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North Korea kept the world guessing about its satellite Saturday after the first day of a scheduled five-day launch period passed without blast-off.
   Officials in Seoul and Tokyo speculated that adverse weather caused Pyongyang to delay what the United States and its regional allies see as a disguised ballistic missile test.
   ‘The prediction of a launch today had seemed quite plausible but the weather conditions seemingly were not that good at the launch base,’ an unidentified official told Yonhap news agency.
   In Tokyo senior cabinet official Kyoji Yanagisawa told Jiji Press: ‘We can imagine strong winds or some troubles with equipment, but we have no information at all.’
   South Korea’s weather agency said skies over the Musudan-ri site near the northeast coast were cloudy Saturday, with fairly strong winds that would abate Sunday.
   Yonhap, quoting a government source, said workers had installed cameras at the site and repeatedly opened and closed the cover atop the three-stage rocket.
   Nerves were fraying in Japan, which is under the projected flight path.
   A government crisis centre announced at 12:16pm that the rocket was believed launched, but five minutes later retracted its statement as incorrect. The country heaved a sigh of relief after the launch window passed.
   ‘It’s good to see no launch although we don’t know why,’ the Japanese foreign minister, Hirofumi Nakasone, told reporters. ‘I hope it won’t happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.’
   The communist state last month notified world aviation and shipping agencies it would fire the rocket sometime between April 4-8 and between 11:00am and 4:00pm (0200-0700 GMT).
   South Korean security ministers ended an emergency meeting chaired by the president, Lee Myung-Bak, at 4:00pm.
   Preparations to launch an ‘experimental communications satellite’ have been completed and it will be launched ‘soon’, the state Korean Central News Agency announced earlier in the day, saying the dates and times were still in effect.
   It said the satellite would be carried by an Unha-2 (Galaxy-2) rocket — known in the West as the Taepodong-2, which could theoretically reach Alaska or Hawaii at maximum range.
   The North says it is pursuing its right to a peaceful space programme. Washington, Seoul and Tokyo say firing a rocket for any reason would breach a UN resolution passed after the North’s 2006 missile and nuclear tests and vow to report it to the Security Council.

India could be heading for a weaker and perhaps short-lived coalition government after the April-May general election, with both major national parties struggling to keep regional allies.
   Congress has ruled for most of the last five years through a stable coalition. But it is now losing allies as many regional groups distance themselves from a party that they see as out of touch after decades of dominating India’s political landscape.
   A group led by the opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is also struggling, with little presence in southern states like Tamil Nadu, while several northern parties eyeing Muslim votes united against its radical Hindu elements.
   This year, a Third Front of regional parties led by the communists, has added to the dispersal of political forces. It is all a sight that may reflect well on a democracy of 1.1 billion people from a myriad of castes and languages.
   But investors worry it could herald policy limbo just as the economy faces a slowdown, lost jobs and fiscal imbalances.
   While reforms to open up the financial sector may be on the backburner amid the global credit crunch, investors are looking for changes in India’s rigid labour laws as well as moves to privatise state companies to help boost investments.
   ‘Most pre-poll alliances are falling apart. It looks like many regional parties will try and get their pound of flesh,’ said Vikas Khemani, co-head for institutional equities at Edelweiss Securities.
   ‘That is getting a lot of people nervous.’
   The fear is that a loose coalition will mean more squabbling over policy. It could lead, for example, to a small party representing one farming caste from a single Indian state to hold sway over a billion-dollar national economic stimulus package.
   The secular, left-of-centre Congress dominated India after independence in 1947, for decades winning an absolute majority of votes. But a gradual erosion of support saw gains for the BJP in the 1990s, and now 2009 may herald the rise of regional parties.
   Congress and the BJP won between them just over 50 per cent of the vote in the last 2004 election, so a further fall in their support would effectively make regional and caste based parties the dominant political force in India.
   Sensing this, former regional allies have bickered with these two parties over seat-sharing arrangements in states, a sign they are biding their time until after election results on May. 16.

A soldier in a NATO-led force fighting an extremist insurgency in Afghanistan died in a bomb blast Saturday while the US military announced it had killed 20 Taliban-linked insurgents.
   The fresh violence came as NATO leaders opened talks Saturday on a new strategy for Afghanistan, where the alliance leads 62,000 soldiers helping the fragile government tackle a tide of violence.
   An International Security Assistance Force soldier died of wounds after a bombing in southern Afghanistan Saturday, ISAF said in a statement. ISAF, which draws its troops from 42 nations, does not release the nationalities of its casualties, leaving it to their home country.
   Nearly 80 international soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year, most of them in attacks, according to icasualties.org which tracks the conflict here.
   Also Saturday, a remote-controlled roadside bomb killed two policemen and wounded four when it blew up their vehicle in southern Zabul province, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Jailani Khan said.
   The US-led coalition, which works alongside ISAF and the Afghan forces, said meanwhile that Afghan and international troops killed 20 insurgents in the southern province of Helmand province on Friday.
   The battle in the strategic Kajaki district erupted after a patrol was ambushed by numerous men in a ‘known Taliban stronghold,’ it said in a statement.
   ‘The combined forces returned fire with small-arms fire and called for close air support destroying six enemy fighting positions and killing 20 insurgents,’ it said.

Pakistan’s top judge has ordered a court hearing into the public flogging of a veiled woman, filmed on an amateur video, that has raised alarm about the tightening grip of Islamist hardliners.
   The details of her alleged crime were confused, but residents in her village of Kala Killey in Swat, said the woman was accused of illicit relations with an electrician and forced to marry him as part of her punishment.
   The footage, apparently from a mobile phone, shows two men pinning down a burka-clad woman by her feet and shoulders, while a bearded man in a turban flogs her 34 times with a whip as she screams in agony.
   Chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has ordered the girl to be produced in court at a hearing set for Monday, according to a Supreme Court statement.
   He has also demanded that government and regional officials from the North West Frontier Province appear in person at the hearing.
   ‘Chief justice of Pakistan has been pleased to order that... the matter be fixed before a larger bench on Monday,’ said a statement from the court.
   ‘Chaudhry has taken a serious notice of the video clipping on TV for violation of fundamental rights, guaranteed under the constitution of Pakistan,’ it added in English.
   At least two local residents said the trouble started when unknown people told the Taliban that the electrician visited the girl’s house on January 3, where other women and children were also present.
   ‘The Taliban arrested the couple and recorded their statements,’ one of the residents said.
   ‘Both the girl and the electrician assured the Taliban that they had not committed any sin. The couple also expressed readiness to undergo a medical examination to prove their innocence.’
   But the Taliban ordered them to be whipped.
   ‘The electrician was also whipped but it is not known where he was taken,’ said a low-level local government leader.
   ‘The couple was forced into marrying each other after they were handed down the punishment,’ he said.
   ‘Nobody can go and see the couple as armed Taliban keep patrolling the village and mountains surrounding it,’ he added.
   Local government officials and residents said the video was filmed on January 3, some weeks before the government signed a controversial agreement with a pro-Taliban cleric to allow sharia law in Swat region.
   The deal triggered
   alarm around the world among those fearful that it would embolden militants across the northwest, a hotbed for Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Indonesian opposition party the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) held a massive election rally Saturday five days ahead of parliamentary polls.
   About 150,000 supporters dressed in red, the party’s colour, filled the national stadium and waved party flags as local artists entertained them with songs and dance.
   PDI-P leader Megawati Sukarnoputri told her supporters that Indonesia still needed a lot of improvement, especially in the economic sector.
   ‘Why the chillies, onions and spices are expensive? We have lengthy coastal areas, but we still import salt,’ Megawati was quoted as saying by the Kompas news website.
   Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia’s founder Sukarno, was optimistic that the country would be able to manage its resources without much assistance from foreigners, according to Antara state news agency.
   ‘We have to improve our mentality. The mentality of this nation is still bad. There is yet to be an aim in life,’ she said.

A Thai citizen was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison on charges of insulting the king and his family by posting edited photos of the monarchy on the internet, a court said.
   Suwicha Thakho, 34, a former oil worker, was detained in January and admitted to altering the photos of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his family, the Bangkok Criminal Court said. It did not say how the photos were changed or where they appeared, although local news reports said some appeared on YouTube.
   The court found Suwicha guilty of violating the country’s lese majeste law, which prohibits insulting the king and his family, as well as the 2007 Computer Crime Act, which bars the circulation of material deemed detrimental to national security or that causes public panic.
   Reporters Without Borders condemned the sentence and called for Suwicha’s immediate release.
   ‘The charge of lese majeste has become a major tool of repression in Thailand,’ the Paris-based press freedom group said in a statement.

Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad has rejoined the United Malays National Organisation in what may be a move designed to boost the ruling coalition’s chances in by-elections next week.
   Mahathir, who ruled for 22 years until 2003, submitted his application to rejoin the party on Saturday. It was accepted by the new prime minister, Najib Razak, a day after he took over the Southeast Asian country.
   Mahathir still wields some influence within (UMNO), which he quit in a huff last year after months of criticism against the policies of his successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
   He had said he would return only if Abdullah resigned.

The Thai prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, Saturday dismissed the threat by ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to mobilise his supporters next week in a ‘people’s revolution’.
   The fugitive former prime minister made a rallying call by video link a night earlier to crowds that have surrounded Abhisit’s offices since March 26 in a bid to force the government to resign and call fresh elections.
   Thaksin rejected an offer by the government to hold talks and urged his loyalists to come from all over the country to a mass rally on April 8 But Abhisit said such upheaval would ‘destroy democracy’ in Thailand.
   ‘I don’t see that the circumstances exist to warrant such a thing (uprising) happening because we can still make changes under the constitution,’ the prime minister told reporters.
   ‘On the contrary, if change takes place outside of the constitution it will lead to unending problems and destroy democracy and create an illegal state,’ he said.
   Abhisit said that the views of Thaksin’s supporters, the so-called ‘Red Shirts’, could be given a greater voice within the parliamentary system, but shrugged off Thaksin’s rejection of talks.

The US president, Barack Obama, plans to ease economic sanctions on Cuba, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit families as often as they like and send them unlimited financial aid, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
   Citing an unnamed senior administration official, the newspaper said the new rules, which the president can introduce without seeking congressional approval, will affect an estimated 1.5 million Americans who have family members in Cuba.
   The report came as eight US lawmakers — all Democrats from the US Congressional Black Caucus — arrived in Havana to discuss relations.
   The Journal said Obama didn’t intend to call for lifting of the trade embargo against Cuba, which would require congressional action.
   The timing of the announcement is unclear, but several Cuba experts have said it could come ahead of this month’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
   In Europe, a senior administration official travelling with Obama declined to comment on the report. ‘I cannot confirm that anything is final on that at the moment,’ the official said.
   The congressional group in Havana is led by caucus chairwoman Barbara Lee and also includes Mel Watt, Emanuel Cleaver, Marcia Fudge, Mike Honda, Bobby Rush and Laura Richardson.
   The eighth legislator, Sheila Jackson-Lee, was due to arrive Monday.

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s war-ravaged region of Darfur is ‘on the brink of deepening,’ special US envoy Scott Gration said on Saturday.
   ‘I came away very concerned about what I saw and believe that we are on the brink of a deepening crisis in Darfur,’ he said, a month to the day after the government expelled international aid agencies in protest at an arrest warrant against the president, Omar al-Beshir, for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
   Gration, speaking to journalists after visiting the Zam Zam displaced persons camp in northern Darfur, said it was imperative to get assistance into the country ‘so that these people don’t die and they don’t incur any more suffering.’
   Beshir expelled 13 aid groups from Darfur after the International Criminal Court issued the warrant for him on March 4.
   The agencies distributed food, offered medical care and provided access to water to some 2.7 million people displaced by the civil war in Darfur. Gration began his visit on Thursday with an appeal for stronger relations with Khartoum.
   ‘The United States and Sudan want to be partners and so we are looking for opportunities for us to build a stronger bilateral relationship,’ he said.
   The US president, Barack Obama, had said his envoy will try to
   kickstart discussions between rebels and the government in order to end the conflict that has killed at least 300,000 people since 2003.
   The Sudan government puts the death toll from the six-year war at 10,000.
   Obama, speaking after meeting Gration on Monday, said he hoped to find a way for humanitarian workers to resume their work in Darfur.

France is ready to take a detainee from Guantanamo Bay when the prison camp is shut down, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Friday after a meeting with the US president, Barack Obama.
   He said he had long been a critic of Guantanamo but that if Obama needed allies to take detainees from the facility in order to close it, then France would agree.
   ‘We can’t condemn the United States because they have that camp and then wash our hands of it once they close it. That’s not what being allies is about,’ Sarkozy said during a joint news conference with Obama.
   ‘Yes, we talked about it, and yes, we reached an agreement,’ he said, adding there was one Guantanamo detainee connected to France.
   Obama expressed his appreciation to Sarkozy for ‘being good to his word.’
   ‘I made the decision to close Guantanamo because I do not think it makes America safer,’ he said.
   ‘In order to do it carefully and thoughtfully we are going to consult with our allies, and in certain cases we are going to need help with detainees that may still pose a risk but we may not be able to repatriate to their countries of origin.’
   European governments, who for years called for the camp to be closed and want to mend ties with the United States that were damaged under former president George W Bush, face pressure to help find a home for some its about 245 remaining detainees.
   However, governments have been split on how far they are prepared to go and whether they would accept Guantanamo inmates, particularly those with no link to their own countries.

The funeral of British reality television star Jade Goody, who died of cervical cancer last month, took place Saturday with as much flamboyance to mark her death as she showed in life.
   Goody died on March 22 aged 27. She lived her whole adult life in the media spotlight after finishing fourth in the 2002 reality show ‘Big Brother’ and transforming that brief notoriety into a career which made her a millionaires.
   She released an autobiography, perfume and exercise video and was a fixture in Britain’s tabloids. But her career was nearly ruined when she subjected Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty to racist bullying on 2007’s ‘Celebrity Big Brother,’ although the two later made up.
   Goody’s final journey saw her body driven in a black, vintage Rolls-Royce hearse from Bermondsey, a poor southeast London area where she grew up, through the city’s East End to a church in Buckhurst Hill, northeast of London, where her funeral took place.
   Goody lived near the Saint John the Baptist Church and married her boyfriend Jack Tweed, 21, close by in February after being told she had only weeks to live.
   Thousands of well-wishers threw flowers at the procession as it passed by, while press photographers ran alongside the hearse, jostling for the best pictures. Funeral directors released a dove in her memory.
   Floral wreathes spelling out some of loud-mouthed Goody’s best-known catchphrases — such as ‘minging’ (disgusting) and ‘East Angular’ (her mangled pronunciation of East Anglia, an area of England) — were also on display.
   As members of her family arrived for the funeral, thousands of people had gathered outside to watch the service on giant screens.

Madagascar plans to hold a presidential election in October 2010 to restore democracy after Andry Rajoelina took power last month in a transition branded a coup by foreign leaders.
   A roadmap agreed during a two-day conference in the capital Antananarivo envisages changes to the constitution and electoral code this year followed by a parliamentary election next March and then the presidential vote in October.
   ‘The transition will therefore be 19 months rather than 24,’ Rajoelina told delegates on Friday. ‘No one wants to remain president of the state’s (transition) authority for long, but it is a responsibility.’
   He had previously pledged to hold elections within two years of his rise to power but foreign leaders have been calling for quick elections to restore constitutional order.
   Madagascar has been suspended from the African Union and the Southern African Development Com-munity. A defiant Rajoelina said this week it was not in the country’s interests to be a SADC member anyway.
   The party of former president Marc Ravalomanana boycotted the two-day conference.
   ‘We appeal for mediation from SADC or international forces,’ said party member Fetison Andrianirina. ‘We will seek meetings with those who have different views to us, but that will only happen with international mediation.’
   Ravalomanana stepped down after intense pressure from Rajoelina’s supporters and army chiefs. He fled to Swaziland and pledged last month to return to Madagascar soon.
   Last week, his supporters held daily protests in the capital. At least 34 people were injured on Saturday when demonstrators clashed with the security forces.

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, said he was ‘inclined to reset’ bilateral relations between his country and the United States, which have been marked by tension in recent years.
   Addressing the issue in a telephone interview with a local television station, Chavez said late Friday he planned to use a Summit of Americas that will take place in Trinidad and Tobago on April 17-19 for this purpose.
   ‘I wish the summit would be a fitting stage to reset relations of all kinds between the United States and Venezuela,’ Chavez said. ‘I am inclined to push the reset key.’
   He added he was the first to desire ‘a real change in relations’ between the two countries in order to put them ‘on a rational level.’
   The US president, Barack Obama, plans to attend the summit. Chavez is currently visiting Iran.

Demonstrations in Strasbourg, where leaders of the member states of NATO are celebrating its 60th anniversary, disrupted a programme laid on for their spouses Saturday.
   A planned visit to a cancer research centre in the morning was called off and replaced by a brief meeting at a museum as hardcore groups of protesters clashed with the riot police for a second day.
   Around 10,000 police were deployed in buses around the city which looked like a ghost town. In the city centre the only traffic was the occasional bicycle. Cafe owners had been told to close down. Locals and reporters covering the meeting had to undergo identity checks.
   The wives, plus German chancellor Angela Merkel’s husband, Joachim Sauer, met at a museum, which had once been a prince’s home, where the red carpet laid for the visit Friday by US and French presidents Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy was still in place.
   French first lady, a smiling Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wearing black trousers with a mauve coat and matching handbag welcomed the spouses on the steps of the building.
   Bruni-Sarkozy was there in time to meet the other wives and Sauer who arrived in groups.
   But it was a quarter of an hour before Michelle Obama showed up, last to arrive, also smiling and wearing black trousers and a small black belted jacket. She was the only spouse to be embraced by Carla.
   The two held hands briefly and posed for photographers.