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Sexual violence, torture and forced labour among civilians have surged in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since a government offensive against rebels began in January, Oxfam said Tuesday.
   The international aid agency surveyed 569 civilians living in 20 conflict-ridden communities in Nord and Sud Kivu provinces.
   They found that they were living ‘in constant fear of violent attack’ from the rebels and Congolese troops alike.
   ‘The war is far from over for ordinary civilians. Over 80 per cent of the people we interviewed said that security is worse now compared to a year ago,’ said Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam in DR Congo.
   Congo’s army launched a joint operation with Rwanda’s armed forces in late January against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, who have operated out of the region since the aftermath of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
   ‘The offensive against the FDLR was supposed to bring peace to eastern Congo, but our survey shows people are living in constant fear of violent attack,’ Stoessel said.
   ‘This suffering is not inevitable. It is happening because world leaders have decided that collateral damage is an acceptable price to pay for removing the FDLR. But as the people we met can testify, that price is far too high.’
   He called on the United Nations mission in the DRC (MONUC) to ‘withhold support from the operation if abuses continue or go unpunished.’
   Oxfam also said MONUC ‘must insist that known human rights abusers are removed from participating in the operations.’
   The survey found sexual violence had dramatically increased since the offensive began. Women were most likely to be the victims but children and men had also been targeted.
   A quarter of the communities surveyed spoke of torture, with some reporting that people were buried up to their necks in the ground by FDLR members until they agreed to pay their captors for their release.
   Meanwhile, all the communities reported abuses by the Congolese army, Oxfam said, from press-ganging men and teenage boys into carrying their supplies, to extortion and sexual violence.

The World Health Organisation chief, Margaret Chan, on Tuesday warned that poverty will prevent some countries from gaining access to swine flu vaccines, as she criticised a bias in favour of richer nations.
   ‘Manufacturing capacity for influenza vaccines is finite and woefully inadequate for a world of 6.8 billion people, nearly all of whom are susceptible to infection by this entirely new and highly contagious virus,’ she told delegates attending a World Intellectual Property Organisation conference.
   ‘The lion’s share of these limited supplies will go to wealthy countries. Again we see the advantage of affluence. Again we see access denied by an inability to pay,’ added.
   ‘In the field of health, public policy will remain imperfect as long as access to life-saving interventions is biased in favour of affluence,’ Chan told the WIPO conference.
   Chan’s remarks came a day after a senior WHO official said that all countries will need access to vaccines against the ‘unstoppable’ A(H1N1) influenza pandemic.
   During a meeting on swine flu earlier July, developing countries and the WHO called for measures to ensure that poorer nations were also given access to the vaccine.
   The WHO says it is negotiating with vaccine producers to secure donations or sales at lower prices for developing countries, while richer nations are being asked to donate some of their vaccine stocks.
   Chan said then that thanks to an agreement ‘with two companies, 250 million doses’ will be sent to developing countries, an amount that she acknowledged ‘is obviously not enough.’

Ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya has warned the interim government that deposed him in a coup it must relinquish power within the week or face unspecified repercussions.
   ‘We are giving an ultimatum to the coup regime that by our next meeting at the latest, to be held this week in San Jose, Costa Rica, they comply with the mandates expressed by international organizations and the constitution of Honduras’ demanding his immediate restitution, Zelaya told reporters Monday at the Honduran embassy in Nicaragua’s capital Managua.
   Mediation efforts initiated last week in San Jose ‘will be considered a failure’ and ‘we will proceed with other measures,’ he added, if interim leader Roberto Micheletti and his two-week-old administration continue to delay Zelaya’s return to the helm of the Honduran government.
   Zelaya was in Nicaragua on his most recent stop as he travels throughout the region to drum up support for his presidency, after being sent into exile in a military-backed coup on June 28. The deposed Honduran leader’s tough words came after Micheletti set Saturday as a possible date for talks to resume in Costa Rica.
   The ousted Honduran president held weekend talks in Washington with State Department officials and the head of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza.
   Washington reiterated its support for Zelaya, calling for a return to democratic order in his country and backing the dialogue between representatives dispatched by the rival Honduran leaders.

A dozen Somali gunmen wearing government uniforms snatched two French security advisors from their hotel rooms in Mogadishu, officials and witnesses said Tuesday.
   The French foreign ministry said in a statement the pair was ‘helping the federal transition government of the Somali president, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, in security matters.’
   It added that all the appropriate French agencies had been mobilised to find them, giving no further details about the two.
   In Somalia, a senior government official who spoke to AFP said the two had been training the country’s intelligence services.
   ‘They were invited by the defence ministry to do some training for their counterparts in the Somali intelligence services. They have been in Somalia nine days,’ the official added.
   No group claimed responsibility for the abduction, which took place in unusual circumstances since the gunmen encountered little resistance when they entered the Sahafi hotel where the two were staying.
   ‘More than 10 gunmen on a military vehicle stormed the hotel early this morning.

The woman almost sure to become the first Hispanic US Supreme Court justice faced tough questioning on Tuesday from Republican senators who are skeptical of her impartiality.
   Sonia Sotomayor was scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee at 9:30am (1330 GMT) for the second of at least four days of hearings that are all but certain to lead to her historic confirmation.
   If confirmed, the appeals court judge would also become the third woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. Seven weeks after the president, Barack Obama, nominated her to the nine-member bench that serves as the final arbiter of the US Constitution, Sotomayor told her critics Monday that her judicial philosophy is ‘fidelity to the law.’
   But Sotomayor, 55, made no apology before the panel of 12 Democrats and seven Republicans for past writings in which she vaunted the merits of bringing personal experience to bear on court cases.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela on Tuesday urged the world to observe his birthday this week by doing volunteer work to improve the lives of others.
   ‘It is our hope that people will dedicate their time and effort to improve the conditions within their own communities,’ said Mandela in a videotaped message prepared ahead of his 91st birthday on Saturday.
   His charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation is encouraging an annual observance of his birthday on July 18 as a Mandela Day devoted to public service.

Japan’s opposition slapped a censure motion on embattled prime minister Taro Aso Tuesday, dealing him an embarrassing rebuke ahead of a general election that his party appears likely to lose.
   The motion, passed by 132 votes to 106 in the opposition-led upper house, carries no legal force but is another setback for Aso, whose party risks being swept from power next month after half a century of almost unbroken rule.
   The opposition accused the 68-year-old premier of being unfit to lead the nation, criticising him for policy flip-flops and wasteful economic stimulus measures aimed at currying favour with voters ahead of the general election.
   The opposition also introduced a no-confidence motion against Aso’s cabinet in the more powerful lower house, but it was shot down by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
   Aso’s LDP has a comfortable majority in the lower house, thanks to a resounding win under popular premier Junichiro Koizumi four years ago.
   The ruling party argues that the DPJ, which has never been in power, lacks the experience to run the world’s second largest economy.
   ‘What people want is the capability to manage a government,’ LDP secretary general Hiroyuki Hosoda said in parliament.
   But voter surveys suggest Aso’s party is likely to be replaced by the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which won control over the upper house in 2007.
   Battered by a key local election at the weekend, Aso on Monday called a general election for August 30 that could reshape the political landscape in the world’s second largest economy.
   His growing woes come despite recent signs of an improvement in the economy, which has slumped to its worst recession since World War II due to a collapse in exports triggered by the global economic downturn.
   The beleaguered premier, a former diamond trader and one-time Olympic marksman, has unveiled a series of stimulus spending packages, including cash handouts for households.
   A victory by the DPJ would bring an end to almost two years of legislative deadlock in Japan, which has had three prime ministers since the reform-minded Koizumi stepped down in 2006.

Myanmar on Monday offered an amnesty for some political prisoners after the UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, demanded the release of key political detainees, including Aung San Suu Kyi, to ensure ‘credible and legitimate’ polls next year.
   Myanmar’s UN ambassador Than Swe said his government was preparing an amnesty for political prisoners on humanitarian grounds so they can contest next year’s general elections.
   ‘At the request of the UN secretary general, the Myanmar government is processing to grant amnesty to prisoners on humanitarian grounds and with a view to enabling them to participate in the 2010 general elections,’ he told the Security Council. He gave no further details.
   Ban welcomed the statement, telling reporters: ‘This is encouraging but I have to continue to follow up how they will implement all the issues raised during my visit to Myanmar.’
   He said that he was ‘not quite sure who will be included in the amnesty,’ but added, ‘I have made it quite clear that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be released and free to participate in the elections.’
   Meanwhile, Myanmar’s opposition party has said it was sceptical the military junta would release political prisoners including its leader Suu Kyi, despite new assurances given to the UN.
   Myanmar’s state media is yet to confirm the prisoner release and in the most recent amnesty, in February, only a handful of political detainees were among the 6,300 prisoners let out.
   ‘We would welcome it if they released political prisoners in an amnesty but very few political prisoners have been included in previous amnesties,’ said National League for Democracy spokesman Nyan Win.
   Earlier Ban briefed the 15-member UN Security Council on his visit to military-ruled Myanmar early this month.
   ‘The (Myanmar) government needs to deliver on the promise to make the 2010 elections inclusive, free and fair and to take the necessary steps on my specific proposals in the very near future,’ the UN boss said.
   Earlier in his address to the council, Ban described the junta’s refusal to allow him to meet with jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as ‘a deep disappointment but also a major lost opportunity for Myanmar.’

The Pakistani prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, set off for an international conference in Egypt on Tuesday, saying he hoped discussions there with his Indian counterpart would get peace talks back on track.
   India put a pause on talks with old rival Pakistan after a militant attack on Mumbai in November in which 166 people were killed.
   India said the assault was carried out by Pakistani militants who must have had help from Pakistani security agents. Pakistan has denied any involvement by state agencies and says it will prosecute militants suspected of involvement.
   Gilani is due to meet the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, on the margins of a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt. Their top diplomats will meet there on Tuesday.
   Pakistan wanted cordial relations with all its neighbours, Gilani told reporters before his departure.
   ‘I am sure that such interactions would be really beneficial for the country,” he said, referring to the meetings in Egypt.
   The nuclear-armed neighbours launched a ‘composite dialogue’ covering all of their disputes in early 2004 after nearly going to war for a fourth time since 1947.
   Gilani said the two countries had been ‘moving in the right direction’ until the Mumbai attack and the pause India put on the talks had only benefited the terrorists.
   ‘When there will be more interaction, I think that will pave the way for the composite dialogue and for more interaction with the Indian government,’ he said.
   Pakistan is keen to revive the five-year talks but Singh has insisted Pakistan must first show it is serious about taking action against militant groups that launch attacks in the Indian part of the disputed Kashmir region and elsewhere in India.
   The Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik, said at the weekend Pakistan had completed its investigation into five suspects accused of links to the Mumbai attack, and they were expected to be put on trial this week.
   Pakistan also handed a fresh dossier on its probe into the Mumbai attack to India on Saturday.
   The suspects include Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a commander of the banned Laskhar-e-Taiba militant group, who is accused of masterminding the attack.
   India was angered by a Pakistani court decision in June to release from house arrest Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of the LeT, whom India accused of plotting the Mumbai assault.
   The federal government this month lodged an appeal in the Supreme Court against Saeed’s release. The Supreme Court began hearing the appeal on Tuesday but adjourned the hearing until July 16.
   Saeed was put under house arrest in early December after a UN Security Council committee added him and an Islamist charity he heads to a list of people and organisations linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is set to take the stand for the first time in his war crimes trial on charges linked to the brutal 1991-2001 civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
   Taylor, the first African leader to be tried before an international tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity, will argue that he tried to broker peace in the west African nation rather than fuel war.
   ‘We are here to defend a man who we say is innocent of all these charges,’ Taylor’s lawyer Courtenay Griffiths told the court in opening statements for the defence on Monday.
   ‘Taylor was not an African Napoleon bent on taking over the sub-region. He had a frontline role in the conflict as a broker of peace.’
   Taylor, the first witness to take the stand for the defence, faces 11 charges for murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers, enslavement and pillaging in one of the most brutal wars in modern history.
   The 61-year-old is accused of arming, training and controlling Revolutionary United Front rebels blamed for the mutilation of thousands of civilians who had their hands and arms severed.
   About 120,000 people were killed in the conflict.
   Prosecutor Stephen Rapp has insisted that Taylor was ‘an exceptional violator of human rights’ who steadily provided weapons and support to the RUF in exchange for ‘blood diamonds.’
   The ex-leader’s testimony is expected to last six to eight weeks and should shed new light on the wars in Sierra Leone and in Liberia. A final verdict in the case is only expected in a year’s time.
   The defence has deposited a list of 249 witnesses who might be called and has accused the prosecution of making ‘lavish payments’ to its own 91 witnesses.
   Taylor became president of Liberia in 1997 after his rebels unseated president Samuel Doe in 1989, but was himself overthrown by a rebellion and agreed to go into exile in 2003.

The father of Michael Jackson slammed the gruelling 50-date schedule drawn up for his son’s comeback, saying the star was not capable of completing the series of sold-out concerts.
   In an interview aired by ABC News, Joe Jackson said he had harboured concerns about his son’s London line-up, which had been due to start on July 13, some three weeks after the King of Pop collapsed and died.
   Jackson, 79, said his son had initially only wanted to perform in 10 concerts before more dates were added.
   ‘Michael only agreed to 10 shows. Then they went and added all these shows,’ Joe Jackson told ABC News.
   ‘I was worried about his health because all the shows I’m seeing, no artist can do all those shows, back-to-back like that. I knew Michael couldn’t do all those shows without a rest in between.’
   Jackson’s misgivings were echoed by his son’s financial advisor Leonard Rowe, who also told ABC News that the star was in no condition to make a comeback, describing reports that he was in good shape as ‘totally untrue.’
   ‘Michael Jackson was not ready. He was not fit. If you can call weighing about 110 to 115 pounds fit. Besides that MJ told me himself that he never wanted to do 50 shows he only wanted to do 10,’ Rowe told ABC.
   Randy Phillips, chief of concert promoters AEG Live, told ABC that it had been Michael Jackson’s idea to increase the original run of concerts from 31 to 50, saying the singer would have been averaging under three shows a week.
   ‘If that was too many, then one would have been too many,’ Phillips said.
   Jackson’s physical condition in the days leading up to his death last month has been the subject of intense debate, with sharply different versions offered by the singer’s associates.
   Phillips had earlier said Jackson, 50, appeared to be in ‘fantastic’ shape at a concert rehearsal on the eve of his death.
   Another member of the rehearsal, magician-comedian Ed Alonzo, said Jackson ‘looked great and had great energy.’
   However reports detailing alleged findings from Jackson’s autopsy have painted a different picture, with CNN and ABC both reporting the star’s body was riddled with needle marks and had several collapsed veins.
   Jackson, 50, died on June 25 after suffering an apparent cardiac arrest at his rented mansion in an up-market neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

A proud detachment of Indian troops on Tuesday led thousands of French comrades down the Champs Elysee in Paris for the annual military parade to mark the Bastille Day national holiday.
   The 400 soldiers filed down the elegant venue under the eyes of the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, invited by the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to mark France’s strategic relationship with the world’s biggest democracy.
   Dressed in ceremonial uniforms of red and black headdress, cummerbunds and white putees and gloves, the Indians marched from the Arc de Triomphe to the presidential stand at the end of the 1.5-kilometre parade.

A media rights organisation on Tuesday accused Sri Lankan authorities of blocking access to web sites critical of the government and stifling dissent.
   The Paris-based Reporters without Borders, RSF, said Sri Lanka most recently blocked a site for reporting alleged incidents inside a camp for civilians displaced by the war with Tamil Tiger rebels.
   ‘The Lankanewsweb.com blocking is the latest evidence of a decline in freedom of expression in Sri Lanka,’ RSF said in a statement.
   It noted that the move followed the government’s re-activation of the Press Council, which has powers to jail reporters and media executives.
   The blocked web site cannot be viewed through Sri Lankan Internet service providers, but many use proxy servers to access them.
   In June 2007, Sri Lanka blocked access to the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com web site as the military stepped up its attacks against the rebels.
   International rights activists have said that Sri Lanka is one of the more dangerous places for journalists to work in. Last month, media activist Poddala Jayantha was abducted, beaten and released with a broken leg.
   The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the attack highlighted that Sri Lanka’s independent media was still a target, despite the end of the war with the Tiger rebels in May.

Thailand will deploy a 14,000-strong team to police a regional summit on the resort island of Phuket, a senior military official said Tuesday, after protests scuppered similar talks in April.
   The military has been given increased powers to guard the foreign ministers attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum later this month, including the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
   ‘Altogether there will be a 14,000-strong force including members of the military, police, volunteers, rangers and interior ministry officials,’ the high-ranking official said.
   He said specially-trained military and police commandos would also be deployed to protect the ministers from more than two dozen countries attending the forum on the southern isle, which runs from July 19-23.

A helicopter carrying civilian contractors working for foreign troops in Afghanistan crashed on Tuesday killing at least six people on board and a child on the ground, NATO and local officials said.
   It was not immediately clear why the helicopter came down in the Sangin district of Helmand province, where US Marines, British and Afghan forces are pressing assaults against Taliban strongholds in the south in the run-up to key elections.
   ‘At around 9:00am (0430 GMT) this morning, a private helicopter has crashed outside Sangin military base... we have at least six people killed,’ said a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
   ‘The passengers were all civilians,’ he added, speaking from the biggest NATO base in southern Afghanistan at Kandahar.
   Another ISAF spokesman said the aircraft was carrying civilian contractors, but their nationalities were not immediately known and it was not clear how many people were on board.
   Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial administration, said an Afghan child was killed and a man injured near the site of the crash.

North Koreans were bracing for flooding Tuesday as torrential rain battered the communist country, according to state media.
   The impoverished North, after decades of deforestation, is particularly vulnerable to flooding, which worsens chronic food shortages by washing away crops.
   Radio Pyongyang, monitored by Seoul’s Yonhap news agency, said railway and other transport workers in the southwestern city of Sariwon ‘are putting their energy into projects to prevent damage during the torrential rainy season.’
   Seoul’s weather office was expecting North Korea to receive 60 to 150 millimetres of rain on Tuesday, compared with 50 to 100mm in the South, after the rainy season began on the peninsula in late June.
   North Korea in 2007 reported at least 600 people dead or missing following devastating floods that caused huge damage to all sectors of the economy.
   A Seoul government report said this month the North is expected to run short of up to 840,000 tons of food this year.