Israel releases Hamas speaker of parliament

By Mohammed Assadi
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel on Tuesday freed the Hamas speaker of the Palestinian parliament, who was jailed for nearly three years as part of a dragnet that dented the Islamist group's political activities in the West Bank.
Aziz Dweik's release came after Israeli prosecutors failed to persuade a military court last week to extend his prison term, which was set to end in August. Dweik had been convicted for belonging to what Israel deems a terrorist group.
"The Palestinians should work on releasing all lawmakers in Israeli jails in order to revive parliamentary life," Dweik told reporters outside the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
"I call for the release of all (political) prisoners in Gaza and the West Bank."
Israel detained Dweik, 60, and dozens of other Hamas politicians in the occupied West Bank in 2006 shortly after gunmen from the faction and other militants abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on the Gaza Strip border.
Hamas and Israel on Tuesday denied a Palestinian news agency report that Shalit's release was also imminent.
Dweik's reception at the PLC highlighted the continuing enmity between Hamas and the U.S.-backed Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas, which favors a peace deal with Israel.
The Islamists, shunned by the West for refusing to coexist with the Jewish state, seized control of Gaza in 2007, driving Fatah forces out and prompting Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led coalition government that was sworn in after a surprise Hamas victory in a 2006 election.
Talks to reconcile the two have yielded no results since Egypt began mediation late last year.
On Tuesday, there was no sign of them burying the hatchet. Fatah employees locked the door of the building shortly before the freed speaker arrived, to be greeted by members of various parliamentary factions.
A Fatah official said they had not been notified of any event so the workers had ended their shift and gone home. He said Hamas misled Fatah Minister of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqe, sending him to the wrong place to greet Dweik.
Abbas's forces, keen to prove their law-and-order mettle to international peace mediators, have recently cracked down on Hamas in the West Bank. Fatah activists in Gaza have been the target of Hamas round-ups.
Hamas said 34 of its lawmakers were still in Israeli custody. It says scores of supporters are held in West Bank jails.
Dweik has been touted by Hamas as a possible replacement for Abbas. During his imprisonment, he was taken several times to a hospital in Israel, suffering from blood pressure and diabetes. It was unclear if his poor health contributed to his release.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
(mohammed.assadi@reuters.com; +972-2-2950430; Reuters Messaging:mohammed.assadi.reuters.com@reuters.net))

Source: Reuters

Israel pushing for Hamas prisoner swap deal

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan
ROME (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday his government was pushing for a deal to free an Israeli soldier held captive by Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
But both the Israeli leader and a Hamas spokesman played down reports in the Arab press that an agreement to release the soldier, Gilad Shalit, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, was imminent.
"To this moment, I haven't received any such information," Netanyahu told reporters in Rome at the start of a European tour, adding: "We are making efforts on various levels. We are now examining various possibilities."
Netanyahu said he had issued instructions for a "combined effort to be made by all arms of the Israeli government" to try to win the soldier's release. He would not elaborate as to what terms Israel was prepared to meet.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called published reports of a breakthrough in Egyptian-brokered talks "untrue," saying: "There is nothing new on this front."
A deal to free Shalit could clear the way for Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel said it tightened its cordon to put pressure on Hamas to release the 22-year-old.
SPEAKER FREED
Hamas has demanded in exchange for Shalit that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including some long-term inmates accused of carrying out deadly attacks against Israeli civilians.
Earlier Tuesday, Israel released a senior Hamas political leader, Palestinian parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik. He is believed to be one of the prisoners that Hamas wanted to be freed by Israel in any swap deal.
Israel holds about 11,000 Palestinians in its jails, and their imprisonment is an emotive issue to Palestinians.
Marking the third anniversary of Shalit's capture in a June 25, 2006 cross-border raid by Hamas-led Palestinian militants, hundreds of Israelis temporarily blocked humanitarian goods from entering Gaza Tuesday.
The protesters cut off the approach to three major crossings while dozens of aid-laden trucks waited outside.
"I hope the message will reach the people of Gaza and their leaders," said Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, outside the Erez border crossing. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the crossings were reopened later after the protest ended.
Israeli forces bombed and then invaded Gaza last December to root out militants lobbing rockets into Israel. Their offensive caused widespread devastation to the infrastructure of the enclave.
In his three years of captivity, no Israeli or international groups have been allowed to visit Shalit. Except for a few letters and a tape-recorded voice message, he has been kept incommunicado. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Rich, poor nations seek deal for U.N. finance meeting

By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Rich and poor nations on Tuesday edged closer to a deal on proposals for reforming the global financial system, but diplomats said there must be changes if a U.N. conference this week is to adopt them.
A three-day U.N. General Assembly meeting on the financial crisis and its impact on the developing world, originally scheduled for June 1-3, was postponed to June 24-26 when it became clear negotiators had no agreement on draft proposals.
Although the meeting has been billed as a summit, no Western leaders are expected to attend and only 14 presidents and prime ministers will show up. The other 112 countries taking part will send lower-level delegations.
The heads of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank will also be sending deputies, U.N. officials said.
Western envoys said that reflected dissatisfaction with the meeting's organizer, leftist U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto of Nicaragua.
The top speakers are to be Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, both well-known leftists.
The run-up to the conference has highlighted differences between radicals who want to give the 192-nation General Assembly much more say in tackling the financial crisis and major powers intent on keeping control in their own hands.
With less than 24 hours to go before the conference opens at U.N. headquarters, diplomats told Reuters they were closing in on an agreement on a set of proposals they hope the conference will adopt.
D'Escoto told reporters that most of the work on the draft proposals was now done, though he said they would still have to be approved by the 126 nations attending the meeting.
"I am satisfied with the way it's going," said D'Escoto, a Roman Catholic priest who was Nicaragua's foreign minister in the 1980s while the left-wing Sandinistas were in power.
He also rejected criticism of the summit and the way it has been organized: "What is important is what will be agreed."
DISAGREEMENTS
Disputed parts of the draft reform proposals, U.N. diplomats said, include the future role of the United Nations in the global financial system and a "follow-up mechanism" to monitor fulfillment of promises made at this week's meeting.
Poor nations outside the Group of 20 club of big developed and developing economies -- a group that includes India, China and Brazil -- want the U.N. to play a leading role in the global financial system, an idea Western powers reject, the diplomats said.
The poor states complain that the G20 has virtual monopoly powers. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Berlusconi denies ever paying for sex

By Deepa Babington
ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has denied ever paying a woman for sex, as he faces growing political pressure over lurid allegations that he slept with a female escort who was paid to attend his parties.
"I have never paid a woman," Berlusconi said in an interview with the Chi weekly owned by his Mondadori publishing empire.
"I've never understood what satisfaction there is other than that of conquering (a woman)," he told the magazine, according to excerpts sent to Reuters ahead of publication on Wednesday.
The popular premier's credibility has come under attack over a string of scandals related to his friendship with an 18-year-old girl and parties with young women, prompting him to angrily declare last week that he would not be forced out.
But the opposition and the influential Catholic Church have demanded Berlusconi clear up the facts after a corruption probe in southern Italy brought forward a female escort who said she spent the night with the premier and had recordings to prove it.
Berlusconi has accused the media of mounting a smear campaign before the G8 summit he will host next month.
His center-right coalition has an ample majority in both houses of parliament. But it turned in a poorer than expected performance in European and local elections this month amid a media frenzy over the scandals surrounding his private life.
DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS
Asked if it had not occurred to him that the woman in question, Patrizia D'Addario, was a high-class prostitute, Berlusconi replied: "If I suspect something of that sort of any person, then I would stay a thousand miles away."
D'Addario last week told an Italian newspaper that a local businessman now being probed by magistrates paid her 1,000 euros ($1,386) to attend a dinner at Berlusconi's Rome residence along with other young women -- what she described as a "harem" -- and she was back a few weeks later to spend the night with the premier.
Another woman who accompanied D'Addario to Berlusconi's residence told newspapers that the female escort said she slept with the premier, but had not asked for money because she was more keen on favors to obtain building permits.
The second woman has also said Berlusconi presented her with rings and necklaces he designed himself, as well as cash.
All that comes after Berlusconi was forced to deny having sex with an 18-year-old aspiring model amid accusations from his divorce-seeking wife that he "frequents minors." Berlusconi said he doubted a reconciliation with his wife was possible now.
"What is certain is that ours was a big love story. And true love stories are never erased," Berlusconi told Chi, adding that he was "sad but serene" and thinks of his deceased mother daily.
In a sign of the normally supportive Italian Catholic establishment's rising impatience with the conservative premier, the popular Famiglia Cristiana weekly attacked him for exceeding the "limits of decency."
(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Source: Reuters

Chechen president vows to fight Ingushetia rebels

By Conor Humphries
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said he had been ordered by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to fight insurgents in the neighboring region of Ingushetia after its leader was gravely wounded in a bomb attack.
Kadyrov's harsh tactics have brought relative stability to Chechnya since he was elected in 2007 after more than a decade of war. But fellow Kremlin appointees have failed to stem spikes in violence in neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia.
With Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov fighting for his life in hospital, Kadyrov said he had been ordered by Medvedev to run cross-border operations.
"He told me to intensify actions ... including in Ingushetia," Kadyrov said in an interview with Reuters. "I will personally control the operations ... and I am sure in the near future there will be good results."
Yevkurov was appointed in October to replace Murat Zyazikov, who was accused of fanning the insurgency with heavy-handed measures. But the situation has deteriorated, with a series of high-profile attacks over the past three weeks.
Yevkurov was badly wounded on Monday when a suicide bomber by the roadside destroyed his armored Mercedes car. Russia's Vesti-24 channel said investigators believed it was a female suicide bomber whose name had been established.
Medvedev visited Moscow's Vishnevsky Institute of Surgery where Yevkurov, 45, was being treated late on Monday.
"He has received serious injuries and as a result, a whole host of organs are damaged, above all the skull. The rib cage and liver are also damaged," Vladimir Fyodorov, the institute's director, told Medvedev. "His condition remains grave ... he is on artificial respiration."
'THERE WILL BE BLOOD'
Analysts say Kadyrov's past as a rebel has helped him. But human rights groups say he has achieved relative calm by pushing violence underground, kidnapping and torturing suspected rebels and burning the houses of their families.
"If they used torture and detentions (in Ingushetia) there wouldn't be any Wahhabism, terrorism," Kadyrov told Reuters. "It is the lack of action of certain leaders," that is to blame.
He said cross-border operations with Yevkurov had achieved considerable success, killing over 30 rebels in recent months.
Accompanied by an entourage of 20 in the lobby of Moscow's President Hotel, Kadyrov rejected the criticism of his heavy-handed tactics as naive.
The rebels "don't have any humanity," he said. "We will take no captives, we will destroy them. As long as they exist there will be blood."
Kadyrov, whose father was killed in a rebel bomb attack in 2004, said he had no sympathy for families of rebels who refuse to give up their relatives. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Israelis block Gaza aid to protest soldier's captivity

KEREM SHALOM, Israel (Reuters) - Hundreds of Israeli protesters temporarily blocked goods from reaching the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday, demanding the release of an Israeli soldier who was captured by militants three years ago.
The protesters, waving signs and carrying posters of 22-year-old Gilad Shalit, cut off the approach to three major crossings into the Gaza Strip while dozens of trucks, loaded with aid, waited outside.
Israel tightened its blockade of the impoverished enclave, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, after militants tunneled into Israel and captured Shalit in a deadly raid in June 2006.
The Jewish state has said it will not remove its blockade of the Gaza Strip until Shalit has been freed.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the crossings were closed temporarily due to the protests, marking three years since Shalit's abduction, but were later reopened to allow in the supplies.
In his three years of captivity, no Israeli or international groups have been allowed to visit Shalit, and except for a few letters and a tape recorded voice message, he has been kept incommunicado.
"We want to stop the supplies, outside of the necessary medical supplies, etc, from getting in so that they understand the plight of Gilad Shalit and that he has been denied such human rights for three years," said one woman, wearing a sticker on her shirt that said, "Gilad is still alive."
Protesters have gathered in the past to try to block aid and cash shipments from entering the territory, which Hamas Islamists seized from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in fighting in 2007.
Egypt had been mediating negotiations to secure a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas, but Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Sunday during a visit to Cairo that no talks were currently being held.
Hamas has demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including long-term inmates accused of carrying out attacks against Israelis, in exchange for Shalit.
Israel holds about 11,000 Palestinians in its jails, and their imprisonment is an emotive issue to Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu named former senior Mossad intelligence agency operative Haggai Hadas last month to spearhead efforts to free Shalit.
"I hope the message will reach the people of Gaza and their leaders," said Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, outside the Erez border crossing.
(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

Source: Reuters

Birth defects show human price of coal

China's hazardous coal country
Play Video
By Phyllis Xu and Lucy Hornby
GAOJIAGOU, China (Reuters) - Ten-year old Yilong is already a statistic.
Born at the center of China's coal industry, the boy is mentally handicapped and is unable to speak. He is one of many such children in Shanxi province, where coal has brought riches to a few, jobs for many, and environmental pollution that experts say has led to a high number of babies born with birth defects.
Experts say coal mining and processing has given Shanxi a rate of birth defects six times higher than China's national average, which is already high by global standards.
"They looked normal when they were born. But they were still unable to talk or walk over a year later," said farmer Hu Yongliang, 38, whose two older children are mentally handicapped.
"They learnt to walk at the age of six or seven. They are very weak. Nobody knows what the problem is."
Hu's thirteen-year-old daughter Yimei can only say one word, while her brother Yilong is unable to talk at all. The two spend most of the day playing in their small courtyard, where their mother Wang Caiying tends to their every need and tries to shield them from the neighbors' prejudice.
"I never let them go out, I don't want people to laugh at my children. They stay in this courtyard every day," said Wang, who looks older than her 36 years.
"I am especially worried about my son. He doesn't know how to take care of himself. I have to do everything for him."
The number of birth defects in Chinese infants soared nearly 40 percent from 2001 to 2006, China's National Population and Family Planning Commission said in a 2007 report.
The rate of babies born with birth defects rose from 104.9 per 10,000 births in 2001, to 145.5 in 2006, affecting nearly one in 10 families, the report said.
Infants with birth defects accounted for about 4 to 6 percent of total births every year, or 800,000 to 1.2 million babies, higher than World Health Organization estimates that about 3 to 5 percent of children worldwide are born with birth defects.
"The fact that the rate of birth defects in Shanxi province is higher is related to environmental pollution caused by the high level of energy production and burning of coal," said Pan Xiaochuan, a professor from Peking University's Occupational and Environmental health department. Pan has been doing research into the health effects of pollution in Shanxi for several years.
Neural tube defects were the most common form of defect found in babies in Shanxi, Pan said, though congenital heart disease, additional fingers and toes, and cleft palettes were also common.
FOLIC ACID
China, home to some of the world's most polluted cities, has pledged to cut emissions and clean up its environment, laid waste by decades of breakneck development. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Russia defends idea of new security plan for Europe

By Sylvia Westall
VIENNA (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday defended its proposal for a new security structure in Europe and said it was not aimed at undercutting the U.S.-led NATO alliance, but rather at banishing division on the continent.
The United States and NATO reacted coolly last year to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's call for a new "security architecture" in Europe, arguing that Cold War-era institutions like NATO cannot defuse tensions in a multipolar world.
Many NATO allies appear willing to discuss the proposal but say it cannot work unless Russia gives up what they regard as an old "sphere of influence" approach to security.
"We're not attempting to undermine NATO or any other organization active in the security field," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a conference at the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
"Quite the contrary, we are in favor of coordination and synergies between existing international structures to ensure that no single government (or) organization in the Euro-Atlantic area work against each other," he said through a translator.
"We're not attempting to force anything on anyone. We're only inviting you to negotiations and talks."
OSCE foreign ministers will meet on Corfu, a Greek island, this weekend to weigh this and other European security issues.
NATO EXPANSION CRITICISED
Lavrov said the OSCE should be given greater powers to deal with security problems and criticized Western powers for expanding NATO instead.
Some Western diplomats say Russia is partly responsible for hampering the consensus-based OSCE, whose permanent council comprises 56 countries.
Russia has been hostile to OSCE election monitoring and refused to renew the group's observer mission in Georgia after recognizing as independent states the pro-Russian separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Lavrov told a news conference that some countries had taken an "absolutely unfair" position by saying Russia must withdraw the recognition before further talks on the security proposal.
He said Medvedev mooted the treaty idea in June last year, two months before the brief war in which Russian forces repelled a Georgian attempt to wrest back South Ossetia.
Lavrov said the issue was the main stumbling block for progress on the security treaty talks.
Russia's actions in the region, he said, were to protect citizens and were compatible with Medvedev's proposal, which Moscow says would ensure the security interests of one country do not jeopardize those of others. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Air France crash searchers say no black box found

PARIS (Reuters) - Investigators have not yet found flight recorders of an Air France airliner that crashed this month, France's air accident authority said on Tuesday after a report that signals from the recorders had been picked up.
The website of France's Le Monde daily reported that signals had been detected and a mini submarine had been launched to try to locate the "black box" recorders that could contain vital clues to explain the June 1 crash, in which 228 people died.
But the BEA, the French air accident authority, said searchers had not heard any signals they could be sure came from the black boxes.
"No signals transmitted by the flight recorders' locator beacons have been validated up to now," it said in a statement.
"In the context of the sea searches that are under way, work is undertaken on a regular basis that is aimed at eliminating any doubts related to any sounds that may be heard, and any findings will be made public," it said.
Everyone aboard died when the Air France Airbus 330 crashed into the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1.
A BEA spokeswoman noted that many sounds are detected on the seabed and said investigators had picked up numerous signals that had turned out to be false leads.
Locator beacons, known as "pingers," on the flight recorders send an electronic impulse every second for at least 30 days. The signal can be heard up to 2 km (1.2 miles) away.
French vessels involved in the search operation include a nuclear submarine with advanced sonar equipment and a research ship equipped with mini submarines.
The remote location in the Atlantic as well as the depth and surface of the ocean floor have made the search especially difficult and the wreckage could lie anywhere between 1 km (0.6 miles) and 4 km (2.5 miles) down.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie, Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: Reuters

Guard kills rival to Pakistan Taliban leader Mehsud

By Alamgir Bitani
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A gunman working as a guard killed a rival of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on Tuesday, security officials said, dealing a blow to a government plan to defeat al Qaeda ally Mehsud.
The murder came as the military prepares an offensive against Mehsud, who has been accused of a string of bomb attacks including the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
Separately, a U.S. drone aircraft fired a missile into a Mehsud stronghold in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, killing six fighters, intelligence officials and a resident said.
The murdered militant commander, known as Qari Zainuddin, had recently spoken out strongly against Mehsud and may have been about to mount a challenge against him. He was killed in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan, police said.
"I confirm that Qari Zainuddin has been shot dead," Salahuddin, superintendent of police in the town, told Reuters.
The gunman was a guard for Zainuddin, an intelligence official said. He wounded another man and escaped.
Militants in northwest Pakistan are split into several factions, some of which are rivals.
The military went on the offensive against Taliban fighters allied with Mehsud in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, in May and are in the final phase of that operation, the army says.
The offensive in Swat came after Taliban gains raised fears for the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it strives to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan.
The government has also ordered an offensive against Mehsud in his South Waziristan stronghold near the Afghan border.
In recent days, the military has been launching air strikes on Mehsud's bases while soldiers have been securing the main road into the mountainous region populated by ethnic Pashtun tribes.
Tuesday's drone strike, the latest in a string of such attacks, was near the Mehsud stronghold of Makeen.
"They targeted newly built bunkers," said a resident, Mohammad Daud.
Also on Tuesday, Pakistani aircraft attacked a compound in South Waziristan where a large number of militants were gathered for a meeting, intelligence officials said. There was no immediate word on casualties.
SETBACK Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iran says courts will teach protesters a lesson

Iran death sparks outrage
Play Video
By Zahra Hosseinian and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian authorities said they would teach a lesson to "rioters" held in the worst unrest to befall the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
(EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)
A moderate cleric defeated in this month's disputed elections called on Iranians to hold ceremonies on Thursday to mourn those killed at protests over the last week.
Trucks and police in riot gear were deployed on the main squares of Tehran on Tuesday, but there were no signs of any protest gatherings in the city by midday.
The Revolutionary Guard, loyal to the country's conservative religious establishment, have declared a crackdown on protests triggered by elections that gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory. Hundreds have been detained by police using tear gas and batons since results were published on June 13.
"Those arrested in recent events will be dealt with in a way that will teach them a lesson," the official IRNA news agency quoted senior judiciary official Ebrahim Raisi as saying on state television late on Monday.
He said a special court was studying the cases.
"The rioters should be dealt with in an exemplary way and the judiciary will do that," Raisi said.
Two losing candidates, ex-prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi and pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi, accuse authorities of vote rigging and have demanded a rerun. But the top legislative body, the Guardian Council, ruled this out again on Tuesday.
The troubles have produced the first clear evidence of a public split in the clerical establishment between hardliners and those seeking more liberal policies.
An Iranian parliamentarian, Mahmoud Ahmadi, said on Tuesday Tehran would temporarily recall its ambassador to Britain, which the leading oil and gas producer has accused of fomenting trouble. A senior Iranian government source did not confirm the report carried by several Iranian news agencies.
NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
Moderate cleric Mehdi Karoubi maintained pressure on authorities.
"Karoubi calls on Iranians around the country to hold ceremonies on Thursday to remember those (killed) at protests," said aide Issa Saharkhiz.
The troubles have erupted against a background of tension between the West and Iran, a major factor in regional stability. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Air France "black box" signals located: report

PARIS (Reuters) - Signals from the flight data recorders of an Air France airliner that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been located, Le Monde newspaper said on its website on Tuesday.
But a spokeswoman from the BEA, the French air accident authority, noted that many sounds were picked up on the sea bed and investigators were not sure that what they had detected was from the flight recorders.
"It's not the first time sounds have been heard and we will be verifying this with all the equipment we have at our disposal," she said. "The search is continuing and we haven't found the recorders."
An Air France spokeswoman also said she could not confirm the newspaper report.
Le Monde said French naval vessels had picked up a weak signal from the flight recorders and that a mini submarine had been dispatched on Monday to try and find the "black boxes" on the bottom of the rugged ocean floor.
The search has been focused on the black boxes which may contain vital information that could help explain what happened when the Airbus A330 aircraft crashed into the sea en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1.
Locator beacons, known as "pingers," on the flight recorders send an electronic impulse every second for at least 30 days. The signal can be heard up to 2 km (1.2 miles) away.
French vessels involved in the search operation include a nuclear submarine with advanced sonar equipment and a research ship equipped with mini submarines.
The remote location in the Atlantic as well as the depth and surface of the ocean floor have made the search especially difficult and the wreckage could lie anywhere between 1 km (0.6 miles) and 4 km (2.5 miles) down.
(Writing by James Mackenzie, Editing by Richard Meares)

Source: Reuters

Birth defects in China's Shanxi show human price of coal

By Phyllis Xu and Lucy Hornby
GAOJIAGOU, China (Reuters) - Ten-year old Yilong is already a statistic.
Born at the center of China's coal industry, the boy is mentally handicapped and is unable to speak. He is one of many such children in Shanxi province, where coal has brought riches to a few, jobs for many, and environmental pollution that experts say has led to a high number of babies born with birth defects.
Experts say coal mining and processing has given Shanxi a rate of birth defects six times higher than China's national average, which is already high by global standards.
"They looked normal when they were born. But they were still unable to talk or walk over a year later," said farmer Hu Yongliang, 38, whose two older children are mentally handicapped.
"They learnt to walk at the age of six or seven. They are very weak. Nobody knows what the problem is."
Hu's thirteen-year-old daughter Yimei can only say one word, while her brother Yilong is unable to talk at all. The two spend most of the day playing in their small courtyard, where their mother Wang Caiying tends to their every need and tries to shield them from the neighbours' prejudice.
"I never let them go out, I don't want people to laugh at my children. They stay in this courtyard every day," said Wang, who looks older than her 36 years.
"I am especially worried about my son. He doesn't know how to take care of himself. I have to do everything for him."
The number of birth defects in Chinese infants soared nearly 40 percent from 2001 to 2006, China's National Population and Family Planning Commission said in a 2007 report.
The rate of babies born with birth defects rose from 104.9 per 10,000 births in 2001, to 145.5 in 2006, affecting nearly one in 10 families, the report said.
Infants with birth defects accounted for about 4 to 6 percent of total births every year, or 800,000 to 1.2 million babies, higher than World Health Organization estimates that about 3 to 5 percent of children worldwide are born with birth defects.
"The fact that the rate of birth defects in Shanxi province is higher is related to environmental pollution caused by the high level of energy production and burning of coal," said Pan Xiaochuan, a professor from Peking University's Occupational and Environmental health department. Pan has been doing research into the health effects of pollution in Shanxi for several years.
Neural tube defects were the most common form of defect found in babies in Shanxi, Pan said, though congenital heart disease, additional fingers and toes, and cleft palettes were also common.
FOLIC ACID
China, home to some of the world's most polluted cities, has pledged to cut emissions and clean up its environment, laid waste by decades of breakneck development. Continued...
Source: Reuters

New U.S. orders in Afghanistan aim to reduce deaths

By Peter Graff
KABUL (Reuters) - The new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan will issue orders within days requiring troops to disengage from combat when possible, to reduce civilian deaths that have put their mission at risk, a spokesman said.
General Stanley McChrystal, who took the reins of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan a week ago, has repeatedly pledged to take steps to limit civilian casualties, especially from air strikes, which have infuriated Afghans.
A U.S. military report issued last week found strikes by U.S. B1 bombers in May that killed dozens of civilians had violated orders already in place at the time. That report recommended drawing up new guidelines and ordering all U.S. forces operating in Afghanistan to undergo new training.
McChrystal's spokesman, Rear Admiral Greg Smith, said McChrystal hopes to publish the new guidelines soon, after taking advice from commanders he is meeting on a "listening tour" during his first days in the country.
A classified version should be issued "in a couple of days," and the military will also publish an unclassified version to show the public the steps it is taking.
The new orders will allow U.S. forces to continue to use air strikes and other weapons when they or their allies are under imminent threat, but will oblige them to disengage from combat if they can do so safely when civilians might be harmed, Smith said.
"Even if you are receiving fire from a structure, the first question you have to ask is: 'Can I de-escalate the situation by removing my force or relocating it'," Smith said.
The guidelines are meant to influence the decision-making of commanders on the ground, and troops will not necessarily be punished for misjudging them if their actions are lawful.
"These are often not legal issues as much as they are both moral and what is operationally prudent," Smith said. "If our operations result in excessive impact, injuries or deaths, then potentially it puts our mission here at risk."
IT'S NOT WHAT WE SAY, IT'S WHAT WE DO
The emphasis on disengaging to protect civilians is hardly new. McChrystal's predecessor, General David McKiernan, issued a similar tactical directive last year after an incident involving a large number of civilian deaths.
But Smith said the guidance needed to be reinforced and expanded to do a better job of making sure troops understand the consequences of harming civilians, and act accordingly.
"Clearly the guidance that was out there was not precise enough, not clear enough to be understood by the entire force," he said.
"It's not what we say. It's going to be what we do. We've got to retrain and educate the force. But then it's going to be a question of how we operate."
The military says orders already in place under McKiernan were violated in last month's bombing in western Farah province. Continued...
Source: Reuters

New U.S. orders in Afghanistan aim to reduce deaths

By Peter Graff
KABUL (Reuters) - The new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan will issue orders within days requiring troops to disengage from combat in populated areas when it is safe to do so, in an effort to reduce civilian casualties, a spokesman said.
General Stanley McChrystal, who took the reins of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan a week ago, has repeatedly pledged to take steps to limit civilian deaths, especially from air strikes, which have provoked hostility to the U.S. mission among Afghans.
A U.S. military report issued last week found that strikes by U.S. B1 bombers, which killed dozens of civilians last month, had violated orders already in place at the time.
That report recommended drawing up new guidelines and ordering all U.S. forces operating in Afghanistan to undergo new training.
Since his arrival a week ago, McChrystal has been visiting his commanders in the field on what the military calls a "listening tour".
A spokesman, Lieutenant Commander Joe Matison, said one of the issues McChrystal was discussing was details of the new orders, known as a "tactical directive", which the general hopes to publish "in the next week or so".
The new orders will allow U.S. forces to use air strikes and other weapons when they or their allies are under imminent threat, but will require them to disengage from combat if they can do so safely when civilians might be harmed, Matison said.
"The intent is that if the insurgents fall back into the village then (troops) would try to disengage," he said. "We're really just trying to reduce civilian casualties at that point."
However, the emphasis on disengaging to protect civilians is hardly new. McChrystal's predecessor, General David McKiernan, issued a similar tactical directive last year after an incident involving a large number of civilian deaths.
The military has not explained precisely how McChrystal's directive would differ from McKiernan's, which it says was violated in last month's bombing in western Farah province.
The B1 bombers dropped three 2000 lb (900 kg) bombs and five 500 lb bombs, destroying two housing compounds and a mosque some distance from where a daylong battle had taken place, because pilots saw people gather in them and believed they were fighters.
The report found that no one in the buildings was shooting when they were destroyed and steps had not been taken to ensure there were no civilians present. It concluded that the strikes "did not adhere to all of the specific guidance and commander's intent contained in the controlling directive".
U.S. investigators initially estimated about 26 civilians had died along with about 76 fighters, but the military's report noted that an Afghan human rights agency had tallied 86 dead civilians and called its conclusions "balanced" and "thorough".
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Source: Reuters

Russia's Ingush leader in grave condition after bomb

By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of Russia's Muslim region of Ingushetia was fighting for his life on Tuesday after a suicide bomb that dealt a fresh blow to Kremlin attempts to quell unrest in the North Caucasus.
Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was badly wounded on Monday morning when a suicide bomber detonated about 70 kg (150 lb) of TNT equivalent by the side of the road, destroying Yevkurov's armoured Mercedes car.
Yevkurov, 45, was rushed to hospital in the town of Nazran but was flown to Moscow after doctors decided he needed more specialized treatment.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Moscow's Vishnevsky Institute of Surgery where Yevkurov was being treated late on Monday to ask doctors about his condition.
"He has received serious injuries and as a result, a whole host of organs are damaged, above all the skull. The rib cage and liver are also damaged," Vladimir Fyodorov, the institute's director, told Medvedev in remarks show on state television.
"His condition remains grave ... he is on artificial respiration."
The Kremlin chief -- who appointed Yevkurov as president last year -- condemned the attack as a terrorist act and vowed a "direct and severe" response.
"A top-level decision has been taken to boost sharply anti-terrorist and anti-sabotage activity on the territory of the Southern Federal District," Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed senior Interior Ministry official as saying.
The official said the area with tight security restrictions, which covers Ingushetia's capital Nazran, could be widened.
"After the attempt on Yunus-Bek Yevkurov's life we received a clear-cut signal from the country's leadership to take extra measures to reinforce law and order in the region," the official said.
Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya, is one of the main centres of violence along Russia's turbulent southern flank. Security forces say it is providing a foothold for global networks of Islamist militants.
Russian officials said Monday's attack was an attempt to undermine stability in Ingushetia, whose population of around half a million rank among the poorest in the country. Corruption, poverty and violence plague the region.
The attack outside Nazran was so strong it ripped roof tiles off a nearby house as well as wrecking Yevkurov's armoured car.
Local media said that after the blast, Yevkurov's guards rushed to pull him out of the car just seconds before it burst into flames. No one has claimed responsibility.
Medvedev appointed highly decorated ex-paratroops officer Yevkurov as president in October, replacing former secret police officer Murat Zyazikov who was blamed by critics for fanning an insurgency with heavy-handed measures by special services.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Richard Meares)

Source: Reuters

Rival to Taliban commander Mehsud killed

By Alamgir Bitani
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - An unidentified gunman killed a rival of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on Tuesday, police said, dealing a potential blow to a government plan to defeat al Qaeda ally Mehsud.
The murder came as the military prepares an offensive against Mehsud, who has been accused of a string of bomb attacks including the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
Separately, a U.S. drone aircraft fired a missile into a Mehsud stronghold in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, killing six fighters, intelligence officials and a resident said.
The murdered militant commander, known as Qari Zainuddin, had recently spoken out strongly against Mehsud and may have been about to mount a challenge against him. He was killed in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan, police said.
"I confirm that Qari Zainuddin has been shot dead," Salahuddin, superintendent of police in the town, told Reuters.
The gunman, who also wounded another man, escaped, security officials said.
Militants are split into several factions in northwest Pakistan, some of which are rivals.
The military went on the offensive against Taliban fighters allied with Mehsud in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, in early May and they are in the final phase of that operation, the army has said.
The offensive in Swat came after Taliban gains raised fears for the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it strives to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan.
The government has also ordered an offensive against Mehsud in his South Waziristan stronghold near the Afghan border.
In recent days, the military has been launching air strikes on Mehsud's bases while soldiers have been securing the main road into the mountainous region populated by ethnic Pashtun tribes.
The United States has offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to Mehsud's location or arrest.
Tuesday's drone strike, the latest in a string of such attacks, was near the Mehsud stronghold of Makeen.
"They targeted newly built bunkers," said a resident, Mohammad Daud.
SETBACK Continued...
Source: Reuters

Indonesia legal system under fire over e-mail case

By Ed Davies
JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian mother who was fined, jailed and put on trial after sending an e-mail to friends complaining about her treatment in a private hospital, has become a rallying point for reform of the country's legal system.
Indonesia's unpredictable legal system is one of the main deterrents to much needed investment.
While President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is seeking re-election next month, has pushed through some reforms and made inroads tackling graft in Southeast Asia's biggest economy, reform of the legal system has lagged.
The defamation case against Prita Mulyasari has sparked a public uproar over a perception that she has been miserably treated by a legal system that often favors the rich and well-connected in the world's fourth-most populous country.
"It's a very important case because it has to do with freedom of speech, freedom of expression," said Todung Mulya Lubis, a prominent Indonesian lawyer and rights campaigner.
Concerns over the case have also become entwined in campaigning for a presidential election on July 8.
"The application of the law has to be fair and transparent," Yudhoyono, who is currently favorite to win a new term, told a televised presidential debate last week.
A survey by Indonesia's anti-corruption agency in February found the judiciary was the most graft-prone public institution in the country, illustrated by cases where officials have been caught red-handed with suitcases stuffed with cash.
The legal system is also notoriously complex. In addition to codes dating from the Dutch colonial era, Indonesia has passed a blizzard of new local laws to allow greater decentralization.
Foreign companies have frequently become ensnared in controversial legal battles in Indonesia's courts.
A local unit of Canada's Manulife Financial Corp was declared bankrupt by an Indonesian court in 2002, despite being solvent. The Supreme Court later overturned that ruling.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court reversed a 1 trillion rupiah ($97.13 million) libel ruling against Time magazine over an article alleging that Suharto and his family had amassed a $15 billion fortune.
The lengthy legal battle against the publication, owned by Time Warner Inc, was seen as a key test of the country's legal system and freedom of speech.
FACEBOOK CAMPAIGN
The Mulyasari case has struck a particular chord, with thousands of Indonesians signing pledges of support for her on sites such as Facebook. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Heirs race to find Nazi-looted art before time runs out

By Sarah Marsh
VIENNA (Reuters) - Eighty-one-year old Thomas Selldorff, who fled Austria with his family before it was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, hopes an upcoming international conference will bolster efforts to return Nazi-looted art.
The Nazi's seized over 200 artworks owned by his grandfather, an avid art collector, as part of a policy of seizing Jewish property. So far, Selldorff has been able to retrieve only two of the lost paintings.
"I want to be able to pass these things on to my family ... I want them to have the link and an appreciation for some of the things my grandfather was involved with," said Selldorff, who lives in the United States and wants to exhibit the altar pieces by Austrian baroque artist Kremser Schmidt in a museum.
Some 65 years after World War Two, experts say thousands of artworks confiscated by the Nazis, including masterpieces by art nouveau master Gustav Klimt and expressionist Egon Schiele, still need to be restituted to their rightful owners.
Government officials from around 49 countries, dozens of non-governmental groups and Jewish representatives will meet in Prague this week to review current practices. They are likely to sign a new agreement to step up restitution efforts.
Some participants hope the conference will lead to the creation of a central body responsible for publishing updates on countries' progress, which could prompt them to do more.
The task of restituting Nazi-looted works is an epic one. The Nazis formed a bureaucracy devoted to looting and they plundered a total of 650,000 art and religious objects from Jews and other victims, the Jewish Claims Conference estimates.
Artworks were auctioned off, handed over to national museums or top Nazi officials, or stashed away for a Fuehrer museum Adolf Hitler was planning to build in the Austrian town of Linz, where he spent a part of his youth.
"This is one way that Jews were made to pay for their own elimination," said art restitution expert Sophie Lillie.
At the end of World War Two, some works were returned but many continued to circulate on the international art market or stayed put in museums, and it was only in the 1990s that there was a new burst of Holocaust restitution.
PATCHY RECORD
Austria is considered among the leaders of art restitution efforts, putting its larger neighbor Germany to shame. The Alpine Republic in 1998 passed a law governing art restitution and has since returned over 10,000 artworks.
"There are a handful of countries that have achieved a lot," said Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, citing Austria, Holland and Britain.
Austria's Belvedere Gallery has had to restitute 10 paintings by Gustav Klimt, including two portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which are among the artist's most famous works.
"Most countries have not even undertaken the work which was endorsed in Washington in 1998," said Webber, referring to the non-binding Washington Principles agreed by 44 countries in 1998 as the framework for returning looted art. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Iran Revolutionary Guard threaten protest crackdown

Iran toughens language
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By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Police broke up a protest in Tehran on Monday hours after the hardline Revolutionary Guards said they would crush any fresh resistance from "rioters."
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.
Yet in a gesture of defiance first used in the 1979 Islamic revolution, and now adopted by pro-reform protesters, people again chanted "Allahu Akbar" from their rooftops at nightfall.
Witnesses said supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi had gathered earlier in Tehran's Haft-e Tir square.
But Iran's state Press TV channel said they had been dispersed following the arrival of security forces.
Residents said riot police, some on motorbikes, and members of the religious Basij militia, were out in force.
One witness said that from his balcony he had seen a group chanting slogans being attacked by the Basij, who dragged the protesters out of a nearby house to which they had fled.
"The Basiji were really aggressive and swearing at me to go inside," the witness said. "I was scared they were going to break into my house too."
The statement on Monday by the Guards, viewed as the most loyal guardians of the ruling clerical establishment, clearly signaled a crackdown on any fresh unrest over the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"In the current sensitive situation ... the Guards will firmly confront in a revolutionary way rioters and those who violate the law," said a statement on the Guards' website.
Mousavi, who was officially beaten into second place by Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election which he says was rigged, called late on Sunday for fresh protests by his supporters.
Ali Shahrokhi, head of parliament's judiciary committee, said Mousavi should be prosecuted for "illegal protests and issuing provocative statements," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying.
EMBASSY AID?
Iranian authorities have accused Western powers of supporting the protests -- the most widespread since 1979 -- and have not ruled out expulsions of some European ambassadors.
Sweden, the European Union's next president, said members should consider drafting a plan to take in and provide aid to demonstrators at their Iranian embassies, while Italy said it was prepared to open its embassy to wounded protesters. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Pakistan army says in final phase of Swat offensive

By Zeeshan Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan security forces are near the end of their offensive in the Swat valley, the army said on Monday, with more than 40,000 people on the move before the next phase starts against the Pakistani Taliban's headquarters.
The offensive in Swat, 120 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, came after Taliban gains raised fears for the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it strives to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan.
Nearly 2 million people have fled fighting in the northwest, most since the army pushed into the former tourist valley of Swat in early May, and the United Nations is appealing for $543 million in aid to avert a long-term humanitarian crisis.
"The security forces are in the final phase of eliminating terrorist hide-outs and camps in Swat," chief military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told a media briefing.
Sporadic clashes were going on as the military cleared the militants' last strongholds in the scenic valley, and 22 militants had been killed in the previous 24 hours, he said.
Pakistan's fragile civilian government, which came to power last year, has the support of most political parties and members of the public for the offensive but risks seeing that evaporate if displaced people are seen to suffer unduly.
Washington, alarmed by Taliban aggression earlier in the year, has been heartened by the military action and will be eager to see similar action against factions, including the Afghan Taliban, who launch attacks into Afghanistan from Pakistani enclaves.
NEW STRATEGY
U.S. President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Jim Jones, was traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan "to follow up on the implementation of our new, comprehensive strategy," spokesman Mike Hammer said. Jones would be visiting India on the same trip, he said.
India also wants to see action against militants based in Pakistan who are involved in an insurgency against Indian forces in its part of the disputed Kashmir region.
In all, 1,592 militants had been killed in the Swat offensive, Abbas said. More than 100 soldiers have been killed, the military says. There has been no independent confirmation of the military's casualty figures.
While Pakistan's military has pushed the militants out of most of Swat, there was no word on the fate of their leaders.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the Taliban leader in Swat, Fazlullah, had been wounded. Abbas said there was no hard evidence and intelligence agencies were trying to confirm reports that some Taliban leaders had been wounded and a few had been killed.
With the Swat offensive in its final stages, fighter jets attacked militant positions in South Waziristan near the Afghan border, killing four people and wounding several others, residents and intelligence officials said.
South Waziristan is the headquarters of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who has been accused of a string of bomb attacks, including the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Russia's Ingushetia leader wounded by suicide bomber

Car bomb wounds Ingush leader
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NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - The head of Russia's Muslim region of Ingushetia was seriously injured on Monday in a suicide bomb attack that weakened the Kremlin's fragile grip on the North Caucasus.
The bomber detonated explosives as Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov's convoy drove by on his way to work at about 8:30 a.m. local time, the local prosecutor said in a statement.
The president's driver was killed and three others were wounded. The blast wrecked his armored Mercedes and gouged a 2-meter (6ft) crater in the road, a witness told Reuters.
Yevkurov, 45, was rushed to hospital in Nazran, the largest city, where he underwent surgery. A doctor said he was on an artificial respirator. A presidential aide said he was conscious and his life was "not yet" in danger.
President Dmitry Medvedev condemned the attack on Yevkurov, a Kremlin appointee, as a "terrorist act" and vowed a "direct and severe" response. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, marking the anniversary of Russia's entry into World War Two, said the attackers were "on a par with the Nazis."
Ingushetia has taken over from its neighbor Chechnya as the main center of violence along Russia's turbulent southern flank, challenging the Kremlin's rule and, security forces say, providing a foothold for global networks of Islamist militants.
"Today's action was an attempt to ... destabilize the situation," the head of the FSB domestic intelligence service, Alexander Bortnikov, told Medvedev.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
STRONG EXPLOSION
The explosion ripped roof tiles off a nearby house and dislodged bricks from walls. Television pictures showed a burned-out wreck of a car in a ditch at the side of the road.
Doctors said Yevkurov had suffered head injuries, burns and damage to internal organs and decided he should be flown to Moscow for more treatment. A hospital doctor, who asked not to be identified, said the blast was so strong that "it is hard to see how anyone could have survived."
Ingush presidential press secretary Kaloi Akhilgov, who said he was with the president in hospital, said Yevkurov "has injuries of medium gravity. He is conscious." Asked if the president's life was in danger, Akhilgov said: "No, not yet."
The smallest of Russia's regions in size, Ingushetia has a population of around half a million people who rank among the poorest in the country. Corruption, poverty and violence plague the region.
Medvedev appointed highly decorated ex-paratroop officer Yevkurov as president in October, replacing former secret police officer Murat Zyazikov who was blamed by critics for fanning an insurgency with heavy-handed measures by special services.
Rebels tried to assassinate Zyazikov on the same stretch of road in 2004, local officials said. An ethnic Ingush, Yevkurov was the commander of Russian troops who took control of Pristina airport in Kosovo in 1999 after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
"While there were assassinations before and the level of this very targeted terrorism was obviously increasing, both in Ingushetia and Dagestan, this is out of the range of expectations," said Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute analyst Pavel Baev. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Brown urges Iraq hostage takers to release Britons

Two dead British hostages named
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LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday urged those holding three British hostages captive in Iraq to release them immediately after the bodies of two other hostages were handed over by their kidnappers.
An Iraqi lawmaker said the two men apparently died a year ago, and the three remaining hostages were supposed to be released as part of an understanding that would allow the Shi'ite militant group that captured them to put down arms and join the political process.
"There is no evidence that either confirms or denies the other hostages are still alive except for a piece of evidence in March regarding one of them," said the lawmaker, who is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and asked not to be named.
Peter Moore, a computer instructor, was kidnapped along with his four bodyguards, employed by the Canadian security firm GardaWorld, in May 2007. The hostage-takers have released several videos of the men, including one in March that the lawmaker was referring to.
Brown said London and Baghdad were trying to bring an end to the ordeal of the remaining hostages as soon as possible.
He was speaking after his government confirmed the identities of the two dead men, handed over to Iraqi security forces two years after the five were seized from inside a finance ministry building in a raid in the Iraqi capital.
"There can be no justification whatever for hostage taking and I call on those people who are holding the British and Iraqi hostages to return them as soon as possible -- indeed immediately," Brown said.
The Iraqi parliamentarian said the two men whose bodies were handed over had apparently died a year ago.
"They couldn't be identified by the security men when they opened the boxes they were in," the MP said. "They said there were just skeletons left, not whole bodies."
He said there was no deal as such for the release of the other hostages except in the context of discussions between the government and the Shi'ite militants for an end to fighting.
If the group were to be permitted to join the political process, it would have to give up criminal activity, including holding hostages, and its leaders would also have to be freed from Iraqi and U.S. detention, the lawmaker said.
"Talks about the hostages were not the focus," he said.
"(The handing over of the bodies) was a good initiative by the group as they want to prove to the government that they are serious about joining the political process. Everybody is supposed to be released."
The decision by then British Prime Minister Tony Blair to send 45,000 soldiers to join the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein was deeply divisive at home.
Brown, who took over from Blair in June 2007, has announced an inquiry into Britain's role in the war. Only about 500 British troops remain in the country and Brown was keen to defend his government's handling of the hostage taking.
(Reporting by Adrian Croft and Kate Kelland in London and Khalid al-Ansary in Baghdad; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: Reuters

Fayyad to Palestinians: unite for state in 2 years

By Hamouda Hassan
ABU DIS, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad set a goal on Monday of establishing a Palestinian state within two years.
Fayyad, a technocrat with no significant political base of his own, heads a newly aligned cabinet with more ministers from the dominant Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Islamist Hamas rivals refuse to recognize the premier.
"I call on all our people to unite around the project of establishing a state and to strengthen its institutions ... so that the Palestinian state becomes, by the end of next year or within two years at most, a reality," he said in a speech.
"Achieving this goal within two years is possible," he told an audience at Al Quds university near Jerusalem.
He said his priority was Palestinian unity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but he made no direct appeal to Hamas, whose control of Gaza since 2007 has made it virtually a separate Palestinian territory.
In line with Abbas's policy, he signaled no change in the Palestinian refusal to resume peace talks with Israel until it freezes Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians, he said, should win world support by building up all the institutions for the independent state they seek:
"The need for it has become more pressing after the speech of the Israeli prime minister tried to bypass the international consensus that calls for Israel to implement its obligations."
Israeli officials declined comment on the speech.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that Fayyad "has no right to speak about national unity."
Keen to prove their law-and-order credentials as part of efforts to revive peace talks with Israel, Abbas and Fayyad have been mounting increasingly bloody West Bank crackdowns on Hamas.
"He (Fayyad) creates the greatest danger for Palestinians by believing in the ongoing security coordination with the Zionist enemy," Barhoum said.
CLASH OF NARRATIVES
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech on June 14, said he was ready to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state, but only if it forgoes many attributes of sovereignty -- notably an army, full control of its own borders and air space, and the power to forge military pacts.
Netanyahu has refused to halt the expansion of settlements as required by a 2003 peace "road map," and added a new demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state." Continued...
Source: Reuters

Bombings kill at least 27 in Iraq

Baghdad hit by bombings
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By Abdul Rahman Dhaher
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb devastated a minibus carrying students to their final exams in Baghdad on Monday, one of a string of blasts across Iraq that killed 27 people just two days after the deadliest attack in more than a year.
The explosions came as U.S. combat troops prepare to withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by the end of June, sowing further doubts about the local security forces' ability to stand alone against a stubborn insurgency.
Blood and shattered glass covered the floor of the minibus in Sadr City in eastern Baghdad after a roadside bomb killed three high school students and wounded 12 others. They had been on their way to sit for final exams before the summer holidays.
"What did these students do to deserve this? They're not politicians, Americans or policemen to be attacked," said witness Mohammed Yezen.
Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb in a market killed three people and wounded 30 in the northern Shaab district, police said, while a parked car bomb killed five people and wounded 20 in Karrada in the city center.
In Husseiniya, just north of Baghdad, a bomb exploded in a vegetable market on Monday evening, killing five and wounding 25 others. Four children were among the wounded.
The blasts came two days after a suicide truck bomb outside a mosque near the northern city of Kirkuk killed 73 people in the country's deadliest attack for more than a year.
MALIKI'S REPUTATION
Violence has broadly fallen in Iraq over the last year, but analysts have said attacks are likely to intensify ahead of a parliamentary election due in January.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has built his reputation on cutting violence, and has lauded the partial withdrawal of U.S. troops. In Baghdad, authorities have started to remove the concrete blast walls that have blighted the city for years.
In the west of the capital, a suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday outside the municipal council building in Abu Ghraib, killing seven people and wounding 13, police said.
Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Moussawi said five people were killed and 41 wounded in the bombings in the capital. He gave no explanation for the lower figure.
In more violence near Kirkuk, a roadside bomb killed a member of a Sunni Arab anti-Qaeda militia, police said. Also in the north, the army said a roadside bomb killed three soldiers near Khanaqin, a town claimed by Arabs and Kurds.
Maliki urged Iraqis on Saturday not to lose heart if insurgents exploited the U.S. pull-back to step up attacks. U.S. troops are due to leave Iraq completely by 2012 as part of a security pact signed by Baghdad and Washington last year.
(Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Source: Reuters

Sarkozy says burqas have no place in France

By Estelle Shirbon
PARIS (Reuters) - Burqas are not welcome in France because they are a symbol of the subjugation of women, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday.
In his first public comments on an issue fuelling passionate debate, he backed a group of French legislators who expressed concern last week that more and more Muslim women were wearing the garments that cover the face and body from head to toe.
"The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue, it is a question of freedom and of women's dignity," Sarkozy said.
"The burqa is not a religious sign, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women. I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory."
His remarks won strong applause from legislators during a wide-ranging speech at the grandiose Palace of Versailles.
France, home to Europe's largest Muslim minority, is divided over how to reconcile secular values with religious freedom.
Many see the burqa as an infringement of women's rights and say it is being imposed on many Muslim women by fundamentalists.
"We cannot accept that some women in our country are prisoners behind a grille, cut off from social life, deprived of their identity," Sarkozy said.
He backed a cross-party initiative by some 60 legislators for a parliamentary commission to find ways to stop the burqa's spread.
DIVISIVE ISSUE
"All views must be expressed ... I tell you, we must not be ashamed of our values, we must not be afraid of defending them," Sarkozy said.
This new debate is reminiscent of a controversy that raged for a decade in France about Muslim girls wearing headscarves in class. Eventually, a law in 2004 banned pupils from wearing conspicuous signs of their religion at state schools.
Critics say the law stigmatized Muslims at a time when the country should be trying to heal a rift between mainstream society and many youths from an immigrant background, caused by decades of discrimination on the job and housing markets.
The sight of women in burqas is rare in most parts of France. Statistics are not available but anecdotal evidence suggests that in some areas the number wearing them is rising.
Cabinet members are divided on whether a ban is appropriate. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Georgia conflict "could erupt again": thinktank

By Matt Robinson
TBILISI (Reuters) - The absence of U.N. and OSCE monitors from Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia could aggravate tensions and lead to new "full-blown hostilities," a Brussels-based thinktank said on Monday.
The International Crisis Group said Russia's consolidation of its military presence in both regions, and its refusal to endorse the continuation of U.N. and OSCE monitoring in their current form posed a threat to security.
Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war last August, when Russia crushed a Georgian assault on the breakaway pro-Russian region of South Ossetia, which like Abkhazia threw off Tbilisi's rule in the early 1990s.
"... violent incidents and the lack of an effective security regime in and around the conflict zones of South Ossetia and Abkhazia create a dangerous atmosphere in which extensive fighting could erupt again," the ICG said in a policy briefing.
"Russia has not complied with the main points of the truce, and the sides have not engaged in meaningful negotiations to stabilize the situation."
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states after the war, and stationed thousands of troops in both regions despite an EU-brokered ceasefire agreement that called on Russian forces to pull back to their pre-war positions.
DISPLACED
Russia last week vetoed a Western-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to extend the mandate of some 130 U.N. monitors in Abkhazia, saying the text reaffirmed Georgia's territorial integrity and was therefore unacceptable.
Military monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who operated in South Ossetia up until the war, are to leave Georgia by June 30 after negotiations to extend their mandate broke down.
Russia insisted the OSCE South Ossetia monitors be separated from the mission in Georgia. If both missions leave, the European Union will be alone with 225 monitors patrolling up to the de facto borders with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but not beyond after separatist authorities denied them access.
The ICG warned that the departure of U.N. monitors from Abkhazia might contribute to a feeling of insecurity among the estimated 40,000 ethnic Georgians and Megrelians in Abkhazia, "and prompt many to flee to the rest of Georgia."
It urged Russia to step up efforts to allow the return of displaced persons, particularly around 25,000 ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia who fled what rights groups said was "ethnic cleansing" by Ossetian militias and are still unable to return.

Source: Reuters

Two blasts kill eight in Afghan town

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two bombs, one worn by a suicide bomber, exploded in Afghanistan's southeastern town of Khost Monday and killed at least eight civilians, provincial officials said.
More than 40 other civilians were wounded in the blasts, provincial public health chief Amir Padshah Rahmatzai said.
The nature of the first bomb, which went off outside the province's power department, was not clear, Khost police chief Abdul Qayoum Baqizoi told a Reuters reporter in the town. The second was carried by a suicide bomber, he said.
"There was a bomb blast and a suicide attack," he said, adding the intended targets of both attacks were not known.
The blasts came hours after a suicide bomber killed three Afghan soldiers in southern Kandahar province. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.
Violence has surged to its highest level in recent years in Afghanistan where the al Qaeda-backed Taliban, ousted in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, have made a comeback.
In the face of spreading Taliban raids, Washington, which has called Afghanistan its top foreign policy priority, is more than doubling its force in the country from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to an expected 68,000 by the year's end.
There are now about 57,000 U.S. troops in the country, along with about 33,000 from other Western countries.
Fighters have carried out a number of attacks this year against government offices and bases of foreign forces in Khost, which lies close to the border with Pakistan and is separated from other parts of Afghanistan by mountains.
Last month, militants targeted government buildings in the town with suicide bombings and seized hostages in a day of violence in which 11 insurgents and nine other people were killed. The following day, a suicide bomber killed seven civilians at a NATO base near the town.
U.S. commanders say insurgent attacks are already at their highest since the Taliban were toppled, and they expect violence to rise in coming months as additional troops deploy ahead of a presidential election in August.
(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Source: Reuters