least 15 people and wounding 35, a security source said.
   The explosion ripped through the market, which centuries ago was known for textile spinners selling different kinds of threads and yarns.
   But over the past few decades, it had become a place where animal lovers gather largely on Fridays to buy expensive birds, dogs, cats, reptiles and tropical fish.
   The market draws biologists and researchers who pay top prices for poisonous snakes that sellers catch at their own risk, and its shops display captured migrating birds, canaries, sparrows, carrier pigeons, reptiles and spiders.
   The bombing was a yet another gruesome example of a trend used by insurgents to target more and more markets in and around Baghdad in a bid to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible.
   On Thursday, at least 38 people were killed when a number of bombs hit markets and shopping streets in Baghdad.
   But the deadliest attack was on Monday when 88 people died in a twin car bomb attack on the capital’s Haraj market, known for second-hand goods.
   On Friday, police also recovered six bodies in Baghdad of men shot in the head, apparent victims of sectarian attacks.
   The blast in the animal market came as Iraqi and US forces were finalising a new security plan for Baghdad, which has been wracked by insurgent and sectarian violence.
   More than 16,800 civilians were killed in the capital last year, according to a recent United Nations report.
   Equipped with additional US-Iraqi troops, Maliki on Thursday vowed to crack down on anyone who broke law.

Serbia remained hostile to Kosovo’s independence, but the province’s Albanian majority was already looking to a future free of Belgrade’s control as a plan on its status was presented Friday.
   The government of the Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, renowned for his fervent opposition to Kosovo’s independence, says it is so sure about its stance that it has no ‘Plan B.’
   The approach by Kostunica, a constitutional lawyer, is based on Serbia’s legal claims to Kosovo, which Belgrade and many Serbs consider the cradle of their history, culture and religion.
   ‘Our position is confirmed by the constitution and two resolutions in our parliament,’ said Economic Minister Predrag Bubalo.
   ‘If the suggested solution is contrary, we will defend what is in our constitution and the resolutions,’ said Bubalo, a senior member of Kostunica’s moderate nationalist party.
   Approved in an October referendum, Serbia’s new constitution declares Kosovo an ‘integral’ part of the former Yugoslav republic.
   The referendum was seen as a message by Serbia to the international community designed to play up the consensus binding the country in opposition to Kosovo’s possible independence.
   Technically still a Serbian province, Kosovo has been run by a United Nations mission for almost eight years.
   It has been in limbo since NATO forces drove out troops ordered by then Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to crack down on Kososvo’s 90-percent ethnic Albanian population in a fight against separatists.
   Bubalo’s comment came ahead of special UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s meeting Friday with the six-power Contact Group in Vienna, where he unveiled a blueprint expected to pave the way for a new status for Kosovo.
   According to various reports, Ahtisaari was to avoid the use of the word ‘independence’ in his proposal to the informal group made up of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States.
   Ahtisaari, who will present the plan to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina next week, admitted as much when he told the Council of Europe on Wednesday that the ‘fair and balanced’ proposal would be acceptable to the rival camps.
   But, as indicated in Serbia’s Politika newspaper, which is close to Kostunica’s government, ‘Ahtisaari’s proposal envisages the separation of Kosovo from Serbian sovereignty’.
   While it was business as usual Friday on the streets of the Serbian capital, the air was thick with anticipation in Pristina, Kosovo’s main city.
   Observers say that nobody from the province’s ethnic Albanian majority, including its political leaders, is expecting anything but independence to come from Ahtisaari’s proposal.

Makers of controversial British reality television show ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ apologised and cancelled an eviction vote Thursday after Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty was mistakenly favoured over fellow contestants.
   Shetty, victim of alleged racist bullying on the show last week, is among five contestants in the Big Brother house who could be turfed out in a process which will eventually leave the last remaining person as the winner.
   In on-screen voting Wednesday night, viewers were invited to call different numbers to choose which contestant they wanted to eject, with ‘evict’ above each of their pictures. But in what producers insist was a mistake, Shetty’s picture was accompanied only by the word ‘save’—leaving viewers confused about how to vote if they wanted the Indian actress removed.
   ‘This was a genuine mistake which was due to human error,’ said production company Endemol, which makes the programme. ‘We apologise to viewers and feel the best way to rectify it is to cancel the vote so far and re-open the voting again this evening, at the end of tonight’s show,’ it added. The next contestant is due to be evicted Friday night.
   Earlier, a senior executive at Channel Four, which broadcasts the show, said last week’s race row involving Bollywood star Shetty had saved the show from being ‘the most boring in years’.
   Kevin Lygo, director of television at Channel 4, said it was a ‘fantastic thing’ that the programme, which drew more than 43,000 complaints, had sparked debate.

Russia said on Friday a US plan to deploy an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic was a ‘mistake’ which would have negative consequences for international security.
   The State Department announced on Sunday the two countries had agreed to start detailed talks on allowing their territory to be used for the system, designed to shoot down missiles with rockets. US officials say the system is intended to counter a long-range Iranian missile threat, not Russia.
   ‘We believe US plans to create an anti-missile defence system in Europe are a mistake which will bring about negative consequences for international security,’ said a Russian Foreign Ministry statement posted on its Web site
   ‘This issue will be a subject of our detailed analysis and dialogue with the United States and their partners.’ The Russian defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, rejected Washington’s reassurances on Wednesday, saying Iranian missiles could not reach Europe.
   The Russian military say they have modern missiles which can neutralize the planned US missile defence system. But political leaders insist any NATO activity near Russian borders carries broader geopolitical threats for Moscow.
   Russia, whose reviving self-confidence is backed by a windfall of oil and gas revenues, suspects Washington and NATO of trying to surround it and replace Moscow as a patron of ex-Soviet states.
   ‘The creation of a US anti-missile base in Europe can only be viewed as a considerable change in the configuration of the American military presence in Europe,’ the Foreign Ministry statement said.

Unknown gunmen have killed five people in a series of attacks in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, witnesses said on Friday.
   A BBC correspondent saw three bodies with gunshot wounds lying in waste ground and reliable witnesses have seen two more bodies elsewhere in the city.
   Four people were also injured in mortar attacks. Insecurity has increased since the ousting of Islamists last month.
   Meanwhile, South Africa says it does not have the troops to contribute to an African Union peacekeeping force.
   The defence minister, Mosiuoa Lekota, said it might try to support the mission in other ways, such as technical support.
   The AU force would replace Ethiopian troops, who have started to withdraw after helping the interim government drive out the Union of Islamic Courts from Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia. Some UIC leaders have said they would stage a guerrilla war and it is believed that some 3,000 Islamist fighters remain in Mogadishu.
   There have been several attacks on Ethiopian and government troops but those killed overnight were civilians.

A woman rushed to help one of six men accused of plotting to bomb London’s underground shortly after his device exploded, thinking he had been shot, a court heard Thursday.
   Ann Coyne was pulled away by her mother-in-law, whom she was travelling with on an underground train, and only then noticed a thick, yellow substance ‘like chewing gum’ oozing from Hussain Osman’s rucksack, she said in evidence.
   Osman, 28, and five others—Ramzi Mohammed, 25, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, Yassin Omar, 26, Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, and Adel Yahya, 24 — deny charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.
   It is alleged that they were behind a failed plot to bring carnage to the capital on July 21, 2005 — exactly two weeks after July 7 suicide bombings which killed 52 innocent civilians.
   Their trial, at the top security Woolwich Crown Court in London, is one of Britain’s highest profile cases in years and is expected to last four months.
   On Thursday, the court heard evidence from a string of witnesses to the chaotic aftermath of some of the four alleged attempts to detonate home-made bombs made of hydrogen peroxide and chapati flour.
   Company director David Wood said he had demanded of an ‘expressionless’ Osman: ‘Why are you doing this, why are you running away? Come and explain yourself.’
   As passengers fled through the main doors of the train in the aftermath of the incident, Osman squeezed through a gap between carriages and escaped along the track, Wood added.

Russia would not extradite Andrei Lugovoy if Britain asked for him to be handed over to stand trial for poisoning ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, a source in the prosecutor-general’s office told Interfax news agency on Friday.
   Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on Friday that London would ask Moscow to extradite Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard, to stand trial for poisoning Litvinenko, who died from radiation poisoning in the British capital in November.
   ‘If we receive an official request from London to extradite Lugovoy, the answer will probably be as follows: the Russian constitution forbids the extradition of its citizens,’ the source in the prosecutor-general’s office told Interfax.
   The source said that a Russian citizen could stand trial in Russia for crimes committed abroad.
   A spokeswoman for the prosecutor-general’s office declined to comment. Lugovoy told Reuters last month he had nothing to do with Litvinenko’s murder.

The top US government official in charge of arms control has resigned at a time when Washington is stepping up efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons drive and rallying global action over Iran’s sensitive atomic program.
   Robert Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, sent a letter to President George W. Bush on Wednesday informing of his decision after six years on the job, the State Department said Thursday.
   Considered a hardliner in the Bush administration, Joseph was a key architect of the controversial Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) designed by the United States to combat the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction.

The United Nations should take over full financing of a struggling African Union peacekeeping operation in Sudan’s violent Darfur region, where security is deteriorating, the AU’s top diplomat said on Friday.
   Alpha Oumar Konare’s report to African foreign ministers meeting in Addis Ababa blamed the renewed insecurity on the re-emergence of pro-government militia known as Janjaweed plus a lack of commitment to a truce by all parties to the conflict.
   ‘It is crucial that the issue of funding (of the AU mission) by the United Nations through assessed contributions be pursued expeditiously,’ the report said.
   It added agreement had been reached that UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon should recommend to the General Assembly that ‘the United Nations provide full financing to the mission’.
   The 7,500-some AU soldiers and police in Darfur have failed to stem the violence, which experts estimate has killed 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes during the four-year conflict.

Oscar-winning Australian actress Nicole Kidman was taken to hospital after a car she was traveling in crashed during the shooting of a science-fiction film in Los Angeles, police said Thursday.
   The 39-year-old Australian screen goddess—the highest-paid actress in Hollywood—was treated at the Cedars Sinai Hospital after a stunt vehicle crashed into a lamppost, police said.
   ‘At about 1:00 am (0900 GMT) this morning, a stunt vehicle traveling at 300 West 6th Street went off the road and collided with a light pole,’ Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Martha Garcia told AFP.
   ‘There were reports of minor complaints, but the people involved made their own arrangements to go to hospital and have

Militants kill policeman in Pakistan border region
Suspected militants killed a policeman in an ambush on a police van in northwest Pakistan where security forces are battling pro-Taliban militants, officials said Friday. The gunmen opened fire on a police patrol late Thursday in Tank, a district adjoining the troubled tribal zone of South Waziristan on the Afghan border, local police officer Mohammad Khan said. ‘A policeman sitting in the front seat of the vehicle was killed,’ Khan said. Separately a policeman was injured when militants launched three rockets at a check post early Friday in the Islamist-dominated Bajaur tribal zone, security officials said..
— AFP

EU aids Indonesia’s flood victims
The European Commission announced Friday it would provide 1.3 million dollars in aid to help victims of devastating floods on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Dozens of people were killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee when flash floods inundated vast swathes of Aceh and North Sumatra provinces last month. The aid would help 70,000 people displaced by the disaster, focusing on providing drinking water and helping those whose crops were buried in a sea of mud, the commission said in a statement.
— AFP

Philippines urges Nigeria against kidnap rescue attempt
The Philippines has asked Nigeria to abandon attempts to rescue 24 Filipinos kidnapped from a ship off Nigeria, fearing such efforts could further endanger their lives, an official said Friday. ‘We want to put our Filipino seafarers out of harm’s way so we appealed to the Nigerian government to forego any operation,’ said Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos. ‘If there are ways to resolve this peacefully, we want to exhaust them,’ he added saying his government was still against paying any ransom. The 24 Filipinos were seized by gunmen from a Nigerian-flagged, German-owned cargo ship off the coast of the West African state last week.
— AFP

Myanmar releases 400 customs staff
Authorities in military-run Myanmar on Friday released nearly 400 customs staff who were hauled in for questioning over corruption allegations nearly three months ago. Myanmar purged about one-fifth of its Customs Department in mid-November last year as part of an ongoing anti-graft drive, which began with the arrest and imprisonment of the customs chief. A customs official, who did not wish to be named, said that 372 of the 500 personnel taken in for questioning in November were released Friday without charge. About 100 customs staff remain in prison awaiting trial. Family members and colleagues gathered at the Customs Department in central Yangon Friday to welcome the freed staff, who arrived from the notorious Insein prison north of the city in trucks at about 10:40am.
— AFP

Ecuador launches int’l probe of fatal helicopter crash
A tearful president Rafael Correa Thursday promised an international investigation into the helicopter crash that killed Ecuador’s first female defense minister, Guadalupe Larriva, nine days after she was sworn into office. The government said there was no sign of an attack in the collision of two helicopters near the Portoviejo air base on the Pacific coast late Wednesday. Larriva was killed along with her daughter and five army officers. The president said, France and Chile would take part in the probe. The United States and Colombia offered to help and sent condolences, as did the governments of Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.
— AFP

Clashes in Haiti leave five dead
Twenty-four hours of clashes between UN forces and armed gangs in the Haitian capital’s sprawling slum of Cite Soleil have left at least five people dead and 12 wounded by gunfire, the UN mission in Haiti said Thursday. The gangs were extorting money from truck drivers and motorists on the busy road, said the spokesman. Over two decades, Haiti has suffered from political violence and instability, notably since the departure of then-president Jean Bertrand Aristide in February 2004 amid a popular uprising.
— AFP

Rwanda to release 8,000 more genocide prisoners
Rwanda will release another 8,000 prisoners convicted or awaiting trial over the central African nation’s 1994 genocide, a chief prosecutor said, raising fears among survivors of a fresh round of bloodletting. The release adds to tens of thousands already freed in recent years as part of an effort to empty Rwanda’s over-flowing prisons and promote reconciliation. Rwanda’s chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, confirmed the new releases, expected to start in early February. They include 8,000 people linked to the 1994 massacres and 1,000 others convicted of other crimes.
— Reuters

No breakthrough in Khmer Rouge tribunal row
Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge tribunal faces further delay after judges failed Friday to resolve several disagreements over internal rules for the long-awaited genocide trials. After two weeks of talks, a nine-member committee of foreign and Cambodian judges said in a statement ‘there remain several major issues to be fully resolved.’ The committee will meet again in March, the statement said, in a development that will likely force officials with the joint UN-Cambodian tribunal to push back a plenary session by all 29 jurists to formally adopt the rules, which define every aspect of the complex mixed-tribunal. ‘We are acutely aware of the urgent need to ensure fair and open trials for the benefit of the Cambodian people and we are all committed to achieving that goal,’ the committee said after talks ended late in the afternoon.
— AFP

Gambia’s ruling party wins in legislative poll
President Yahya Jammeh’s ruling party has overwhelmingly won the parliamentary elections held Thursday in Gambia, taking 42 of the 48 seats, results showed Friday. The Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction, garnered 42 seats against the opposition’s five, according to full results published by the chairman of the independence electoral commission Alhagie Mustapha Carayol. One seat went to an independent candidate. The west African country’s opposition, which still remains in the minority, nearly doubled its seats from the previous national assembly where it held just three seats.
— AFP