Palestinians forced to seek work in Israel

by Joseph Krauss

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Every day they sneak into Israel by the dozens under the eyes of the soldiers at checkpoints -- a stream of Palestinian labourers from the occupied West Bank desperate for work.

"We are always looking for new methods -- if the Israelis crack down on refrigerated lorries we use ambulances, if they start stopping ambulances we use hearses," says Abu Ali, a smuggler who granted a rare interview to AFP on the condition his real name and the name of his village be kept quiet.

Sometimes it's a simple question of timing -- Abu Ali claims he once sneaked 97 workers across in the luggage compartment of a bus because it passed through a checkpoint at dusk, when the sun was in the soldiers' eyes.

The covert commute testifies to the economic despair in the occupied West Bank and calls into question Israel's claim that its controversial separation barrier keeps Palestinians from entering clandestinely.

The vehicles are driven by Israelis, either Jews or Arabs, who are part of smuggling rings that straddle the boundaries of the conflict and often include Jewish settlers, soldiers and bribed checkpoint officials, Abu Ali says.

He charges around 50 dollars per person, but says he pockets less than 10 of it, with the rest paying the other people involved in the ring.

The sheer number of workers using his services has allowed him to build a new three-storey house and made him one of the wealthier residents in his village.

Israeli police have arrested more than 16,000 undocumented Palestinian workers since the start of the year, releasing the vast majority after a few hours, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

"Our units respond immediately, number one because of the possibility of terror infiltration. But in a majority of cases the suspects claim they are coming in for work purposes," he says.

Abu Ali insists he would never help an aspiring suicide bomber to enter for fear of being caught by Israeli security forces. "The Israelis catch them before they ever leave the West Bank 95 percent of the time," he says.

The labourers who sneak in can make up to 50 dollars a day at construction sites and factories in Israel, up to four or five times what they would make in the West Bank, where work is scarce.

"The economic situation is so desperate in the Palestinian territories that people are willing to endure all kinds of hardships to enter," says Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Long dependent on employment inside Israel and its settlements, the Palestinian economy was sent into a tailspin with the restrictions on movement of goods and people Israel imposed on the West Bank after the second Intifada, which erupted in September 2000.

Before that, some 146,000 Palestinians were working inside Israel or the settlements, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Today, only 45,000 Palestinians have permits to work either inside Israel or in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the army says.

In 2008, unemployment in the Palestinian territory stood at 20 percent and gross domestic product (GDP) grew by around four percent, according to the IMF.

"The need for work is always going to be greater than the fear of getting caught and what will be done to you," says Michaeli.

Her rights group says border police frequently abuse workers caught trying to sneak in, which Michaeli says is in part meant as deterrence as the legal system cannot handle the large numbers of violators.

"Theoretically you could detain them, but the system would collapse," she says. "The police and the border police develop their own methods to deal with it, and these include violence, humiliation and other unlawful means."

Last month B'Tselem documented an incident in which Israeli border police halted a poorly-ventilated refrigerator lorry packed with more than 60 workers and refused to let anyone out for more than two hours.

"It was horrible," said one man who was involved. "I felt as if I was suffocating and couldn?t breathe. The policemen didn't let anybody go out, and they didn't bring us water, even though we asked repeatedly."

The workers eventually used their cell phones to alert rights groups.

Rosenfeld said authorities investigate all accusations of abuse, but that in the vast majority of cases the smuggled people are quickly sent back to the West Bank.

Workers smuggled into Israel usually stay for a week or two at a time, facing more hardship as they hide from authorities and hope they are not turned in by their employers. Many sleep in abandoned houses, factories, or outside in construction sites.

"They might work for a day or even a week and not get any money. And they make much less than minimum wage" of 3,850 shekels per month (992 dollars, 704 euros), says Roy Wagner of Kav LaOved, an Israeli organisation that runs a hotline for undocumented labourers.

Wagner estimates the number of illegal labourers currently working matches or exceeds the 45,000 who have permits, which are generally given only to older men with children and no record of security-related offences.

And the permits can be revoked at any time.

"There are no transparent criteria and that allows the security services to extort the workers into cooperation," Wagner says. "People lose their permits for things like traffic violations or for reasons they never find out about."

Abid, a tile-worker and former "client" of Abu Ali, recently managed to acquire an entrance permit.

The 44-year-old, who asked that his full name not be used for fear of losing his permit, was arrested more than a dozen times when he was sneaking in but says he had to keep entering in order to support his five children.

Now as a legal worker he makes his way to the checkpoint every morning at 4:00 am to stand in line so he can be at work near Tel Aviv by 8:00.

"I would prefer to enter with the smugglers," he says with a smile. "Now every time I go through I have to get a full-body X-ray. That can't be healthy."

Ban on Al-Jazeera operations in West Bank lifted

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian authorities on Sunday allowed Al-Jazeera to resume operations in the West Bank, four days after banning the Arab satellite station over a report linking President Mahmoud Abbas to the death of his legendary predecessor, Yasser Arafat.

Correspondent Walid al-Omari said he received a phone call from Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad informing him of the decision.

But Al-Omari said Fayyad told him his government would still press ahead with a lawsuit against the Qatar-based station for alleged incitement.

Last week, an Al-Jazeera talk show hosted an exiled official in Abbas' Fatah movement who alleged the Palestinian leader played a role in the death of Arafat in 2004.

The official, Farouk Kaddoumi, a longtime rival of Abbas, did not present evidence. The incident exacerbated existing tensions between the station and Abbas' Palestinian government, which has long complained that Al-Jazeera sides with its political rivals, the Islamic militants of Hamas.

On Wednesday, the day of the decision, Al-Jazeera employees were seen frantically piling files into black garbage bags and carrying them out with video cameras, computers and other equipment before Palestinian security officials closed the office. Al-Jazeera's Qatar headquarters issued a statement saying the station "has maintained strict, professional journalistic standards."

The Palestinian Authority initially planned on suspending the station's operations while the lawsuit was pending, government official Jamal Zakout said Sunday, but then decided against it, "so it would not be understood that there would be tightening of freedoms because that was not the goal."

At midmorning Sunday, it was not immediately clear whether the station had resumed West Bank operations.

In shutting Al-Jazeera down, Abbas risked picking a fight with one of the most potent shapers of Arab public opinion.

For Al-Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news station, the brief closure represented only the latest clash with a Middle Eastern government. Iraq has expelled it and Saudi Arabia only let it resume work recently after a long ban. Israel has often clashed with the station, but allows it to operate freely.

The 75-year-old Arafat fell violently ill in October 2004 at his West Bank compound. He was transferred to a French hospital where he died several weeks later.

Palestinian leaders have never given a definitive cause of death, and many Palestinians accused Israel of poisoning Arafat. Israel denies the allegations.

Israel rejects US call to halt Jerusalem project

By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM – Israel on Sunday rejected a U.S. demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem, threatening to further complicate an unusually tense standoff with its strongest ally over settlement construction.

Israeli officials said the country's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department over the weekend and told that a project being developed by an American millionaire should not go ahead.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in "unified Jerusalem."

"We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn't be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem," Netanyahu declared, calling Israeli sovereignty over the entire city "indisputable."

The international community considers Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to be settlements and an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Israel does not regard them as settlements because it annexed east Jerusalem in 1967 after capturing it in June of that year.

East Jerusalem is an especially volatile issue because it is the site of key Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites. The Palestinians want the traditionally Arab sector of the city to be the capital of their future state.

"If the Israeli prime minister continues with settlement activities, he will undermine efforts to revive the peace process," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

According to Army Radio, the U.S. has demanded that planning approval for the project be revoked.

The approval, granted by the Jerusalem municipality earlier this month, allows for the construction of 20 apartments plus a three-level underground parking lot.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy had no immediate comment.

Settlements have emerged as a major sticking point in relations between Israel and Washington under the Obama administration.

The Palestinians have been encouraged by Washington's insistence that Israel freeze all settlement construction on lands in east Jerusalem and the West Bank that the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, in addition to about 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.

The Palestinians say the Israeli presence makes it increasingly difficult to establish an independent state in these areas. They have refused to restart peace talks until Israel halts all settlement expansion, something the Israeli government has refused to do.

The east Jerusalem project is being developed by Irving Moskowitz, an influential supporter of Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem who purchased the Shepherd Hotel in 1985 and plans to tear it down and build apartments in its place.

The hotel is located near a government compound that includes several government ministries and the national police headquarters.

West ignores lessons of Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan

Its Afghan war spelt disaster for the USSR and now Nato is making the same mistakes

Soviet forces lost 15,000 men in their nine years in Afghanistan

Victor Sebestyen

"There is barely an important piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another," the commander said. "Nevertheless, much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centres, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory that we seize."

He added: "Our soldiers are not to blame. They've fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land, where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills."

They could have been the words of a Nato general in the past few days. In fact they were spoken by Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, commander of Soviet armed forces, to the USSR's politburo in the Kremlin on November 13, 1986.

The Soviet forces were in the seventh year of their nine-year war in Afghanistan and had lost about 12,000 men. Akhromeyev, a hero of the siege of Leningrad in the second world war, had been summoned to explain why a force of 109,000 troops from the world's second superpower appeared to be humiliated, year after year, by a band of terrorists.

Akhromeyev explained about the rough terrain, insisted the army needed more resources - including additional helicopters - and warned that without more men and equipment "this war will continue for a very long time".

He concluded with words that sound uncannily resonant today, in the eighth year of Nato's war: "About 99% of the battles and skirmishes that we fought in Afghanistan were won by our side. The problem is that the next morning there is the same situation as if there had been no battle. The terrorists are again in the village where they were - or we thought they were - destroyed a day or so before."

The Soviet campaign in Afghanistan is a largely forgotten war. Few strategists from Russia or the West seem to think anything can be learnt from it. But study Soviet archives and many lessons become clear.

As the world was not watching, the Soviet troops could be brutal, yet massive air raids and the destruction of villages, which killed 800,000 Afghans, did not work. Tactics changed over the years, each time accompanied by a "surge" of new troops that temporarily improved security for the Russian-backed communist government in Kabul.

Much of the fighting was in places that have become familiar to us. Soviet troops were sent on sweeps in the most troublesome areas on the border with Pakistan, through which most of the guerrillas' weapons flowed, and the southern provinces of the country, such as Helmand. As soon as they left their fortified bases, the troops were in danger of ambush from bands of mujaheddin - the army of God.

That war, like today's, was characterised by disputes between soldiers and politicians. As newly revealed Russian documents show, the Communist party bosses ordered the invasion against the advice of senior commanders. This caused continual friction in Moscow for many years.

Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, the chief of the Soviet defence staff, and Akhromeyev, his number two, raised doubts shortly before Soviet forces were dispatched on Christmas Day 1979. They suggested to Dmitri Ustinov, the defence minister, that the experiences of the British and tsarist armies in the 19th century should encourage caution.

Ustinov told them to "shut up and obey orders", according to politburo minutes.

Ogarkov went further up the chain of command to Leonid Brezhnev, the party boss. He warned that an invasion "could mire us in unfamiliar, difficult conditions and would align the entire Islamic East against us". He was cut off in mid-sentence.

"Focus on military matters," he was told. "Leave the policy making to us and to the party." Not long afterwards the marshal was fired.

The Soviet troops realised soon after they entered Afghanistan that they had blundered, but Kremlin officials felt trapped. When Mikhail Gorbachev became leader in March 1985 he declared privately that ending the war - "our bleeding wound" - was his priority. But he could not do so for fear of losing too much face. Withdrawing the troops took a further four years as they searched for that difficult prize for armies on the run: peace with honour.

It was an agonising process that marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire and eventually the USSR itself. "How to get out of this racks one's brains," Gorbachev despaired to his fellow Soviet magnates in the spring of 1986. He told his generals later that year: "After all this time we have not learnt how to wage war there."

When the last troops left on February 15, 1989, about 15,000 of their comrades had been killed. It was the only war the USSR lost. To Gorbachev, one vital issue was how to "spin" it correctly. As he wrote to his key aides during the last phase of the retreat, presentation was key: "We must say that our people have not given their lives in vain," he said.

Spacewalk Day: Astronauts install new porch on lab

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Astronauts working inside and out installed a porch for experiments on Japan's enormous space station lab Saturday, accomplishing the major objective despite microphone static that often drowned out the spacewalkers' voices.

Veteran spaceman David Wolf and rookie Timothy Kopra could barely make themselves understood at times because of the loud static emanating from Kopra's helmet microphones.

"Dave, you're unreadable," astronaut Christopher Cassidy called from inside the shuttle-station complex.

Two hours later, it was no better. "It's hard to follow along with this comm," Cassidy said, looking for clarification on what the spacewalkers were doing. The trouble lasted the entire 5 1/2-hour spacewalk, the first of five planned during Endeavour's space station visit.

Mission Control officials said it was a challenge to monitor the 220-mile-high action, especially with so many people in orbit — a record crowd of 13. But they said the static never threatened safety.

The problem apparently was with the two microphone booms in the cap worn by Kopra under his helmet. The booms were too far from his mouth — he could not move them once his helmet was on — and the ventilation flow created all the static. The booms may have been bumped as he was putting on his helmet.

This was Kopra's only spacewalk for the mission, so the airwaves should be much quieter when astronauts step back outside Monday.

"Listening to the static throughout the whole (spacewalk) tends to wear you out more than you would expect," said Kieth Johnson, the lead spacewalk officer in Mission Control. "But I think we made it through."

Despite the nerve-racking racket, the spacewalkers managed to prep the Kibo lab — Hope in Japanese — and the new porch for their mechanical hookup. Wolf removed a cover from the lab and tossed it overboard; the white cover drifted away, flipping end over end.

The spacewalkers then moved on to other routine work at the international space station as their colleagues inside used the shuttle and station robot arms, one at a time, to lift the Japanese porch from Endeavour's payload bay and hoist it toward the Kibo lab. The spacewalk was over by the time the porch was finally latched in place.

It marked the completion of Japan's $1 billion lab, so big that it required three shuttle flights to launch everything. The first two sections of the lab flew up last year.

The veranda — about 16 feet square — will get its first outdoor experiments in five more days.

Mission Control's congratulations to Wolf and Kopra, as they headed back inside, could hardly be heard because of the static. In the end, the two fell behind and had to skip some chores. They managed to free a platform for spare parts that jammed months ago, using a specially designed tool. But they did not have time to release a similar platform on the opposite side of the outpost.

With Apollo 11 on the minds of many back on Earth, NASA noted that Saturday's spacewalk was the 201st by Americans since those first steps on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin 40 years ago this Monday.

Remaining inside the linked shuttle and station were 11 astronauts, a full house. The station population swelled to 13 when Endeavour arrived Friday for a 1 1/2-week stay. Kopra, the station's newest resident, will remain on board for another 1 1/2 months.

Earlier Saturday, Mission Control had both good and bad news for the spacefarers.

The good: Endeavour looks to be in fine shape for re-entry at the end of the month, although a review of shuttle photos and other data continues. A surprisingly large amount of foam insulation came off Endeavour's fuel tank during liftoff, but the shuttle ended up with just 16 minor scuff marks on its belly.

The bad: The astronauts were informed of Walter Cronkite's death. Mission Control relayed statements by Armstrong and NASA's new chief, ex-astronaut Charles Bolden, both of whom noted Cronkite's passion for human space exploration.

Indonesia police reconstructing face of suicide bomber

By Sunanda Creagh and Ed Davies

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian police said on Sunday they were reconstructing the face of one of the suspected suicide bombers from a severed head in a bid to push forward a probe into deadly attacks on two luxury Jakarta hotels.

Nine people died and 53 were wounded in Friday's attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, according to police. The two hotels were popular with business executives and diplomats and considered to be among the most secure buildings in the capital.

The blasts, which are suspected of being carried out by Islamic militants, left some bodies so badly mutilated they were difficult to identify and two decapitated corpses were believed by police to belong to the suicide bombers.

"We are trying to reconstruct the face of one of the heads we found to see if it matches the guest from 1808. We will ask witnesses and receptionists, is it him?," police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a news conference.

Police said the bombers had checked in to the Marriott as paying guests on Wednesday and had assembled the bombs in their room. A third bomb was found and defused in a laptop computer bag in room 1808.

Soekarna said the attacks bore the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the radical militant Islamist group responsible for a string of deadly attacks in Jakarta and on the resort island of Bali that seemed to end in 2005.

"The method, the equipment used is the same as both bombs in Bali and the one found in Cilacap," he said referring to the Bali attacks in 2002 and 2005, and bomb equipment police recently found during raids in Cilacap, Central Java.

Ansyaad Mbai, head of the anti-terrorism desk at Indonesia's security ministry, said the attacks may be linked to a fugitive Malaysian-born militant Noordin Top, who is believed to have broken away from JI to form a more radical wing.

Mbai was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara that the government was stepping up efforts to find Noordin Top, who has been linked to a string of attacks, as priority.

Sidney Jones, a Jakarta-based expert on Islamic terrorism at the International Crisis Group, also said that the attacks had the hallmarks of Noordin Top.

"The most important hallmark is the suicide bombing as a method of attack and also the targeting of iconic Western symbols, both of those are associated more with Noordin than with mainstream Jemaah Islamiah," Jones told Reuters in an interview.

Malaysia's New Sunday Times newspaper cited an unnamed senior police source as saying that although the attacks bore Noordin Top's hallmark, intelligence reports indicated that he was not involved.

Security was increased at shopping malls and hotels across Jakarta at the weekend.

The Four Seasons Hotel in Jakarta was briefly evacuated on Sunday morning after a bomb scare, although guests were later allowed to return after a search, a receptionist said.

Elshinta radio reported that the hotel had received a telephone call warning of a device planted on the 18th floor.

The casualties of Friday's attacks included citizens of Indonesia, the United States, Australia, South Korea, the Netherlands, Italy, Britain, Canada, Norway, Japan and India.

The blasts are a severe blow for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was re-elected earlier this month in a landslide victory on the back of strong growth in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

Member of Malaysia ruling coalition joins opposition

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – A senior member of Malaysia's ruling Barisan Nasional coalition has quit over its alleged abuse of power and the mysterious death of an opposition leader's aide.

Former health minister Chua Jui Meng, 66, of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), which is the second largest party in the Barisan Nasional, Saturday joined opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's Keadilan party.

"Today I announce that I am resigning as a member of MCA. Now I announce I am joining PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat)," Chua said in a statement late Saturday. Chua had been a member of the MCA for 33 years.

"We see the abuse of power in the use of the federal institutions to harass, persecute and prosecute the leader of the opposition," he added, in reference to Anwar's sodomy trial.

Anwar has rejected the sodomy allegations leveled by a 23-year-old former aide as a conspiracy to derail his plan to topple the government.

Khoo Kay Peng, an independent political analyst, told AFP Sunday that Chua's defection was a "big blow" to the MCA.

"It is a big blow to MCA. Chua is a charismatic leader. His defection will not only help woo votes to the opposition but also build voter confidence for the Pakatan Rakyat opposition alliance," he said.

Khoo said the Pakatan coalition has a fair chance to advance its gains in the next polls due in 2011 if the three coalition partners enhance cooperation.

After seizing control of a third of seats in parliament, it is now vowing to unseat the Barisan Nasional coalition -- which has ruled Malaysia for half a century -- in the next general elections.

Chua in his speech also said that the sudden death of a young opposition political aide, Teoh Beng Hock, became the tipping point in his decision to join Keadilan.

"The tragic death of 30-year-old Teoh Beng Hock is the consequence of one such institution going overboard in its action," he added.

Teoh, an assistant to a member of the state cabinet in Selangor, which is ruled by the Pakatan Rakyat opposition alliance, apparently plunged from the 14th floor of anti-corruption offices.

His body was found on Thursday sprawled on the roof of an adjacent building, after he had undergone questioning late into the night at the offices of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

The opposition has demanded a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the death.

Police said an initial autopsy confirmed the cause of death was multiple injuries caused by a fall from a high place. They have not ruled out foul play.

Meanwhile, an ethnic Indian activist who was held under a tough security law for mounting an anti-discrimination rally in 2007, launched a political party to champion the rights of marginalized people.

"Human Rights Party is an Indian-based multiracial party. UMNO is our enemy due to its gross injustices against minority ethnic Indians," P. Uthayakumar told AFP.

"We would also struggle against all forms of racial discrimination by the UMNO-led government," he added. Uthayakumar, 48, was freed in May.

Ethnic Indians, who make up less than eight percent of the 27 million population of the mainly Muslim-Malay country, say they fare badly in terms of education, wealth and employment opportunities.

There are already half-a-dozen ethnic Indian-based political parties in the country but most are aligned to the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) which leads the Barisan Nasional coalition in government.

US offensive reflects uneasy run-up to Afghan vote

by Ben Sheppard

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan (AFP) – A month before polls in Afghanistan, campaigning has been scarce in the southern Helmand river valley where US Marines are fighting insurgents for control of the key region.

Landmines have closed main roads while frightened villagers have abandoned their homes despite a major US military offensive designed to ensure safe conditions for presidential and provincial council elections on August 20.

The vote comes after the hardline Taliban movement -- driven from power by the US-led invasion eight years ago -- has re-emerged since as a potent insurgency force that increasingly threatens security.

Multi-national efforts to foster stability have struggled to make progress, with the top US military commander Admiral Michael Mullen admitting last week that security had deteriorated progressively over the last three years.

In southern Helmand province, where most of the opium that funds the insurgency is grown, villagers told AFP that they broadly supported the foreign troops' attempts to defeat the Taliban.

"The Taliban just walk into our homes and demand food and money," said one village elder speaking through an interpreter employed by the US military.

"They close schools and we can't disobey them as they will torture and kill us. We support what the US troops are doing but they point their guns at our children, who cannot go outside to play."

The man said he wanted to vote in the elections but that registration cards had not arrived at his mud-walled village in the Garmsir district of Helmand.

He spoke during a week in which a Marines' unit was hit by a series of deadly IED (improvised explosive devices) planted on the dirt road immediately outside the village.

"They are not local people," he said of those behind the bombings, without giving further details.

All residents living close to where the US Marines stopped for the night fled their houses, fearful that the troops' presence would attract violence -- rather than provide security.

The battle for control of Helmand is in contrast to the widespread optimism about Afghanistan's future in the years after the fall of the Taliban.

In 2005 George W. Bush, the then US president, described democracy in Afghanistan as "flourishing" and expressed hope that it and Iraq would show the way ahead for what he called the "greater Middle East" -- including Iran.

Barack Obama, his successor, has carved out a more specific US mission in Afghanistan that focuses on bringing stability to prevent the country from becoming a haven for terror groups such as Al-Qaeda that threaten the West.

When the latest US operation against the Taliban swung into action in Helmand on July 2, Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said it would "set conditions for the elections in the river valley."

"The aim is to improve things to a level where (voter) registration can take place," he told AFP, though he warned that gaining people's trust and finally transferring security responsibilities to Afghan forces would take time.

Western troops are expected to keep a low profile on polling day itself, leaving visible security in the hands of the Afghan police and army personnel who are being trained up to take over in the long term.

The 4,000 Marines air-lifted into Taliban-held areas of south Helmand have met only sporadic resistance and have often received a positive response from local leaders who wish to see the extremists driven out, the military says.

However the difficulties faced by the NATO-led coalition were emphasised by the experiences of the US Marine convoy with which AFP travelled in the province last week.

Its attempt to clear a 30-kilometre (19-mile) route of IEDs ended in failure with the convoy returning to base after seven days of repeatedly being hit by IED blasts, including one which killed two Marines.

The Taliban threatened to target elections in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005, though violence was relatively limited during the polls.

They have so far avoided making direct threats against next month's elections.

Hamid Karzai, the current Afghan president, is seen as the favorite to win having secured strong political alliances despite complaints about the slow pace of development and allegations of corruption within his administration.

AP sources: Taliban video shows captive US soldier

By PAMELA HESS and LOLITA BALDOR, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban.

Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier. The video provide the first glimpse the public has had of the missing soldier.

The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript, gray outfit. Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier's dog tag up to the camera. His name and ID number are clearly visible. He is shown eating at one point and sitting cross-legged.

The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier's family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban.

The soldier said the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.

He is interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on the war, which he calls extremely hard, his desire to learn more about Islam and the morale of American soldiers, which he said was low.

Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video:

"Well I'm scared, scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner."

He begins to answer questions in a matter-of-fact and sober voice, occasionally facing the camera, looking down and sometimes looking to the questioner on his left.

He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his girlfriend.

"I have my girlfriend, who is hoping to marry," he said. "I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America. And I miss them every day when I'm gone. I miss them and I'm afraid that I might not ever see them again and that I'll never be able to tell them that I love them again and I'll never be able to hug them."

He is also prompted his interrogators to give a message to the American people.

"To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home," he said. "Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power."

The video is not a continuous recording — it appears to stop and start during the questioning.

It is unclear from the video whether the July 14 date is authentic. The soldier says that he heard that a Chinook helicopter carrying 37 NATO troops had been shot down over Helmand. A helicopter was shot down in southern Afghanistan on July 14, but it was carrying civilians on a reported humanitarian mission for NATO forces. All six Ukrainian passengers died in the crash, and a child on the ground was killed.

On July 2, the U.S. military said an American soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner. A U.S. defense official said the soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on June 30 and was first listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown."

Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.

But Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan from an American base. The region is known to be Taliban-infested.

The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings including the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60 people. The Haqqani group also was linked to an assassination attempt on Afghan president Hamid Karzai early last year.

On Saturday, a U.S. military official in Kabul, Col. Greg Julian, said the U.S. was "still doing everything we can to return him safely."

Julian said U.S. troops had distributed two flyers in the area where the soldier disappeared. One of them asked for information on the missing soldier and offered a $25,000 reward for his return. The other said "please return our soldier safely" or "we will hunt you," according to Julian.

China says police killed 12 in Urumqi rioting

By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – Chinese police killed 12 people during July 5 rioting in the western city of Urumqi, officials said — a rare acknowledgment by the government that security forces opened fire in the worst ethnic clashes to hit the region in decades.

The unrest began when a peaceful protest by Muslim ethnic minority Uighurs turned violent after it was stopped by police. The Uighurs went on a rampage in the capital of Xinjiang province, smashing windows, burning cars and beating Han Chinese, the nation's dominant ethnic group.

Two days after the first rioting, vigilante groups of ethnic Han took to the streets and attacked Uighurs.

Xinjiang Governor Nur Bekri said police shot the "mobsters" on July 5 after first firing warning shots, according to a report late Saturday by the official Xinhua News Agency. He apparently did not say which ethnic group the "mobsters" belonged to.

"The police showed as much restraint as possible during the unrest," Bekri was quoted as saying, adding that many police officers were injured and one was killed.

An official surnamed Wu from the Xinjiang regional government information office confirmed the report Sunday. Wu could not say if those killed by police were Uighurs or Han Chinese.

The governor said three of them died on the spot and nine died after treatment failed.

The government first acknowledged that its security forces had opened fire more than a week after the rioting started, when police shot dead two Uighurs and wounded a third July 13. An Urumqi official said the Uighurs started fighting with police after officers tried to stop them from attacking a fellow Uighur.

In Saturday's Xinhua report, Bekri also said the death toll from the unrest had risen to 197. The government had previously said the rioting killed 192 and injured 1,721. Most of the dead were Han Chinese.

The initial protest was centered on calls for an investigation into the June 25 deaths of Uighur factory workers killed in a brawl with Han Chinese in the southern city of Shaoguan. State media reports said two people died.

Graphic photos, however, soon spread on the Internet purportedly showing at least a half dozen bodies of Uighurs with Han Chinese standing over them, arms raised in victory.

Authorities accuse Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent exiled Uighur activist, of inciting the unrest. They have not provided evidence, and Kadeer, who lives in the U.S., has denied it.

Bekri said authorities had received information about the July 5 protest beforehand but had not expected such violence to erupt.

"We could never imagine that the mobsters were so extremely vicious and inhumane," he said in the report, adding that the government believed the rioters had prepared weapons such as rods and stones in advance for use in coordinated attacks. "We really didn't expect that."

In a separate report Saturday, Xinhua said the rioters appeared to have been well-organized, saying weapons were gathered in advance and that the agitation occurred all over the city.

Xinhua cited the local public security department as saying it received reports that rioters had attacked people and property in more than 50 places across the city.

It also said the city's telephone system collapsed under the weight of calls for help.

Urumqi residents have complained that the authorities' response was too slow, with police arriving in some places six hours after the violence began.

Like foreign bases

Philippine Daily Inquirer

UNDER our laws, foreigners or non-Philippine nationals may purchase condominiums, buildings, and enter into long-term land leases. Prior to 1935, foreigners could own land. Before World War II, Japanese land leases in Davao became a hot political issue and led to the passage of the Immigration Act, still in force today.

But since the 1935 Constitution came into force, it has been an established economic and social justice principle of all our basic laws that land ownership should be restricted to Filipinos only.

Last March, President Macapagal-Arroyo said China was interested in leasing 1.2 million hectares of land. This land area alone equals the alienable and disposable public land that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had declared, back in 1993, to have been surveyed and ready for redistribution under land reform. And the President has kept at peddling public lands for foreign leases. Last December, during her visit to Qatar, the President announced the government would explore the idea of leasing at least 100,000 hectares of agricultural land to the emirate.

The blunt global reality is this: rich countries have no space to plant food or crops for industrial uses; and so, they are aggressively leasing lands in poorer countries to secure resources for themselves. To give just two examples, Kuwait in August last year granted a $546-million loan to Cambodia in exchange for crop production; South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics in November last year announced it would invest about $6 billion to develop 1.3 million hectares in Madagascar for palm oil and corn plantations.

Talking to Focus on the Global South, Rep. Walden Bello called this development “an intersection of corrupt governments and land-hungry nations.” Bello said large government-sponsored leases are “particularly explosive in those countries where you have a high degree of landlessness, like the Philippines where seven out of 10 rural people do not have access to land.”

To compound the problem, government seems to be exercising only nominal control over the process. Recently, there were reports that Jeonnam Feedstock Ltd., a company owned by the southwestern province of South Jeolla in South Korea, had leased 94,000 hectares of farmland in Mindoro for 25 years to grow 10,000 tons of corn a year for feed production. The deal ended up bogged down in confusion. The national government confessed it didn’t know there was such a deal.

To be precise, the Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp. (PADCC) a government corporation attached to the Department of Agriculture, which is tasked with identifying suitable lands for agribusiness development and assisting prospective investors keen on forging joint venture deals with local farm groups and companies, told the Inquirer it had never heard of the deal. The best the PADCC could do was to say an alphabet soup of agencies ranging from the DENR to the National Food Authority of the DA would have to give their OK, too, if ever.

But one thing is sure: however dubious the present circumstances in Mindoro may be, the deal wouldn’t have been explored in the first place by either of the two Mindoro provincial governments if it weren’t in keeping with the declared policies of the national government. And this is a government that had to be shoved, kicking and screaming, to continue the unfinished business of land reform.

An unholy alliance of conservative landowners and radical sectoral representatives tried to derail the passage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper) altogether; but when the proponents of Carper proved they had the votes, the radical representatives were abandoned by conservative politicians who recognized they couldn’t be seen as opposing farmers in an election year. From that perspective it’s obvious that the government hopes it can sideline land reform by leasing lands to foreign governments and corporations.

This is a policy tantamount to leasing lands for foreign military bases without Senate concurrence; its implications for our food security and in terms of social justice are as deep – but this one is being pushed purely on the initiative of the chief executive.