The head of a prominent Sri Lankan human rights group on Monday accused the island’s government of seeking to ‘stage-manage’ a visit by a top United Nations official.
   Minority Tamil legislator Mano Ganeshan said Colombo was tightly controlling the five-day visit of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, who is due here Tuesday.
   ‘They want to give her a guided-tour and meet people who will say the right things,’ said Ganeshan, adding that authorities were out to ‘stage-manage’ the entire visit.
   Ganeshan heads the Colombo-based Civil Monitoring Commission, which investigates extra-judicial killings and disappearances. He said he had nevertheless been able to arrange for the families of victims to meet with Arbour.
   Sri Lankan authorities had last week announced that Arbour would not be allowed to travel to the Tamil Tiger-held north, citing security reasons as well as the fear that the rebels would use a visit for propaganda purposes.
   ‘Visiting foreign dignitaries are free to travel to other parts of the country to get a first-hand idea of what’s happening on the ground,’ Human Rights minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said.
   UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said Arbour would be visiting the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula, a Tamil-dominated area controlled by government troops but with no land access from the south.
   Rights groups accuse both the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of gross rights abuses, summary killings and scores of disappearances of civilians and political activists. Sri Lanka narrowly avoided censure during a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting last month in Geneva, despite increasing alarm over the situation on the war-torn tropical island.
   In July, London-based rights group Amnesty International said hundreds of people disappeared in Sri Lanka in the past year and more than 5,700 such cases from the past three decades were under UN review.
   Last month a top international panel said a government probe into 16 high-profile cases, including mass murder, had failed to make headway since being launched in November 2006.
   
   Military forces journalists
   out of Jaffna
   Sri Lanka’s military has forced three people making a documentary about the decades-long Tamil separatist conflict to leave the embattled northern Jaffna peninsula, a media rights group said Monday.
   The team from Quick Silver Media was forced to leave last week despite having prior permission from defence authorities in the capital to film and conduct interviews in Jaffna, Free Media Movement said in a statement.
   The journalists, who were making the documentary for Britain’s Channel 4 television, had been in Jaffna for about one day before they were asked to leave for Colombo. They were also not allowed to work independently of the military, the group said.
   ‘Jaffna has been under Sri Lanka government and military rule for nearly 12 years now,’ the FMM said. ‘If it cannot allow independent reporting from Jaffna even after 12 years of its rule, that shows there is real problem that needs to be addressed.’

The UN’s nuclear watchdog head begins a long scheduled trip to India on Monday that has turned into a political flashpoint as a nuclear energy deal with the United States threatens to spark snap elections.
   Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is ostensibly on a technical visit to speak at an energy conference, visit a nuclear research facility in Mumbai and meet with Indian nuclear officials.
   But the trip comes just as India faces an informal end-October deadline to begin securing clearances from the IAEA and others to clinch the nuclear energy deal – opposed by its communist allies who say the deal would enslave New Delhi to US policy.
   The deal would be a milestone in India-US relations, not the best of friends during the Cold War. It would allow India to import US nuclear fuel and reactors, despite having tested nuclear weapons and not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
   Critics say the deal unfairly rewards India and undercuts a US-led campaign to curtail nuclear ambitions of nations like Iran. A week before the IAEA visit, US lawmakers introduced a non-binding resolution in the House of Representatives questioning if the deal complied with U.S. law.
   In India, the communists have warned the government against negotiating with the IAEA to place India’s civilian nuclear reactors under UN safeguards, one of the first steps towards making the deal operational.
   But Sonia Gandhi, ruling Congress party head and India’s most powerful politician, sharpened the rhetoric on Sunday in a statement widely seen as hinting she was ready for a snap vote, calling opponents of the nuclear deal enemies of development.
   The IAEA says it is not a political visit.
   ‘There is no expectation that the India-US agreement will be front and centre of his visit there,’ said a Vienna diplomat close to the IAEA.
   ‘It just depends on India, when the timing is right, to make the essential approach about drafting a safeguards agreement. We don’t have any indication that this is going to happen then.’
   But some experts say timing is everything when it comes to ElBaradei’s visit and that government officials could meet with him, a move bound to anger the left.
   ‘There is little doubt the Indian government has decided to go ahead with the deal and couldn’t care less what the left has to say,’ RR Subramanian, an independent nuclear expert, said.
   ‘So I think that they are going to talk to ElBaradei.’
   India’s Department of Atomic Energy said he would be arriving on Monday night and that his official program would start on Tuesday.
   The Vienna-based diplomat said ElBaradei could discuss the deal informally.
   The government and its communist allies formed a joint panel to end the stand-off, but so far neither side seemed to budge from their position. The panel will meet again on Tuesday.

Iraq has vowed to punish US security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards were not provoked when they opened ‘deliberate’ fire in Baghdad three weeks ago, killing 17 civilians.
   The US embassy was tight-lipped on Monday on whether those involved in the September 16 killings would be handed over for prosecution in a case that has thrown the spotlight on the often controversial work of private security operators in Iraq.
   ‘This and other matters will be discussed by the joint commission as they proceed with their work, (so it is) best not to prejudge the outcome of their discussions at this point,’ embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said, referring to a joint Iraq-US inquiry into the shootings.
   The Iraqi government said in its report into the killings in Nisoor Square released on Sunday that the Blackwater guards were unprovoked when they opened fire and that they should face legal punishment.
   ‘The investigation committee appointed by the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has finished its inquiry and has found that there was no evidence that the convoy of Blackwater came under fire directly or indirectly,’ a government statement said.
   ‘Employees of the company violated the rules governing use of force by security companies,’ it said. ‘They have committed a deliberate crime and should be punished under the law.’
   It gave the number of dead from the shootings as 17, considerably higher than the previous toll according to which at least 10 people had been killed. The statement said 22 people had been wounded.he Iraqi government would now take ‘judicial measures to punish the company,’ the statement said.

At least 100,000 US troops could return home from Iraq by the end of 2008, Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said in an interview aired on Sunday, although he proposed that several American military bases stay in Iraq.
   Speaking on CNN television, Talabani envisioned faster US troop reductions than US commanders have discussed in public. But he stressed that the pace of withdrawal was up to those commanders and did not explain why he foresaw a faster pullout.
   ‘I think it is possible at the end of the next year that a big part of the American Army will be back,’ said Talabani, who gave the interview during a trip to the United States. ‘More than 100,000 can be back by the end of the next year.’
   But Talabani, a Kurd and former guerrilla leader who fought Saddam Hussein, said he was not pushing for an independent Kurdistan in Iraq’s North, because neighbouring countries would never agree to it.
   He also expressed confidence in Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, an Arab from the Shia Muslim majority, saying Maliki was not personally corrupt despite allegations of widespread corruption in his government. ‘He is a clean man,’ Talabani said.
   The United States currently has about 165,000 troops in Iraq.
   Talabani said that the United States could start significant reductions of its forces in Iraq next spring. He proposed three US military bases remain after most of the Americans are gone-in the north, south and middle of Iraq.

Myanmar’s military junta has donated thousands of dollars as well as food and medicines to monasteries in Yangon, state media reported Monday, in an apparent gesture of reconciliation.
   Buddhist monks had last month declared a boycott on donations from soldiers and their families as they spearheaded mass protests which brought as many as 100,000 people onto the streets of the nation’s main city.
   The monks were beaten and arrested when the ruling generals reacted to the biggest threat to their rule in 20 years with a bloody crackdown that left at least 13 people dead and more than 2,100 locked up.
   The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said lieutenant general Myint Swe of the defence ministry Sunday distributed about 8,000 dollars in cash and huge amounts of rice, cooking oil, toothpaste and medicine to 50 monasteries and a nunnery in northern Yangon.
   The paper, a government mouthpiece, said the donations were made on behalf of military members and their families, and were accepted by the monks.
   In Buddhism, refusing to take alms is regarded as a snub akin to effective excommunication, and acceptance of the gifts would indicate the soldiers have been brought back into the faith.
   It came with the UN Security Council due Monday to weigh a draft statement condemning the military regime.
   The non-binding text, drafted by the United States, Britain and France, was submitted after the world body heard a report from UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his recent mission to defuse the crisis.
   The statement condemns ‘violent repression of peaceful demonstrations’ and urges Myanmar’s rulers to ‘cease repressive measures’ and release detainees as well as political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
   However, diplomats in New York said it was likely to be toned down at the request of China, Russia and possibly Indonesia.
   The donations were latest in a series of gestures by the military aimed at easing domestic and international pressure on the regime.
   During the weekend the military trumpeted its release of more than half of 2,171 people arrested in the crackdown and noted that nearly 400 of 533 monks detained had been ‘sent back to their respective monasteries.’
   State media reported that pornography and weapons, including one pistol and 13 slingshots, had been confiscated during raids on the monasteries.

With 13,000 dead during more than a decade of fighting, there’s at least one good thing people here say about their country – at least there’s no war now.
   But nearly a year after Maoist militants left their Himalayan bases to join the political mainstream, raising hopes the government could finally govern, the country’s politics remain deadlocked by feuding parties and overshadowed by the former insurgents.
   And in Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries, where most rural people struggle by in a semi-feudal existence, pessimism has become the rule.
   ‘I was naive enough to believe that things would change,’ said former finance minister Devendra Raj Pandey. ‘I thought the parties would change, and that the Maoists would come around to accepting this new political reality.’
   Instead, ‘They have all thoroughly disappointed the people in every sense of the word.’
   When the peace agreement was signed in November, prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala hailed it by saying ‘Nepal has entered a new era.’ Prachanda, the Maoist leader who goes by a single name, said in his speech that: ‘We will now turn to a campaign of peace and building a new Nepal.’
   But little has been built so far.
   The Maoists came into the government promising to concentrate on such issues as land reform and education. Instead, they face accusations of everything from forcefully recruiting new soldiers to intimidating political rivals and destroying voter education materials.
   On Friday came one more disappointment, when, after days of arguing, the political parties and the Maoists agreed to postpone elections to the Constituent Assembly which will draft the new constitution and map out the country’s political future.
   The election was originally scheduled for November 22, but few expect it to be held before March.
   That decision will presumably require many more meetings in the prime minister’s walled compound, where politicians disappear behind a rolling metal gate and carloads of young Maoists, dressed in gray polyester safari suits, wait grimly in the parking lot for their leaders.
   It was the Maoists who pushed for the postponement, increasing the pressure on the ruling alliance after quitting the government last month.
   Nothing should happen, they say, until their demands are met. The monarchy, they insist, should be immediately abolished – though the once-absolute ruler King Gyanendra retains little power since street protests forced him to bring back democracy last year. They are also demanding procedural changes to the election system for the constituent assembly – technical modifications that appear aimed at ensuring they capture as many seats as possible.
   Himalayan gerrymandering may simply mean the Maoists have learned to play the game.

The British prime minister, Gordon Brown, on Monday defended his decision not to call an early general election, amid claims that he had performed an about-face beca
   use of unfavourable opinion polls.
   Brown told his monthly news conference that he had considered holding an election – and believed his governing Labour Party would have won – but preferred instead to wait and take a longer-term approach.
   The main opposition Conservative Party, which reversed opinion poll losses to Labour after its annual conference last week, accused Brown of running scared and said
   that he had allowed his
   advisers to stoke up election fervour.
   Brown refused to blame his advisers, adding: ‘I take full responsibility for everything that has happened.
   Tory leader David Cameron has accused Brown of treating the voters ‘like fools’ by trying to claim that his decision was not driven by Labour’s sudden slump in the polls.
   But Brown told reporters that his decision was based on his ‘first instinct’, which was to demonstrate to the electorate his ‘vision’ for the future and deliver on it before going to the polls.

The Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, installed a loyalist and former spymaster as deputy army chief Monday, handpicking his successor as leader of the military in a key step to restoring civilian rule.
   General Ashfaq Kiyani, who has helped spearhead the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda and represented the president in crunch political negotiations, took up the position Monday with a show of military pomp.
   Musharraf, a key US anti-terror ally, had promised to step down as head of the Islamic republic’s nuclear-armed military if he won another five-year term in a presidential election on Saturday.
   He won by a landslide, but must now wait at least nine days for the Supreme Court to rule on the legality of the election by the national parliament and provincial assemblies before the result is declared official.
   Kiyani, the former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, received a guard of honour as he arrived at army headquarters in Rawalpindi, a military statement said.

A key Darfur rebel leader on Monday accused the Sudanese army of razing a town in the troubled region, killing up to 100 people in retaliation for an attack on African Union troops.
   ‘The army launched an offensive against the town after the attack on the African Union Mission in Sudan and we asked our fighters to leave the town taking with them civilians to spare them reprisals,’ Suleiman Jamous said by telephone from Chad.
   The town of Haskanita in south Darfur was destroyed on Saturday after a September 29 attack on a nearby African Union base that left 10 peacekeepers dead and drew worldwide condemnation. Jamous, former humanitarian coordinator for the Sudan Liberation Movement, said the army and its proxy militia the Janjaweed carried out the attack.

Around 50 Pakistani soldiers are missing after gunbattles with Islamic militants in a troubled tribal area that have already claimed 80 lives since the weekend, the army said Monday.
   The soldiers have been out of radio contact since the morning in rugged North Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan where the United States says Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and the Taliban are regrouping.
   News of the missing soldiers comes as a fresh blow to the army, with militants already holding more than 200 Pakistani soldiers in another part of the insurgency-plagued ethnic Pashtun tribal belt.
   Violence has spiked in the troubled region since Pakistani security forces besieged and then raided the al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July – an operation that Osama bin Laden has urged militants to avenge.
   ‘We have reports of around 50 troops missing. They are out of communications and their whereabouts have not been found,’ chief military spokesman major general Waheed Arshad said.
   The soldiers went missing as they were moving from place to place following fresh clashes near Mir Ali, the second biggest town in North Waziristan, Arshad said.