Egypt Loses Status In Arab World

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S. intelligence community expects Egypt to lose its position as leader of the Arab world.

Instead, the intelligence community expects Saudi Arabia to become the de facto leader of the Arab world after the death or resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

But the National Intelligence Council said the Saudi kingdom has sought to avoid such a role.

"All agreed that Egypt is not the regional leader it once was and that this mantle has fallen to Saudi Arabia," a report on a conference by the intelligence council said.

Somali Islamist group rejects truce plans

MOGADISHU : Hardline Islamists in Somalia rejected on Sunday a ceasefire offer which had been accepted by new President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and vowed to keep up their attacks on government forces.

The president, elected on January 31, reached out to hardliners on Saturday by accepting mediators' requests for a ceasefire and offering to introduce sharia law across the war-torn country.

But Hizb al-Islamiya (Islamic Party), a group of hardline Islamists who claimed bloody attacks in the capital last week, rejected the proposals.

"The information regarding a ceasefire plan between our group and the government is baseless. We will attack the enemy and their stooges anytime we want," spokesman Muse Abdi Arale said.

Ahmed said on Saturday that he had accepted proposals by local and religious leaders mediating between his fledgling government and the hardliners.

"I met with religious leaders and elders and accepted their demand for a ceasefire and reconciliation with the opposition members, and I call on all opposition parties to halt the unnecessary violence," Ahmed told reporters.

"The mediators asked me to introduce Islamic sharia law in the country and I agreed," he added.

However, Arale, the rebel spokesman, said his group had met with the mediators but only discussed plans for a partial withdraw of its fighters.

Foreign and local religious leaders have launched a peace bid to reconcile rival Somali groups and bring an end to their leaders' bickering and rivalry that has blocked numerous attempts to end the conflict.

Ahmed, a former Islamist rebel leader, became president in January following a United Nations-brokered reconciliation between his opposition group and the transitional government.

He pledged to form an inclusive government and reach out to hardline opponents.

But the Islamist forces opposed to UN-sponsored reconciliation bids have launched several deadly attacks against the government and African Union forces in recent days.

At least 30 people were killed last week in the worst clashes since the president was elected on January 31.

Hizb al-Islamiya and the radical Shebab militia are the two main groups opposed to the government in Mogadishu.

The Shebab and other militia have retaken much of southern and central Somalia where they were uprooted by the Ethiopia-backed government forces in early 2007. The tide turned back in their favor when Ethiopia withdrew the last of its forces last month.

Last month, hardliners wrenched control of the south-central town of Baidoa, the seat of the transitional federal parliament.

They also claimed responsibility for a suspected suicide attack against African Union troops in Mogadishu that killed 11 Burundian peacekeepers last weekend.

Ahmed's cabinet, comprising 36 ministers, has relocated to Mogadishu from neighboring Djibouti, where the government was formed. Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdullah Omar said restoring security was its top priority.

The departure of Ethiopian troops has left the under strength AU as the only foreign force in the country, and now the main target for Islamist attacks.

The Horn of Africa state has lacked a central authority since the eruption of a civil war with the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre.

Voting Overseas: For Algeria

Algerian embassies have started a campaign to sensitize nationals living overseas about the presidential elections.

Mainly in France, where a majority of Algerian expatriates live, a large communication and contact plan has been set up for this purpose.

The key message is to vote. Our nationals are invited to cast their ballot and say their word in this historical event to allow Algeria move forward.

Algerian Diplomatic representations all over the world have the same task, make voting easy and attracting.

Overseas polling will start early on April 4 to provide time for voters to move to the polling stations and accommodate their working and living conditions.

NKorea: US must cancel military drill with South

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea demanded Monday that the U.S. call off its annual military drill with South Korea, a report said, as rare talks between the North and U.N. forces ended without clear progress on defusing tensions.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the North made the demand during talks with the U.S.-led U.N. Command at the Korean border village of Panmunjom, held for the first time in nearly seven years. It came amid fears the North is gearing up to test-launch a missile believed capable of reaching U.S. territory.

Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean military official as saying the North warned the upcoming drill would "further stir up" tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The report said the U.N. Command insisted that the exercise — involving 26,000 American troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier — is purely defensive and not preparation for an invasion as the North claims.

North Korea has routinely condemned the regular U.S.-South Korea military drills as preparation for an invasion, although the allies have said they have no intention to attack.

Both the U.N. Command and the South Korean Defense Ministry said they couldn't confirm the report.

The U.N. Command only said the sides discussed "measures to reduce tension and introduce transparency" and agreed to further meetings during a half-hour of talks.

"The UNC welcomed this discussion with North Korea which holds the prospect for building trust and preventing misunderstandings between both sides," the statement quoted the command's chief delegate Maj. Gen. Johnny Weida as saying.

Command spokesman Kim Yong-kyu declined to comment whether the potential missile launch was discussed during the talks.

North Korea had called for the hastily arranged talks last week, saying it wants to discuss ways to reduce tensions, according to the U.N. Command, which monitors a cease-fire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea and the U.N. Command has held 14 rounds of such high-level military talks "when necessary" since 1998, according to command spokesman Kim.

Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest point in a decade, with North Korea bristling over South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's hard-line policy toward Pyongyang. The tensions have intensified in recent weeks amid reports that North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile.

Analysts say communist North Korea also wants to capture President Barack Obama's attention at a time when international disarmament talks with the regime remain stalled.

The North last week called its impending launch a peaceful bid to push its space program forward by sending a communications satellite into orbit and warned it would "punish" anyone who attempts to disrupt its plans.

Neighboring governments believe the satellite claim may be a cover for a missile launch and have warned the regime such a move would invite international sanctions. North Korea, which in 2006 tested a nuclear weapon and unsuccessfully fired a long-range missile, is banned from engaging in any ballistic missile activity under a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Obama is dispatching his envoy for North Korea, Stephen W. Bosworth, to Asia this week to discuss the nuclear dispute. Bosworth plans to meet with officials in China, Japan and South Korea, and will consult separately with Russian officials, the State Department said.

South Korea on Monday named career diplomat Wi Sung-lac, a former head of the Foreign Ministry's North American affairs bureau, as its new top nuclear envoy. Departing envoy Kim Sook has been appointed deputy head of the country's main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service.

The two Koreas remain divided by the world's most heavily fortified border. Although other nations contributed forces during the Korean War, U.S. troops are the only foreign combat forces left on the peninsula. The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea.

Algerian crackdown on terrorism

Algiers - Algerian security forces have killed eight suspected Islamist terrorists in the district of Blida, some 50 km east of the capital Algiers, local newspapers reported on Monday.

The battle between the security forces and a group of armed men suspected of belonging to the terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb occurred early Sunday.

The Algerian interior ministry said that some 120 suspected Islamist terrorists have been killed in Algeria since September 1.

ASEAN TO DISCUSS ROHINGYAS AS PART OF INDIAN OCEAN MIGRANTS

n a separate press conference, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the Leaders also decided that member countries should not pass the Rohingya problem to their neighbors and instead tackle the issue together.

"Myanmar did not mention anything (about Rohingya). We recognized the issue, otherwise it's not good for us," he said.

Asked about human rights and democracy in Myanmar, Abdullah said the meeting did ask Thein Sein about the progress in the country, adding that the issue of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was not brought up.

"But it's better (for media) to ask the Myanmar Prime Minister to talk. I can't speak on his behalf," he said, adding that the Myanmar Government had told Asean during the last Summit in Singapore that it preferred to deal with the United Nations rather than Asean on the matter.

Abdullah pointed out the progress made by UN Special Envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari who had made seven visits to the military-ruled nation.

According to the premier, Myanmar had released 6,000 political detainees as requested by Gambari, who is also the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights.

Beached whales, dolphins rescued in Australia

SYDNEY – Rescuers used jet skis, backhoes and human muscle to save dozens of whales and dolphins stranded on a beach in southern Australia on Monday, officials and news reports said.

The 194 pilot whales and half a dozen bottlenose dolphins became stranded on Naracoopa Beach on Tasmania state's King Island on Sunday evening — the fourth beaching incident in recent months in Tasmania.

Strandings happen periodically in Tasmania as whales go by during their migration to and from Antarctic waters, but scientists do not know why it happens. It is unusual, however, for whales and dolphins to get stranded together.

Chris Arthur, of Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service, said 54 whales and seven dolphins were still alive when the rescue effort began. By late Monday, 48 animals had been returned to the sea by officials and more than 100 King Island residents who had volunteered to help.

Backhoes dug trenches in the sand that allowed water to get close to the whales, as volunteers doused them with water and draped wet fabric over them to keep them cool.

Groups of volunteers used stretchers to lug dolphins into the shallows, and other officials used small boats and a jet ski to pull whales out to sea.

Rescuers were hopeful they would stay away from the shore.

"It's too early to say yet but it's been a very, very positive day," Shelley Davison, a Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

It was not clear why the animals had beached on the island, halfway between Tasmania and mainland Australia. The Examiner, a Tasmanian newspaper, reported that the animals were caught by a very low tide.

In January, 45 sperm whales died after becoming stranded on a remote Tasmanian sandbar, even though rescuers worked for days to keep them cool and wet as they tried to move them back to the open water.

Last November, 150 long-finned pilot whales died after beaching on a rocky coastline in Tasmania. A week earlier, rescuers saved 11 pilot whales among a pod of 60 that had beached on the island state.

Elusive snowy owls congregating in Md.

Multiple sightings reported, a rarity for the area

By KELLEY L. ALLEN • The (Easton, Md.) Star Democrat

OXFORD, Md. -- It's been at least 24 years since the last irruption of snowy owls in Maryland and this year there are at least four on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

The region is lucky to see one snowy owl every four years or so. Bob Ringler, the editor of Maryland Bird Life, a Maryland Ornithological Society publication, has data on the owl's presence that goes back until at least 1876.

Ringler listed five sightings in Talbot County before this year -- one owl at Bailey's Neck in November 1974, one at Sherwood in November 1993, two at Poplar Island in 2001 and one at Poplar Island in November 2003.

"This is probably the first time in Oxford," he said.

The owl showed up Jan. 27 at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory and has attracted birdwatchers from Virginia, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Delaware and one phone call from North Carolina, said Carol McCollough, a research pathologist at the lab.

"This is the first time [since I came to Maryland in 1985] that there's been multiple snowy owls in Maryland," David Brinker of the Wildlife and Heritage Service, Natural Heritage Program said. "This is pretty notable."

"They don't know what we are," Brinker said. "We're just curious things walking around that are too big for them to eat."

Snowy owls are sensitive to food supply and about every four years that supply crashes, which forces the birds south for food. Maryland usually gets one snowy owl in the winters of those irruptive years, and having four in the region is unusual.

The birds Brinker has seen in pictures are most likely teenage males that won't breed this spring. The two seen on Assateague Island, one on Poplar Island and the one in Oxford traveled farther than females, which are bigger and can hold territory better when food is scarce.

"They're essentially teenagers doing what college-aged kids do -- they wander around," Brinker said.

The Oxford owl has wandered about town, with sightings at Bachelor's Point, near Pier Street, by the Community Center and around the lab.

"He's quite loyal to the area, but not to any particular perch," McCollough said.

The owls are used to open habitats, water and coastal areas and like to eat lemmings at home on the arctic tundra, but will eat mammals, fish, birds and eggs.

The winter's first snowy owl came to Assateague about Nov. 10, then one came to Poplar Island, then a second to Assateague right before Christmas, then the one in Oxford. The birds will head back north this month as the weather warms up and the lengthening days cue them to head home.

Hamas demands role in Gaza reconstruction

GAZA -- Hamas said on Monday the West's boycott of the Islamist group would undercut international reconstruction efforts in the Gaza Strip, a cautionary message coinciding with an international donors' conference in Egypt.

Western powers say they will not deal with Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, unless the group renounced violence and recognized Israel.

"To bypass the legitimate Palestinian authorities in the Gaza Strip is a move in the wrong direction and it deliberately undermines the reconstruction," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

International donors were set to pledge at least $3 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority of Hamas rival President Mahmoud Abbas.

Much of the funds will be used to rebuild the Gaza Strip after a devastating Israeli offensive in January, and the United States, a major donor, is adamant none of the money will go to Hamas.

The cash pledges could bolster Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction was driven out of the Gaza Strip by Hamas in fighting in 2007.

Before the start of the donors' conference, Abbas's West Bank-based government made a public call this week to thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip whose houses were damaged or destroyed in the 22-day Israeli campaign.

Kamal Hassouni, a minister in the Palestinian Authority, said that a committee would assess the amount of damage to each house and then banks would reimburse the owners directly. The whole process will take about five weeks, he said.

Hassouni said $348 million of the foreign aid would be used for housing, $119 million for transport services, $266 million for farming and $146 million for industry. About $1.45 billion will support the Palestinian Authority 2009 budget and the rest will fund other government expenses.

Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian factions have been holding Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks. Abbas has said that any unity government would have to accept a two-state solution with Israel, a demand rejected by Hamas.

Speaking at the donors' conference, Abbas called for holding a presidential and parliament election in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in January 2010. Hamas says that according to Palestinian law, Abbas's term as president ended two months ago.

Clinton says no U.S. funds will go to Hamas

By Sue Pleming

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a hard line against the Islamist Hamas group on Monday and said $900 million in U.S. aid for the Palestinians was part of a broader bid for Arab-Israeli peace.

Clinton maintained the former Bush administration's anti-Hamas rhetoric and said no money would go to the militant group Washington says which must recognize Israel, renounce violence and sign up to past Israeli and Palestinian agreements.

"We have worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure our funding is only used where and for whom it is intended and does not end up in the wrong hands," she said. Washington labels Hamas a terrorist organization.

But, in her first foray into Middle East peacemaking, she also made clear President Barack Obama was committed to pursuing an Arab-Israeli peace and the aid package -- about a third of it for Gaza -- was aimed at accelerating those efforts.

"Our response to today's crisis in Gaza cannot be separated from our broader efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace," Clinton told a donors' conference in Egypt held to help the Palestinian economy and rebuild Gaza after an Israeli offensive.

"Only by acting now can we turn this crisis into an opportunity that moves us closer to our shared goals."

Clinton will go to Israel and the West Bank where the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East for the Obama administration, George Mitchell, has been speaking to both sides to assess options for restarting peace talks.

"We will vigorously pursue a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said Clinton, whose husband, President Bill Clinton, failed to secure an elusive peace deal.

However, despite the talk about pushing for peace, when asked if he saw any major shift from the former Bush administration's Middle East polices, Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, replied: "No, I do not think (so)."

It was Clinton's first major international forum in her new job and she had back-to-back meetings with top officials from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, and others. She also shook hands with Syria's foreign minister and chatted for a few minutes.

European diplomats have urged Clinton to press the Israelis to ease restrictions on the border crossings into Gaza, saying the aid will make no difference unless it can get through.

"She will go to Israel and she will certainly make the case that we have been making," said European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner after seeing Clinton along with the quartet of Middle East peacemakers.

QUARTET

No statement was released after the meeting of the quartet, comprising the United States, Russia, the United Nations and EU.

But a senior European diplomat said some European countries were looking at how they could be "more flexible" in dealing with a future Palestinian government that could include Hamas, which won a Palestinian election in 2006.

Palestinian factions are holding talks to try to end the schism between the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank where President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah holds sway, but Clinton said the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of Abbas offered a more peaceful future.

"Not the violence and false choices of extremists whose tactics including rocket attacks that continue to this day, only will lead to more hardship and suffering," she said, in reference to rockets fired by Hamas into the Jewish state.

"For the Palestinians, it means that it is time to break the cycle of rejection and resistance and to cut the strings pulled by those who exploit the suffering of innocent people."

Of the more than $900 million in U.S. funding, which has to be agreed by Congress, $300 million was earmarked to provide humanitarian aid for Gaza after Israel's offensive in December, launched with the stated aim of stopping the rocket attacks.

A goal of the U.S. aid is to shore up the Abbas government.

About $200 million of the U.S. package will help cover budget shortfalls, with $400 million for economic reform and private sector and other projects on the West Bank.

Israeli politicians are also seeking to form a new government and Clinton -- in apparent reference to hawkish prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu -- said Israelis needed to show the Palestinians that there were benefits to negotiating.

Spain faces shift in power in Basque region

By DANIEL WOOLLS
The Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — Spain's Socialists on Monday savored the prospect of governing the troubled Basque region for the first time, after scoring big electoral gains at the expense of nationalists who have held power there for nearly 30 years.

No party won a majority in Sunday's voting for the 75-seat legislature in the prosperous northern region that borders France and has been wracked by decades of separatist violence. And it will probably take weeks of negotiations before a new Basque government is formed.

But there is no doubt of a major power shift in Spain's most turbulent region.

For the first time since the Basque country won broad autonomy in 1980, lawmakers who support keeping it firmly within Spain now narrowly outnumber those who back outright independence or depict it as a country within a country, with a distinct language and culture, rather than just another part of Spain.

In the last legislature, President Juan Jose Ibarretxe's ruling Basque Nationalist Party led a minority coalition that totaled 32 seats but survived due to periodic support from other parties, including one that refuses to condemn the armed separatist group ETA. Altogether, they surpassed non-nationalist parties.

On Sunday, the ruling party again won the most seats and even gained an additional one — for a total of 30. But no openly pro-ETA party was allowed to run Sunday, so the ruling party lost that cushion.

The Basque branch of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists made big gains, going from 18 to at least 24 seats. If the Socialist party reaches a deal with other non-nationalist parties — mainly the conservative Popular Party — it will command the 38 seats needed to rule.

Basque Socialist leader Patxi Lopez claimed the right to try to form a government and be the next Basque president.

"I have a mandate to bring about change," Lopez told cheering supporters.

Jose Blanco, the number two official in the Socialist party, said Monday the party would prefer to govern in a minority, relying on support from other non-nationalists but without giving them ministerial posts in the regional government.

But it is not a given that Lopez will try to strike a deal with Spain's conservatives, since the parties are archenemies at the national level. The Socialists could also team up with the Basque Nationalist Party — but it is not clear which party would get to name the regional Basque president.

"I think the (two parties) will reach a political agreement, even if it means the Basque Nationalist Party has to sacrifice the current president," said Ana Murillo, a 35-year-old office worker in Bilbao, the region's largest city.

In another election Sunday, Zapatero's Socialists lost their slim hold on power in the northwest Galicia region, a traditional Popular Party stronghold. The Socialist leader there, Emilio Perez Tourino, resigned Monday to take blame for the defeat.

Suicide bomber kills four at Pakistan seminary

Islamabad - A suicide bomber attacked an Islamic seminary in Pakistan's south-western province of Balochistan on Monday, killing four people and injuring five others, said an official. The bomber, who also died in the attack, struck soon after the regional chief of an Islamic party concluded his address at the seminary in Pishin district, some 60 kilometres north of provincial capital Quetta.

Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani, the provincial head of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and a former member of the national parliament, escaped the explosion.

The bomber blew himself up when he was stopped by security guards from entering the maddrassa, said Maulvi Agha Mohammad, a JUI member of federal parliament.

One of the injured is believed to be in a critical state.

"I spoke to Maulana Sherani. He is safe and sound and has reached Quetta," he said over phone from Pishin. "He had left madrassa 20 minutes before the suicide attack took place."

The motive of the attack was not clear. Almost all the suicide attacks in recent years in Pakistan have been carried out by the militant groups linked with Taliban and JUI is a pro-Taliban Islamic political party.

The locals arrested two suspects who were armed with assault rifles following the strike, Urdu-language the Express News television reported.