China and Russia on Friday signed a one-billion-dollar deal to expand a nuclear energy facility in the Asian nation, a Russian official said.
   ‘We have completed negotiations on construction of a uranium enrichment factory,’ Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom, told reporters in Beijing.
   He was speaking during a visit to Beijing by new Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who is on his first foreign trip since taking office this month.
   The deal will include construction of a fourth block of a nuclear facility that enriches uranium in China as well as the delivery of partially enriched Russian uranium, Kiriyenko said.
   ‘The contract is worth more than one billion dollars, about 500 million dollars for construction and another 500 million for delivery of uranium,’ Kiriyenko said.
   China has been seeking to expand its use of nuclear power, which accounts for less than two per cent of its total energy production.
   The fast-growing economic power is highly dependent on coal, which is blamed for worsening pollution and proved risky when supplies were cut off by severe snowstorms during the winter.
   Russia has been competing with Western nations and Japan for a slice of China’s nuclear power market.
   French nuclear giant Areva last year sealed a deal to deliver two advanced reactors for eight billion euros (12.6 billion dollars).
   Russia’s first 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor in China, at Tianwan in the east, went into commercial operation in June last year after numerous delays while a second went into operation in September.
   Russia supplies fuel for both reactors in accordance with earlier agreements.
   Kiriyenko said that Russia and China were also in talks on the construction of two more 1,000 megawatt reactors at the Tianwan facility. The original contract, signed in 1997, was worth 3.3 billion dollars.
   China and Russia, despite political ties, have been competing for Central Asia’s oil and gas, which was exclusively Moscow’s preserve in Soviet times.
   China currently has 11 nuclear reactors in operation and will need up to 30 more atomic power plants if it expects to realise its target of producing 40 gigawatts of nuclear energy by 2020.

International aid groups reacted cautiously Friday to the announcement that Myanmar would allow all foreign relief workers into the country, stressing that details on the ground were still unclear.
   While they welcomed the news following talks between junta leader Than Shwe and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the groups said the relief effort needed more than simply foreigners flying in to the main city Yangon.
   ‘The important issue is whether we can leave Yangon or not,’ Paul Risley, spokesman for the UN’s World Food Programme, said in neighbouring Thailand.
   The secretive junta has all but sealed off the southern Irrawaddy Delta hardest hit by the May 2-3 storm, which left at least 133,000 people dead or missing and around 2.5 million in dire need of immediate aid.
   Relief organisations have said outside experts are needed to oversee the complicated disaster management operations, and that until now mostly local staff — not foreigners — have been let into the disaster zone.
   ‘We still have to clarify what this means — who can get in, who can go where,’ said John Sparrow of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
   ‘Does it mean that the people we have standing by can enter the country? Does it mean we can gear up and go full throttle?’ Sparrow said. ‘It isn’t clear right now.’
   ‘We’re cautiously optimistic but we have to see how it works in practical terms,’ said James East, spokesman for World Vision — one of dozens of aid groups whose work has been restricted by the Myanmar military regime.
   ‘The debate for the last couple of weeks has been about politics and the politics of humanitarian aid,’ East told AFP. ‘Hopefully we’ve moved beyond that to say: Let’s just help the people.’
   Making the first visit to Myanmar by a UN secretary general in more four decades, Ban held talks with Than Shwe and later told reporters that he had agreed to let in all foreign aid workers.

A curfew was imposed in part of eastern Sri Lanka Thursday following an outbreak of deadly political violence involving Tamil Tiger defectors now allied to the government.
   Two members of the Tamil People’s Liberation Tigers — a party made up of Tamil rebels who switched sides — were gunned down near the lagoon town of Batticaloa, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
   This sparked revenge killings against a local Muslim community — which during provincial elections in the area earlier this month had largely allied itself with the island’s main opposition parties.
   Three Muslims were killed in the revenge attacks, Nanayakkara said, adding that a police curfew was now in force in the town of Kattankudi, the scene of the violence.
   ‘We don’t know who the killers are, but the incidents are being investigated,’ Nanayakkara said.
   Residents in the area said shops were closed while transport services have come to a standstill.

Taiwan and China will next month resume direct talks after more than a decade, the island’s top China policy-maker Lai Shin-yuan said Friday.
   ‘You will see very soon in June the beginning of institutional negotiations between the two sides,’ Lai, chairwoman of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters, three days after she took office.
   Top of the agenda will be starting weekend passenger charter and cargo flights as well as allowing Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan, she said.
   Direct transport links between the two sides have been cut since 1949 at the end of a civil war. Taiwanese wishing to fly to the mainland must transit via somewhere such as Hong Kong, while visits here by Chinese tourists are severely restricted.
   In the absence of official contacts, two quasi-officials bodies — the SEF in Taipei and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits in Beijing — were authorised by their separate governments to hold a series of rapprochement talks in the 1990s.
   ‘On May 26 we will authorise the Straits Exchange Foundation to quickly engage with its Chinese counterpart,’ Lai said, referring to groundwork to prepare for the talks in June.
   Lai’s remarks came one day after China said it was preparing to resume direct talks with Taiwan.
   ‘Currently, good developing momentum is emerging in cross-strait relations, bringing a rare and important opportunity,’ said Chen Yunlin, head of China’s ruling Communist Party Central Committee’s Taiwan Work Office.
   China and Taiwan held a landmark dialogue in 1993 in Singapore, but Beijing suspended follow-up talks to protest a 1995 US visit by Taiwan’s then-president, seeing it as a move promoting independence.
   The two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949 and China still claims Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification. It has in the past threatened to invade if Taiwan declares independence.

The police grilled the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, on Friday for a second time in three weeks in the latest corruption probe against him, which has sparked calls for his resignation.
   Anti-fraud squad officers questioned Olmert, 62, for about 90 minutes at his official residence in Jerusalem.
   They are trying to establish whether Olmert dispensed any favours in exchange for funds he allegedly received illegally from millionaire US financier Morris Talansky during the 13 years before he became premier in 2006.
   The state prosecutor believes Olmert received 100,000 dollars in cash from Talansky, and the police are looking at money transfers that could have been used to finance private trips.
   Olmert, who was mayor of Jerusalem and trade minister before becoming premier, has denied any wrongdoing but admitted receiving money from Talansky to help finance election campaigns in 1999 and 2003.
   ‘I have never taken a bribe, nor have I unlawfully pocketed money,’ he told a news conference earlier this month, denouncing what he called a ’hysterical’ campaign against him.
   Olmert was first questioned in the case on May 2, and state prosecutors plan to have Talansky testify under oath before a judge on Sunday.

The children’s faces stare in sombre black-and-white photos from newspapers and scribbled posters at relief camps, seeking their parents. Many will never find them.
   As the first estimate of orphans — more than 4,000 — emerged Thursday from last week’s deadly earthquake, thousands of Chinese are rushing to offer their homes.
   ‘My husband and I would really like to adopt an earthquake orphan (0-3 years old),’ Wang Liqin wrote on popular web site Tianya.com in a forum that was already three pages long.
   The high interest is another sign of China’s tremendous post-quake outpouring of sympathy, buoyed by rising prosperity. And it’s a surprising turnabout in a country in which government red-tape, poverty and traditional attitudes long combined to discourage adoption.
   The new enthusiasm also means that Americans and other foreigners wanting to adopt may not have a chance. Officials estimate that the number of Chinese wanting to adopt the earthquake’s orphans may outnumber the orphans themselves.

A journalist was shot dead by unknown gunmen after he interviewed spokesman for local pro-Taliban in a Pakistan tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials and witnesses said on Friday.
   Muhammad Ibrahim, 44, a reporter for Urdu language Express newspaper, was killed Thursday evening as he was returning to Khar after interviewing Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban Movement) spokesman Maulvi Omar, they said.
   Khar is the main town of restive Bajaur tribal district, where pro-Taliban militants are active.
   Tribal administration official, Muwaz Khan, confirmed the killing, saying no one had claimed responsibility.
   Witnesses said Ibrahim was travelling on his motorcycle when he was intercepted by unidentified men in a black car who snatched his cell phone, camera and notes and then shot him.
   The gunmen also stole Ibrahim’s motorcycle, residents said.
   Bajaur chief of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Maulvi
   Faqir Muhammad — also a deputy of al-Qaeda linked militant commander Baitullah Mehsud — condemned the incident.
   Muhammad and Omar visited Ibrahim’s home late Thursday to express their grief over the killing, residents said. The local press club also condemned the murder, with journalists saying they would hold a protest later Friday.

India’s military on Friday conducted a successful test of a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile, defence sources said.
   The test of the Prithvi (Earth) missile was carried out from India’s Integrated Testing Range at Chandipur-on-Sea, some 200 kilometres northeast of Orissa’s state capital Bhubaneswar.
   ‘It was a user trial of the army version of the 150-250 kilometre-range Prithvi,’ a defence scientist said on condition of anonymity, adding the firing was conducted at 10:30am (0500 GMT).
   The 8.5-metre (28-foot) surface-to-surface missile, first tested in February 1988, can carry a one-tonne conventional or nuclear payload.
   Nuclear-capable India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars, two over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, routinely carry out missile tests but normally notify each other in advance under an agreement.

The British prime minister, Gordon Brown was dealt a fresh blow on Friday after his party suffered a crushing by-election defeat in a previously safe Labour seat.
   Just three weeks after trouncing the ruling Labour party in local elections, the opposition Conservatives won their first by-election victory over Labour since 1982, taking the Crewe and Nantwich constituency in northwest England.
   Edward Timpson won 20,539 votes to 12,679 for Labour’s Tamsin Dunwoody. That represented a 17.6 per cent swing from the last election in 2005, the BBC reported.
   Turn-out for the vote was 58.2 per cent, considered high for a by-election.
   ‘Today you have rejected the old politics, and voted for the positive alternative, put forward by the Conservative Party,’ Timpson said in his victory speech.
   ‘You have sent a message, loud and clear, that Gordon Brown just does not get it and the government needs to change,’ he added.
   The by-election was triggered by the death last month of the veteran parliamentarian Gywneth Dunwoody, the mother of the defeated Labour candidate, to whom Timpson paid fulsome tribute in his victory speech.
   It was a measure of the scale of Labour’s defeat that at the last election Gywneth Dunwoody held a majority of 7,078 votes over the Conservatives: on Friday, Timpson’s majority was 7,860.
   It was the first time the Conservatives had won the seat since it was created in 1983.
   The defeat was just one more headache for Brown. Labour’s latest humiliation came just three weeks after the party suffered its worst local poll results in 40 years.
   It was the first chance for voters to respond to the government compensation package for the low paid, which itself was prompted by widespread outrage at the abolition of the lowest rate of income tax in April.
   In his victory speech, Timpson drew a direct link between his by-election win and the row over taxes.
   ‘Crewe and Nantwich has voted against Gordon Brown’s decision to scrap the 10p rate and for a party that will work to relieve the burdens on hard-working families,’ he said.
   Nationally, opinion polls put the government as much as 20 percentage points behind the Conservatives.
   The prime minister has been criticised for the government’s recent economic record and blamed for rising fuel and food costs and falling house prices.
   Conservative leader David Cameron is already riding high on the party’s success in town halls in England and Wales on May 1, including the capture of the high-profile London mayor’s job.
   And the party’s success in Crewe indicates that it can now win in northern England, traditionally considered a Labour stronghold.
   Brown’s predecessor Tony Blair’s ability to win in the Conservative heartlands of southern England was key to Labour’s landslide victory in the 1997 general election.
   Negative campaigning was a feature of the by-election, with Labour and Tory activists at loggerheads over the credentials of their respective candidates and their suitability to represent a working-class area.
   Labour mocked privately educated lawyer Timpson as too much of an upper class ‘toff’ to understand the needs of an area famous for its railway interchange, carriage works and car factories.
   The Conservatives pointed to the fact that Labour’s Dunwoody was parachuted in from her country home in Wales to take over her mother’s seat.
   Conservative Party sources said they would seek to capitalise on a victory in Crewe by calling an early election in Henley, their affluent seat in Oxfordshire due to be vacated by the new mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
   The sources said that election could happen between June 26 and July 3.

Anti-immigrant violence has spread to South Africa’s second largest city, Cape Town, where mobs attacked Somalis and Zimbabweans and looted their homes and shops, the police said on Friday.
   Hundreds of African migrants were evacuated overnight from a squatter camp near Cape Town, the hub of South Africa’s prized tourism industry. Somali-owned shops also were looted in Knysna, a resort town on the south-western coast.
   ‘We don’t know the exact number of shops looted and burnt, but it’s a lot,’ said Billy Jones, senior superintendent with the Western Cape provincial police. He added that one Somali died overnight but it was unclear whether the death was linked to the attacks.
   At least 42 people have been killed and more than 25,000 driven from their homes in 12 days of attacks by mobs that accuse African migrants of taking jobs and fuelling crime. More than 500 people have been arrested.
   The unrest began in Johannesburg area townships but has spread to other provinces. Authorities said a Malawian man was shot in Durban overnight and three other foreigners were stabbed in a separate attack in North West Province.

Republican John McCain took aim at presidential rival Barack Obama’s lack of military service on Thursday, drawing a rebuke from the Democratic front-runner for his ‘endless diatribes and schoolyard taunts.’
   McCain’s opposition to senate legislation that would expand educational benefits for military veterans ignited a heated cross-fire between the two White House contenders as they gear up for November’s presidential election campaign.
   McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, reacted sharply after Obama criticised him for opposing the legislation. The Arizona senator did not return to the senate to vote on the measure, which passed easily.
   ‘I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans,’ McCain said. ‘And I will not accept from senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.’
   Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer who did not serve in the military, drew McCain’s ire by saying on the senate floor: ‘I can’t understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition to this GI bill. I can’t believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans.’
   After McCain’s tore into Obama for the attack, the Illinois senator responded by saying he was disappointed by it. ‘These endless diatribes and schoolyard taunts from the McCain campaign do nothing to advance the debate about what matters to the American people,’ Obama said.
   At a subsequent news conference in Stockton, California, McCain said he opposed the legislation because he wanted to make sure the Defence Department retains some people for a career in the military.
   The blistering exchange came as both candidates turn their attention to a likely match-up in November. McCain has clinched the Republican nomination, and Obama has moved within reach of the Democratic nomination.
   Obama’s remaining rival, senator Hillary Clinton of New York, has promised to stay in the race despite his nearly unassailable lead in delegates who will select the Democratic nominee at an August convention.
   The legislation that sparked the exchange was sponsored by Virginia Democratic senator James Webb and Nebraska Republican senator Chuck Hagel, both military veterans. McCain and the Bush administration said it was so generous it could encourage veterans to leave the military after one term to take advantage of the increased college benefits.

The FBI’s counterterrorism section is too badly organised and too understaffed to be able to protect the United States effectively against attack, an FBI agent told lawmakers.
   ‘The FBI’s counterterrorism division is ill-equipped to handle the terrorist threat that we’re facing,’ Bassem Youssef, a top agent within the FBI’s communications analysis unit, told a congressional hearing on Wednesday.
   ‘FBI’s counterterrorism program cannot properly protect the United States from another catastrophic and direct attack from Middle Eastern terrorists,’ he added.
   Egyptian-born Youssef, who has been an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1988, said only 62 per cent of posts were filled in the counterterrorism unit.
   This chronic staff shortage was forcing the FBI to recruit staff with no relevant experience, specifically with Middle Eastern counterterrorism, possibly lacking pertinent language skills and cultural understanding.
   ‘In the FBI, everyone who is interested in moving up the ladder of promotion would want to be jockeying for positions and the number-one priority of the investigations being worked by the FBI.
   ‘The counterterrorism division is unable to keep agents, supervisors and analysts within the division, and 62 per cent is an alarmingly low figure,’ he told a House subcommittee hearing on FBI whistleblowers.
   Inexperience means new operatives take even the slightest threat seriously, and ‘this happens just about every weekend,’ running the staff on the ground ragged.
   ‘If the executives themselves who are managing the entire section or the division are not where they should be ... you’re going to see agents, analysts and other folks working in that division that are overworked, because they’re over assigned,’ Youssef said.

The German parliament’s upper house votes Friday on the new European Union treaty – its last legislative hurdle in the 27-nation bloc’s most populous country.
   The document, known as the Lisbon Treaty, has wide political support in Germany and is expected to easily win the necessary two-thirds majority in the upper house, which represents the country’s 16 state governments.
   The lower house overwhelmingly backed the treaty last month. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said it creates ‘no less than a new foundation for Europe.’
   The treaty would alter the EU’s decision-making process, envisaging more decisions by majority vote rather than unanimous endorsement. It would also provide for an EU president and a more powerful senior foreign policy official to give the bloc a stronger voice in global affairs.
   The treaty replaces a more ambitious draft constitution that EU leaders drew up to govern a bloc whose membership has expanded from 15 to 27 nations in recent years. That charter was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
   The upper-house vote in Germany, a nation of 82 million people, comes before the EU’s only referendum on the new treaty, to be held in Ireland on June 12. Thirteen countries have already approved the treaty.
   Once parliamentary approval is secured, only president Horst
   Koehler’s signature – usually a formality – is required to complete ratification.

The UN Security Council on Thursday welcomed a Lebanese peace deal brokered by Qatar, an agreement that may have averted a new civil war in the Middle East.
   The council said it ‘welcomes and strongly supports the agreement reached in Doha ... which constitutes an essential step towards the resolution of the current crisis, the return to normal functioning of Lebanese democratic institutions, the complete restoration of Lebanon’s unity and stability.’
   In the nonbinding statement, the council also urged the parties to implement all aspects of the agreement. Lebanon has generally been a divisive issue for the Security Council, but the statement was agreed unanimously by the 15-member body.
   Rival Lebanese leaders signed the deal on Wednesday to end 18 months of political conflict that had threatened to push the country into a new civil war.
   The agreement, which was reached after six days of Arab-mediated talks, also paved the way for the election of a new president.
   The British ambassador to the United Nations, John Sawers, the current council president, told reporters the Security Council hoped the deal will ‘bring an end to a dispute that’s been going on the streets of Beirut for far too long.’
   The French ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said the Doha agreement was a ‘foundation upon which Lebanon and its national unity can be rebuilt and its sovereignty, as well as territorial integrity, reinforced.’
   The deal comes after a Hezbollah military campaign this month against Lebanon’s ruling coalition which bolstered the opposition’s political strength. Hezbollah, a militant group backed by Iran and Syria, routed its rivals in six days of conflict that killed 81 and prompted the Qatari-led mediation.