Kenya will not sit by as Somalia worsens: minister

Somali PM fears 100s killed by bomb
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By Wangui Kanina
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya will not sit by and allow the situation in neighboring Somalia to deteriorate further because it is a threat to regional stability, the country's foreign minister said on Friday.
Hardline Islamist insurgents stepped up an offensive against Somalia's government last month and on Thursday killed the Horn of Africa country's security minister and at least 30 other people in a suicide car bomb attack.
Kenya and other countries in the region, as well as Western nations, fear that if the chaos continues, groups with links to al Qaeda will become entrenched and threaten the stability of neighboring countries.
"We will not sit by and watch the situation in Somalia deteriorate beyond where it is. We have a duty ... as a government to protect our strategic interests including our security," said Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula.
"Kenya will do exactly that to ensure the unfolding developments in Somalia do not in any way undermine or affect our peace and security as a country," he told a news conference.
Asked about any specific action, Wetangula said an international partnership was dealing with the issue of the insurgency and instability in Somalia and it would be inappropriate to discuss details.
Al Shabaab insurgents, said to have hundreds of foreign fighters in their ranks, claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack. The rebels control much of southern Somalia and some of the capital. They want to oust the government and impose a strict version of Islamic law throughout the country.
John Holmes, the top U.N. humanitarian aid official, said on Friday that instability was making it very tough to deliver food and other supplies to the vulnerable Somalis who are also struggling to cope with drought. "Access to the area is extremely difficult," he told a news conference in Geneva.
SIGNIFICANT SETBACKS
Wetangula's comments echoed a joint statement issued on Thursday by the European Union, the African Union, the Inter Governmental Agency on Development, the League of Arab States and the United Nations.
"These extremists, both Somali and foreigners, are continuing their indiscriminate violence. They are a threat not only to the country, but to the IGAD region and the international community," the bodies said.
They condemned the latest suicide attack as "deplorable."
Al Shabaab has so far resisted government attempts to drive its fighters from the capital.
The death of the security minister and Mogadishu's police chief this week were seen as significant setbacks given the two men were closely involved in directing the government's forces.
Analysts say the fighting in Mogadishu since May 7, in which about 300 people have been killed, is the worst for years and the chances of a negotiated peace are waning. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.N. reports big drop in Colombia cocaine production

By Sylvia Westall
VIENNA (Reuters) - Colombia's cocaine production fell to its lowest in a decade last year as demand declined and crackdowns reaped rewards, but rose in Bolivia and Peru, the U.N. anti-crime agency said on Friday.
Cocaine production in Colombia, the world's No. 1 supplier, fell by 28 percent last year according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), but rose 4 by percent and 9 percent in Peru and Bolivia respectively.
"The increases for Bolivia and Peru show a trend in the wrong direction," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement. The two countries together produced about as much cocaine as Colombia in 2008.
"Peru must guard against a return to the days when terrorists and insurgents, like the (guerrilla group) Shining Path, profited from drugs and crime," Costa said.
Colombia produced less as demand from the world's main cocaine markets fell, but smaller suppliers Bolivia and Peru made more as production shifted slightly away from the biggest producer, according to UNODC findings.
"In terms of ... production, the 2008 results are the lowest in Colombia in a decade," the UNODC said in a statement.
Drug trafficking was being "seriously disrupted" thanks to action by local officials, it said. According to the agency, 200 tons of cocaine was seized in 2008, a 57 percent increase compared with 2007.
The value of coca leaf, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is falling in Colombia, making it less attractive for farmers, it said. Cocaine supply is shrinking and the drug is getting harder to transport, boosting prices and lowering purity.
"This may also explain why cartels are becoming so violent," Costa said. Cocaine demand is also falling in the main North American markets.
Overall coca cultivation declined in Colombia last year, down 18 percent compared with 2007. Besides being made into cocaine, the leaf is also used as a remedy for altitude sickness and to stave off hunger.
Championed by Bolivian President Evo Morales, a former coca farmer, the leaf is also chewed and used in teas, in cooking and for religious ceremonies.
Costa said the UNODC was working with farmers to ensure the plant was not being turned into cocaine, which was used at least once by between 15.5 million and 20.5 million people in 2007, according to UNODC estimates.
"Much more development assistance is needed throughout the Andean countries, particularly in poor regions like the Yungas of Bolivia, where coca is the only source of income," he said.
The U.N.'s annual World Drug Report is published next week.
(Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

Source: Reuters

Aid gets into Sri Lanka camps, few people get out: U.N.

By Laura MacInnis
GENEVA (Reuters) - Humanitarian aid is getting into Sri Lanka's war displacement camps, but very few of the 280,000 people they house are being allowed out, the top United Nations aid official said on Friday.
U.N. emergency relief coordinator John Holmes said survivors of the brutal civil war that Colombo declared over in May needed to be permitted to resume normal lives in order to ease tensions in the country's northeast.
Aid vehicles carrying food, health and other supplies are now gaining access to the camps which were closed to trucks in the first days after the 25-year fighting stopped, Holmes told a news conference in Geneva.
"We do have pretty much full access to those camps at the moment," he said, noting that problems with overcrowding and inadequate water and sanitation facilities with the onset of disease-spreading monsoon rains were gradually being overcome.
"What is more worrying is the nature of the camps themselves. They could be described as internment camps in some respects, in the sense that people are not allowed to move freely in and out of them for the moment," Holmes continued.
Sri Lanka has said it is in control of the refugee situation and blasted Western governments for their attempts at the United Nations to shine a light on reported transgressions during and after its war against the separatist Tamil Tigers.
Sri Lanka's government has said it aims to have 80 percent of the population back to their villages of origin by the end of the year, and will work to give ethnic Tamils a strong political voice in the majority Sinhalese nation.
Holmes said United Nations officials are "discussing in a very intensive way with the government" ways to buoy the welfare of people in the camps and to help them get home quickly.
Such issues he said "are crucial, not only for the sake of the people in the camps, but also for the sake of the future political reconciliation which absolutely needs to happen."
(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: Reuters

Global crisis pushes 100 million into hunger: U.N.

ROME (Reuters) - The global economic crisis will help push 100 million people into poverty this year through lost jobs and lower earnings, leaving one sixth of the world's population living in hunger, a U.N. agency said on Friday.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecast the number of people living in hunger would reach a record high of 1.02 billion this year, exacerbated by persistently high prices for staples following the food crisis of 2006-2008.
Not only will the global slowdown destroy livelihoods in the developing world -- where almost all of the world's hungry live -- it will reduce aid spending from wealthy countries by around a quarter, just when it is most needed, the FAO warned.
"The silent hunger crisis ... poses a serious risk for world peace and security," said FAO Director General Jacques Diouf. "We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger."
The FAO said "substantial and sustained remedial actions" were required to reach the U.N. Millennium goal of halving the number of hungry people to under 420 million by 2015.
Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, it has been steadily on the rise for the past decade, the FAO said.
The global economic crisis left little scope for developing countries to adapt -- through currency depreciation or borrowing from international capital markets -- because it was hitting all parts of the world at the same time, the report said.
Foreign investment in the developing world is expected to fall by nearly one third, while cash remittances from overseas could fall by around 8 percent, reversing years of steady increases, the FAO said in a report.
The urban poor will be the hardest hit, due to job losses, but food pressure will also mount in rural areas as millions of migrants return to the countryside.
The increase in undernourishment is not a result of limited international food supplies. FAO figures predict strong world cereal production in 2009, only modestly down from year's record output of 2.3 billion tons.
While world food prices have retreated from their mid-2008 highs, they are still high by historical standards. At the end of 2008, staple foods cost on average 24 percent more in real terms than two years earlier, the FAO said.
Asia and the Pacific was the worst affected region with an estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger, followed by 265 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, the FAO said.

Source: Reuters

Bomb kills policeman in Spain, ETA blamed

By Arantza Goyoaga
BILBAO, Spain (Reuters) - A bomb killed a police officer when it exploded under his car in Spain's Basque Country Friday, in what authorities said was the first fatal attack by ETA rebels since December.
The booby-trap attack in the northern city of Bilbao ended a long gap without victims for a group hard hit by arrests of its leaders, and which had not killed since gunning down a Basque businessman last year, authorities said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
"We knew that this could happen again, although the terrorists are weaker than ever," said Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero from Brussels, where he was attending a summit of European leaders.
"The full force of the law will fall on them to make sure they get the longest and toughest prison sentences possible," Zapatero said.
Ares identified the victim as police officer Eduardo Puelles, a 49-year-old father of two, who got into his car at about 9:05 a.m. (0705 GMT) in a car park in Bilbao's Santa Isabel neighborhood, Basque Country police said.
A witness told Spanish media he heard Puelles screaming for help after the bomb went off but that he could do nothing due to the flames, which television images showed pouring from the car together with clouds of black smoke shortly afterwards.
The vehicle was left a twisted heap of metal.
The man's widow, who was not hurt, was attended to by emergency services after being overcome by emotion, media reported.
The leader of the Basque Country regional government, Patxi Lopez, called a protest in Bilbao for Saturday afternoon against ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in decades of struggle for independence of the Basque Country.
Analysts say that ETA is losing support for its violent methods, although polls indicate a majority of Basques may still want independence from Spain.
In April, police arrested its suspected top commander Jurdan Martitegi, bringing to four the number of commanders caught in less than a year.
Zapatero's Socialist government broke off peace talks with ETA after the rebels killed two people with a car bomb at Madrid airport.
(Additional reporting by Vincent West, Blanca Rodriguez, Raquel Castillo and Emma Pinedo; Writing by Jason Webb; Editing by Charles Dick)

Source: Reuters

No convictions in India despite child labor ban

By Nita Bhalla
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is failing to enforce a ban on child labor, with not a single conviction almost three years after the law came into effect, leading child rights activists said on Friday.
More than 12 million children below the age of 14 are working as domestic servants or other jobs such as in stone quarries, embroidery units, mining, carpet-weaving, tea stalls, restaurants and hotels, according to government data.
A law prohibiting employing children in homes and in the hospitality industry came into effect in October 2006. There have only been 1,680 prosecutions and not a single conviction.
"Since the law came into effect, the government has only found 6,782 child workers in jobs like domestic service and roadside restaurants," said Kailash Satyarthi of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement).
Children working in lower-end restaurants and highway food stalls are a common sight in many parts of India, and many urban middle-class households hire young boys and girls from poor families as servants.
The law -- where violators face a jail term of up to two years and a maximum fine of 20,000 rupees ($420) is an extension of a previous 1986 ban prohibiting children from working jobs deemed too "hazardous" for minors such as in factories and mines.
Child rights campaigners say like the previous ban, the 2006 law has never been properly implemented or enforced.
"There are serious discrepancies at every stage in process of dealing with child labor issues in India," said Satyarthi.
"First, the government numbers are underestimated, then authorities do not carry out comprehensive inspections on establishments employing children," he said.
Priya Subramanian, communications manager for Save the Children India, said problems in identifying the age of children was another reason why there were no convictions.
"Many of the children are from rural areas and have no formal identification and so the onus is often not on the employers as they just plead innocent," said Subramanian.
Authorities say results from the recent ban will not come overnight.
"There are difficulties in implementing this law, but you know these things take time," said a senior official from the ministry of labor, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to make statements to the media.
(Editing by Bappa Majumdar)

Source: Reuters

Iran's Khamenei demands halt to election protests

Iranians mourn with mass rally
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By Fredrik Dahl and Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday as the rightful winner of a presidential election that has sparked the biggest street protests in the Islamic Republic's history.
(EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
In his first address to the nation since the upheaval began, Khamenei demanded an end to the demonstrations and denied any possibility that the poll a week ago had been rigged, as Ahmadinejad's opponents have asserted.
"The result of the election comes from the ballot box, not from the street," he told tens of thousands of worshippers who had gathered in and around Tehran University for Friday prayers. "Today the Iranian nation needs calm."
He said Iran's enemies were targeting the legitimacy of the Islamic establishment by disputing the outcome of the election.
The protests by supporters of Mirhossein Mousavi, runner-up in the poll, are the largest and most widespread since the revolution in Iran, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, which is also at odds with the West over its nuclear program.
"EXTREMIST BEHAVIOR"
Khamenei said politicians should shun extremism and would be responsible for any bloodshed due to "extremist behavior," adding that street protests would not pressure the establishment into accepting "illegal demands" of losing candidates.
Mousavi has called for the election result to be annulled.
The supreme leader, Iran's ultimate authority, in theory stands above the factional fray, but Khamenei acknowledged that his views on foreign and domestic policy were closer to those of Ahmadinejad than to those of the hardline president's foes.
People chanting slogans and holding posters of Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, the father of the 1979 Islamic revolution, packed streets outside the university.
At least one police helicopter hovered overhead.
"Ahmadinejad has been our president for four years, and during this time he has always told the truth to our people," said Javid Abbasirad, 48, outside the university gates.
At the same venue, hundreds of university students had demonstrated in support of Mousavi on Sunday, hurling stones at riot police trying to disperse protesters outside the gates.
Some in the crowd for Friday prayers were draped in Iranian flags. Others held placards with anti-Western slogans. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Two Koreas talk on factory park; U.S. tracks ship

By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korean envoys failed on Friday to resolve a dispute over Pyongyang's demands for salary and rent increases at a joint factory park in the communist state that is one of its few sources of hard cash.
The talks came a day after American officials said the U.S. Navy was tracking a North Korean ship under new U.N. sanctions that bar Pyongyang from trading in weapons, including missile parts and nuclear material.
Destitute North Korea may be looking to launch a long-range missile toward Hawaii in the coming weeks, news reports also said, which could further stoke tensions after its May 25 nuclear test that put it closer to having a working atomic bomb.
The rocket launch would be in defiance of U.N. resolutions but could be part of efforts to consolidate leader Kim Jong-il's power in preparation for succession in Asia's only communist dynasty, South Korean officials say.
Previous rounds of talks between North and South Korean officials over the Kaesong Industrial Complex have hit snags over money and Pyongyang's refusal to meet Seoul's demands to release a South Korean worker held at the park for supposedly insulting the North's communist system.
North Korea repeated its demand for higher wages and lease payments but offered to lift some of the traffic restrictions that slowed the movement of materials and workers, said Chun Hae-sung, a South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman.
Officials will meet again on July 2 for more talks.
North Korea has demanded wages of $300 a month per person for the about 40,000 North Koreans employed in Kaesong, up from around $70 now. The North also wants lease payments of $500 million over 50 years, an increase of more than 30 fold from the current deal.
North Korea in May said it was cancelling all wage, rent and tax agreements at Kaesong in what analysts said was likely a bid to squeeze more money out of the more than 100 South Korean firms that use the cheap labor and land there.
MISSILES AND SHIPS
The U.S. monitoring of the North Korean vessel, which left a North Korean port on Wednesday, is the first under the U.N. sanctions adopted last week after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test and warned it could fire another intercontinental ballistic missile.
U.S. officials declined to say what the ship, the Kang Nam, might be carrying but said it had become "a subject of interest."
South Korea's coastguard would not comment on where the vessel might be and what it might be carrying.
"North Korea will endlessly try to export arms. They are unable to shake this thought off their minds because exporting arms is a very profitable business compared to other goods," said Cho Myung-chul, an expert on the North's economy at the South's Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
The U.S. Treasury Department warned banks on Thursday that North Korea may increasingly try to use cash transactions to evade U.N. sanctions aimed at cutting off financing to its nuclear program. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Pakistani cleric's murder stokes sectarian tension

By Zeeshan Haider
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - The son of one of Pakistan's most prominent anti-Taliban Muslim clerics fears that his father's murder by a suicide bomber a week ago could spark more sectarian violence in a country already riven by conflict.
Sitting by his father's rose-covered mud grave, Raghib Naeemi is still receiving a stream of mourners a week after his father, Sarfraz Naeemi, was blown up in his office at his mosque complex in the eastern city of Lahore.
His murder came as security forces have been fighting to stem the growing influence of the Taliban, a fight that has sent jitters across Pakistan and raised international concern for the stability of the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.
Naeemi, 61, was a senior cleric of the moderate Barelvi branch of Islam and an outspoken critic of the Pakistani Taliban and their suicide bombing campaign.
"I have tried my best to restrain followers of my father and I will continue to do so but we are fearful that this could turn into a sectarian issue. The government should take concrete measures to avoid it," Raghib told Reuters in an interview.
"We will not allow the conspiracy to stir sectarianism to succeed," Raghib said later in a sermon on Friday.
Government forces have secured much of the scenic Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, which the Taliban had virtually taken over and turned into a stronghold.
The government plans to extend the offensive to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud's main stronghold in South Waziristan, an ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border.
"WE COULD LOSE PAKISTAN"
Naeemi had unequivocally supported the government offensive and was an outspoken critic of Mehsud.
"My father was targeted because of his fatwa that suicide attacks are forbidden in Islam," said Raghib, who is now running Naeemi's religious school. A fatwa is a religious decree.
"My father believed that this is the last war for the survival of Pakistan. If our army or government lost this war then we would lose Pakistan," he said.
A day after Naeemi was killed, the military sent aircraft to attack Mehsud and his fighters in South Waziristan in retaliation.
Pakistani Sunni Muslims are predominantly moderate Barelvis but the hardline, austere Deobandi sect grew in strength in the 1980s during an Islamisation drive by then military ruler General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.
Pakistan, with the support of the United States and Saudi Arabia, fostered radical Deobandi groups and encouraged them to fight Soviet forces then occupying neighboring Afghanistan. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Car bomb kills one in Spain, police blame ETA

By Arantza Goyoaga
BILBAO, Spain (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in the northern city of Bilbao in Spain's Basque Country on Friday, killing a police officer in what authorities suspected was the first fatal attack by ETA rebels since December.
The bomb exploded at 9:05 a.m. (0705 GMT) in a car park in Bilbao's Santa Isabel neighborhood, Basque Country police said.
"There was an attack, a big explosion, that burned up the individual inside the car and damaged other vehicles nearby," the Basque Country regional government's Interior Minister Rodolfo Ares told reporters.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but such bombings have regularly been carried out by Basque guerrillas ETA, who have killed more than 800 people in decades of struggle for independence of the Basque Country.
Asked whether ETA was responsible, a police spokesman said: "It definitely looks like that."
Ares identified the victim as police officer Eduardo Puelles. The man's wife, who was not hurt, was attended to by emergency services after being overcome by emotion, radio reported.
A cloud of black smoke and flames poured from the car shortly after the attack, television images showed. Soon afterwards, police could be seen examining the remains of the car, which was left a twisted heap of metal.
ETA's last fatal attack was the gunning down of a Basque businessman last December, a long gap without victims for a group which has been hard hit by arrests of a string of its top leaders. In April, police arrested its suspected top commander Jurdan Martitegi, bringing to four the number of commanders caught in less than a year.
Analysts say that ETA is losing support for its violent methods, although polls indicate a majority of Basques may still want independence from Spain.
Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero broke off peace talks with ETA after the rebels killed two people with a car bomb at Madrid airport.
(Additional reporting by Vincent West, Blanca Rodriguez, Raquel Castillo and Emma Pinedo; Writing by Jason Webb)

Source: Reuters

Indian police struggle to reclaim Maoist zones

By Jayanta Shaw
BHIMPUR, India (Reuters) - Fearful of landmines and under fire from rebels, Indian police struggled on Friday to enter a Maoist "liberated zone" close to east India's biggest commercial city of Kolkata.
Hundreds of Maoists, who are expanding their influence in India, have chased away police from a tribal area based around the town of Lalgarh about 170 km (100 miles) from Kolkata, capital of West Bengal.
"We are advancing very cautiously and we are in no hurry to rush into Lalgarh," Kuldiep Singh, a senior police officer, told Reuters by telephone. "It will take us some more time to regain Lalgarh and at the moment we are 10 km (6 miles) away."
Police fired teargas shells and rubber bullets to break through "human walls" of villagers late on Thursday in a bid to advance toward Lalgarh, a small town under Maoist control.
India's JSW Steel Ltd, the country's third largest steel producer, is setting up a $7 billion, 10-million tonne steel plant near Lalgarh, and the growing presence of Maoists across swathes of rural India has worried many investors.
The rebels have killed at least 10 government supporters so far and distributed leaflets in villages, warning of a fierce battle unless the government withdrew its forces.
The Maoists started their armed struggle in West Bengal's Naxalbari town in the late 1967, and have expanded their support among villagers by tapping into resentment at the government's recent pro-industry push.
Hundreds of villagers, holding bows and arrows and backed by the Maoists, are trying to stop the police from advancing, officials said.
The violence has unnerved the industrial sector after violent protests by farmers forced the scrapping of a Tata Motors' Nano car plant and a $3 billion chemicals hub complex.
"Investors are waiting and watching the situation unfold. It is going to delay industrialization (in West Bengal)," Sandipan Chakraborty, Managing Director of Tata Ryerson Ltd, owned by Tata Steel and the U.S.-based Ryerson Inc.
India is battling Maoists across eastern, central and southern India, an insurgency Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the biggest internal security challenge since independence.
(Additional reporting by Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata and Bappa Majumdar in New Delhi; Writing by Bappa Majumdar, Editing by Alistair Scrutton)

Source: Reuters

Vast crowd gathers for Khamenei sermon in Tehran

Iranians mourn with mass rally
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By Fredrik Dahl and Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Iranians streamed toward Tehran University on Friday to hear Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei address the nation for the first time since a disputed election result sparked the biggest street protests in the Islamic Republic's 30-year history.
(EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Khamenei has urged Iranians to unite behind hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but supporters of defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi have so far ignored the call, holding huge rallies in defiance of an official ban.
People chanting slogans and holding posters of Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, the father of the 1979 Islamic revolution, packed streets outside the university where the supreme leader was to deliver a Friday prayer sermon.
At least one police helicopter hovered overhead.
"Ahmadinejad has been our president for four years, and during this time he has always told the truth to our people," said Javid Abbasirad, 48, outside the university gates.
At the same venue, hundreds of university students had demonstrated in support of Mousavi on Sunday, hurling stones are riot police trying to disperse protesters outside the gates.
ANTI-WESTERN SLOGANS
Some of the crowd waiting to hear Khamenei were draped in Iranian flags. Others held placards with anti-Western slogans.
"Don't let the history of Iran be written with the pen of foreigners," one flyer said, reflecting official Iranian anger at international criticism of the post-election violence.
A group of clerics and citizens left the holy city of Qom for a 150 km (100 mile) walk to Tehran in a show of support for Khamenei, state radio and television reported.
Khamenei's speech follows six days of protests by Mousavi supporters. On Thursday, tens of thousands of black-clad marchers bore candles to mourn those killed in earlier rallies.
The protests are the largest and most widespread since the revolution in Iran, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, which is also at odds with the West over its nuclear program.
Iranian state media has reported seven or eight people killed in protests since the election results were published on June 13. Scores of reformists have been arrested and authorities have cracked down on both foreign and domestic media.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said about 500 people had been arrested in the last week, and called for their unconditional release. She said Iran should hold new elections under the supervision of the United Nations. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iraq confident about security after U.S. troops leave towns

TOKYO (Reuters) - Iraq is confident its security forces can manage alone after U.S. soldiers pull out of towns and cities this month, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Friday.
Concerns have arisen about Iraqi security forces' ability to combat increasing violence ahead of parliamentary elections due next January.
"The Iraqi government, about the security forces, are confident (they) are capable of taking over its full responsibility after the withdrawal of American forces" from cities, Zebari told a news conference on a visit to Tokyo.
"We are confident about the ability of our security forces. They've become more mature, more efficient," he said.
U.S. combat troops, who invaded Iraq in 2003, are scheduled to leave urban centers by June 30 and redeploy to bases outside to hand control back to Iraqi security forces, according to a security pact that took effect in January.
While violence has fallen in Iraq since peaking in 2006-07, insurgents still launch attacks. Earlier this month, a car bomb killed more than 30 in the south and the head of Iraq's biggest Sunni Muslim parliament bloc was killed.
The Iraqi government has warned that attacks could intensify before the election.
"These recent attacks do not indicate a trend," Zebari said, adding that there are some 10 insurgent attacks a day in Iraq now, down from about 360 attacks in the past.
The U.S. military is due to leave the country by the end of 2011.
Zebari reiterated Iraq's concern about instability in neighboring Iran after disputed presidential elections, adding that the call for change is coming from within Iran and that Iraq respects the Iranian people's will.
He also played down the tension between Baghdad and the Kurdish authorities over oil resources and the future of the disputed city of Kirkuk, claimed by the Kurds as their ancestral capital, saying that "there is no breakdown" in ties between Baghdad and Kurdish authorities.
Zebari, in Japan on a six-day trip ending on Monday, will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso later on Friday to discuss Iraq's security and business environment in the hope of attracting more Japanese investment.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Source: Reuters

Vietnam detains four linked to arrested rights lawyer

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has detained four people who local news reports said colluded with prominent lawyer Le Cong Dinh, arrested last weekend on charges of spreading propaganda against the state.
The four had helped plot the toppling of the Communist-run state with the intent of replacing it with a multi-party system, the online news portal VNExpress reported Friday. It named two of the detained as Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and Le Thang Long.
State media said Dinh published articles on the Internet that intentionally distorted Vietnam's socio-economic policies and libeled key leaders.
The 40-year-old lawyer was also accused of damaging and distorting Vietnamese law and the constitution in his defense of high-profile democracy activists.
He could face up to 20 years in prison.
Dinh's arrest has sparked criticism from abroad.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said the United States was deeply concerned, and New York-based Human Rights Watch called for Dinh's immediate release, saying the arrest was part of a campaign by the state against rights and democracy activists.
Amnesty International labeled Dinh's arrest "another indication of Vietnam's determination to stifle freedom of expression, and silence anyone who criticizes the government or holds different views."
The International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute wrote a letter to Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung saying it was concerned the arrest contravened the Vietnamese constitution's guarantee of free speech.
In the state's defense, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said in a statement Dinh's arrest conformed with relevant procedures and Vietnam consistently ensured freedom of speech and expression.
Several state-run newspapers said Friday that Dinh had confessed, and he was shown on state TV Thursday night reading a statement.
The Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan printed images of handwritten testimony it said Dinh wrote to security authorities on June 17, four days after his arrest, detailing his activities.
"I think the above actions of mine violated Vietnamese law. I feel very repentant for my wrongdoings. I look forward to the state's consideration so that I may have clemency," it said.
Media reports said Dinh attended a "non-violent struggle course" in the Thai beach resort of Pattaya earlier this year and became a member of the U.S.-based Vietnam Democratic Party.
In 2007, Dinh defended two other prominent human rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, who were jailed on similar charges of "spreading propaganda against the state."
Dinh also worked with Nguyen Quoc Quan, a U.S. citizen of Vietnamese origin who had planned to distribute pro-democracy literature. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Thailand's Muslim south gripped by fear

By Martin Petty
YALA, Thailand (Reuters) - When a gun appeared through an open window in her small wooden house, Patimoh Pohitaedaoh knew the insurgents had come to kill her.
She had already seen four family members shot dead in her village by shadowy assassins over the past five years.
Now, her time had come.
"They shot at me, I knew they would come after me," said Patimoh, a Muslim villager from Yala, one of three southernmost provinces plagued by five years of unrest.
"I ran to hide and defense volunteers heard the shots and chased the gunmen away. I was lucky to survive," she told Reuters.
Similar stories are told daily throughout the predominantly Muslim region bordering Malaysia, where nearly 3,500 people have been killed since 2004, among them teachers, soldiers, Imams and Buddhist monks.
The conflict remains shrouded in mystery, with no credible claims of responsibility for the bloodshed in a once independent Malay Muslim land with a history of rebellion to Buddhist Thai rule.
The violence adds to image problems that could affect foreign investment and tourism in Thailand, rocked by sporadic political turmoil and violence in other areas as well in recent years.
In the Muslim south, a place where fear and intimidation have become part of daily life, Patimoh, like most people here, is reluctant to speculate as to the identity of her attackers, or what they are fighting for.
"I didn't see them clearly -- no one knows who these people are," said Patimoh, 29.
"All I know is they are here in the villages, every day, all around us," she said.
TORN APART
Buddhist and Muslim families have been torn apart by the deadly violence, which has ranged from drive-by shootings and arson to powerful bombings and grisly beheadings.
Patimoh's younger brother, Samsudeen, a defense volunteer, elder brother Rohim, a village chief, brother-in-law Asif and sister Laila, a community leader, all paid a heavy price for working for the Thai state.
They were shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles who haunt the rustic villages of the jungle-clad region, silencing anyone deemed to be supporting the authorities. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Myanmar's Suu Kyi turns 64 amid outrage over trial

By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi spent her 64th birthday in detention on Friday as supporters worldwide condemned her trial and called for tougher sanctions against the military regime.
Nyan Win, a lawyer defending the Nobel laureate who faces up to five years in jail, said Suu Kyi would be allowed a few visitors to Yangon's Insein prison, where she is on trial over charges she broke the terms of her house arrest.
"I'm going to send her some birthday presents and food so she can celebrate with a few guests," he told Reuters.
Confined for nearly 14 of the past 20 years, Suu Kyi's birthday has become an annual ritual inside and outside Myanmar for campaigners seeking an end to decades of military rule that has left the country an impoverished international pariah.
But the day has taken on added significance this year amid international outrage at her trial, which is widely expected to end with a guilty verdict.
Protests are planned outside Myanmar embassies in major capitals around the world.
An online campaign, www.64forsuu.org, drew thousands of messages of support, including good wishes from world leaders and celebrities.
"Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration to her country and the rest of the world," wrote former Beatle Paul McCartney. "I truly admire her infallible resolve and her determination to stand up for what she believes in."
"RIDICULOUS TRIAL"
Suu Kyi is accused of breaking the terms of her house arrest by allowing an American intruder, John Yettaw, to stay for two days after he swam to her Yangon home in early May.
She says the trial, set to resume on June 26, is politically motivated to exclude her from next year's elections. Critics call the polls a sham to entrench nearly half a century of military rule in the former Burma.
In London, British Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said Suu Kyi was being tried on "ridiculous and bogus trumped-up charges." He said the European Union would consider further sanctions against the junta after the trial ended.
"We (Britain) continue to believe that further targeted financial sanctions would increase pressure on the regime," he told reporters.
In Yangon, members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) will gather at the party's dilapidated headquarters to release doves and call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners and a meaningful transition to democracy.
As in past years, they will probably be ignored as the regime presses ahead with its "roadmap to democracy" and silences dissent in the run-up to the 2010 polls. Scores of activists and dissidents have been convicted by the courts, which have a history of bending laws to suit the generals. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Vietnam detains four more linked to rights lawyer

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has detained four people who local news reports said colluded with prominent lawyer Le Cong Dinh, arrested last weekend on charges of spreading propaganda against the state.
The four had helped plot the toppling of the Communist-run state with the intent of replacing it with a multi-party system, the online news portal VNExpress reported on Friday. It named two of the detained as Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and Le Thang Long.
State media said Dinh published articles on the Internet that intentionally distorted Vietnam's socio-economic policies and libeled key leaders.
The 40-year-old lawyer was also accused of damaging and distorting Vietnamese law and the constitution in his defense of high-profile democracy activists.
He could face up to 20 years in prison.
After Dinh's arrest, the U.S. embassy in Hanoi issued a statement saying it was deeply concerned, and New York-based Human Rights Watch called for his immediate release, saying the arrest was part of a campaign by the state against rights and democracy activists.
In the state's defense, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said in a statement Dinh's arrest conformed with relevant procedures and Vietnam consistently ensured freedom of speech and expression.
Several state-run newspapers said on Friday that Dinh had confessed, and he was shown on state TV on Thursday night reading a statement.
The Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan printed images of a handwritten testimony it said Dinh wrote to security authorities on June 17, four days after his arrest, detailing his activities.
"I think the above actions of mine violated Vietnamese law. I feel very repentant for my wrongdoings. I look forward to the state's consideration so that I may have clemency," it said.
Media reports said Dinh attended a "non-violent struggle course" in the Thai beach resort of Pattaya earlier this year and became a member of the U.S.-based Vietnam Democratic Party.
In 2007, Dinh defended two other prominent human rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, who were jailed on similar charges of "spreading propaganda against the state."
Dinh also worked with Nguyen Quoc Quan, a U.S. citizen of Vietnamese origin who had planned to distribute pro-democracy literature.

Source: Reuters

North, South Korea talk factory park; U.S. tracks ship

By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korean officials meet on Friday to discuss Pyongyang's demands for salary and rent increases at a joint factory park in the cash-starved communist state that is one of its few sources of hard currency.
The talks come as the U.S. Navy tracks a North Korean ship under new U.N. sanctions that bar Pyongyang from trading in weapons, including missile parts and nuclear material.
North Korea may be looking to launch a long-range missile toward Hawaii in the coming weeks, news reports said.
That would be in defiance of U.N. resolutions but could be part of an attempt to consolidate leader Kim Jong-il's power in preparation for succession in Asia's only communist dynasty, South Korean officials say.
Previous rounds of talks between North and South Korean officials over the Kaesong Industrial Complex have hit snags over the money and Pyongyang's refusal to meet Seoul's demands to release a South Korean worker held at the park for supposedly insulting the North's communist system.
"We will be demanding the speedy release of our worker who has been held for more than 80 days," the South's chief delegate Kim Young-tak said before he crossed the heavily armed border into the North for the Kaesong talks.
North Korea has demanded wages of $300 a month per person for the about 40,000 North Koreans employed in Kaesong, up from around $70 now. The North also wants lease payments of $500 million over 50 years, an increase of more than 30 fold from the current deal.
A South Korean fur coat maker pulled out of the Kaesong complex this month, the first to do so, citing declining orders from wary buyers and concerns about its workers' safety.
North Korea in May said it was cancelling all wage, rent and tax agreements at Kaesong in what analysts said was likely a bid to squeeze more money out of the more than 100 South Korean firms that use the cheap labor and land there.
MISSILES AND SHIPS
The U.S. monitoring of the North's ship, which left port on Wednesday, is the first under the U.N. sanctions adopted last week after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test and warned of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile.
U.S. officials declined to say what the ship, called the Kang Nam, might be carrying but said it had become "a subject of interest".
"North Korea will endlessly try to export arms. They are unable to shake this thought off their minds because exporting arms is a very profitable business compared to other goods," said Cho Myung-chul, an expert on the North's economy at the South's Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
The U.S. Treasury Department warned banks on Thursday that North Korea may increasingly try to use cash transactions to evade U.N. sanctions aimed at cutting off financing to its nuclear program.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington was concerned about the possibility of North Korea firing off more missiles, possibly toward Hawaii. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Thousands mourn Iranians killed in protests

Iranians mourn with mass rally
Play Video
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader will address the nation on Friday for the first time since a disputed election result triggered the biggest protests the Islamic Republic has seen.
(Editors' note: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has urged Iranians to unite behind hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but supporters of defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi have so far ignored the call, holding huge rallies in defiance of an official ban.
Khamenei's speech at Friday prayers in the Iranian capital follows a sixth day of protests by Mousavi supporters. On Thursday, tens of thousands, wearing black and carrying candles, marched to mourn those killed in earlier mass rallies.
The largest and most widespread demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution have rocked the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, which is also caught up in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
Iranian state media has reported seven or eight people killed in protests since the election results were published on June 13. Scores of reformists have been arrested and authorities have cracked down on both foreign and domestic media.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said about 500 people had been arrested in the last week, and called for their unconditional release. She said Iran should hold new elections under the supervision of the United Nations.
Mousavi, a moderate who advocates better ties with the West, has also called for the election to be annulled, saying pledges by the country's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, to recount some disputed ballot boxes did not go far enough.
The council has invited Mousavi and two other defeated candidates to talks on Saturday, and says it has begun "careful examination" of 646 complaints.
Objections include a shortage of ballot papers, pressure on voters to support a particular candidate, and the barring of candidates' representatives from polling stations.
Iran has denounced foreign criticism of the election, although U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has muted its comments to keep the door open for possible dialogue.
BLOODIED FACES
At Thursday's rally, protesters massed in a Tehran square, responding to Mousavi's call for people to gather in mosques or at peaceful rallies to show solidarity with the victims and their families.
They held photographs of those killed, some showing bloodied faces, apparently taken after they died.
"Our martyred brothers we will take back your votes," read one placard. "Why did you kill our brothers?" said another. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S. Navy tracks North Korean ship

By David Morgan and Jon Herskovitz
WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States is monitoring a North Korean ship for weapons and has deployed anti-missile assets to the Pacific in case Pyongyang launches more missiles, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The U.S. Navy is monitoring a vessel called Kang Nam at sea under new U.N. sanctions that bar North Korea from exporting weapons, including missile parts and nuclear materials, they said.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ship based in North Korea became "a subject of interest" after leaving a North Korean port on Wednesday.
They declined to say what the ship, now in international waters, might be carrying.
The Kang Nam is the first ship to be monitored under the U.N. sanctions adopted last week after Pyongyang raised tensions by test-firing missiles, restarting a plant to produce arms-grade plutonium and conducting a nuclear test.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to discuss specifics at a briefing, but he stressed the U.N. resolution would allow the U.S. Navy to search a ship only with its flag country's consent.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington was also concerned about the possibility of North Korea firing off more missiles, possibly in the direction of Hawaii.
"We're obviously watching the situation in the North with respect to missile launches very closely, and we do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile to the West in the direction of Hawaii," he said.
"Without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say we are in a good position -- should it become necessary -- to protect American territory."
Gates said he had directed the redeployment of anti-missile assets in the Pacific region, including advanced radar and other defensive systems capable of bringing down medium-range ballistic missiles as a precaution.
North Korea in recent weeks has raised tensions in North Asia, responsible for one-sixth of the global economy, with missile launches, threats to attack the South and the May 25 nuclear test that led to U.N. sanctions.
Pyongyang has warned ships to stay away from waters off its eastern city of Wonsan until the end of the month, according to a Japan Coast Guard spokesman, which could indicate a possible missile test.
The North fired a barrage of short-range missiles off its east coast just after its nuclear test in May.
JULY 4 LAUNCH - REPORT
Separately, North Korea may be looking to test-fire a long-range missile over Japan toward Hawaii between July 4 and July 8, Japan's Yomiuri newspaper cited a Defense Ministry analysis as saying. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Punishment for Afghan raid unlikely: U.S. military head

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is unlikely to discipline troops involved in a deadly air strike in Afghanistan that heightened tensions between Washington and Kabul, the top U.S. military official said on Thursday.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. troops handled themselves well during the battle last month against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's western Farah province.
A large number of civilians were killed after U.S. forces called in air strikes.
"At least in my review, I found nothing that would lead to any specific action along the lines of what you're asking," Mullen said at a Pentagon briefing when asked it disciplinary action might be considered.
The U.S. and Afghan governments have clashed for weeks over the civilian death toll from the battle.
Afghan officials maintain that the action killed 140 civilians, making it the most deadly military operation for noncombatants in the country since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
Preliminary U.S. estimates had put the civilian death toll at between 20 and 35 and the number of Taliban fighters killed at 80 to 95. An Afghan watchdog agency has said that 97 civilians died, with no more than two Taliban members killed.
"There are some estimated but ... I don't think we ever will really know how many," Mullen told reporters.
One problem identified by Pentagon officials occurred when a B-1 bomber participating in the strike identified a targeted building and later returned to attack without double-checking to make sure Taliban fighters were still there.
"There were command and control challenges, chain of command challenges, some training issues, that we've got to address," Mullen told reporters.
U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have changed operational procedures to minimize civilian casualties, which U.S. officials fear could turn Afghan popular sentiment against Western troops if mishandled.
The Obama administration has embarked on a massive build-up of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in a bid to quell the growing Taliban insurgency. U.S. troop levels will more than double to 68,000 by the end of 2009.
Mullen and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said they hoped that training and the leadership of the new top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, would help address the issue of civilian casualties in the country.
"There are additional changes we're clearly going to have to make," Mullen said without giving specific details.
The Pentagon has said it will issue an unclassified summary of the military's investigative report on the incident.
But the release has dragged for days, and some officials said there had been a danger it would be squelched as a result of a debate within the Obama administration over its contents. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.N. says Colombian army killed innocent civilians

By Hugh Bronstein
BOGOTA (Reuters) - A U.N. investigator criticized the Colombian army on Thursday for not rooting out the widespread practice among its troops of killing innocent civilians and making them look like guerrilla casualties.
The case of 19 men and boys shot dead by soldiers last year in the Bogota suburb of Soacha and then passed off as rebels killed in combat is but the "tip of the iceberg", U.N. rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston said.
Colombians were shocked by the slayings by troops seeking promotions, bonuses and other benefits offered by an army under increasing pressure to crush the country's 45-year-old leftist insurgency.
The U.N. official, concluding a 10-day fact-finding mission, said such cases marked "a more or less systematic" practice by "significant elements within the military."
Alston said the practice was never an official state policy and the defense ministry has acted to end such killings. But efforts to bring the guilty to justice have been slow and inadequately funded, he added.
Civilians have been cut down by rogue soldiers around the country in what Alston called the "cold-blooded, premeditated murder of innocent civilians for profit."
The highest number of such murders were in the impoverished suburb of Soacha, where recruiters lured their victims with promises of lucrative jobs. Instead they were slain, then dressed as rebel fighters and photographed holding weapons.
"Evidence showing victims dressed in camouflage outfits which are neatly pressed, or wearing clean jungle boots four sizes too big for them, or left-handers holding guns in their right hands, or men with a single shot through the back of their necks, undermines the suggestion that these were guerrillas killed in combat," Alston said.
The government, which invited the fact-finding mission and cooperated with the inquiry, has taken "important steps to stop and respond to these killings," Alston said.
"But the number of successful prosecutions remains very low," he added.
President Alvaro Uribe, first elected in 2002, has used billions of dollars in U.S. aid to intensify Colombia's fight against cocaine-funded FARC guerrillas, making wide areas of the country safer.
Critics meanwhile denounced the Colombian army's "body count mentality" in which advancement through the ranks depended on delivering enemy corpses.
"All forms of incentives to members of the military for killing should be removed," Alston said. "The problem of impunity for past killings must still be addressed."
(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, editing by Anthony Boadle)

Source: Reuters

Tens of thousands mourn Iranians killed in protests

Iranians mourn with mass rally
Play Video
By Parisa Hafezi and Hossein Jaseb
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Iranians, wearing black and carrying candles, marched on Thursday to mourn those killed in mass protests against a presidential election they and defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi say was rigged.
(EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
Chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), they massed in downtown Imam Khomeini Square, responding to Mousavi's call for people to gather in mosques or at peaceful rallies to show solidarity with the victims and their families.
Days of public fury over the disputed election led Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, to invite Mousavi and the two other candidates beaten by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss their complaints on Saturday.
The election has provoked Iran's biggest and most violent demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution, rocking the world's fifth biggest oil exporter which is also caught up in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
Iranian state media has reported seven or eight people killed in protests since the election results were published on June 13. Scores of reformists have been arrested across the country and authorities have cracked down on both foreign and domestic media.
Demonstrators held photographs of those killed, some showing bloodied faces, apparently taken after they died.
"Our martyred brothers we will take back your votes," read one placard. "Why did you kill our brothers?" said another.
Mousavi, a moderate who advocates better ties with the West, addressed people in the crowd with a loudspeaker. He wore a black shirt and suit, witnesses said.
Other banners told protesters to stay home on Friday, when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is due to lead prayers in Tehran, but to gather again the next day in the capital.
Security agents detained opposition politician Ebrahim Yazdi while he was in hospital, an ally of his said. Yazdi heads the banned Freedom Movement and was foreign minister in Iran's first government after the revolution.
ELECTION BOMB PLOT
A spokesman for the Guardian Council said it had begun "careful examination" of 646 complaints submitted after the June 12 vote. Objections include a shortage of ballot papers, pressure on voters to support a particular candidate, and the barring of candidates' representatives from polling stations.
Ahmadinejad was declared winner with nearly 63 percent of the vote against 34 percent for his closest rival, Mousavi.
Mousavi wants the vote annulled and held again. The council has said it is ready only to recount disputed ballot boxes. Continued...
Source: Reuters

U.S. agencies eye coordinated Afghan "civilian surge"

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies are boosting the number of civilian experts dispatched to Afghanistan in parallel with a large surge of American troops, officials said on Thursday.
Pentagon policy chief Michele Flournoy said her agency backed a "civilian surge" of at least 400 new experts, while the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan will more than double to 68,000 troops by year-end.
U.S. military-civilian coordination is part of an "unprecedented interagency effort" to implement President Barack Obama's counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which pairs fighting Taliban and al Qaeda with massive development assistance, she told a U.S. Congressional panel.
"The challenges we face in Afghanistan and Pakistan are economic, diplomatic and informational as well as military, and we are taking a 'whole of government' approach to addressing them," Flournoy said in a written statement to the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
That committee's chairman, Representative Edolphus Towns, echoed critics of the nearly eight-year-old U.S. war effort in Afghanistan in calling for greater transparency and accountability and better monitoring of U.S. taxpayer funds.
The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told the committee the U.S. civilian build-up underscored a "commitment to supporting Afghan efforts to clear, hold and build their country."
He said the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development were getting strong responses for advertisements for 125 temporary or new civilian posts to be filled in Afghanistan in coming months.
The United States was also coordinating between the Afghan government and the international community to address Afghanistan's request for another 650 Afghan and international civil experts, Holbrooke said in a written statement.
The U.S. envoy also vowed to support tightened national- and provincial-level auditing of aid to Afghanistan and expand the powers of a Congressionally-mandated agency to curb corruption and weigh the effectiveness of the aid programs.
Accompanying the civilian increase in Afghanistan and the tripling of U.S. aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year, every USAID contract and program in the two countries would be reviewed to ensure aid reaches the public instead of flowing to foreign contractors, said Holbrooke.
"We seek to improve vastly the coordination and integration of international assistance flowing to Afghanistan and Pakistan," his statement to the committee said.
Faced with a resurgence of the Taliban fed by slow economic development, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticized international aid efforts, saying they were coordinated and funneled too much money to foreign experts.
(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)

Source: Reuters

U.N. says Colombian army executed innocent civilians

By Hugh Bronstein
BOGOTA (Reuters) - A U.N. investigator criticized the Colombian army on Thursday for not rooting out the widespread practice among its troops of executing innocent civilians and making them look like guerrilla casualties.
The case of 19 men and boys shot dead by soldiers last year in the Bogota suburb of Soacha and then passed off as rebels killed in combat is but the "tip of the iceberg", U.N. rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston said.
Colombians were shocked by the slayings by troops seeking promotions, bonuses and other benefits offered by an army under increasing pressure to crush the country's 45-year-old leftist insurgency.
The U.N. official, concluding a 10-day fact-finding mission, said such cases marked "a more or less systematic" practice by "significant elements within the military."
Alston said the practice was never an official state policy, but that efforts to end the illegal killings and bring the guilty to justice has been slow and inadequately funded.
Civilians have been cut down by rogue soldiers around the country in what Alston called the "cold-blooded, premeditated murder of innocent civilians for profit."
The highest number of such murders were in the impoverished suburb of Soacha, where recruiters lured their victims with promises of lucrative jobs. Instead they were slain, then dressed as rebel fighters and photographed holding weapons.
"Evidence showing victims dressed in camouflage outfits which are neatly pressed, or wearing clean jungle boots four sizes too big for them, or left-handers holding guns in their right hands, or men with a single shot through the back of their necks, undermines the suggestion that these were guerrillas killed in combat," Alston said.
President Alvaro Uribe has used billions of dollars in U.S. aid to intensify Colombia's fight against cocaine-funded FARC guerrillas, making wide areas of the country safer.
But critics have long denounced the Colombian army's "body count mentality" in which advancement through the ranks depends on delivering enemy corpses.
"All forms of incentives to members of the military for killing should be removed," Alston said. "The problem of impunity for past killings must still be addressed."
The government, which invited the fact-finding mission, is taking steps to address the problem, Alston said. "But the number of successful prosecutions remains very low," he added.
(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, editing by Anthony Boadle)

Source: Reuters

Insurgents ambush Algerian police convoy, kill 19

By Christian Lowe and Lamine Chikhi
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed and killed 24 Algerian paramilitary police in the North African oil and gas producer's deadliest insurgent attack in nearly a year, a local newspaper reported on Thursday.
Algeria's government has been fighting Islamist militants allied to the al Qaeda network. Security forces have been able to reduce the level of violence but, although weakened, the insurgents remain a threat.
The militants attacked on Wednesday evening using roadside bombs and guns when the paramilitary police passed in a convoy along a highway about 180 km (110 miles) east of the capital, the newspaper Echorouk reported.
When they left the scene of the attack they took with them six police off-road vehicles as well as weapons and police uniforms, the newspaper cited security sources and local people as saying.
There was no official confirmation of the attack. Two Algerian security sources, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters there had been an ambush and more than 20 paramilitary police had been killed.
A death toll of 24 would be the biggest from a single attack since August 19 last year, when 48 people were killed in a bomb attack on a training school for paramilitary police 55 km (34 miles) east of Algiers.
AL QAEDA SENDING A MESSAGE
Algeria is still emerging from a conflict in the 1990s between Islamists and government forces which killed 200,000 people, according to estimates from international non-governmental organizations.
Security crackdowns and a campaign to persuade the militants to lay down their arms have led to a sharp decline in the number of attacks.
But a hard core of Islamist militants is still active, now under the banner of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the past few weeks have seen an upsurge in violence.
Insurgents killed five paramilitary gendarmes late in May and a week later shot dead nine soldiers. At the start of this month, AQIM killed a British man, Edwin Dyer, after holding him hostage in neighboring Mali.
Security experts say the increase in attacks does not mean the group is growing in strength but that it does retain the capability to strike government targets.
"Make no mistake: al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is declining," Rachid Ould Bousseafa, the deputy editor of the Echorouk newspaper who writes on security issues, told Reuters.
But he said: "Al Qaeda wanted to send a strong message that it is capable of planning and executing a big attack."
Though AQIM has not targeted oil and gas infrastructure in Algeria, international energy firms -- which include BP, StatoilHydro, Repsol and Total -- operate under heavy security. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Britain wants more Myanmar sanctions over Suu Kyi

By Adrian Croft
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain wants further targeted international financial sanctions to increase pressure on Myanmar to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, a minister said on Thursday.
Suu Kyi, who turns 64 on Friday, is on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest.
Her trial, set to resume on June 26, has angered Britain and other Western countries, which say it is aimed at excluding her from elections next year.
Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said the European Union would consider further sanctions against Myanmar's military government once Suu Kyi's trial was over.
"We (Britain) continue to believe that further targeted financial sanctions would increase pressure on the regime," he told reporters.
In April, the EU extended visa bans and asset freezes on officials and firms linked to Myanmar's rulers for another year, citing human rights and democracy concerns.
Suu Kyi faces three to five years in prison if found guilty of breaking the terms of her house arrest by letting an American intruder stay for two days after he swam to her home in May.
Lewis said Suu Kyi was being tried on "ridiculous and bogus trumped-up charges." Britain wants U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to visit Myanmar soon after the trial is over, Lewis said.
Ban's mission would be to send "very strong messages about what we require of the Burmese (Myanmar) regime if there is to be any prospect in the future of an easing of sanctions and any kind of normalization of international relations."
Britain wants all political prisoners freed and political reforms leading to a civilian, democratic government.
Western diplomats at the United Nations said this week that Myanmar's rulers had invited Ban to visit in early July.
The British ambassador to Myanmar, Mark Canning, speaking by video link from Yangon, said there was no doubt Suu Kyi would be found guilty, and that she would probably be sentenced to a further period of house arrest, rather than sent to jail.
He said the trial has been a disaster for the Myanmar government by raising Suu Kyi's profile.
Countries such as Singapore and Thailand were saying that investment from their countries would not flow to Myanmar until the situation was more stable, he said.
Suu Kyi has been detained for more than 13 of the last 19 years. Myanmar's junta has refused to recognize a 1990 landslide election victory by her National League for Democracy.
(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: Reuters