Report: Cheney felt Bush stopped taking his advice

WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Dick Cheney believes his old boss, President George W. Bush, gradually turned away from his advice during their second term in the White House, showing a surprising independence as he started taking more flexible positions on a range of issues, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Cheney, often described as the most influential vice president in U.S. history, has been discussing his years in office in informal talks with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues, the Post said, as he works on a memoir due out in 2011 from Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions.

Robert Barnett, who negotiated Cheney's book contract, passed word to potential publishers that the memoir would be packed with news, said the article published on the Post Web site, and Cheney himself has said, without explanation, that "the statute of limitations has expired" on many of his secrets.

The book will cover Cheney's long career from chief of staff under President Gerald Ford to vice president under Bush.

"When the president made decisions that I didn't agree with, I still supported him and didn't go out and undercut him," Cheney said, according to Stephen Hayes, his authorized biographer. "Now we're talking about after we've left office. I have strong feelings about what happened. ... And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views."

According to the author of the Post piece, Barton Gellman, who earlier wrote a book on Cheney called "Angler," the former vice president believes Bush made concessions to public sentiment, something Cheney views as moral weakness. After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end, Gellman says.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," Gellman quoted a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming."

The Post quoted John P. Hannah, Cheney's second-term national security adviser, as saying Cheney remains driven, now as before, by the possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons from a nation hostile to the U.S.

What is new, Hannah said, is Cheney's readiness to acknowledge "doubts about the main channels of American policy during the last few years," a period encompassing most of Bush's second term.

China "regrets" WTO audio-visual ruling, may appeal

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) – China, defending its controls on imported films and books, said on Thursday it may appeal a World Trade Organization ruling against its restrictions, continuing its sparring with Washington over trade access.

The Ministry of Commerce said China "felt regret" the WTO had upheld a U.S. complaint about its import monopolies, which Washington says hurts publishers, Hollywood and entertainment multinationals.

"China will conscientiously assess the ruling report of the expert panel and does not exclude the possibility of appealing on China's points of concern," the ministry said in a statement.

"The channels for foreign publications, films and audio-visual products entering the Chinese market are extremely open."

China's ruling Communist Party maintains a sprawling apparatus of propaganda and censorship to control television, publishing, entertainment and the Internet. While the country's mass media have become increasingly commercial, the state keeps a wary, if sometimes unsteady, grip.

The WTO disputes panel said China could not use its censorship goals to justify trade barriers that violate WTO rules, U.S. officials said.

"That's not going to go down at all well in these precincts," David Wolf, a Beijing-based business consultant who advises media and communications companies, said of the WTO ruling.

"China has always been adamant that trade in goods with cultural or political significance should be treated differently."

Whatever eventually emerges from the WTO process, Beijing was unlikely to really ease its controls on products it fears could corrode that Party's controls on culture, said Wolf.

"Here there's considerable wiggle room to ostensibly open the market while applying restrictions," he said.

Tire DISPUTE

If China appeals against the ruling, it will add to the trade disputes pitting Beijing against Washington.

President Barack Obama must decide by September 17 whether to restrict imports of car and light truck tires from China in a case that could unleash a flood of requests from other industries if he gives the nod.

The U.S. trade deficit with China totaled $103 billion in the first half of 2009, down 13 percent from last year but still a source of tension between the two.

The WTO panel said on Wednesday that China's import and distribution regime for books and films breaks international trade rules, as well as the terms of China's entry to the WTO in 2001, and should be revised.

The ruling follows one earlier this year that China had not done enough to enforce intellectual property rights, although that decision gave a partial victory to China by rejecting the U.S. contention that Chinese rules make prosecution of piracy near-impossible.

China is also increasingly assertive in pressing trade complaints at the trade body.

The ruling did not reject the import quota of 20 foreign films per year that goes through China Film, a state company, and it accepted China's right to keep out foreign films and publications if it finds them objectionable.

But it said "China Film can no longer be the monopoly importer," which would create other possible film import channels into China, a U.S. official said.

"The United States film industry won a major victory in its years-long battle to open the Chinese movie market today," Dan Glickman, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Among the Hollywood films recently shown in China are "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra." But many Chinese people watch such films on pirate DVD copies sold for a fraction of the price of a cinema ticket.

The case, dating to 2007, also involved products such as books and newspapers, audio and video products including CDs, DVDs and video games, and music download services.

The panel findings called on China to allow U.S. companies to partner with Chinese enterprises to distribute sound recordings over the Internet.

Either side can appeal the ruling within 60 days and the case would be heard by a higher appellate body, which can uphold or reverse all or part of the ruling.

The WTO ruling could potentially affect how foreign video game companies operate in China.

U.S. video game titans such as Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard and Take Two Interactive, are not allowed to operate games directly in China, or through joint ventures with local firms. They instead license games to local operators or co-develop games with local firms.

But the WTO ruling was unlikely to overcome China's determination to govern the virtual landscape, said Dick Wei, vice president of equity research with JP Morgan in Hong Kong.

"They really need to understand Chinese culture," Wei said of the foreign companies.

At least 53 dead in major battle in Philippine south

MANILA (Reuters) – A battle pitting Philippine troops against Muslim guerrillas on a remote southern island killed at least 53 people, the military said on Thursday, but analysts said the clash is unlikely to have sidelined the rebels.

Soldiers killed at least 30 guerrillas during an assault on Wednesday on a base of Abu Sayyaf rebels in the interior of the southern island of Basilan, Brigadier-General Rustico Guerrero, marine commander, told reporters.

"Based on this one incident alone, it would be premature to make a conclusion on the neutralization of the Abu Sayyaf," Mars Buan, an analyst at the Pacific Strategies and Assessments risk consultancy, told Reuters.

"In the past, the Abu Sayyaf has suffered bigger number of casualties, but it has remained as one of the serious threats in the south."

Twenty-three soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded in eight hours of fighting, Guerrero said, describing it as one of the biggest battles since 2007, when 15 soldiers and 40 rebels were killed on Basilan.

"We launched a decisive law enforcement operation targeting the Abu Sayyaf's main training base on Basilan, but we were met by heavy resistance," he said.

The guerrillas fled into the island's heavily wooded interior, said Rear Admiral Alexander Pama, navy commander on Basilan. Security forces on Thursday resumed pursuit operations against remnants of the 150-man rebel group.

"It was close quarter combat, the two sides almost came into hand-to-hand battle," Pama told Reuters. He said the proximity meant the military could not call in air strikes.

"What's more important for us was we've disrupted their crude bomb factory and training base."

UNHOLY ALLIANCE

Analysts expected intensified operations against the Abu Sayyaf, but foresaw no decisive development in the conflict.

Buan said the Abu Sayyaf's loose structure meant an encounter on Basilan would not affect militants on nearly Jolo island.

Rex Robles, a retired navy commodore and a security analyst, said the rebels were both familiar with the territory and enjoyed the support of the local community.

"There are so many armed groups operating there, not just the Abu Sayyaf," Robles said. "I would not be surprised if some rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front come to the aid of the Abu Sayyaf. Some of them are related by blood and marriage."

The Abu Sayyaf is the smallest but most deadly of several Muslim groups fighting for independence in the south of the Roman Catholic state. It is estimated to have about 350 hard-core followers based mostly on Basilan and Jolo.

It has links with Jemaah Islamiah, a pan-Asian radical Muslim group blamed for attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali bombings and the bombings of two hotels in Jakarta last month.

Abu Sayyaf is blamed for the worst militant attack in the Philippines, the sinking of a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 in which 100 people were killed.

It has also been in the spotlight for high-profile kidnappings, most recently of three Red Cross officials on Jolo who were later freed. Newspapers said large ransoms were paid, although officials have denied making any payments.

Pakistan pounds Taliban commander's bases, 12 die

By HUSSAIN AFZAL, Associated Press Writer

PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Helicopter gunships pummeled a key Taliban commander's bases in Pakistan's northwest, killing at least 12 insurgents Thursday as government forces ratcheted up pressure on the militants following their top leader's reported death, officials said.

Military helicopters destroyed several bases and hide-outs Thursday morning near the Kurram and Aurakzai tribal regions run by militant commander Hakimullah Mehsud, three intelligence officials said.

Hakimullah Mehsud is a clansman and potential successor to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was reported killed in a CIA missile strike on Aug. 5.

Thursday's attacks were on bases in tribal areas near the Afghan border, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the Mehsud clan's main base in south Waziristan.

The intelligence officials said troops saw the bodies from the air but did not retrieve them. Several militants were also wounded, and the casualties could rise because some people were believed to be still buried under the rubble of their hide-outs, said the officials, who sought anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Pakistan's military redoubled its fight against the Pakistani Taliban — a loose federation of Islamist groups with various tribal and regional factions — in April after militants broke a peace deal and took over a district about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad.

While mostly based in the tribal areas in the northwest, the militants had in recent years spread eastward into the one-time tourist haven of Swat Valley, executing police and burning down girls' schools in attempts to force the population to adhere to their hard-line interpretation of Islam.

The military took back control of Swat after a two-month assault, and now government forces have increasingly targeted the Taliban strongholds in the tribal belt, where the militants are also believed to give shelter to al-Qaida leaders and help plan attacks on U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

For years, Pakistan tolerated its homegrown militancy, but increased attacks inside Pakistan — reportedly masterminded by Baitullah Mehsud at the urging of his al-Qaida allies — forced the government to launch large-scale strikes against them.

Militant attacks have killed at least 2,686 Pakistani people since 2008, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the country's National Assembly on Thursday.

Malik said there have been 1,367 militant attacks since the beginning of last year, the majority of them in North West Frontier Province — where Swat lies — and in the tribal areas next to Afghanistan.

The government has also persuaded other tribal warlords to turn against the Taliban. On Wednesday, fierce clashes erupted after fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud attacked the forces of a pro-government warlord, Turkistan Bitani, on the fringes of the South Waziristan region. At least 70 people were reported killed.

Pakistan's army later sent in helicopter gunships as reinforcements to pound about 300 Taliban fighters attacking Bitani's mountain stronghold, two intelligence officials said.

It was impossible to independently confirm the death toll, as the fighting was in a remote mountainous area that is off-limits to journalists.

The fighting followed days of confusion and competing claims over Baitullah Mehsud's fate. While U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are almost certain he is dead, Taliban commanders insist he is alive.

Baitullah Mehsud and his followers have been the target of both U.S. and Pakistani operations aimed at ridding the country's volatile northwest of militants. Washington has increased its focus on Pakistan's rugged tribal regions because they provide safe haven for insurgents fighting international forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Local tribal leaders in some parts of northwestern Pakistan have also formed private militias, known as lashkars, specifically to fight against the Taliban. They have often been targeted by the militants, and on Thursday, two intelligence officials said a suicide bomber killed pro-government lashkar leader Malik Khadeen, who was instrumental in fighting Uzbek militants operating with the Taliban in South Waziristan.

Two of Khadeen's relatives were also killed and another four people seriously wounded in the attack, in which a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into Khadeen's car, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Farther north in the Bajur tribal area, authorities found the bodies of two anti-Taliban lashkar leaders near a security checkpoint, said local government official Saad Ullah. The two lashkar commanders, Malik Sehar Gul and Malik Jalindhar, had been kidnapped the night before.

Sporadic violence also continues in Swat and the surrounding areas. The military said Thursday that separate search operations in the area led to one militant being killed and another 12 arrested, including a local commander, while another two turned themselves in.

Separately in Baluchistan province, where ethnic Baluch militants have waged a low-level insurgency for decades, paramilitary forces seized a cache of explosives and rockets, Frontier Constabulary spokesman Murtaza Baig said.

Abdullah trying to prove he is no Afghan also-ran

By David Fox

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main challenger drew tens of thousands of supporters to an election rally on Thursday, the biggest so far, and warned next week's race would go down to the wire. The huge crowd greeted Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister and regarded as Karzai's strongest rival in the August 20 poll, during a visit to Mazar-i-Sharif, an Abdullah stronghold about 300 kms (190 miles) north of the capital, Kabul.

Karzai needs to win more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off against the second-placed challenger. A poll earlier this week gave Karzai 45 percent to Abdullah's 25.

"Don't think that this is finished. Don't listen to what others might tell you, this election is very close," Abdullah told supporters at the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, a blue-tiled monument to Islam's fourth caliph, one of the Prophet Mohammad's sons, who is reputedly buried there.

Although half Pashtun, Abdullah draws his support from the country's Tajiks and he was clearly on home turf on Thursday.

The route from the airport to the center of the city was lined by supporters wearing blue caps and T-shirts bearing Abdullah's lightly bearded image. As the convoy reached the shrine, the crowd swelled to around 50,000, and youngsters and the elderly were trampled in the crush.

Later at the governor's mansion, where Karzai's portrait gazed down on dozens of elders and other notables that gathered for a banquet, Abdullah was still clearly the man of the moment.

Security was tight but relaxed, in keeping with a city that has largely escaped the growing Taliban insurgency.

The Taliban, who draw their strength mostly from the Pashtuns of the south and east, have vowed to disrupt the elections and violence is now at the worst levels since the Islamist hardliners were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001.

Karzai could struggle to get the minimum required to avoid a run-off if violence in Pashtun areas stops people from voting, as many Afghans often vote along ethnic lines.

If the election does go to a run-off, Abdullah is counting on picking up the support of non-Pashtuns.

Abdullah's campaign speech was short on specifics, but he promised to tackle corruption and promote development if elected. Nevertheless, his words went down well with the faithful.

"Before Karzai was popular here but no longer," said Syyed Ali, a campaigner worker for Abdullah.

Karzai offers gov't jobs to presidential rivals

By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday he will win next week's presidential election and will offer government positions to his top two challengers.

Karzai's announcement seemed designed to offer a pre-election deal to his main rivals and head off any tension after the vote at a time when large parts of Afghanistan are embroiled in an insurgency.

Afghans vote next Thursday for president, their second-ever direct presidential election. More than 100,000 international troops and 175,000 Afghan forces are deployed to provide security.

Karzai is the leading candidate in a crowded field of three dozen contenders hoping to win a five-year term. He is trailed by his former foreign and finance ministers, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani.

Karzai said that if he wins, "I will invite Dr. Abdullah, I will invite Ashraf Ghani, give them food and tea and give them jobs, as I did last time."

A spokesman for Abdullah's campaign said the people, not Karzai, will decide who wins and forms the government.

"Let's wait for next week's polling day and see the election results," spokesman Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki said.

Ghani's campaign team said it rejects any pre-election deal with Karzai.

A week before the vote, there are fears that election tensions could boil over into street violence if presidential losers allege fraud. Opposition candidates have been accusing Karzai and his team of using state resources to ensure re-election.

While Karzai is leading in the polls, the latest public opinion surveys show him at under 50 percent support. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote on Aug. 20, the top two finishers will have a run-off. That could open the possibility of a coalition uniting around a single candidate to try to defeat Karzai.

Most of the country's most violent regions — in the south and the east — are where the country's ethnic Pashtuns live. Karzai, himself a Pashtun, could see his returns lowered if insurgent violence keeps Afghans there from voting.

The situation is also deteriorating in the north, where gunmen clashed with police shortly before a motorcade of Afghanistan's former President Burhanuddin Rabbani reached that spot in Kunduz province's Ali Abad district, police said.

No one in the motorcade was injured, said Abdul Razaq Yaqoubi, the provincial police chief. He said he did not believe Rabbani was the target. Rabbani is campaigning on behalf of Abdullah, Sancharaki said.

The Taliban has threatened to disrupt the vote and warned people to stay away from polling centers on election day.

Afghan journalists in central Ghazni province received a letter from the Taliban on Thursday in which the militants threatened shopkeepers to keep their businesses closed for three days before the vote. The letter also asked students to not go to school and warned people not to get anywhere close to polling centers.

The president said the people should come out and vote despite the Taliban threats.

"Even if there are a hundred explosions, we will go out and cast our votes," Karzai said Thursday.

Karzai spoke at a gathering of female supporters on the capital's outskirts. Some of the teachers present said their school principal asked them to attend.

Shekeba Ahmadi, a teacher from Kabul, thought she was going to a seminar. Wahida, another teacher who gave only one name, said their principal had ordered them to come. None would identify their schools for fear of retribution.

Chinese essay sparks outcry in India

Indian academics are up in arms over what they regard as provocative incitement of the country’s demise by a Chinese essayist.

“China can dismember the so-called ‘Indian Union’ with one little move!” claimed the essay posted last week on China International Strategy Net, a patriotic website focused on strategic issues. The writer, under the pseudonym Zhanlue (strategy in Chinese), argued that India’s sense of national unity was weak and Beijing’s best option to remove an emerging rival and security threat would be to support separatist forces, like those in Assam, to bring about a collapse of the Indian federal state.

“There cannot be two suns in the sky,” wrote Zhanlue. “China and India cannot really deal with each other harmoniously.” The article suggested that India should be divided into 20 to 30 sovereign states.

Such was the outcry about the article that the Indian government issued a statement reassuring the country that relations with China were calm.

“The article in question appears to be an expression of individual opinion and does not accord with the officially stated position of China on India-China relations conveyed to us on several occasions, including at the highest level, most recently by State Councillor Dai Bingguo during his visit to India last week,” the foreign ministry in New Delhi said in a statement, referring to mutual pledges to respect territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The publication of the article coincided with talks between Beijing and New Delhi over disputed Himalayan border areas. Earlier this year, China held up funding for an Asian Development Bank project in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state claimed by China as “south Tibet”. India has also banned some Chinese imports as it tries to protect its economy from the global downturn.

Officials in Beijing and Delhi hew to rival visions of the future, each seeing themselves as pursuing the more durable political and social model of development. The presumption in New Delhi is that China’s unified, one-party state is bound to break down.

DS Rajan, director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies, brought the essay to his countrymen’s attention. “It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices,” he said. “Its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting.”

China International Strategy Net is run by Kang Lingyi, who took part in hacking into US government websites in 1999 following US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Sites such as his are part of the Communist party’s strategy to allow nationalism to grow to strengthen its political legitimacy.

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