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Honduran negotiators submitted a plan for restoring ousted president Manuel Zelaya to office but the de facto government here said there was no deal yet.
   Roberto Micheletti, head of the government that took over after a June 28 coup, immediately raised objections to the proposed settlement of a political crisis that has paralysed the country for months.
   ‘They’re (the negotiators) asking for Congress to decide if Zelaya can return or not, but this is a legal matter, it’s definitely the Supreme Court of Justice’ which has to decide,’ Micheletti said on national television.
   The de facto regime said in a statement that talks would continue Thursday, adding that ‘as of this moment there is no final agreement’ on Zelaya’s reinstatement.
   Zelaya said that if changes were proposed they should be taken up again in the negotiations.
   Zelaya’s representative, Victor Meza, told a news conference earlier that negotiators had reached agreement on a point relating to the restoration of ‘the powers of state to where they were before June 28, 2009.’
   But he refused to provide details on the agreement and said the settlement ‘will depend on what the leaders say.’ But he cautioned ‘it is not easy to find a way out of a crisis that is so particular and so charged with tension.’
   In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood urged ‘all parties in Honduras to find a peaceful, negotiated restoration of democratic and constitutional order for the benefit of the Honduran people.
   ‘We are encouraged that the two sides continue in serious, constructive discussions,’ he said.
   The secretary general of the Organisation of American States, which paved the way for the talks, expressed satisfaction with the progress made.
   ‘There has been progress and it gives us hope that it will lead to a Honduran solution to a Honduran crisis,’ OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza said.
   But he added: ‘It isn’t over until it’s over.’
   Zelaya, 57, had said earlier he would only accept a deal under which he would return to office before presidential elections set for November 29.

China on Thursday sentenced six more people to death over bloody ethnic unrest in its far-western Xinjiang region in July, bringing the total to 12 as it delivered tough retribution over the violence.
   Three of the six were given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, a sentence usually commuted to life in prison, over the riots that the government says left 197 dead, in the worst ethnic violence in China in decades.
   A court in the regional capital Urumqi sentenced three others to life in jail and five people to lesser prison terms for their role in the unrest that rocked the city, according to a Xinjiang government statement faxed to AFP.
   The violence that erupted on July 5, which pitted mainly Muslim minority Uighurs against members of China’s dominant Han group, also left more than 1,600 injured.

Britain announced it was sending an extra 500 soldiers to Afghanistan, as the US president, Barack Obama, huddled with his war cabinet to decide whether to deploy thousands more US troops.
   Pledging more forces, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, urged NATO allies to do their ‘fair share’ in the increasingly deadly and unpopular war and pressed Kabul to provide more troops and get tough on corruption.
   ‘We have agreed in principle a new British troop level of 9,500,’ Brown said in a statement to the House of Commons. The ministry of defence confirmed this represented an increase of 500.
   Brown stressed the increase was based on three conditions — that the Afghan government show a commitment to providing police and soldiers who can be trained to engage in combat; that British troops are properly equipped and that other NATO countries also boost force levels.
   ‘Our commitment (should be) part of an agreed approach across the international coalition, with all countries bearing their fair share,’ Brown said.
   ‘Everyone must accept that if they are part of the coalition, they have to share the burden.’
   Britain currently has around 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second largest deployment after the United States.
   There have been 221 British deaths there since the war began in 2001.
   The White House welcomed London’s announcement, as it acknowledged the price that British troops were paying in the conflict.
   ‘Obviously, we’re thankful for a strengthening of the coalition, and our assessment continues,’ said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, adding the British people ‘have borne an enormous price in casualties.’
   The announcement came as Obama met Wednesday for three hours with his war council, in his latest talks following a grim assessment of the war by General Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO and US commander in Afghanistan.
   McChrystal has asked for some 40,000 extra troops. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the general has also laid out various alternatives for Obama including sending in a maximum of 60,000 troops.
   Obama has said he hopes to unveil his new strategy in the coming weeks as he desperately seeks to contain Afghan violence fuelled by al-Qaeda militants and the Taliban, which is now resurgent eight years after being ousted from power.
   Gibbs however shot down a report from the BBC saying the US leader was about to announce a significant increase of some 45,000 American troops for Afghanistan.
   ‘It’s not true,’ Gibbs said, insisting ‘the president has not made a decision ... I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s not true.’
   On Wednesday Obama met his national security team including the vice president, Joe Biden, the defence secretary, Robert Gates, and the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, via videoconference from Russia, the White House said. Related article: Obama in war cabinet talks

The police in the Indian tourist hotspot of Goa were probing a string of murders on Thursday after eight bodies, including six women, were found in the past few days.
   The police had initially left open the possibility that a serial killer was responsible, but superintendent Atmaram Deshpande said Thursday this appeared unlikely after initial investigations.
   ‘All the cases have been registered as murders. Initially, there are enough indications that there is no link between them,’ he said.
   Deshpande said the police had made a breakthrough in one case in which four people were found dead in a creek near the capital of Goa state, Panaji. Several people were detained and one arrested on Thursday.
   ‘The woman was sexually assaulted by a gang and since the old man resisted, they killed him and also put to death two kids,’ Deshpande told reporters.
   In the other cases, four women were found on Monday and Tuesday across the city aged from 16 to 60. Three of them had been burnt after they were murdered and one of them in her mid 20s appeared to be newlywed, he said.
   The string of murders comes at the start of the tourist season in Goa in southwest India, which drew 2.7 million visitors in 2008 from India and abroad, including thousands of Britons and Russians.
   The state gained notoriety last year when the body of British teenager Scarlett Keeling was found on one of the palm-fringed sandy beaches that are the main attraction here for foreign tourists.
   Her partially clothed, battered body was found on a beach. She had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs and been raped before she died.

The UN Human Rights Council holds a special session Thursday on the Palestinian territories during which it is set to decide whether to endorse a controversial report accusing Israel and Hamas of war crimes.
   The 47 state members of the council had already held a debate two weeks ago on the report by a fact-finding mission on the Israeli military offensive in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip and decided to postpone by six months a decision on its recommendations.
   The delay mooted by the United States and European states was meant to help buy some time amid attempts by Washington to relaunch the Middle East peace process.
   However, the Palestinian Authority reversed its stance in recent days and called for a special session of the Council with the backing of Egypt and Pakistan, non-aligned countries and the Organisation of Islamic Conference.
   The report recommends that its conclusions be forwarded to the International Criminal Court prosecutor in The Hague, if Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas fail to carry out credible investigations within six months.
   The Goldstone report also recommends the UN Security Council set up an independent team of experts to monitor and report on any investigations undertaken by Israel on the allegations.
   Israel has sharply criticised the fact-finding mission led by former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, saying its mandate was biased, and warned that it could jeopardise peace talks.
   The draft text seeks endorsement of ‘the recommendations contained in the report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, and calls upon all concerned parties including United Nations bodies, to ensure their implementation in accordance with their respective mandates.’

North Korea accused the South on Thursday of intruding into its territorial waters, further raising tension on the peninsula already heightened by the North’s launch this week of a barrage of short-range missiles.
   The allegations and a threat to attack the South’s ships add a new facet to mixed messages coming out of the North in recent days. These also include moves to defuse tensions by reaching out to foes South Korea and the United States for discussions.
   ‘The reckless military provocations by warships of the South Korean navy have created such a serious situation that a naval clash may break out between the two sides in these waters,’ the North’s KCNA news agency quoted a military official as saying.
   Analysts said the North may be trying to show that it is willing to raise the stakes to increase its bargaining leverage with Seoul and regional powers.
   ‘They don’t want to come to the negotiating table looking weak,’ said Cho Myung-chul, a former academic in North Korea who defected to the South and is now an analyst at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
   The two Koreas have fought two deadly naval battles in disputed waters off the west coast of the peninsula in the past 10 years.
   The North has dismissed as invalid a sea border called the Northern Limit Line, set unilaterally by US-led UN forces at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
   An official with the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North’s charge was groundless and it was accusing the South’s vessels of crossing a line in the sea that Seoul does not observe. That line was set by Pyongyang, well south of the NLL.

Ten French soldiers killed in Afghanistan failed to realise the risks in the area because Italian officials had secretly paid the Taliban to desist from violence, a British newspaper said Thursday.
   The Times reported that the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars (euros) to Taliban commanders and local warlords to keep the Sarobi area near Kabul quiet in the months before French forces moved in.
   The French had been in charge of the area for just a month when the 10 soldiers were killed in an insurgent ambush in August 2008, in one of the biggest single losses of life for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
   The Times said Western military officials had revealed the existence of the payments, but they had been hidden from the incoming French forces at the time.
   The Italian forces they had replaced in July had suffered only one combat death in the previous year.
   The report said that because the French knew nothing of the bribes they made a ‘catastrophically incorrect threat assessment’ of the area.
   It explains why the French troops were relatively lightly armed and insufficiently backed up by air cover when they were ambushed by 170 heavily armed insurgents, it added.
   The Taliban and the insurgent Hezb-i-Islami faction claimed responsibility for the attack.
   A senior NATO officer in Kabul told the newspaper: ‘It might well make sense to buy off local groups and use non-violence to keep violence down. But it is madness to do so and not inform your allies.’
   In October 2007, two Italian agents were kidnapped in western Afghanistan. One was killed during a rescue by British special forces. The Italian press later alleged they had been seized while making payments to the Taliban.
   Meanwhile, the Italian government on Thursday strongly denied the report.
   In a statement, the office of Berlusconi said the report had made ‘totally baseless accusations’.
   ‘The Berlusconi government has never authorised any kind of money payment to members of the Taliban insurrection in Afghanistan, and has no knowledge of initiatives of this type by the previous government,’ said the statement.
   ‘It should be highlighted that in the first half of 2008, Italian contingents in Afghanistan came under attack numerous times, including one in the Sarobi district, on February 13, 2008, which cost the life of Lieutenant Francesco Pezzulo.’
   The statement said General David McKiernan, the US commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan at the time, had praised the work of the Italians ‘in particular in Sarobi district’.
   ‘There were very numerous expressions of gratitude and thanks to the Italian intelligence services, who provided extremely pertinent information to the ISAF forces.’
   The government also denied that the US ambassador in Rome protested to the Italian authorities in June 2008 over alleged payments by Italy in Herat province.

The United Nations said Thursday it has been forced to cut food rations to 90,000 Bhutanese refugees living in camps in Nepal due to a severe funding shortage.
   The UN’s World Food Programme provides rice, lentils and other food to the refugees, who fled Bhutan when ethnic tensions flared nearly two decades ago and came to eastern Nepal, where they have lived ever since in camps.
   The move, which comes after the UN warned on Wednesday that the global economic crisis had led to declines in foreign aid and investment in poor countries, marks the first time rations have been cut in the camps.
   Nepal country representative Richard Ragan said the WFP was ‘extremely concerned’ about the consequences of reduced rations on the refugees’ health, and that further ration cuts may be necessary in the coming months.

Japan has told the United States it will end a naval refuelling mission that supports the war in Afghanistan, a top defence official said Thursday, a month before the president, Barack Obama, visits Tokyo.
   The formal confirmation to the White House and Pentagon, days before the defence secretary, Robert Gates, visits Japan, is part of efforts by the new centre-left government here to recalibrate security ties with Washington.
   The prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, who took office last month, has said he wants ‘more equal’ relations with the United States and that he opposes plans to build a new US air base on the southern island of Okinawa.

India’s offer to start a ‘quiet dialogue’ with separatist politicians in the disputed region of Kashmir was on Thursday welcomed by local moderates but rejected by hardliners.
   The home minister, P Chidambaram, on a visit to Kashmir, said his government was willing to hold talks with ‘every section of political opinion’ — including those who wish to break away from New Delhi’s rule.
   Moderate separatist leaders in the Muslim-majority state have held several rounds of talks with India’s central government, though hardliners oppose any contact that does not involve neighbouring rival Pakistan.
   Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the head of moderate separatists, described Chidambaram’s remarks as ‘a good beginning and a step forward.’ However, hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani was not impressed.
   ‘No dialogue process is possible unless India openly accepts the disputed nature of Kashmir,’ said Geelani, who is backed by armed militants. ‘There is nothing new in the talks offer. It is meaningless,’ he said.
   India was trying to dilute international pressure by giving the impression that it wanted to engage with Kashmiris, said Geelani, who wants the region to merge with Pakistan.

Pakistan’s foreign minister voiced hope that a furour at home over a giant US aid package would subside after US lawmakers gave written guarantees it would not violate the Islamic nation’s sovereignty.
   The foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, rushed to Washington Wednesday after a groundswell of opposition to the 7.5 billion-dollar aid plan, with the powerful military bristling at its calls on Pakistan to fight Islamic extremists.
   His trip coincided with a string of Taliban-linked assaults in Pakistan that have left 160 people dead since October 5, including brazen attacks on Thursday in which at least 39 people were killed.
   Senator John Kerry and Representative Howard Berman, who head the committees handling foreign relations in Congress’ two chambers, gave Qureshi a document stating that the plan did not impose conditions or infringe on sovereignty.

More than 250 Sri Lankan asylum seekers launched a hunger strike in Indonesia on Thursday after they were intercepted en route to Australia in a wooden boat.
   The migrants unfurled a banner on their vessel, which they are refusing to leave, saying: ‘15-10-2009. Life? Death. Hunger Strike for International Community’.
   Indonesian officials have pleaded with the Sri Lankans to leave the boat, accept temporary accommodation in Indonesia and submit their applications for asylum through the normal channels.
   But Banten provincial immigration head Harry Purwanto admitted there was ‘limited space’ currently available for them.
   ‘We’re still looking for shelter for them and don’t wish to separate them because we’re worried they may disagree,’ he said.
   The tightly-packed boat was stopped Sunday after a reported tip-off from the Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, to the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

South Korea has deployed new longer-range cruise missiles that could reach not only North Korea but also parts of China and Japan, a news report said Thursday.
   Munhwa Ilbo newspaper said Seoul began mass-producing the ‘Hyunmu-3’ missiles with a range of 1,000 kilometres early this year.
   The paper, quoting US and South Korean government sources, said the missile was developed in 2006 and tested for two years before being deployed.
   ‘Its development and deployment had been kept confidential because Japan, China and other neighbouring nations could react sensitively,’ the source said.

The main rival in Afghanistan’s fraud-tainted election, Abdullah Abdullah, said Thursday he hoped investigations into ballot-stuffing allegations would result in a run-off.
   Afghanistan’s August 20 elections remain overshadowed by allegations of fraud, mostly against the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, including findings by EU observers that a quarter of all votes, or 1.5 million ballots, were suspect.
   The Independent Election Commission is widely expected to make an announcement within days following an audit of suspicious ballots.
   Based on an order by the Election Complaints Commission, it will either declare a victor or, if Karzai’s share falls below 50 per cent, call for a run-off.