Taliban suicide attack kills 20 in Afghanistan, including Nato troops

KHOST: A suicide bomber tore through an Afghan-Nato foot patrol in a crowded city on Monday, killing at least 20 people, including three foreign troops and their interpreter, officials said.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack near a market in the eastern city of Khost. Six Afghan police and 10 civilians were also killed, and 62 were wounded, provincial governor’s spokesman Baryalai Rawan, told AFP.
Authorities had earlier given a death toll of four Afghan police and six civilians.
“Today at around 8:30 am a suicide bomber on a motorcycle targeted a joint patrol in Khost city in a crowded area,” the governor’s office said.
Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force confirmed that three Nato service members and an ISAF-contracted interpreter had been killed in the attack.
The Taliban Islamists said on their website that the suicide attack was carried out by “a hero mujahid, Shohaib, from Kunduz”, claiming that eight foreigners and six Afghan soldiers were killed.
The deaths take coalition casualties to at least 347 this year, according to an AFP tally. Nato has more than 100,000 troops fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, but they are due to pull out by the end of 2014.
Joint Nato-Afghan operations had been temporarily restricted last month after a spike in insider attacks, in which Afghan security forces turned their weapons against their coalition allies.
Last week, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said most joint operations have resumed, but could not give any precise details on numbers.
Nato says that overall insurgent attacks on its forces dropped by five per cent in the first eight months of this year compared to 2011, but are still running at about 100 a day.
It said the decline in attacks showed that its troops had been able to “reverse the momentum” of the insurgents’ campaign, an interpretation that the Taliban “strongly and categorically” denied.
In a spectacular attack last month the Taliban stormed a heavily fortified base in southern Afghanistan, destroying aircraft worth tens of millions of dollars and killing two US Marines.
And according to the United Nations, August was the second deadliest month in five years for civilians, with a total of 374 – more than 10 a day – killed and 581 injured.
The latest blast came a day after Nato announced that a firefight between coalition troops and their Afghan allies killed an ISAF soldier, a civilian contractor and three Afghan army troops.
At least 51 coalition troops have been killed in insider assaults this year – about 15 per cent of all Nato deaths – and the top ISAF general has described them as “the signature attack” of the Afghan war.
The scale of the insider assaults is unprecedented in modern warfare, and has seriously undermined trust between Nato coalition forces and their Afghan allies in the joint effort against Taliban insurgents.
“I’m mad as hell about them, to be honest with you,” ISAF commander General John Allen told CBS’s “60 Minutes” programme on Sunday.
“We’re willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we’re not willing to be murdered for it,” the commander said. - AFP

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Hong Kong ferry crash claims 38 lives

HONG KONG: The captains of a ferry and a pleasure boat that collided in Hong Kong, killing 38 people in the city’s worst maritime disaster in decades, were arrested Tuesday with five other crew, officials said.

More than 120 passengers and crew were on a Hong Kong Electric company vessel to watch a huge National Day fireworks display in Victoria Harbour Monday evening when the collision occurred near Lamma island.
Scores of people were thrown into the choppy water from the company boat, which sank within minutes, leaving only its bow protruding from the waves.
The stricken ferry Sea Smooth limped to Lamma where its shaken, but relatively unharmed, passengers disembarked.
“There was not enough time to put on a lifejacket, no time to fasten it. We tried to hold onto something above but we had no luck and we slipped,” one emotional woman from the Hong Kong Electric vessel told reporters.
Another survivor, clearly overwhelmed, said he had yet to hear any news of his children.
“My two children are missing and I don’t know where they are,” he said.
Survivors were taken by boat to Hong Kong island, some three kilometres to the east, where a fleet of ambulances whisked them to hospital.
It was the deadliest maritime accident in the territory since 1971, when a Hong Kong-Macau ferry sank during a typhoon leaving 88 people dead.
Officials said the captain and three other personnel from the ferry had been arrested, along with the captain of the company vessel and two of its crew, for “endangering the safety of others at sea”.
Six of the detainees were released on bail, and the ferry captain was to be released on bail later, they added.
Police chief Tsang Wai-hung said the suspects “did not exercise the care required of them by law to ensure the safety of the vessels they were operating and the people on board”.
Lamma resident Clare Kirkman, who was returning home from Hong Kong island aboard the public ferry, described scenes of panic and confusion as the craft started to take on water.
“People at the front started screaming and saying there was water coming in, and the boat was tilting to the side,” the 43-year-old Briton told AFP.
“Nobody had a clue what we had hit. There was complete panic. Nobody explained anything… The crew was terrible, useless.” Authorities said 30 people were certified dead at the scene and eight were pronounced dead on arrival at various hospitals. More than 100 others were injured.
Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying said he would set up a high-level enquiry into the incident but dismissed suggestions the city needed to overhaul its maritime rules to cope with its growth as a global trade and travel hub.
“This is definitely an isolated incident. The marine territory of Hong Kong is safe,” he said.
The Beijing-backed leader, whose new government has been rocked by scandals and protests against unpopular policies, declared three days of mourning starting Thursday.
The Hong Kong Electric vessel was packed with staff and their families hoping to enjoy a night out on the water watching the fireworks against the city’s glittering skyline. Five children were among the dead, officials said.
Rescue teams in boats and helicopters spent the night scouring the sea around the site of the accident for bodies or signs of survivors, while dive teams entered the sunken boat.
“The low visibility and many obstacles on board… made it difficult for rescue,” the Fire Services Department said in a statement.
The National Day holiday brought thousands of extra visitors to Lamma, which is the third-largest island in the southern Chinese territory but has a population of only around 5,000 people.
The Hong Kong Electric vessel was about five minutes into its journey from Lamma to Victoria Harbour when it came into contact with the ferry, operated by the Hong Kong and Kowloon Ferry (HKKF) company.
Hong Kong Electric is owned by Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, whose son issued a public statement Tuesday promising HK$200,000 ($25,800) to the families of each of the deceased.
HKKF representatives were not available to comment, but a spokeswoman told Cable TV that “several” passengers on the ferry were injured.
The twin-hulled HKKF ferry was moored at one of Lamma’s piers on Tuesday, with a gaping hole where the bow of its left hull should have been. (AFP)

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String of Iraq car bomb blasts kill at least 32

BAGHDAD: Bombings and shootings killed more than 32 people across Iraq on Sunday, underscoring the government’s struggle with a stubborn insurgency more than nine months after the last US troops withdrew.

In Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, bombs in three parked cars went off separately, killing 11 people and wounding 24, including several policemen.
Reuters footage of the scene of one of the explosions showed the remains of an exploded car surrounded by several completely and partially destroyed houses and cars.
Taji has one of Iraq’s largest military airbases but the bombing hit a civilian neighbourhood.
“A car bomb entered the area and no one… noticed this. Why did that happen? All the houses were destroyed,” said Khadiar Abas, owner of one of the damaged homes.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomb and two parked car bombs went off, killing eight people including a police officer and wounding another 11.
Another blast targeted a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims as it passed through the town of Madaen, about 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing two passers-by and wounding another ten, including seven Iranians.
A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up in the city of Kut, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing four policemen, police and local officials said.
No group claimed responsibility for the raft of attacks, but a local al Qaeda affiliate and other Sunni groups have carried out at least one major assault a month since the last American troops left in December.
Al Qaeda’s local wing, the Islamic State of Iraq, says it has begun a new offensive against mainly Shia targets.
Security experts say it has benefited from the conflict in Syria, which has given al-Qaeda the pretext to seek more money and arms from Sunni tribes, politicians and governments.
Security had been tightened in Baghdad and other provinces after dozens of inmates, including convicted members of al Qaeda, fought their way out of a prison in the northern city of Tikrit on Friday using weapons officials said had been smuggled in during family visits.
Two more policemen were killed when a car bomb went off in the town of Balad Ruz, 90 km (55 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
In Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, a parked car bomb and two roadside bombs blew up separately, killing a civilian and wounding six.
The last major attacks occurred on Sept. 9, in the capital when a series of bombs in mainly Shia districts ended one of the bloodiest days of the year with more than 100 killed across the country.
Violence in Iraq has eased since its height in 2006-2007 when sectarian fighting killed thousands of people, but Sunni militants are still seeking to undermine the Shia-led government. - Reuters

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Deadly fighting inside Damascus army HQ

DAMASCUS/BEIRUT: Deadly fighting erupted inside the headquarters compound of the Syrian army in the heart of Damascus on Wednesday following twin bombings around the heavily guarded complex, a human rights group said.

The clashes in the general staff compound in the capital’s Umayyad Square district left dead on both sides, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
According to the military, Syrian commanders all escaped injury in the twin bombings that struck near the army headquarters.
“Armed terrorist groups with affiliations abroad this morning carried out a new act of terrorism by detonating a car bomb and another device on the edge of the general staff compound,” an army statement said.
“All senior commanders and other officers are safe and sound, and none of them was wounded,” the statement carried by state media said.
The early morning explosions sparked a fire in the Syrian capital’s closely guarded Umayyad Square administrative district, state television said.
The Britain-based watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that both blasts were accompanied by automatic weapons fire.-  AFP

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Two million displaced by India floods

 GUWAHATI: Floods in northeastern India have forced two million to flee their homes and 18 people have been killed, the disaster management agency in Assam state said on Wednesday.

“The total number of people displaced has gone up to two million and 18 people are dead so far in the third wave of flooding,” the disaster management department said in its latest bulletin.
At least 19 of oil-rich Assam’s 27 districts have been hit by floods over the past week and fresh rainfalls have been hampering a military-backed relief operation, according to officials.
“Rains and strong river currents are hampering relief and rescue operations by soldiers and Indian Air Force helicopters,” defence ministry spokesman S.S.
Phogat said in Guwahati, Assam’s largest city.
He said despite bad weather heavy-lift helicopters were carrying out between eight and 10 sorties a day, dropping up to 1.5 tonnes of food, medicine and relief materials during each trip.
Phogat said he was unable to put a figure on the number of people rescued so far from flooded homes.
“Our priority right now is to rescue trapped people and reach food and medicines to those affected,” he told AFP.
Some residents from flooded Majuli, a densely populated river island about 350 kilometres from Guwahati, complained of food shortages as well as a lack of government support.
“We have not got any relief supplies from the government and are almost starving,” said Rupamoni Payeng, a mother of three children.
“Some food packets were dropped by helicopters, but there was a mad scramble and only a few managed to collect,” she added. - AFP

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9 climbers killed in Nepal avalanche

KATHMANDU: An avalanche in Nepal killed at least nine climbers including a group of French mountaineers trying to scale one of the world’s most deadly peaks, officials said on Sunday.

Around 25 people were near the top of the 8,156-metre Manaslu when they were hit by a wall of snow on Saturday night in one of the worst tragedies in Himalayan mountaineering in recent years.
“Most of the dead people are French,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, vice-president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, after speaking to expedition members at the base camp of Manaslu by satellite telephone.
“One or two are Spanish, one Italian, one (Nepali) Sherpa and one German.”Three climbers were thought to still be missing when rescue operations were called off for the night.
“So far, 13 people have been rescued alive, of whom five have been airlifted to Kathmandu for treatment,” Basanta Bahadur Kunwar, the local deputy superintendent of police, told AFP by telephone.
France’s national union of mountain guides (SNGM) said four French climbers were killed and three others were reported missing.
“According to information from the base camp, there were seven French victims. The four dead have been identified by their photos and three are missing, as well as two injured who have been evacuated by helicopter to Kathmandu,” SNGM vice-president Christian Trommsdorff told AFP.
He described the French victims as three mountain guides from the Chamonix area in the Alps and four of their clients, who were part of two expeditions.
Based on information the group has received, the avalanche happened Saturday
night on the normal path for climbing to Manaslu’s summit.
“This avalanche happened at around 7,400 metres and carried away part of camp three at 6,800 metres,” said Trommsdorff. - AFP

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Anti-Islam filmmaker abused freedom of expression: UN chief

Geneva: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Wednesday condemned the maker of anti-Islam film, Innocence of Muslims, and said that the producer abused his right to freedom of expression by making the movie, which he called a “disgraceful and shameful act.”
 

The low budget movie sparked violence in the Muslim world with millions of people attacking US embassies and the consulates. The worst incident occurred in Libya where armed protestors killed US ambassador to Libya including three other diplomats.

Addressing a news conference , the U.N. chief said: “Freedoms of expression should be and must be guaranteed and protected, when they are used for common justice, common purpose.”

“When some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected in such a way.”

“My position is that freedom of expression, while it is a fundamental right and privilege, should not be abused by such people, by such a disgraceful and shameful act,” he said. - Reuters

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French in the firing line over prophet cartoons

PARIS: Tens of thousands of French expatriates in Muslim countries face a nervous weekend amid fears they could be swept up in a rising tide of anger over controversial depictions of Mohammed (PBUH).

Protests that have left over 30 people dead in the last week have, until now, largely been targeted at the United States, which has had to carry the can for the California-produced "Innocence of Muslims" film.
But French ministers fear the focus could shift to Paris's overseas outposts following a satirical weekly's publication of cartoons.
Embassies, consulates, cultural centres and international French schools in around 20 Muslim countries will be closed on foreign ministry orders Friday for fear of retaliatory violence following weekly prayers.
In Tunisia, French schools were shut down from Wednesday until next Monday after the ruling Islamists branded the cartoons a "new attack" on their religion.
The shutdown also came into force early in Egypt, where schools were to close for the weekend from Thursday.
The moves reflect concern about the volatility of countries still reeling from the aftermath of last year's Arab Spring which has been exacerbated by last week's attack on a US consulate in Libya that left the ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other officials dead.
At home meanwhile, France's Socialist government faced a dilemma over how to manage the anger of the country's own four million Muslims in the wake of weekly Charlie Hebdo's publication of the cartoons.
Thousands of extra copies were due to hit newsstands on Thursday after the weekly's usual print run of 75,000 copies sold out in hours.
Ministers have criticised the timing of Charlie Hebdo's publication of the cartoons but made it clear they support the magazine's right to express its opinions however it sees fit and no matter how much offence it causes.
Critics have pointed out that the same freedom of expression does not seem to be extended to French Muslims who want to give vent to their anger over the cartoons.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls banned all protests over the "Innocence of Muslims" following a violent demonstration last weekend near the US embassy in Paris and has made it clear he will not sanction any mass protests over the cartoons either.
Muslims attending prayers at mosques in France on Friday will hear an appeal for calm but community leaders have also pressed the government to do more to restrict the ability of media to publish "insulting" material, arguing that incitement to religious hatred should be put on a par with race hate crimes.
The government has been forced to deploy riot police to protect Charlie Hebdo's offices, which were fire-bombed last year following the publication of an edition "guest-edited". - AFP

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Nine dead as storms rip across South America

ASUNCION: Fierce storms packing 140-kilometer (87-mile) an hour winds tore across the heart of South America on Wednesday, killing five people in Paraguay, two in Uruguay and two in Bolivia.

The Roque Alonso suburb of the Paraguayan capital Asuncion was devastated by the storm and widespread looting was reported in its aftermath.
Four police cadets died and 15 were injured when the roof of their dormitory caved in, and a 16-year-old boy died at a shopping center when a water tank fell on him.
"Roque Alonso has to be built all over again," police commander Heriberto Marmol said.
Dozens of injured people in the small, mostly rural nation flooded Asuncion hospitals and traffic was gridlocked in parts of the city.
A crowd of thousands braved torrential rain for a concert by the rock band Scorpions only to see the show canceled.
Nationwide, at least 5,000 homes were destroyed and more than 80 people injured in storm-related incidents, Aldo Saldivar of the national emergency response center said.
The storm also blew the roof off homes and barns in Neembucu, south of the capital, and knocked out power in the town of Encarnacion for many hours.
The wind was less severe further south in Argentina and Uruguay, around 100 kilometers (62 mph) per hour, but strong gusts still ripped off roofs and toppled trees and power lines, plunging some regions into darkness.
A woman and her daughter were killed when heavy rains swiftly washed out a road in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, firefighters said.
And two people were killed in Uruguay when a suddenly rain-swollen creek swallowed their car, officials said. Ports also were locked down in Uruguay until early Thursday, and at least 462 people had to leave their homes.
Uruguay's national emergency committee chief Diego Canepa said 140,000 customers had lost power -- more than 10 percent of the country. - AFP

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Mitt Romney shoots himself in the foot in leaked video

WASHINGTON: In a secretly recorded video revealed on Tuesday Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney calls nearly half of Americans ‘freeloaders’ and says it is not possible to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute.

The video shows Romney sharing his real views on various domestic and foreign policies with a group of rich Americans which contrasts sharply with his public statements on these issues.
Political pundits are claiming that the video practically kills Romney’s bid for the White House in Nov. 6, 2012 presidential elections, although the Republican candidate tried to dismiss his remarks as insignificant.
“It’s not elegantly stated let me put it that way. I was speaking off the cuff in response to a question,” he said at a hurriedly called news conference.
But Romney also said that its’ “message that I am going to carry and continue to carry which is that the president’s approach is attractive to people who are not paying taxes.”
The remarks, howeverm provided the Obama campaign with a golden opportunity to further damage an already weakened challenge to President Barack Obama from his Republican rival.
“Mitt Romney wrote off nearly 50 per cent of people in this country before he’s even sworn into office,” said Jen Psaki, Obama’s campaign manager. “People … are scratching their heads about what he said.”
“This moment of candor from Mitt Romney once again shows he has no understanding of what average Americans go through. His worldview is too narrow for him to ever make a good President,” said Democrat Senator Charles Schumer.
President Obama offered no comments but Vice President Joe Biden said he will “let Mr Romney’s words speak for themselves.”
A prestigious political magazine, Mother Jones, has obtained a copy of this video of a May 17 fundraiser for Romney at Boca Raton, Florida, with tickets costing $50,000 a plate.
In the video, Romney tells his rich friends he sees half of the American electorate as freeloaders who do not believe in personal responsibility.
During the dinner, a donor asks Romney how the “Palestinian problem” can be solved.
“The Palestinians … for political purposes are committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel … and have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace,” he says, adding that “there’s just no way” to resolve this issue.
Instead of trying to resolve the dispute, Romney would try to prevent both sides from taking any major action.
“You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem…and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.”
While these remarks show Romney’s lack of depth on foreign policy issues, the US media believes that his comments about half of American voters being freeloaders are going to hurt him the most.
“There are 47 per cent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” he tells his guests and then goes on to define them as those who do not want to earn a living.
“Who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement,” Romney adds.
“And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them.”
The remarks spread like virus as soon as Mother Jones posted them on its site. Within hours, they appeared on thousands of news sites, social chat rooms, and other media outlets.
Millions of hits forced major newspapers – such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times – and television channels — CNN, CBS and NBC – also to post analytical stories on their sites, predicting Romney’s doom.
Some predicted that this could be a “game-changer,” forcing American voters to abandon Romney. Others warned Americans not to vote for a man who had such views.
One popular news site – Huffington Post – predicted that the video will “kill” Romney’s candidacy because his “misunderstanding collides too directly with nearly every perspective a voter might bring to the polls, regardless of their partisan identification, their age, their gender, their race or their ideology.” - DAWN

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U.S. won't tolerate efforts to harm Americans: Obama

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Saturday rejected any denigration of Islam but said there is no excuse for attacks on U.S. embassies, insisting he will never tolerate efforts to harm Americans.

"I have made it clear that the United States has a profound respect for people of all faiths," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "Yet there is never any justification for violence .... There is no excuse for attacks on our embassies and consulates."

Angry anti-American protests have swept the Muslim world in response to a film that insults the Prophet Mohammad. An attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others this week.

A day after Obama led a somber ceremony marking the return of the bodies of the Americans killed in Libya, Obama acknowledged that a surge of anti-American violence in the Middle East is disturbing.

The Pentagon is sending Marines to beef up security at the U.S. embassy in Sudan, following similar reinforcements to Libya and Yemen.

The Libyan attack and the U.S.-directed outrage have raised questions about Obama's handling of the so-called Arab Spring, a series of revolutions that have unseated entrenched authoritarian governments.

The turbulence in the Middle East has had ripples in a tight U.S. presidential election, with Obama's Republican challenger Mitt Romney saying Obama has weakened U.S. authority around the world.

However, Obama repeated a vow to bring the attackers of the U.S. consulate in Libya to justice. "We will not waver in their pursuit," he said.

The president also said the turmoil should not deter U.S. efforts to support democracy in the region or elsewhere.

"Let us never forget that for every angry mob, there are millions who yearn for the freedom, and dignity, and hope that our flag represents," he said. - AGENCIES

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US mosque plan draws protest on ‘threat of Islam’

WEST BLOOMFIELD: A Christian legal group that recently defended a US pastor who publicly burned a copy of the Quran is now attacking a plan to turn a vacant US school into a mosque, saying it wants to confront the ”threat of Islam” and stop a ”stealth jihad” to turn the country into an Islamic nation.

The Islamic Cultural Association in suburban Detroit bought the former school last year for $1.1 million. But the Thomas More Law Center is supporting a resident-led lawsuit to have the purchase overturned and has asked for a grand jury to investigate alleged corruption in the deal. A judge dismissed the case, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to file a complaint, but residents are appealing.
The effort is ”targeting innocent Americans because of their faith and willingness to engage in the community and to contribute,” said the Islamic association’s attorney, Shareef Akeel.
The dispute is playing out in one of the largest Muslim communities in the US
The law center has also represented Terry Jones, the minister who in 2011 burned a copy of the Quran at his Florida church, an act that led to violent protests in Afghanistan that killed more than a dozen people.
Richard Thompson, the law center’s president and chief counsel, did not return messages left by The Associated Press.
The law center and residents accuse the school district of negotiating with the association behind closed doors and accepting illegal campaign contributions made by an association official.
The law center also accuses Islamic organizations in the United States of taking advantage of the legal system to wage a ”stealth jihad” that aims to transform the US into an Islamic nation.
It alleges that the Islamic association has ties to terrorism because of its links to other Muslim groups.
The confrontation and similar clashes have made Detroit ”an active front in a kind of culture war,” said Andrew Shryock, a University of Michigan anthropologist and expert on the city’s Islamic presence.
The Islamic association, comprised of more than 100 families, including many doctors, lawyers and other professionals, is “threatening to people who see Muslims as alien,” Shryock said.
Muslim critics regard the social and economic advancement of Muslims in the Detroit area as “somehow anti-American,” he said.
The Detroit area is home to 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims, many of whom emigrated from the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere. The population has sometimes drawn anti-Muslim protesters.
Michigan Attorney Bill Schuette has yet to decide on the request for a grand jury investigation, but the law center says it’s confident because he made corruption a priority of his administration.
Jim Manna, who sits on the West Bloomfield Planning Commission, will consider the mosque proposal in October.
The Catholic from Iraq, who is part of Detroit’s large Chaldean community, said he will base his decision solely on whether features of the project, such as a 45-foot minaret, conform to the township’s rules and regulations.
But that hasn’t stopped him from asking questions about whether the Islamic association has received money from outside groups, whether it would accept money from an Islamic government or what kind of message the imam will preach.
“We have every right to be cautious,” he said.
 (Dawn)

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Clinton faces China balancing act amid tensions and transitions

JAKARTA: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to take a strong message to Beijing this week on the need to calm regional tensions over maritime disputes that have raised broader fears of military friction between the two major Pacific powers.
The last time Clinton visited Beijing, plans to highlight improving U.S.-China ties were derailed by a blind Chinese dissident whose dramatic flight to the U.S. embassy exposed the deeply uneasy relationship between Beijing and Washington.
This time, the irritants are disputes over tiny islets and craggy outcrops in oil- and gas-rich areas of the South and East China Seas that have set China against U.S. regional allies.
As Clinton prepares to travel back to Beijing on Tuesday, U.S. officials say the message is once again one of cooperation and partnership -- and an important chance to compare notes during a tricky year of political transition.
But the unease remains, sharpened by disputes in the South and East China Seas that have rattled nerves across the region and led to testy exchanges with Washington just as the Obama administration "pivots" to the Asia-Pacific region following years of military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Both governments, too, are preoccupied with politics at home, with the Obama administration fighting for re-election in November and China's ruling Communist Party preparing for a once-in-a-decade leadership change.
"WITHOUT COERCION"
In Jakarta on Monday, Clinton urged China and its Southeast Asian neighbors to move quickly on a code of conduct for the South China Sea and stressed that disputes should be resolved "without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and certainly without the use of force".
But progress has been thwarted in recent months by China's increasingly assertive posture in the region, which has included establishing a garrison on a disputed island and stepping up patrols of contested waters.
That suggests Beijing has no intention of backing down on its unilateral claim to sovereignty over a huge stretch of ocean and potentially equally large energy reserves.
Political analysts say Clinton faces a balancing act, pushing on the territorial disputes while keeping cooperation on track on other issues including reining in the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, the Syria crisis and economic disputes that have long bedeviled the two countries.
"One of the challenges before us is to demonstrate how we deal with areas in which we have different perceptions and where we face challenging issues on the ground, or in this case on the water," one senior U.S. official said.
Beijing, for its part, is likely to repeat its opposition to a multilateral approach during Clinton's visit.
Asked about the issue on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that "countries outside the region should respect the choices of the countries concerned regarding the South China Sea issue".
Some Chinese media have been blunter still. The Global Times, a popular, nationalist tabloid, accused Clinton on Tuesday of "deeply intensifying mutual suspicion between China and the U.S."
"Many Chinese people dislike Hillary Clinton," it said in an editorial. "She has brought new and extremely profound mutual distrust between the mainstream societies of the two countries, and removing that will not be easy."
WHAT NEXT?
Clinton's meetings on Wednesday will include outgoing President Hu Jintao as well as Vice President Xi Jinping, the man who will likely succeed him as China's paramount leader following a Communist Party congress this year.
Xi visited the United States in February on a get-acquainted tour and U.S. officials expect him to be a steady-handed leader.
But concerns over China's fast-expanding influence and its belligerent tone in regional disputes have Washington scrambling to assess how Beijing's political stars are lining up.
China, too, has its concerns and has pushed back against U.S. attempts to referee the South China Sea dispute and insert itself into similar rows between China, Japan and South Korea over islands in the East China Sea.
While Washington has stressed that it takes no position on the competing claims and simply wants to see a mechanism established to resolve them, its forceful calls on China to play along have had a cool reception in Beijing.
Mark Valencia, a Hawaii-based expert on Asia-Pacific maritime disputes, said the recent exchanges left "no doubt that the U.S. is siding with ASEAN -- not necessarily saying that their claim is correct, but that the bases of their claims have more merit than those of China".
During Clinton's last China visit in April, dissident Chen Guangcheng stole the headlines with his made-for-TV escape from house arrest, flight to the U.S. embassy, and eventual decision to take a U.S.-brokered deal to travel to New York.
U.S. officials are hoping for no such surprises during Clinton's 24-hour visit in Beijing this week, saying this is a moment for stability, not stirring the waters.
"I think the secretary intends very clearly to underscore our continuing interest in maintaining a strong, positive relationship," the senior U.S. official said. – AGENCIES

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Iran could strike US bases if Israel attacks: Hezbollah

BEIRUT: Iran could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities even if American forces played no role in the attack, the leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah has said.
"A decision has been taken to respond and the response will be very great," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television.
"The response will not be just inside the Israeli entity - American bases in the whole region could be Iranian targets," he said, citing information he said was from Iranian officials. "If Israel targets Iran, America bears responsibility."
Heightened Israeli rhetoric about Tehran's nuclear facilities, which the West says could be part of a weapons programme, has stoked speculation that it may attack Iran before U.S. elections in November.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged world powers on Sunday to set a "clear red line" to convince Iran they would prevent it from obtaining nuclear arms.
Israel, thought to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, views Iran's nuclear programme as a threat to its regional dominance and to its very existence. Tehran says the atomic work is for peaceful purposes only.
But Netanyahu's cabinet is divided over the wisdom of attacking Iran, and Israeli officials have dropped heavy hints of a climbdown strategy, under which Netanyahu would shelve threats of an attack now in return for a stronger public pledge from President Barack Obama on conditions that would provoke U.S. action in future.
Nasrallah said there were divisions in Israel over attacking Iran. "Personally I do not expect the Israeli enemy - at least in the coming months or foreseeable future - (to wage) an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
Nasrallah pointed to the fragile global economy, which would be weakened further by any sharp rise in crude oil prices stemming from conflict in the Gulf, and to likely Israeli casualties in any war with Iran.
"Netanyahu and (Defence Minister Ehud) Barak inflate the benefit and play down the cost," he said, referring to Barak's estimates that Israel could suffer up to 500 fatalities in any conflict aimed at wiping out Iran's nuclear facilities.
Hezbollah guerrillas fought a 34-day war with Israel six years ago in which 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 people in Israel, mostly soldiers, were killed.
War with Iran would be more deadly, Nasrallah said. "We don't know what will happen in the region."
NO CHEMICAL WEAPONS
He repeated a warning he made last month that Hezbollah could cause widespread destruction if it came into conflict with Israel again, but denied that the Shi'ite Islamist guerrilla and political movement would ever use chemical weapons.
"We do not have chemical weapons and we will not use chemical weapons," Nasrallah said. "The use of chemical weapons is forbidden - for us that is absolute.
Unrest in neighbouring Syria, which acknowledged for the first time in July that it possessed chemical or biological weapons, has led to Western fears that those weapons might fall into the hands of Islamist groups including Hezbollah.
"I do not need chemical weapons - regardless of the religious or practical position," Nasrallah said, addressing Israel. "You have factories, and you have bases, and compounds, and I have rockets."
Israel had several "weak points" which could be targeted, including "economic, industrial, electrical, chemical and nuclear" sites, the Hezbollah leader said.
Even if Israel launched a first strike attack on Lebanon, destroying a large part of Hezbollah's missile arsenal, the militant group would retain the capacity to hit back with deadly force, he added.
Two weeks ago Nasrallah said Hezbollah could kill tens of thousands of Israelis by hitting targets with what he described as precision-guided missiles.
"Hitting these targets with a small number of rockets will turn ... the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists to real hell," he said at the time. – AGENCIES

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Oil climbs above $116, central bank meetings spur stimulus hopes

SINGAPORE: Brent futures rose for a fourth day in Asia on Tuesday, reaching more than $116 per barrel on persistent hopes for stimulus measures from central banks in the United States and Europe, with key policy meetings this week and next.
Prices were also underpinned by expectations that weak data from China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, would prompt Beijing to ease policy further, while festering tension between Iran and Israel added support.
The European Commercial Bank meets on Thursday and U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers will begin a two-day gathering on September 12.
"A lot of today's move is on expectations of stimulus, with the ECB and Fed meetings coming up," said Tony Nunan, an oil risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo. "That, and the steady drumbeat of news from Iran and the tensions with Israel, is keeping the heat under the market."
Front-month Brent futures had risen 23 cents to $116.01 per barrel by 0421 GMT. The contract had earlier climbed as high as $116.36, a few cents short of a three-week high.
U.S. crude futures added 72 cents to $97.19, although U.S. markets were closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday. They could revisit the August 23 high of $98.29 as they have broken above resistance at $96.54.
CHINA WEAKNESS
China's vast manufacturing sector contracted in August, strengthening the view that the slowdown in the economy may extend into the third quarter.
Inflation and industrial data are due on Sunday, while trade numbers will be released on Monday, which may give a clearer picture of the state of the Chinese economy.
Complicating matters, the country's political leadership is set to change hands in a once-in-a-decade transition later this year.
"The steady bad numbers from China indicate beyond a doubt that growth is slowing, and with the change of guard coming up there will be pressure on the authorities to stimulate the economy," said Nunan.
In the short-term, however, investors are awaiting the outcome of the ECB meeting on Thursday. The bank is expected to give some details on a bond-buying scheme to help its crisis-ridden members.
Strengthening those expectations, ECB Chairman Mario Draghi told European lawmakers that the bank's purchases of short-term debt would not breach European Union rules, according to a recording obtained by Reuters.
"Investors are beginning to piece together a scenario under which ECB bond purchases will be limited to shorter maturities," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney. "Any such arrangement could remove short-term funding problems as a source of immediate concern for markets."
There are also hopes that the Fed, which meets next week, will provide further hints on whether it is leaning toward a third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, as the minutes of its last meeting suggested.
Traders however are not betting on a QE3 announcement on September 13. A poll of 61 economists last week gave a 45 percent chance of an announcement of QE3 after the September meeting.
IRAN, ISRAEL
Investors are also monitoring developments in the Middle East, with a focus on rising tensions between Iran and Israel.
Iran has built about 30 percent of a missile defense system it is developing in place of the Russian S-300 system Moscow refused to sell to the country, and hopes to complete the system by next year, a senior military official said on Monday.
Under mounting pressure from Israel and Western powers over its controversial nuclear program, Iran has unveiled upgrades to weapons systems and held several military exercises this year to demonstrate its ability to defend itself.
Separately, the leader of Lebanon's Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said on Monday that Iran could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, even if American forces played no role in the attack. – AGENCIES

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Facebook co-founder Moskovitz sells more shares

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is selling yet more shares in the one-time consumer-Internet darling, keeping up a steady but small flow of daily sales, according to a filing.

This week, Moskovitz has sold a total of 450,000 Class A shares at prices ranging from $19.19 to $19.22 a share, reducing the Facebook stake of his Dustin A. Moskovitz Trust to 6.15 million A shares, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed.

His Dustin A. Moskovitz Trust also owns 106.8 million B shares, which can be converted to Class A shares on a one-to-one basis at any time. Class B shares carry more voting power.

Moskovitz has been selling shares at the rate of 150,000 a day since August 19, the first day since Facebook's initial public offering that certain insiders were allowed to sell shares.

Facebook's IPO has been one of the most troubled in recent memory, with the shares debuting in May at $38 but quickly falling. On Wednesday, shares in the social network were trading around $19, beset by concerns over issues ranging from its mobile strategy to its slowing growth.

Moskovitz, a roommate of Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg's at Harvard University, left the company in late 2009 to work on his own start-up, workplace software-service Asana.

Several Facebook insiders, including early backer Peter Thiel, have been selling shares at a rapid clip. Thiel, who sits on Facebook's board, sold 20 million shares earlier this month. AGENCIES

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US troops punished over Quran burning

WASHINGTON: The US military said on Monday it was disciplining US troops over two incidents that provoked outrage in Afghanistan early this year, one involving burned copies of the Quran and another over a video depicting Marines urinating on corpses.
The administrative punishments -- which could include things like reduce rank or forfeiture of pay -- fell short of criminal prosecution, and it was unclear whether they would satisfy Afghan demands for justice.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier this year branded the Marine's actions in the video as "inhuman," and he initially called for a public trial for the soldiers over the Quran incident.
A detailed US military investigation showed that up to 100 copies of Quran and other religious texts from a detention center library -- a previously undisclosed figure -- were burned on Feb. 20. The investigation found that warnings from Afghans, including a Afghan soldier, had been ignored and attributed the incident in part to distrust between Americans and Afghans.
"However, I absolutely reject any suggestion that those involved acted with any malicious intent to disrespect the Quran or defame the faith of Islam," the investigating officer, Brigadier General Bryan Watson, wrote.
The question of distrust between American troops and Afghans has come into sharp focus in recent weeks due to a surge of "insider attacks," in which Afghans believed to be friendly turn their guns against US forces. (AFP)

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Four dead, 12 missing as typhoon pounds South Korea

SEOUL: Four Chinese crew members were confirmed drowned and 12 were missing after a strong typhoon battering South Korea pushed their ships onto the rocks Tuesday.
 
Officials issued an alert for almost the entire country as Bolaven -- the strongest typhoon for almost a decade to hit the country -- swept towards flood-affected North Korea.
Scores of flights were grounded, ferry services were suspended and schools in Seoul and several other areas were shut Tuesday, while almost 200,000 homes lost power.
No deaths were immediately reported, apart from at the shipwreck on the southern island of Jeju. Coastguard rescuers swam or waded through storm-tossed seas to link ropes to one of the boats and rescue 11 crewmen, a coastguard spokesman told.
Six others swam ashore of their own accord. One ship was pushed close to shore while the second was broken in two and sank, he added.
Dramatic video footage showed coastguards in wetsuits struggle through high waves to reach the first boat 50 metres (yards) offshore and connect ropes.
Crew members were then seen pulled to safety one after another. The ships were registered in Weihai city in China's Shandong province.
The transport ministry said all 87 sea ferry services had stopped running. A total of 247 flights -- 183 domestic and 64 international -- have been cancelled since Monday.
The typhoon -- packing winds of 144 kilometres per hour (90 miles per hour) -- brought heavy rain and strong winds to southern and western areas. It toppled street lights and signs, shattered windows, uprooted trees, tore off shop signs and even demolished a church spire.
On Jeju, TV footage showed homes with collapsed roofs and uprooted trees.
The US and South Korean armed forces called a temporary halt to a large-scale joint military exercise which began last week.
The weather service said Bolaven was passing over the Yellow Sea west of South Korea and would come closest to Seoul, a city of some 10 million people, around 2:00 pm (0500 GMT).
It was expected to make landfall in North Korea around 6:00 pm. The impoverished North is already struggling to recover from a devastating drought followed by floods earlier this summer.
In the South, the National Emergency Management Agency said 197,751 homes in Jeju and in the southwest and south-central regions had so far lost power.
A total of 54 people, mostly in the southwest, were evacuated from their homes and taken to shelters. Some 16 homes were damaged.
Weather officials said Typhoon Tembin was also threatening the Korean peninsula, moving at a speed of 16 kilometres an hour northward from Taiwan.
Tembin was forecast to be some 200 kilometres west of Jeju early Friday. - AFP

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US arms sales to record $66.3bn in 2011

 WASHINGTON: Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, pumped up by $33.4 billion in sales to Saudi Arabia, but the international arms market is not likely to continue growing, according to a comprehensive new congressional report. 

The United States sold $66.3 billion of weapons overseas in 2011, accounting for nearly 78 percent of all global arms sales, which rose to $85.3 billion in 2011, the highest level seen since 2004. The previous US record was set in 2008, when arms sales reached $38.2 billion, measured in 2011 dollars.
"The extraordinary total value of US weapons orders in 2011 distorts the current picture of the global arms trade market," said the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, calling $66.3 billion in US arms sales "a clear outlier figure."
While Washington remained the world's leading arms supplier, nearly all other major suppliers, except France, saw declines in 2011, according to the annual report prepared for Congress.
France signed arms sales valued at $4.4 billion in 2011, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier, but Russia, the world number two arms dealer saw its sales nearly halved to $4.8 billion in 2011. The four major European suppliers -- France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy -- saw their collective market share drop to 7.2 percent in 2011 from 12.2 percent a year earlier.
Saudi Arabia was the biggest arms buyer among developing countries, concluding $33.7 billion in weapons deals in 2011, followed by India with purchases of $6.9 billion and the United Arab Emirates with $4.5 billion.
Total annual global arms sales ranged between $42 billion and $67 billion in the period from 2004 to 2011, reaching a cumulative total of $467.9 billion in that 8-year period.
A weaker global economy, the European financial crisis and the slow international recovery from the recession of 2008 have dampened demand for new weapons, with many countries putting off or scaling back their purchases, the report found.
Washington, for instance, generates a steady stream of orders for upgrades, spare parts, ammunition and support services from year to year, even when it does not conclude big deals for new weapons systems, the report said.
Concerns about Iran continued to fuel arms sales to the Middle East and especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but India, Taiwan and other Asian countries were important arms buyers as well, said the report, written by Richard Grimmett and Paul Kerr.
Key US weapons sales in 2011 included: - $33.4 billion to Saudi Arabia for 84 Boeing Co F-15 fighters, dozens of helicopters built by Boeing and Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp, $3.49 billion for Lockheed Martin Corp's Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, an advanced missile shield, to the United Arab Emirates, and $940 million for 16 Chinook helicopters built by Boeing, $1.4 billion for 18 F-16 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin, a $4.1 billion agreement with India for 10 C-17 transport planes built by Boeing, and a $2 billion order by Taiwan for Patriot antimissile batteries. - DAWN

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Floods leave 65 dead, 125,000 homeless in Niger

NIAMEY: Heavy flooding in Niger over the past few weeks has killed up to 65 people and left 125,000 homeless.
After appeals from the country's president for international aid, the first supplies, donated by Ireland to Plan International, have now arrived.
The southern Dosso region has been worst affected, with over 10,000 homes destroyed according to the UN.
The capital Niamey was also hit when the River Niger burst its banks, flooding the city's suburbs.
Plan International's Niger director Rheal Drisdalle said on 18-19 August, the river reached levels "not seen since the 1920s".
"As the river has not been this high for a very, very long time, people had built their houses near to the river - and then all the rice paddies along the river have been flooded," he told the BBC.
At last count, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the floods have destroyed 14,000 homes and 7,000 fields of cereal crops across the country.
The West African country is already suffering from severe food shortages caused by recent drought.
President Mahamadou Issou pledged 1,400 tonnes of food and £712,443 in aid for people affected by the flooding, but admitted that it would not be enough and called for international help.
The first international aid - 35 tonnes of supplies on a plane chartered by Ireland - arrived on Sunday.
Drisdalle said the United Nations and other aid agencies were trying to raise funds to send further supplies.
Other West African countries have also experienced higher than average rainfall and flooding this season, including Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Ghana.
ONLINE

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