N. Korea ditches nonaggression pact with S. Korea

By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said Friday it is ditching a nonaggression pact and all other peace agreements with South Korea, in an apparent attempt to use the threat of an armed clash to press Seoul to give up its "confrontational" stance.

The communist nation also said it will no longer respect a disputed sea border with the South, raising the prospect for an armed clash along the Yellow Sea boundary — the scene of deadly skirmishes between the two navies in 1999 and 2002.

South Korea said it regretted the North's latest move and warned it won't tolerate any attempt to violate the border.

Analysts said Pyongyang's threats could signal it is preparing for an armed confrontation, but only as a way of ratcheting up the pressure on Seoul to get the neighbor to soften its hard-line stance — and attracting President Barack Obama's attention.

"This signals that North Korea will stage a provocation" — probably near the maritime border, said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.

The isolated regime could then use the threat of an armed clash to pressure Seoul to change course with the North, said Yang Moo-jin, an expert at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

But Kim added that any skirmish would be limited in scale and intensity because Pyongyang is aware that serious deadly clashes would irreparably harm relations with Seoul — and Obama's new administration, whose attention the North is seeking, he said.

A Defense Ministry official said the military has stepped up vigilance along the land and sea borders with the North. The official, who declined to give his name citing department policy, said more guard posts have been installed along the land border, but could not offer details about what's been done on the sea border.

Yonhap news agency said the navy deployed a warship near the maritime boundary and strengthened radar and other surveillance systems. The ministry official said he was checking the report.

The two Koreas technically remain at war because their brutal, three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. The peninsula remains divided by a heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, with thousands of troops stationed on both sides of the border.

Relations had warmed considerably over the past decade, with Seoul's liberal leadership adopting a "sunshine policy" of extending aid to the impoverished North as a way to facilitate reconciliation.

But South Korea's current president, conservative Lee Myung-bak, has not committed to accords signed by his predecessors — a stance Pyongyang says proves his hostility. The regime cut off reconciliation talks soon after he took office nearly a year ago.

Lee has refused to give in to the pressure, saying he will "wait" until Pyongyang agrees to return to the reconciliation talks.

On Friday, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea — a ruling Workers' Party organ in charge of ties with Seoul — declared all past peacekeeping accords with the South "dead," claiming Lee is escalating tensions with the regime.

"The group of traitors has already reduced all the agreements reached between the North and the South in the past to dead documents," the committee said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

The statement specifically mentioned a nonaggression pact that the two sides signed in late 1991 pledging not to invade each other and to seek peaceful unification. The so-called Basic Agreement has served as a basis for future peace accords, such as summit agreements signed in 2000 and 2007.

It also said the maritime boundary off the divided peninsula's west coast will be "nullified."

The U.S.-led United Nations Command unilaterally drew the Yellow Sea border, also known as the Northern Limit Line or NLL, at the end of the war — but Pyongyang claims it should be redrawn farther south.

"The position of our military on the NLL is firm," Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said. "If the North violates it, we will sternly respond to that."

The latest verbal attack from Pyongyang comes as both Koreas watch to see how Obama's North Korea policy takes shape.

After eight years of icy relations with the Bush administration, Pyongyang hopes to have improved relations with Obama, analysts say. Obama has said he would be willing to meet with Kim Jong Il if it advances the effort to disarm the North of its nuclear capabilities.

Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said the government regretted the North's move and urged the regime to defuse the tensions through dialogue.

The Defense Ministry said its troops remain on alert, though there have been no unusual moves by the North's military.

Earlier this month, the North's military accused the South of preparing to wage war and said it had adopted an "all-out confrontational posture" to rebuff any southern aggression.

Seoul denied plotting any attack on the North.

North Korea, which tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, signed a pact in 2007 with five other nations — the U.S., South Korea, Japan, Russia and China — agreeing to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for aid.

That process has been stalled since August, and talks in Beijing in December failed to get the process back on track.

Hamas dispenses politics along with aid to Gazans

By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer

JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip – The aid money from Hamas came with a heavy dose of politics. A Hamas Cabinet minister carried a carton stuffed with checks worth nearly $2 million into a Gaza tent camp pitched on the ruins of the Salam neighborhood, close to the Israeli border.

But before hundreds of homeless residents could collect, they had to listen to a political speech. Social Affairs Minister Ahmed al-Kurd told them Israel's military machine was defeated and that the Hamas government would rebuild their neighborhood bigger and better.

"There's a lot of talk," resident Zayed Khader, 45, said after the speech, as he waited for his name to be called so he could pick up relief checks worth a total of $6,000 for his family of nine. "When I see them actually building my house, I'll say these are good words."

Israel's three-week war on Gaza's Hamas rulers ended 10 days ago, but many here complain that political maneuvering — both between Hamas and its moderate West Bank rivals, and in the international community — is slowing the delivery of urgently needed aid to Gaza.

Israel and Egypt have not significantly eased their blockade of Gaza since a shaky cease-fire took hold Jan. 18, aid officials say.

A lifting of the blockade, a key Hamas demand, is being held up because of slow-moving negotiations over the terms of a durable truce.

Israel says it will only open the gates if Hamas halts weapons smuggling under international supervision. Egypt has said that on its border with Gaza, it will only deal with forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and not with troops from Hamas, Abbas' rival.

In the meantime, thousands of tons of supplies are not reaching Gaza, said John Ging, the top U.N. aid official in the territory. "The ordinary people here in Gaza are not getting enough help and are not getting it quickly enough," Ging told reporters this week.

Israel said U.N. trucks are given priority at crossings into Gaza and denied aid was getting stuck. "Over 40,000 tons of aid have entered Gaza since the cease-fire and that is despite ongoing Hamas rocket attacks," said Peter Lerner, an Israeli military official.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency is the biggest aid organization in Gaza. It is responsible for 1 million refugees and their descendants, out of a population of 1.4 million. Its initial war emergency budget was $100 million, and on Thursday it filed an aid appeal for $613 million.

But without a deal to open the devastated territory's borders, it wasn't clear the appeal would do much good. More than two dozen trucks loaded with food, aid and goods intended for Gaza were stranded on the Egyptian side of the border Thursday.

"There are thousands of tons of assistance generously donated, sitting in Egypt, Jordan and also in the ports in Israel," Ging said. "That aid should be right here, right now, helping the people who need it."

In recent days, UNRWA expanded food aid, with some 900,000 Gazans now getting rations of flour, oil and sugar. On Thursday, each of 200,000 students in UN schools received about $25.

During the war, U.N. schools sheltered 50,000 displaced Gazans, and the agency is paying nearly $150 to each family to try to find another place to stay.

UNRWA operates independently of the Hamas government, and the Islamic militants have been careful not to interfere with U.N. aid programs. However, Hamas has insists on supervising the projects of foreign and local volunteer groups.

On Thursday, government representatives took charge of a tent camp pitched in the Salam neighborhood of the town of Jebaliya, near Israel.

Dozens of tents stood on a newly cleared lot, ringed by the rubble of houses that had been demolished or badly damaged by Israeli forces. Hundreds of residents, now homeless, milled around, chasing rumors about the size of the eventual aid payment as they waited for other deliveries. Two U.N. trucks eventually dropped off 460 mattresses and 2,540 blankets.

The camp was divided into an area for residents and a fenced off compound for official business, with bearded Hamas police in black uniforms standing guard. In the administration tent, equipped with a computer, the chiefs of the 10 local clans presented lists and ID card numbers of family members to prove their aid claims.

By mid-afternoon, two Hamas Cabinet ministers arrived to the sound of Hamas marching music, carrying a cardboard box with 332 white envelopes. Each envelope held two checks totaling $6,000, to enable each family to buy food and supplies — after they heard al-Kurd, the Cabinet minister, deliver his speech on the Gaza victory.

But many are skeptical.

As a result of the border blockade, imposed after Hamas seized Gaza in June 2007, there are barely any building supplies, such as concrete, window glass and aluminum. Without a full opening of the border, the rebuilding of thousands of homes is impossible, Ging has said.

Jumma Dardona, whose nearby three-story family house has been rendered uninhabitable, fears he'll live in a tent for a long time. "No one knows the accurate period," said Dardona, 34, as he cut firewood behind the last row of tents, his 6-year-old son Mohammed by his side.

Dardona and several others in Salam said they want Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement to put aside their rivalries. They say the infighting is one of the main reasons for the misery of Gaza civilians. "As long as they fight, I feel I am lost," said Dardona, who served as a policeman before the Hamas takeover.

However, Abbas' government has not been visible among the aid groups, sidelining him even further in the eyes of many Gazans.

He still pumps huge sums into Gaza every month, paying the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants and police, like Dardona. But his promised $3.5 million for the families of the dead — according to Gaza health officials nearly 1,300 — has not been disbursed, in part because Gaza banks suffer from a shortage of bank notes, another fallout from the closure.

Hamas, which smuggles cash through border tunnels instead of using bank transfers, has no problems with distribution.

Khader watched Thursday's bustle of Cabinet ministers, bodyguards and aid deliveries with disdain. He said he has told visiting Hamas politicians that the civilians are the losers and that they oppose continued rocket fire on Israel — the attacks that triggered the war.

"It's all hot air," he said of the officials' promises. "What do they care if my house is bombed?"

Iraqis to vote in al Qaeda's last stronghold

By Tim Cocks

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – An election in two days in Iraq's most violent province, where al Qaeda and other insurgents are making a last stand, could bring Sunni Arabs back into power and ease resentment that has fueled the bloodshed.

Iraqis vote on Saturday for the first time since 2005 in a provincial poll that is likely to redraw the political map almost six years after the U.S-led invasion triggered sectarian violence that killed tens of thousands.

The stakes are high in Nineveh in the north, an ancient battleground between rival ethnic and religious groups, which is majority Sunni Arab but some of which Kurds claim as their own.

Sunni Arabs boycotted the last provincial polls in 2005, leaving them with only 10 out of Nineveh's 41 council seats, despite making up 60 percent of the population. Kurds control 30 seats, despite being just a quarter of the population.

The imbalance has helped feed an insurgency mounted mostly by Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein. They are expected to turn out in large numbers to elect the 37 council seats being contested this time.

"The (Sunnis) of Nineveh will take part because they see the problems that ensued from not taking part last time," Mohammed Shakir, head of the local arm of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said.

Tensions are rising between Kurds and Arabs in Iraq just as the sectarian war between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims eases.

While much of the country enjoys its best security in years, Nineveh is struggling to shake off a determined insurgency.

On Thursday, a Sunni candidate in the provincial capital Mosul, Hazem Salem Ahmed, was gunned down in front of his home, at least the second candidate to be killed there.

Al Qaeda regrouped in Nineveh in 2007 after being driven out of former strongholds in Baghdad and western Iraq.

"We're expecting that al Qaeda will try to create violence to cause disruption," said Major Karl Neal, head of U.S. military intelligence for Nineveh. "Mosul is al Qaeda's last stand."

SUICIDE BOMBERS MAY ATTACK

The streets of Mosul, a ruined city home to two-thirds of Nineveh's 2.6 million inhabitants, are lined with rubble and flanked by bombed-out or half-finished buildings.

Power comes on four hours a day. Raw sewage spews into the Tigris river. On one street, children played by a flock of sheep grazing on a festering pile of trash.

"I hope the elected will take care of us and not just make empty promises," said Satar Ibrahem al-Dabbagh, who runs Mosul's al-Salaam hospital. "We need medicines, equipment, vaccines."

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, speaking to local officials and tribal leaders on a visit to Mosul, blamed the poor state of Mosul's services on the relentless violence and called for wide participation in Saturday's vote to bring citizens together.

"We will send a message to those who think Iraq is divided along ... ethnic and sectarian lines," he said.

Some in Nineveh see past such differences. "I'm from Kurdistan and I have never felt unwelcome here," said Omar Salam, a young soldier.

U.S. officials say a dozen other groups, including secular nationalists or remnants of Saddam's Baath party, are fighting in Nineveh in addition to al Qaeda.

Neal said they may stay quiet so as not be seen to be thwarting a return of Sunni Arabs to power in Nineveh.

One party hoping for success is al Hadba, a new bloc that includes former Baathists. Atheel al-Nujaifi, the party's head, himself once a Baathist, is campaigning against the U.S. occupation but also against violence. He is likely to do well.

Nujaifi accuses Kurdish Peshmerga fighters of intimidation.

"When the Kurds realize they are losing power, they are not going to be reasonable. They will want to hold on," he said.

Others in Mosul are disturbed by such rhetoric.

"He talks of ridding Mosul of Kurds. That would be ethnic cleansing," said Mosul Mayor Abdul Aziz al-Aaraji, part of the Shabak minority. "If he wins, he'll have to work with Kurds."

Al-Qaeda suspect shot dead in Istanbul: report

ISTANBUL (AFP) – A suspected Al-Qaeda militant was killed and three others captured here Thursday in a shootout with the police, Turkish media quoted Istanbul governor Muammer Guler as saying.

The shootout broke out after the four suspects attempted to rob a post office in Istanbul's suburb of Sultanbeyli.

"The incident occurred during a pursuit targeting the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization," Guler told reporters, according to Anatolia news agency.

He explained that police had intelligence of a planned robbery at the post office and had already taken position at the building when the group arrived.

"When they saw the police, the members of the organization opened fire at them," Anatolia quoted the governor as saying.

"The police responded with fire and as a result one person was killed and three others captured, one of them injured," he said, adding that the investigation into the incident was continuing.

In earlier remarks carried by Anatolia, Guler described the suspects as "either robbers or suspected members of an illegal organization."

A Turkish cell of Al-Qaeda was held responsible for four suicide bombings in Istanbul in November 2003, the deadliest terrorist attacks in Turkey so far.

The suicide drivers detonated truck bombs first at two synagogues, and five days later at the British consulate and a British bank, killing a total of 63 people, including the British council, injuring hundreds and causing massive destruction.

In 2007, seven men were jailed for life over the bombings, among them a Syrian man who masterminded and financed the attacks.

In August, police arrested 11 people in the southeastern provinces of Bingol and Mus on charges that they had set up a group -- the Muslim Vengeance Brigade -- to carry out bomb attacks on behalf of Al-Qaeda in Turkey.

Prosecutors said five of them were trained and indoctrinated in Afghanistan and returned to Turkey to organize attacks.

NATO-led troops killed around 100 civilians in Afghanistan in 2008

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan killed around 100 civilians in 2008, said the alliance on Wednesday.

"In 2008 NATO-ISAF was responsible for 97 -- let's say, around 100 -- civilian casualties (deaths)," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters.

In contrast, the Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents killed 973 civilians last year, he said.

These figures are based on an assessment by the military with the help of a new tracking system, said the spokesman.

The figures are not supposed to be 100 percent accurate as civilian deaths are difficult to track given the fact that there are neither birth certificates, nor death certificates in the country and that the dead are buried quickly according to tradition in Afghanistan, noted Appathurai.

NATO-ISAF was ordered to take new measures last December to minimize civilian casualties as they were affecting popular support for ISAF in Afghanistan.

In a "tactical directive" issued by ISAF Commander Gen. David McKiernan on Dec. 30, 2008, the NATO troops were told to show respect for the Afghan people, their culture, religion and customs.

Commanders were ordered to ensure troops are properly trained to minimize the need to resort to deadly force. They were also asked to demonstrate proportionality, restraint and utmost discrimination in engagement.

NATO troops were ordered to conduct combined operations with the Afghan security forces as much as possible. All searches and entries of Afghan homes, mosques, religious sites or places of cultural significance must be led by Afghan security forces unless there is clear and identified danger from such a place.

Erdogan hailed after Davos walkout

Turkey's prime minister has returned home from the World Economic Forum in Davos to a warm welcome after he stormed out of a debate over Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.

More than 5,000 people, many waving Palestinian and Turkish flags, greeted Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his airplane touched down early on Friday.

Erdogan walked out of a televised debate on Thursday with Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, after the moderator refused to allow him to rebut Peres' justification about the war.

Before storming out, Erdogan told Shimon Peres, the Israeli president: "You are killing people."

At least 1,300 Palestinians were killed during Israel's 22-day aerial, naval and ground assault on Gaza. Thirteen Israeli citizens died over the same period.

'No return'

During the heated panel discussion in the Swiss town, Peres told Erdogan that Turkey would have acted in the same manner as Israel if rockets had been falling on Istanbul.

Moderator David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, then told Erdogan that he had "only a minute" to respond to a lengthy monologue by Peres.

Erdogan said: "I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. There have been many people killed. And I think that it is very wrong and it is not humanitarian."

Ignatius twice attempted to finish the debate, saying, "We really do need to get people to dinner."

Erdogan then said: "Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I don't think I will come back to Davos after this."

Peres told reporters after the incident that Israel is not in conflict with Turkey.

"I don't see this as a personal or national problem. The relations can remain as they are. My respect [for him] hasn't changed. It was an exchange of views and views are views," he said.

Hamas, which has de facto of the Gaza Strip after pushing Fatah fighters out of the territory in June 2007, commended Erdogan for his action.

"Hamas pays tribute to the courageous stand of Turkey's prime minister ... who in Davos directly defended the victims of the criminal Zionist war against our children and women in Gaza," Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said on Friday.

"We consider his departure from the room an expression of support for the victims of the holocaust carried out by the Zionists."

'Understandable'

Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League and former Egyptian foreign minister, who was also in the debate, said Erdogan's action was understandable.

"Mr Erdogan said what he wanted to say and then he left. That's all. He was right," he said, adding that Israel "doesn't listen".

Turkey has in recent months brokered indirect talks between Israel and Syria over the Golan Heights region, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.

The exchange between Erdogan and Peres took place on the second day of the summit, where business and political leaders have been discussing trade, financial regulation and global security.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, used the forum to announce the launch of an emergency appeal for $613m to help Palestinians recover from Israel's attack on Gaza.

But Gareth Evans, the president of the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that Erdogan's walk-out was "deeply depressing".

"I thought the tone of the debate had been reasonably moderate up until Shimon Peres laid some heavy-duty stuff on the line, in a very uncompromising and rather un-Peres like fashion," he said.

"In particular, what was depressing was Peres' utter unwillingness to acknowledge the real significance of the Arab peace initiative and to respond to Erdogan and Amr Moussa, saying how important it is that Israel formally say that the plan is a major step towards peace.

"Turkey was Israel's best friend in the Muslim world. I think Israel has to come to grips with the fact that it has alienated a very large proportion of the world's population."

Gaza appeal

The UN secretary-general said he had been deeply moved by his visit to Gaza and that he had given his word that the UN would help the Gazans in their hour of need.

He said the appeal for funds covered the requirements of the UN and other aid organizations for the next six to nine months.

Ban said it would help provide aid such as medical care and clean water and that an appeal for longer-term needs would be launched later.

Asked about achieving peace in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's Likud party who was attending the forum, swiftly turned his answer to Iran, which he said was in a "100-yard dash" to get nuclear weapons.

While he did not specify any planned military action, Netanyahu said if Iranian rulers were "neutralized", the danger posed to Israel and others by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in south Lebanon would be reduced.

Meanwhile, Manouchechr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, who is also in Davos, said Tehran had taken note of the intention of Barack Obama, the US president, to withdraw troops from Iraq and believed he should also pull troops out of Afghanistan.

Mottaki told a panel at the forum that Obama had "courage" to say which of the policies of George Bush, the former US president, he disagreed with and said his approach marked a "milestone" away from an era of "might equals right".

Abdul the Taliban, on the hunt for American 'infidels'

KABUL (AFP) — Abdul Shafiq is around 30 years old and has sacrificed his family life for two things: reading the Koran and fighting.

After years in exile following the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, this Taliban commander is back in the mountains of his birth, having left behind his old life with his family for one mission: chasing out the "infidel" Americans.

It takes several cups of tea in a house next to a snowy hill, somewhere in southern Kabul, before the fighter with a thin face and the features of a Pashtun from southern Afghanistan, agrees to tell his story.

Abdul Shafiq -- an assumed name -- looks like any other Afghan, except that he has never been as unhappy as in times of peace.

He wears a long cream shirt and leather jacket; his hair and beard are thick and black, his clear brown eyes sparkle as brightly as his silver Pashtun cap dotted with shiny plastic beads.

In hiding in Kabul, he rarely spends two nights in the same place, taking a break before returning to the fight.

In the mountains, he heard of new US President Barack Obama "who will change nothing" and of Palestine "where something is happening".

His future seems set: "As long as the Americans are here, we will fight them," says the Taliban militant, whom AFP could only meet through local intermediaries.

This year should be a challenging one for Shafiq: up to 30,000 new US troops are expected in Afghanistan under a major new strategy led by Obama, with several thousand headed to Shafiq's home province.

Born and raised in Wardak, adjacent to Kabul, he entered an Islamic school aged 13 for several years of instruction under teachers he remembers as Arabs with a strict interpretation of religion.

In 1994 he joined the Taliban as they prepared to march on Kabul at a time when the country was engulfed in civil war between former anti-Soviet factions, the mujahideen (holy fighters).

When the extreme Islamist group finally won control of the capital in 1996, "everyone was happy to see the Taliban -- good Muslims -- put an end to the killing, the rape and the theft of the mujahideen," Shafiq says.

Then aged 18 and with some education, on top of his two years' service with the Taliban, he could have taken a job with the new administration.

But Shafiq preferred to continue fighting, traveling to the north to take on the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, a bitter enemy of the Taliban. "Some good fighters. We respected them," he recalls.

It was in the northern mountains that he heard, over Taliban combat radio, on September 11, 2001 that planes sent by Al-Qaeda, had struck at the heart of the United States.

"That was beautiful, delicious to hear, everyone was happy," the warrior says with a smile.

But when the United States invaded Afghanistan the following month, Shafiq and his comrades soon realized they could not withstand the deluge of US bombs and fled. Some went to Pakistan. Others, like Shafiq, went west to Iran.

The Iranian government and the Taliban may have little in common, but they shared virulent opposition to the United States.

Iran took in Taliban in their thousands, according to Shafiq. He stayed there for four years, without guns and without combat. He was despondent.

"I didn't want to do anything," the fighter remembers.

"Anyway, I didn't know how to do anything except fight. We read the Koran but life wasn't that interesting."

At the start of 2006, Afghanistan elected a new parliament. In Kabul, the US army, sure of itself, branded the Taliban finished.

It was then that Shafiq slipped quietly home to Wardak. "They told us that the Americans were stopping the Taliban much less," he says.

He took charge of a group of 30 men who lived on the move, going from one safehouse to another, he says.

Even before then, the Taliban started to regroup. "Everything is structured. The orders come from our leaders in Pakistan," Shafiq says. He is less forthcoming about how they obtained weapons and money.

In villages crowded with unemployed men tired of US bombings and disappointed by international aid that never arrived, Taliban rhetoric slamming the American "invaders" who "plunder Muslim soil" won some support.

Others fell in with insurgents to enrich destitute lives with stolen goods gained from ambushes targeting trade convoys.

Whether "old" or "new" Taliban, many take liberties with the Islamic dogma of war which bans kidnapping for ransom or taking civilians prisoner.

Claiming to be a fighter for Islam above all, Shafiq hardly ever sees his wife and three children, under five. He condemns television as "against Islam" and has never used the Internet.

When it comes to the war, he calls suicide attacks a "good weapon" and says they should avoid harming civilians -- which they almost most never do.

Hezbollah chief made a televised speech on "Freedom Day"

Chief of Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah Hasan Nasrallah made a televised speech on the occasion of "Freedom Day" on Thursday, the al-Manar TV reported.

During his speech on "Freedom Day," a day celebrated by Hezbollah to mark the freedom of their hostages from Israeli jails, Nasrallah denounced the Egyptian regime for continuing to close the Rafah crossing with Gaza, "the closure of Rafah crossing is a historical crime."

He expressed doubts over the Egyptian role of mediating between the Palestinians and the Israelis, saying "I doubt that the (Egyptian) regime is an honest mediator because it works on imposing the conditions of others on the Palestinians."

Nasrallah also denounced "the rude" statements made by some European officials against the Palestinians in Gaza, and stressed that "the previous and decisive stand of the United States and Europe is represented by their full support to Israel, and all its crimes."

He vowed that revenging the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah military commander who was killed in a Damascus car bombing in February last year, "was never behind us," adding that the response would be "to punish those who killed him and safeguard the others."

Hezbollah had accused the Israeli intelligence service of carrying out the assassination.

"The investigations proved that the Israeli Mossad is responsible for the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh," Nasrallah reaffirmed.

He said that any war with Israel will be "costly" to the Israeli capabilities.

"We remain a resistance ready to defend Lebanon, we will not leave the circle of conflict with Israeli, and shall stand to the enemy," Nasrallah pledged.

"Israel failed politically and militarily in Gaza as in Lebanon," he said, adding that "those who did not recognize the victory in Lebanon will not recognize it in Gaza for the same reasons."

Nasrallah called on the Lebanese government to reveal the fate of the four Iranian diplomats who were kidnapped in Lebanon in 1982 by the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) militia during the civil war. Israel claimed that they were killed by the LF, while Hezbollah believes they were handed over to Israel.

Hezbollah fought a devastating 34-day war with Israel in summer 2006, and had pledged to keep its arms as long as Israel posses a threat in the region.

Hezbollah: Obama same as Bush on Israel

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Lebanon's Hezbollah leader said Thursday there is no difference between Barack Obama and George W. Bush when it comes to Israel, and that the new U.S. administration has so far shown full support for the Jewish state — Hezbollah's archenemy.

The remarks were the first comments by the reclusive Sheik Hassan Nasrallah since the Jan. 20 inauguration of the new U.S. president. Although a militant group, Hezbollah is today also a political force and a partner in the Lebanese government with veto power over all decisions.

"The conduct of the new administration when it comes to Israel is ... one of absolute support," Nasrallah said, speaking via videolink from his hiding place. "I have not sensed until now that there is any difference between the two (U.S.) administrations."

He also denounced Israel's 22-day offensive on the Gaza Strip, claiming Israel failed to achieve its target of routing out militant Palestinian Hamas from the coastal strip. Hezbollah is a Hamas ally, and both are supported by Iran and Syria.

Nasrallah went into hiding at the onset of the July 2006 Israel-Hezbollah and has rarely been seen since in public, fearing assassination.

Belgium to take command of UN maritime forces in Lebanon

Belgium will take command of the naval maritime forces, a part of UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), after France's command expires at the end of February, local Naharnet website reported Thursday.

UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane said that the French 6-month command ends on Feb. 28, and will be turned over to Belgium.

"As a result of the leadership transfer, several changes will be made to the contribution of different countries to UNIFIL naval forces," Bouziane was quoted as saying.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Wednesday that France will pull out two warships from UN forces off south Lebanon coast "because the security risks are no longer as intense."

UNIFIL naval forces patrol Lebanese territorial water in accordance to UN resolution 1701 which ended the Hezbollah-Israeli war in 2006, and are in charge of preventing any arms smuggling into Lebanon.

The Germans were the first to command the maritime forces, followed by the Italians and then the French.

Stormy debate in Davos over Gaza

The Turkish prime minister has stormed out of a heated debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos over Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of the televised debate on Thursday, after the moderator refused to allow him to rebut the Israeli president's justification about the war that left about 1,300 Gazans dead.

Before storming out, Erdogan told Shimon Peres, the Israeli president: "You are killing people."

Peres told Erdogan during the heated panel discussion that he would have acted in the same manner if rockets had been falling on Istanbul.

Moderator David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, then told Erdogan that he had "only a minute" to respond to a lengthy monologue by Peres.

Erdogan said: "I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. There have been many people killed. And I think that it is very wrong and it is not humanitarian."

Ignatius twice attempted to finish the debate, saying, "We really do need to get people to dinner."

Erdogan then said: "Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I don't think I will come back to Davos after this."

'Understandable'

Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League and former Egyptian foreign minister, said Erdogan's action was understandable.

He said: "Mr Erdogan said what he wanted to say and then he left. That's all. He was right," adding that Israel "doesn't listen".

The exchange took place on the second day of the summit, where business and political leaders have been discussing trade, financial regulation and global security.

After grappling with a bleak global economy on the opening day, leaders attending the forum switched to debates on the new administration in the United States and unrest in the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Kamal Nath, India's trade minister, warned that the global economic crisis could fuel protectionism to safeguard national industries and jobs.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, used the forum to announce the launch of an emergency appeal for $613m to help Palestinians recover from Israel's attack on Gaza.

Protectionist fears

Nath said that India saw growing signs of protectionism and would respond with its own measures if its exporters were threatened "which will be good for no one."

He said: "We do fear this because one must recognize that at the heart of globalization lies global competitiveness, and if governments are going to protect their non-competitive production facilities it's not going to be fair trade.

India has raised tariffs on steel to protect local producers, a measure trade experts say was aimed at China, which India does not regard as a market economy.

The deepening economic crisis, and the failure to complete the World Trade Organization's long-running Doha round on freeing up global commerce, have raised fears that countries will block their partners' exports to protect jobs at home.

Such protectionism, if it led to tit-for-tat retaliation, would intensify the current crisis.

Emerging economies

The economies of India, China and Russia, which have been experiencing rapid growth in recent years, have taken precedence at the forum.

Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University, said emerging markets are almost overshadowing the importance of the US economy.

"What is really striking to me about this Davos, is the lack of a sense of a new beginning with Barack Obama," he told Al Jazeera.

"That is not what we've been hearing about in the last 24 hours, we've been hearing about China, about Russia, about India, about emerging economies, and that I think is a very significant fact.

"It's not just the American investment banks that have gone down, it's America's own soft power, and ability to lead that has been badly damaged by the crash."

Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Egypt's minister of trade and industry, said there would be a rush towards emerging markets.

"People understand today that there will not be growth in developed countries for a long time to come, the growth will continue to be in emerging markets, even more than before," he told Al Jazeera.

Gaza appeal

The UN secretary-general said he had been deeply moved by his visit to Gaza and that he had given his word that the UN would help the Gazans in their hour of need.

He said the appeal for fund covered the requirements of the UN and other aid organizations for the next six to nine months.

Ban said it would help provide aid such as medical care and clean water and that an appeal for longer-term needs would be launched later.

Asked about achieving peace in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's Likud party who was attending the forum, swiftly turned his answer to Iran, which he said was in a "100-yard dash" to get nuclear weapons.

While he did not specify any planned military action, Netanyahu said if Iranian rulers were "neutralized", the danger posed to Israel and others by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in south Lebanon would be reduced.

Netanyahu said the global financial meltdown was reversible but "what is not reversible is the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a fanatic radical regime".

Meanwhile, Manouchechr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, who is also in Davos, said Tehran had taken note of the intention of Barack Obama, the US president, to withdraw troops from Iraq and believed he should also pull troops out of Afghanistan.

Mottaki told a panel at the forum that Obama had "courage" to say which of the policies of George Bush, the former US president, he disagreed with and said his approach marked a "milestone" away from an era of "might equals right".