UAE lifts ban on cattle imports

Dubai, Aug 21 (New Kerala): The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has lifted a ban on cattle imports from Somalia, the WAM news agency reported Friday citing the environment ministry.

Cattle imports from the two Somali cities of Bosaso and Barabara will now be allowed in the country, UAE Environment and Water Minister Rashid Ahmed Bin Fahad said Thursday.

As per the latest government directive, the importers must obtain certificates from laboratories stating that the animals were not vaccinated for bovine plague.

In the UAE, all imported animals are subject to the veterinary and animal care regulations and legislations.

Fighting rages in heart of Mogadishu

Somalia's civil war is intensifying as Islamist insurgents hit back at government attacks on rebel-held territory.

Medical workers revealed that at least 24 people had been killed in an assault by al-Shabab fighters retaliating against government troops invading an insurgent-held area in central Somalia.

Ugandan and Burundian troops, under the flag of the African Union, supported the government offensive on Thursday in which more than 40 people were killed.

But in a counter-offensive in the heart of the capital Mogadishu, al-Shabab insurgents fired mortars into a fruit market killing at least six people, while another 18 bodies were later taken to hospital, according to ambulance medic Ali Muse.

Local resident Abdi Haji Ahmed reported that "hundreds of well-armed insurgents came to our district with minibuses and pick-up trucks and immediately they started firing towards the government troops and an African Union base."

Al-Shabab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage insisted that "the government provoked us by coming into our areas, so we have a right to attack them."

The official government of Somalia, headed by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is thought to have real control over just a few blocks in central Mogadishu, backed up by occasional raids mounted by African Union forces based outside the city.

Sheikh Ahmed was elected president in January after an occupation by forces from neighboring Ethiopia, and backed by the US, came to an end.

Al-Shabab has since resisted the government's attempts to assert control over more of the country, claiming that it is a "secular" government that does not represent Somalia's Muslims.

Makeshift repairs not enough for battered Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi
August 21, 2009

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza (Reuters) - Frustrated by the lack of outside help, the Islamist group Hamas has begun repairing roads in Gaza using cement and tar smuggled through a network of tunnels under the border with Egypt.

But Gazans and international officials said the work is a drop in the bucket, compared with the state of blockaded Gaza's infrastructure and the extent of damage caused by Israel's three-week military offensive last winter.

Workers in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis last week completed paving a road which collapsed last year under winter flooding forcing some residents to make a long detour.

Contractor Jehad al-Fara said he got bitumen from Egypt to make tar for the repair, a long process double the normal price.

Bitumen is not allowed into Gaza via Israeli-run crossings since Hamas took over the territory in 2007, routing forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah movement.

Israel blocks imports it suspects would be used for military purposes, such as making weapons or building defenses.

"We're trying to get around the blockade," Fara said. "The materials are insufficient but something's better than nothing."

Donor countries in February pledged more than $4 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza. But organized reconstruction remains on hold partly because of the Israeli blockade. Israel wants Hamas to release kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit before it yields any concessions. He has been held for 3 years.

Donor states also want to deal with a unified Palestinian authority but there is none. Rivals Hamas and Fatah are as deeply split as ever and this is another cause of delay.

In Gaza City, workers were paving part of a main road that has been broken for four years, using cement the Hamas-run government brought in via the smuggling tunnels.

Last year there were nearly 3,000 tunnels. The Israeli airforce bombed them and Egyptian security forces have flooded them and blown them up, but hundreds still operate.

GLASS AND WOOD

The Israeli offensive in Gaza from Dec 27 to Jan 18, carried out with the stated aim of stopping Hamas rocket and mortar fire into Israel, destroyed thousands of houses, factories and government buildings -- including Gaza's main cement plant.

A United Nations agency said it would take a year to clear away the estimated 600,000 tonnes of rubble.

Ibrahim Rudwan of the Hamas-run Public Works Ministry says cement and bitumen were hauled through the tunnels from Egypt to repair some basic infrastructure.

"Eight months have passed since Gaza war and no one helped Gaza and therefore, we were forced to look for alternatives to help our own people," he said. But "it is a drop in the ocean".

In Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, workers make clay bricks to rebuild a police station destroyed in the offensive.

"This is primitive. We used to work with cement, now there's none so we build with clay," said foreman Naser Abu Bilal.

Khaled Abdel-Shafi, adviser to the U.N. Development Programme, said the situation could get worse.

"It is not only reconstruction that is being hindered but the process of restoring the economy as a whole that will be more difficult," he told Reuters.

Abdel-Shafi said 5,000 houses needed to be rebuilt, and dozens of schools required repair ahead of winter.

Stuggling against poverty

by Noor El Swairki

Gaza, August 20, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)- "Is it fair for the poor to be poorer?" queried a bitter Hanan, while cleaning one of the windows where she works. Hanan, like many other women living in the Gaza strip, has taken up work as a housekeeper since the war ended.

Hanan's husband has been unable to find work, which has left her being the main provider in the household. Her household consists of her husband and nine children. They live in a rented apartment, since their own home was destroyed. While her daughter will graduate next year, Hanan fears she will not be able to find work and will join the growing number of the jobless in the Gaza strip.

With a fake smile that quickly faded, Hanan said "I always feel sorry for myself and my children; they are not used to the reality of my job, but know it is necessary. This job is better than begging and, they know, without it, there is no future." Any job is better than none at all, even if the pay is minuscule.

"The money gained from my work isn't even enough for our basic necessities such as food and education; I can hardly buy clothes or shoes for my children." Hanan has resorted to asking her employer for any clothes or shoes, even if they are not suitable, so that she might alter and give them to her children.

"Many times I shared my own shoes with my daughters. Once in the winter I had to go to work with an open toe shoe. My feet were freezing. I cried all the way; I hated my hard life," said a crying Hanan.

"If only I was a refugee," she said. As a refugee, Hanan would receive assistance from UNRWA. 85% of Palestinians living in the Gaza strip depend on international aid for their basic human needs.

Despite the humanitarian assistance received, there is no reduction in poverty. A report for the institution of developments studies (IDS) in Gaza states that more than 80% of Palestinians families live under the poverty line, with 44.6% of them living in complete misery.

Hanan's story is not unique, unfortunately. The horrible conditions, in which Palestinians live, as a result of the siege and Gaza war, have led many to take up positions they would have never considered in the past. Hanan, like many others who have taken up similar work, wishes to take a rest. Until the siege ends, it will remain only a wish because life is better than death.

Noor El Swairki
PT Exclusive writer

Obama’s Unspoken Trade-Off: Dead US/NATO Occupation Troops versus Dead Afghan Civilians?

by Marc W. Herold

August 20, 2009

Buried in the public relations blather of U.S. Marine legions "liberating" Helmand and Afghan (sham) "elections" as democracy-restored is an unspoken trade-off over who disproportionately dies in America’s modern wars in the Third World. Under George W. Bush, U.S politico-military elites chose to fight the Afghan war with minimal regard for so-called collateral casualties. But the soaring toll of killed Afghan civilians swayed world public opinion and stoked the Afghan resistance as grieved Afghan family members sought revenge. Enter Barack Obama. Faced with the prospect of NATO forces being withdrawn as restless NATO country citizens mobilized against the war, the Obama war machine took the decision to trade-off (mostly) lower-class U.S. "volunteer" soldiers from rural America for fewer rural Afghan civilians killed. The decision had nothing to do with valuing Afghan lives and everything to do with a careful political calculation. In outlying areas such as in the Pakistan borderlands or in isolated rural areas of Afghanistan, Obama’s war machine cavalierly slaughters innocent civilians with the same impunity and at the same rate as his maligned predecessor did as drone strikes in Pakistan and U.S air strikes in Farah and Logar have demonstrated.

What has also changed is the public face of the war as one might expect from a President skilled in diction and possessed with the persuasion skills of a well-trained lawyer. On the other hand, behind the soothing words, the rationales are identical: in Phoenix recently, Obama reiterated the Bush of September 2001,

"This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. This is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people."

So much for the current U.S. rationale for war. So much for "Change We Can Believe In."

The Obama approach finds strong support amongst U.S. liberals, the U.S corporate media and the UNAMA (in Afghanistan). As I have documented elsewhere, the UNAMA coughs up statistics on Afghan civilian deaths which cannot be fact-checked and which conveniently grossly underestimate the carnage caused by U.S/NATO actions. Sadly, the superficial impartiality of the U.N. gives such "faith-based" data credibility in the international media which widely cites them. Former President Bush must look on with envy at how the U.S. media including such "liberal" pillars as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (e.g., the McNeill Lehrer News Hour) or MoveOn.org now toe the Pentagon line on Obama’s Afghan war.

Almost eight years ago, I pointed out a trade-off taken by the U.S. military in its original bombing and invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001,

From the point of view of U.S policy makers and their mainstream media boosters, the 'cost' of a dead Afghan civilian is zero as long as these civilian deaths can be hidden from the general U.S public' view. The 'benefits' of saving future lives of U.S military personnel are enormous, given the U.S public's post-Vietnam aversion to returning body bags…. But, I believe the argument goes deeper and that race enters the calculation. The sacrificed Afghan civilians are not 'white' whereas the overwhelming number of U.S. pilots and elite ground troops are white. This 'reality' serves to amplify the positive benefit-cost ratio of certainly sacrificing darker Afghans today [and Indochinese, Iraqis yesterday] for the benefit of probably saving American soldier-citizens tomorrow. What I am saying is that when the "other" is non-white, the scale of violence used by the U.S. government to achieve its stated objectives at minimum cost knows no limits.

Years have since gone by, bodies and destruction multiplied. The Taliban and allies now control vast swaths of Afghanistan. The Afghan post-conflict regime planned at the U.N-sponsored Bonn conference (December 2001) has shown itself to be nothing more than a fig leaf for a collection of rapacious warlords, corruption and the violence of daily life know no bounds, the status of Afghan women never a serious Western consideration has remained as-before, some schools have been built then blown up, an NGO-mafia has descended upon Kabul pursuing its own agendas, palatial villas have sprouted-up and luxury hotels mushroomed, etc.

All these are asides: today, the politics of making war (in Afghanistan) have reversed the killing trade-off. The obvious military failure of Bush’s seven-year Afghan war and the rising aversion NATO countries’ public support of what was has increasingly been perceived as an American Afghan war, motivated the change. The Bush administration very effectively pressured certain NATO countries after 2004 to increasingly bear the costs In terms of human casualties of the Afghan war (Table 1).

As I shall now document using data on Afghan civilian deaths from the publically available Afghan Victim Memorial Project data base and on US/NATO occupation soldier deaths from the website http://www.icasualties.org/oef/ , the Obama regime by relying less upon air power and more upon ground forces is tilting the relative mix of who dies on the ground in Afghanistan. Table 1 presents annual data for 2005-9, whereas Table 2 gives monthly totals for January-July 2009.

What needs first to be clearly understood is that is that Obama’s Pentagon has been much more deadly for Afghan civilians than was Bush in comparable months of 2008. During Jan-June 2008, some 278-343 Afghan civilian perished at the hands of US/NATO forces, but for comparable months under Team Obama the numbers were 520-630. For the month of July, the respective figures were 134-155 versus 47-56. We see the Obama trade-off kicking-in as US/NATO troop deaths in July 2008 were 30 versus 76. The ratio of Afghan civilians killed per occupation soldier death fell from 3.7 during January-June to 0.7 during July 2009.

Predictably, the mainstream media led by the Associated Press spinned the new Obama approach as "new strategy restricting air power may be working." As I have pointed out, the new approach does not involve reducing overall Afghan civilian deaths but merely shifts who causes them: U.S/NATO ground forces instead of U.S/NATO air power. But such "details" escape the mainstream press as well as some critics of the U.S. war.

In late July, a spate of articles in the mainstream press surfaced seeking to minimize the number of civilians by US/NATO actions. The Associated Press led the way (as usual) claiming that (no details provided naturally which could be fact-checked) proclaiming that

An Associated Press count of civilian deaths based on reports from Afghan and international officials, shows that 453 civilians have been killed in insurgent attacks this year. The count also shows that 199 civilians have died from attacks by Afghan or international forces. An Afghan human rights group says an additional 69 civilians died during a U.S. attack in Farah in May, but the U.S. disputes those deaths."

Other sources with on-the-ground sources reported 147 civilians had perished in the Farah air attack and provided names, gender and ages.

In other words, truth only comes from "U.S sources." In my Afghan Victim Memorial Report data base (and in Table 2) I report 567-686 Afghans killed by U.S/NATO actions during January-July 2009; in other words, the A.P. reports less than a third of the actual civilians killed by the U.S and NATO.

For its part, the UNAMA stated that U.S and allied forces had killed 265 civilians during the first six months of 2009. This compares with my figures of 520-630 (midpoint @ 575), that is the UNAMA undercounts by 54%. In service to General McChrystal.

The Obama administration has decided that the way to avoid outright defeat on the ground and to continue America’s Afghan war is to accept more U.S. military casualties in order to keep NATO in the fight. No exit strategy exists and the revealed preference of the Imperial City on the Potomac is for a long low-burning conflict with tolerably low casualties and extremely high overhead. Should NATO’s Canadian and European citizens support such a scenario?

Protests planned for Hawaii's 50th anniversary

HONOLULU – Protesters will march the streets and Hawaiian chants will echo from the sprawling lawn of Iolani Palace on Hawaii's 50th anniversary of statehood, as high-minded panelists ponder the islands' future at a daylong conference.

While lacking much in the way of public parties or parades, Hawaii's official statehood day festivities will feature entertainment by local musicians and panel discussions emphasizing tourism's future, alternative energy and Native Hawaiian rights.

About 1,000 demonstrators who would rather see Hawaii's independence restored are expected to rally outside the conference at the Hawaii Convention Center.

"We want to show how U.S. imperialism has spread across the Pacific and across the world," said Lynette Cruz, an organizer of the Hawaiian Independence Action Alliance. "It'll be fun."

The protesters will be allowed inside the convention center lobby, but they can't get into the individual conference rooms without purchasing a $30 ticket.

"We're trying to set a standard that embraces dialogue over physical conflict, and that's the hope for Friday," said Trisha Kehaulani Watson of Honua Consulting, one of the Hawaiian panelists. "We can show people that we can have concerns and be emotional without losing control."

Previous statehood anniversaries haven't always been peaceful.

American-flag-waving Statehood Day celebrants and Hawaiian sovereignty advocates clashed in 2006 at Iolani Palace, the heart of the Hawaiian monarchy where officials declared in 1959 that Hawaii had joined the union. The conflict turned into a shouting match between those trying to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and others who used a public address system to drown them out.

Last year, police arrested 23 members of a Hawaiian pro-sovereignty group that broke into the palace, locked its gates and posted signs that read, "Property of the Kingdom of Hawaiian Trust."

"The state is very cognizant of Hawaiian protests, and I think they don't want to have any bad press," said Dean Saranillio, a student who wrote his dissertation on how statehood came at the expense of Hawaiian self-determination. "There's a very vibrant and vocal Hawaiian community that's well-versed in the history. They know statehood was a product of the overthrow."

The Hawaiian kingdom was overthrown in 1893 when a group of white businessmen forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate while U.S. Marines came ashore.

About 94 percent of Hawaii voters supported statehood in 1959, but opponents argue the vote was tainted because the only choice on the ballot was to become a state or remain a territory — independence was not an option.

At sunset Friday, 18 Hawaiians will recite chants in memory of Queen Liliuokalani from the balconies of Iolani Palace, said Kippen de Alba Chu, chairman of the Statehood Commission. He said the chanters and the conference discussions will help set the stage for Hawaii's future.

"The tone is reflective. We're looking back where we came from and looking at our accomplishments, but perhaps also the things we need to do better," he said.

Back at the convention center, Hawaii's commemorative 50th anniversary postage stamp will be unveiled. The stamp, available nationwide Friday, will show a painting of a longboard surfer and two paddlers on an outrigger canoe.

The day's events will end with a '50s-style concert by The Platters, the Coasters and the Drifters.

Other statehood events included a walking tour focused on the overthrow, with costumed guides and role-players along the way; a statehood mosaic unveiled earlier this month at the Honolulu airport with artwork from more than 8,000 students nationwide; TV and radio ads with "50 Voices of Statehood" interviews; and 50 time capsules buried around the state to be opened on the state's 75th anniversary in 2034.

State lawmakers allocated $600,000 for statehood events.

Libyan Megrahi celebrations unsettle UK government

By Keith Weir

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain Friday condemned celebrations in Tripoli to mark the return of the Lockerbie bomber, and scrambled to deflect international fallout from the decision to free him on humanitarian grounds.

"The sight of a mass murderer getting a hero's welcome in Tripoli is deeply upsetting, deeply distressing, above all for the 270 families who grieve every day for the loss of their loved ones 21 years ago," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told BBC Radio.

"How the Libyan government handles itself in the next few days will be very significant in the way the world views Libya's re-entry into the civilized community of nations," he added.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Thursday asking for the homecoming to be handled with sensitivity, a spokesman said.

Miliband dismissed claims that the British government had wanted Megrahi to be freed to bolster diplomatic and commercial ties with Libya and was content to let Scotland's devolved government take the blame for an unpopular decision.

"That is a slur both on myself and the government," he said, adding that no pressure had been put on the Scottish government.

The BBC reported that a visit planned for next month to bolster trade led by Prince Andrew, a son of Queen Elizabeth, had been put on hold.

Former Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was serving a life sentence as the only person convicted of bombing Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. The bombing killed 270 people, 189 of them American.

Washington described the release as a mistake.

More than 1,000 young Libyans gathered at an airport in Tripoli to welcome Megrahi and cheered and waved national flags as his car sped away. Pictures of the blue and white Scottish flag being waved were shown on British television.

Large public gatherings are rare and are usually tightly controlled in Libya.

GADDAFI'S SON THANKS BRITAIN

State media had made no mention of Megrahi's possible return but a newspaper close to leader Muammar Gaddafi's reformist son, Saif al-Islam, was following his progress.

Islam, who accompanied Megrahi back to Libya, promised last year to work for Megrahi's release and praised the British and Scottish authorities in words likely to add to their discomfort.

"I also personally thank our friends in the British government as they have had an important role in reaching this happy conclusion," he said in a statement.

"I affirm that the Libyan people will not forget this brave stance from the governments of Britain and Scotland and that friendship between us will be enhanced forever. The page of the past has been turned and is now behind us," he added.

The crowd that greeted them at Tripoli's Mitiga airport, a former U.S. air base, were mostly members of Libya's National Youth Association which is close to Gaddafi's son.

Alex Salmond, head of the devolved Scottish government, condemned the celebrations.

"I don't think the reception for Mr al-Megrahi was appropriate in Libya, I don't think that was wise and I don't think that was the right thing to do," he said.

The case has added to tensions between the devolved government led by the separatist Scottish National Party and the British government led by the Labor party.

First tongue, jaw transplant carried out in Spain

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish doctors completed the first ever transplant of a tongue and jaw Tuesday, surgeon Pedro Cavadas said Friday.

The 43-year-old patient, who lost the lower half of his face during treatment for a malignant tumor 11 years ago, is recovering well and could be released in 10 days, Cavadas told a news conference in Valencia.

The unidentified patient was given a tongue and jaw as part of a face transplant operation, the first carried out in Spain.

"The patient should recover the capacity to speak intelligibly, to swallow .... recover sensitivity in his tongue and his face," the Spanish surgeon said.

Tuesday's transplant, the eighth involving a face since the surgery was pioneered in 2005, was particularly difficult because previous surgery had rendered the veins, arteries and nerves normally connected in these operations useless, Cavadas said.

Poll: Americans losing confidence in Obama

WASHINGTON – A new poll says that Americans, concerned over the future of health care reform and anxious about the growing federal budget deficit, are losing faith in President Barack Obama.

The Washington Post-ABC News survey found that less that half of Americans — 49 percent — say they believe the president will make the right decisions for the country. That's down from 60 percent at the 100-day mark of the Obama presidency.

The poll published Friday says Obama's overall approval is 57 percent, 12 points lower than it was at its peak in April. Fifty-three percent disapprove of the way he's handling the budget deficit and his approval on health care continues to deteriorate.

The national survey was conducted Aug. 13-17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Iran allows U.N. watchdog access to planned reactor

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has allowed U.N. nuclear inspectors access to a reactor under construction after blocking visits for a year, and has let them upgrade monitoring at another site ahead of a crucial report on its atomic program.

Iran allowed International Atomic Energy Agency officials to inspect the site of the Arak heavy water reactor last week, diplomats said. The agency has been urging Iran to grant it access to verify it is for peaceful uses only.

Diplomats also said Iran had allowed inspectors to upgrade IAEA monitoring at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant as requested by the agency, which had been finding it hard to keep track of expanding activity.

The IAEA is due to circulate its latest report on Iran next week, ahead of the annual meeting of the IAEA's 150 member states in September.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany are expected to urge Russia and China in talks on September 2 to consider a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. The latest IAEA report will help form the basis for the discussions.

"We must welcome every effort from Iran because we have been asking them to cooperate with the IAEA and they have not been doing so," one European diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

But the diplomat added it was still unclear whether Tehran's concessions were a one-off: "I hope it will be the beginning of a sustainable cooperation and not just one shot before the General Conference."

Western hopes that Iran would negotiate a cap on its nuclear work faded when it crushed unrest over alleged fraud in a June presidential election which returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

ARAK "FOR MEDICINE AND AGRICULTURE"

Iran, which says its nuclear program is aimed only at power production and peaceful research, has said the Arak complex will be geared to producing isotopes for medical care and agriculture.

But Western powers fear Iran may configure the reactor to derive plutonium from spent fuel rods as an alternative source of bomb-grade fuel to its Natanz plant, which is under daily IAEA surveillance.

"Inspectors visited (Arak) and did their job," said a senior diplomat familiar with the confidential IAEA inspections.

Inspectors have told the agency that containment and surveillance measures at Natanz, such as cameras and sealing, have been upgraded to the agency's current needs.

The IAEA said in June that the plant was swiftly outgrowing inspectors' ability to monitor it effectively -- namely, to verify that there were no deviations from civilian enrichment.

Some 5,000 centrifuges were enriching uranium then, with 2,400 more being set up on the same underground production floor. The next batch could be refining nuclear fuel full-time by now, with a similar number in line for installation.

Analysts say Tehran has accumulated enough low-enriched uranium for further refinement into the high-enriched form needed for a nuclear bomb. Its output rate has leapt as the number of centrifuge machines has risen eight-fold over the past year.

Predators key to sustainable farming

Barn owls have emerged as the unlikely heroes in the fight against climate change, saving Malaysian farmers more than money, UQ PhD Student Chong Leong Puan has found.

A student from UQ's School of Integrative Systems, Mr Puan examined predator behavior to determine the effectiveness of barn owls in rodent control on Malaysian palm oil plantations.

“Owl species that are associated with forest habitats are regarded as an indicator of forest health,” Mr Puan said.

“Many species remain high in the food chain and have an ecological role of maintaining ecosystems in a steady state.”

Mr Puan, a representative for the World Owl Trust, saw a need to research a more cost effective and environmentally friendly method of pest control.

“I spent 14 months on a palm oil plantation in Malaysia trapping rats, observing owl breeding conditions and collecting owl pellets,” he said.

Mr Puan found that high rodent levels correspond with increased owl fertility rates.

“There was a significant positive correlation between the relative abundance of rats captured and number of pellets collected during breeding months of the birds,” Mr Puan said.

He also found that biological controls can be used to overcome environmental problems associated with chemical pesticides, such as rodent resistance and secondary poisoning of non-target animals.

The cost efficiency of such biological controls are another reason to adopt the method in Malaysia, the world's second largest palm oil producer.

Annually, rodents cost the palm oil industry more than $32 million USD, with many plantations relying heavily on chemical control methods.

At a time when both the economy and the environment are struggling on the global stage, Mr Puan's findings pave the way for sustainable farming practices across the agricultural industry.

Chechen rebels claim attack on Russia's dam

Chechen guerrillas have claimed responsibility for a recent attack on Russia's largest hydropower dam in Siberia in which 26 died and scores are still missing.

The Chechen separatists based in Russia's North Caucasus have admitted to the bombing of the power plant, calling the attack 'stronger' than primarily envisaged.

“On August 17 through our efforts, a subversive operation was carried out in Khakasia at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro-electric dam," the militants said in an online letter posted on kavkazcenter.com.

"In the machine hall we managed to plant an anti-tank grenade with a timer, the blast of which caused much stronger damage than we could have hoped for," the letter went on to read.

At least 49 other Russian employees at the dam site are presumed dead as hopes of their recovery grows slim.

The latest development comes hours after the Russian president inspected the site in the Siberian republic and called for a major overhaul in the country's aging infrastructure, which is generally accepted as the root cause for such mishaps.

Insurgents in Chechnya have recently stepped up their anti-federal campaigns and spread the violence in the neighboring provinces in a significant spillover of conflict on Russian territories.

There has been no official statement from Russian authorities on the latest development.

Iran cleric calls for arrest of opposition leaders

TEHRAN - A powerful Iranian cleric called on Friday for the arrest of opposition leaders, accusing them of seeking to topple the Islamic republic after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Desire to topple (the regime) would have led to the greatest tyranny ... They incited riots. Some have been arrested ... Why were the leaders not arrested,” asked Ahmad Jannati, head of the powerful Guardians Council, said at Friday prayers in Tehran.

“Everyone knows that they are the origins of the plot and corruption, but they are linked with some (powerful people),” he said in a sermon broadcast live on state radio.

“This (arrest of leaders) is the first thing that must be done.”

Defeated presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main challenger to President Ahmadinejad, called for a new election after the June 12 poll, whose results they said were massively rigged.

The two also said they do not consider Ahmadinejad’s administration a legitimate one.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets to protest and, in the ensuing violence, about 30 people were killed, hundreds wounded and several thousand arrested.

Iran has put on trial around 140 people in mass hearings over the unrest, including British and French embassy staff and a French woman university teaching assistant. It has also accused foreign governments of plotting to destabilize the country.

Ahmadinejad defends proposed cabinet line-up

Amid speculations that Parliament may reject some proposed cabinet nominees, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defends the line-up of his future cabinet.

In a televised address to the nation on Thursday night, President Ahmadinejad defended the proposed line-up of his next cabinet, arguing that he had to change his cabinet because the conditions of the country have changed after the recent presidential election.

"In my opinion, the [recent] presidential election greatly raised the country's level of political and social awareness," he said.

"The election has changed the demands of the people. The conditions of the country have changed, so have the necessities. Therefore, new missions have emerged for the government."

The president went on to defend his picks as the most qualified for the positions.

"The incoming cabinet will be one step ahead of the previous one, which itself was way ahead of its predecessors in terms of the compatibility of [the ministers'] expertise with posts."

President Ahmadinejad submitted to the Parliament the final list of his picks for the next cabinet on Wednesday. Parliament members will examine the list from August 23 before they hold a confidence vote on August 30.

The list of the 21 ministers sees 11 new ministers, a move interpreted as in line with President Ahmadinejad's earlier promise to bring about major changes in the new cabinet.

Before the release of the proposed cabinet list by president Ahmadinejad, some Iranian lawmakers criticized him for refusing to consult with them over the line-up.

In a warning to the president, Parliament Vice-Speaker Mohammad-Reza Bahonar said on Thursday that some of the proposed ministers might fail to win the vote of confidence from Parliament.

"Some of my colleagues and I believe that about five of the ministers proposed by President Ahmadinejad will not win the vote of confidence from the Parliament."

During his first term in office, President Ahmadinejad was repeatedly criticized for frequently reshuffling the cabinet, and making 'too many' changes in the cabinet.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the hotly-disputed June 12 presidential election with two-thirds of the votes and was sworn in on August 5 for a second four-year term in office.

Putin promises payouts for Russia plant victims

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the site of the Siberia power plant accident Friday, acknowledging that there's little chance of finding any of 49 still missing workers alive and promising compensation for their families.

Putin urged the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant's owner RusHydro, which has pledged to pay out 1 million rubles ($31,300) to the families of the 26 already confirmed dead, to make the same payments for the families of those still missing.

"We can see what's happened — let's not pretend that someone doesn't know something," he told officials in televised remarks after touring the hydroelectric plant, where a powerful explosion Monday blew out walls and caused the turbine room at Russia's largest power plant to flood.

Putin promised to match the company's payouts with federal money to help families affected by the "huge tragedy."

The Emergency Situation Ministry said Friday that confirmed death toll had reached 26, after several more bodies were discovered overnight in the destroyed turbine room.

"I've just talked to the rescue workers. They have seen it all but say that nerves fail them (here)," Putin said.

More than 1,000 workers were searching the huge plant, although there is little hope anyone could still be alive after four days in near-freezing waters.

The cause of the accident is unclear but officials cited a faulty turbine and a rise of pressure in the pipes as possible triggers.

The Sayano-Shushenskaya plant supplies about 10 percent of Siberia's energy needs. It has been shut down since the accident and could be out of service for a significant time. Repairs are estimated to take from two to four years.

Putin said Thursday that the accident highlighted the need for upgrading critical parts of Russia's aging infrastructure. He also emphasized the necessity of observing industrial safety standards. "In our country ... discipline in dealing with technology is very low," he said.

Siberian electricity prices at local stock markets skyrocketed in the wake of the accident. Putin warned about "an inevitable increase" but also suggested that the government start to regulate wholesale electricity prices to manage the hike. He pledged the measure would likely be temporary.

Russian bloggers and some newspaper columnists have harshly scrutinized the disaster and the rescue efforts, touching a nerve with some local and federal officials unused to such criticism.

The country's top emergency response official, Sergei Shoigu, lashed out at bloggers, saying they were spreading panic and misinformation. "These guys need to be punished severely," he told the government newspaper Rossisskaya Gazeta in an interview published Thursday.

Regional prosecutors already have confiscated the computer, mobile phone and apartment key for a local blogger named Mikhail Afanasyev, accusing him of slandering officials and rescuers.

Behind Hamas' Own War on Terror

By TONY KARON

Eyebrows were raised around the world Aug. 14 when Hamas security forces in Rafah swiftly, and brutally, destroyed an al-Qaeda-inspired group that had proclaimed the southern Gaza town an "Islamic emirate." After all, Hamas is listed by the U.S. and the European Union as a terrorist organization, and many in the West don't expect an avowedly Islamist political organization to forcefully suppress jihadist groups.

Yet, that's exactly what happened when pro-al-Qaeda cleric Abdel Latif Moussa gathered about 100 of his heavily armed supporters in a mosque to denounce Hamas rule and declared himself the "Islamic prince" of the new "emirate." Hamas security men moved in to disarm the group, and 24 people, including Moussa and about 20 of his followers, were killed in the ensuing firefight. Their group, Jund Ansar Allah, claimed inspiration from al-Qaeda, and condemned Hamas both for maintaining a cease-fire with Israel and for its failure to impose Islamic Shari'a law after taking full control of Gaza in 2007. It had mounted small-scale attacks on rivals inside Gaza, and two months ago failed in a bizarre cavalry charge by mounted fighters against Israeli border guards. Following the Rafah showdown, the fringe group has vowed to wage war on Hamas, turning Gaza's rulers into an unlikely ally against Osama bin Laden. (See pictures of Israel’s assault on Gaza.)

Still, there was little surprise about the Rafah confrontation for longtime observers of Palestinian politics. Hamas, in fact, has always been at odds with al-Qaeda. Despite its Islamist ideology, Hamas is first and foremost a nationalist movement, taking its cue from Palestinian public opinion and framing its goals and strategies on the basis of national objectives, rather than the "global" jihadist ideology of al-Qaeda. For example, Hamas has periodically debated the question of whether to attack American targets in its midst, and each time has reiterated the insistence of the movement's founders that it confine its resistance activities to Israeli targets.

"What distinguishes Hamas - as well as organizations like Hizballah and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood - from groups like al-Qaeda is that they recognize, whether out of principle or practical necessity, that the will of the people they claim to represent is paramount," says Mouin Rabbani, an Amman-based analyst with the Center for Palestine Studies. "In deciding their actions, they're ultimately more responsive to their environment than to their principles."

And it's precisely that more pragmatic strain in Hamas that has often infuriated al-Qaeda leaders. Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has savagely and repeatedly condemned Hamas for participating in elections, for accepting Saudi and Egyptian mediation of its conflict with Fatah, and for observing a cease-fire with Israel. Hamas officials routinely dismiss al-Qaeda's criticisms. Hamas' Beirut representative Osama Hamdan two years ago suggested that "a fugitive in the Afghan mountains" offered the Palestinian cause no advice worth heeding. Also in 2007, when a self-styled "Army of Islam" claiming inspiration from al-Qaeda kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston in Gaza, Hamas forced the group to release him.

The harsh crackdown on Jund Ansar Allah sends two emphatic messages from Hamas: one to potential rivals, the other to potential interlocutors. The speed and violence with which it suppressed the jihadist group is a warning to all potential rivals that Hamas will tolerate no challenge to its authority in Gaza. But it also signals that as long as Hamas maintains a cease-fire, it is willing and able to forcibly restrain others in the Strip from launching attacks on Israel.

That display of force will likely reinforce the emerging consensus in the West that no credible Israeli-Palestinian peace process is possible without the consent of Hamas. Indeed, one European diplomat in the region told TIME that U.S. officials were pleased by the Hamas action in Rafah. The action "benefited Hamas because it allowed them to show that they're capable of enforcing their authority and order, in Gaza, and also to distinguish themselves from the radical jihadists," says Rabbani. "This shows not only that Hamas is different from al-Qaeda, but that the two are actually violently at odds."

While Hamas may have gained diplomatically from taking down Moussa's outfit, the emergence of an al-Qaeda-inspired group ready to openly challenge Hamas authority is a reminder of the downside. Some of the leading elements in Jund Ansar Allah were former Hamas members who broke with the movement over its decision to join in the political process of the Palestinian Authority by running for election in 2006. They were bolstered, according to Palestinian observers, by jihadist elements from other Arab countries, taking advantage of the widespread despair and frustration in Gaza brought on by the ongoing economic siege. While Hamas is currently enforcing the cease-fire it adopted seven months ago at the close of Israel's Gaza invasion, the economic siege remains largely in place - although if Egyptian-mediated negotiations over the fate of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit are successfully resolved, that might prompt Israel to ease the pressure.

Although basic food and fuel supplies are entering Gaza, the Israelis have kept out the construction material essential for rebuilding the thousands of homes damaged and destroyed in January's fighting. If the onset of winter sees no progress in rebuilding the homes of those currently living in tents and other temporary shelters - and especially if the U.S. pushes a plan that is viewed as an attempt to isolate Hamas - the pressure on the group to end the cease-fire will be coming not just from more radical challengers, but from Hamas' own commanders and fighters.

Bermuda under storm warning as Bill churns

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer

MIAMI – Hurricane Bill continued its slog across the Atlantic on Friday, threatening to flood Bermuda's coastlines and bring dangerous waves and riptides to the eastern U.S. coast.

The Category 3 storm's maximum sustained winds weakened slightly early Friday, decreasing to near 120 mph. But forecasters warned the hurricane could strengthen and regain its Category 4 status Friday as it feeds on warm waters.

"It's moving over waters of 84, 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which could provide some fuel to it. We still think it could restrengthen back into a Category 4. The environmental conditions appear to be right," Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said Thursday.

Bill was expected to cause significant flooding along the Bermuda coastlines over Friday and Saturday and Bermuda issued a tropical storm warning. Dangerous waves and riptides were likely along most of the eastern U.S. coast over the weekend.

Bermuda's storm warning means winds of 40 mph or more were expected to arrive within a day, and the island remained under a hurricane watch that indicated even stronger winds were possible within 36 hours.

Thursday's warning came a day after former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, arrived in Bermuda on Wednesday for a 3- or 4-day getaway.

The government urged islanders to secure boats and finish other storm preparations by Friday afternoon. Officials put up warning signs at beaches along the south shore because of large swells and dangerous rip currents expected ahead of the storm. Home Affairs Minister Walter Roban urged people not to swim until further notice.

Some flight delays are possible, said Aaron Adderley, general manager of Bermuda's L.F. Wade International Airport.

"At this point, it's fair to say that one can expect some disruption — but to what extent, remains to be seen," he said.

At the 9 Beaches resort on Bermuda's western coast, general manager Robin Gilbert said some guests were leaving early but that roughly 100 were planning to stay.

"We're certainly going to have the bar open," said Gilbert, who added he's not expecting Bill's effects to be worse than what they'd get from a mild winter storm.

The storm's center is expected to pass between Bermuda and the U.S. eastern coast on Saturday. Forecasters said large swells from the storm were affecting Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, The Bahamas and Bermuda on Thursday. They warned that the swells could cause extremely dangerous surf and rip currents at beaches on one of the final weekends of summer.

"Those swells are known to be deadly," Blake said. "It's just going to be very dangerous this weekend."

The center's five-day track showed Bill staying well out to sea off the southern and northern U.S. coast. Bill was forecast to inch closer to shore as it moves north but only come close to landfall in Canada's Maritime provinces before veering back out into the North Atlantic.

At 2 a.m. EDT Friday, the storm was centered about 465 miles south of Bermuda, or about 925 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and was moving northwest around 18 mph.

Bill is the first Atlantic hurricane this year after a quiet start to the season that runs from June through November. The Miami center lowered its Atlantic hurricane outlook on Aug. 6 after no named tropical storms developed in the first two months.

The revised prediction was for three to six hurricanes, with one or two becoming major storms with winds over 110 mph. Researchers at Colorado State University have also lowered their Atlantic season forecast to four hurricanes, two of them major.

Calif. Assembly balks at early release of inmates

By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass plans to strip the most controversial provisions from a Senate-approved plan that would have trimmed the state's prison population by 27,000 inmates.

The Assembly version would keep 10,600 more inmates behind bars and leave the state with a new, nearly $200 million budget hole.

Bass says the new plan — to be considered Monday — will do away with proposals by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to allow home detention with electronic monitoring for inmates with less than 12 months to serve, who are older than 60 or who are medically incapacitated.

The Democrat-controlled Assembly will also reject the Republican governor's plan to lower sentences for certain property crimes to misdemeanors, making those offenders ineligible for prison.

Karzai, Abdullah teams claim wins in Afghan vote

By FISNIK ABRASHI and HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writers

KABUL – Campaign teams for President Hamid Karzai and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah each positioned themselves Friday as the winner of Afghanistan's presidential election, one day after millions of Afghans braved dozens of militant attacks to cast ballots.

The first official returns were not expected until at least Saturday, but campaign teams conducted informal counts and posted numbers at campaign headquarters. Abdullah's unofficial returns showed him beating Karzai handily — but they did not include any numbers from Afghanistan's south and east, where Karzai was expected to win a large majority.

Across town, Karzai's campaign team said the president had won more than 50 percent of the nation's vote, a result that would mean a two-man runoff was not necessary.

Seddiq Seddiqi, a spokesman for Karzai's campaign, said initial returns showed Karzai was winning.

"We believe that he will have over 50 percent of the vote," said Seddiqi. "That is what we believe based on our initial findings."

Each campaign was clearly trying to win the early expectations game, and officials with the country's Independent Election Commission said it was too early for any campaign to claim victory.

"What Karzai's office is claiming is not correct. The result is in front of you. You can see Abdullah is ahead with 62 percent and Karzai has 31 percent," said Abdullah spokesman Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki.

As candidates set expectations in the capital, election workers around the country counted votes. International observers called for calm during the precarious wait for results of the country's second presidential poll since Taliban rule. While initial returns were expected Saturday or Sunday, final official results weren't to be announced until early September.

Millions of Afghans defied threats to cast ballots, but turnout appeared weaker than the previous vote in 2004 because of violence, fear and disenchantment.

At least 26 people were killed in election-related violence, fewer than had been feared. But in much of the Taliban's southern strongholds, many people did not dare to vote, bolstering the hopes of Abdullah.

A top election official, Zekria Barakzai, told The Associated Press he estimated 40 percent to 50 percent of the country's 15 million registered voters cast ballots — far lower than the 70 percent who voted in the presidential election in 2004.

Nevertheless, many Afghans did vote, some at great risk to their lives. Many waited until midday to see whether the Taliban would carry through with threats to attack polling stations. Some proudly showed off the ink on their index fingers to prove they had voted.

Authorities managed to open 6,202 polling centers — 95 percent of those planned, according to Barakzai.

International officials had predicted an imperfect election — Afghanistan's second-ever direct presidential vote — but expressed hope that Afghans would accept the outcome as legitimate, a key component of President Barack Obama's strategy for the war.

North Korean delegation pays respect in Seoul

By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – A high-level North Korean delegation arrived in Seoul on Friday to pay respects to late former President Kim Dae-jung, a rare visit that raised hopes of improved relations between the tense neighbors.

A plane carrying the six-member delegation landed Friday afternoon, Gimpo airport official Park Hyun-il told The Associated Press. He did not provide further details.

The convoy is to head straight for the National Assembly, where Kim's body will lie in state until his funeral Sunday. Kim, 85, died Tuesday.

South Korea's Unification Ministry said the delegation is headed by senior Workers' Party official Kim Ki Nam and includes the country's spy chief, Kim Yang Gon.

It was not immediately clear whether the North Koreans would hold talks with South Korean officials before returning home Saturday.

Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters no other itinerary for the North Koreans had been set.

However, the trip — the first by North Korean officials to the South in nearly two years — could provide a valuable opportunity for contact between officials from the two Koreas, which technically remain at war.

Ties have been tense since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, a conservative, took office last year, abandoning the previous administration's "Sunshine Policy" of reaching out to the communist North with aid.

Kim Dae-jung, a longtime defender of democracy and champion of reconciliation on the Korean peninsula, was the architect of the Sunshine Policy.

After holding a historic summit in 2000 with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, South Korea's Kim won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his efforts at engaging the North after decades of inter-Korean tensions.

Kim Jong Il sent a condolence message to Kim's family on Wednesday. North Korean media announced the next day that he approved sending a delegation to Seoul to visit the mourning site.

North Korea has only dispatched a condolence delegation only once before — a one-day trip in 2001 during the mourning period for Chung Ju-yung, the founder of South Korea's Hyundai Group, which funded the first inter-Korean joint projects.

Lockerbie bomber freed, returns to cheers in Libya

By TAREK EL-TABLAWY, Associated Press Writer

TRIPOLI, Libya – The only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing returned home Thursday to a cheering crowd after his release from a Scottish prison — an outrage to many relatives of the 270 people who perished when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded.

President Barack Obama said the Scottish decision to free terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds was a mistake and said he should be under house arrest. Obama warned Libya not to give him a hero's welcome.

Despite the warning, thousands of young men were on hand at a Tripoli airport where al-Megrahi's plane touched down. Some threw flower petals as he stepped from the plane. He wore a a dark suit and a burgundy tie and appeared visibly tired.

He was accompanied by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, who was dressed in a traditional white robe and golden embroidered vest. The son pledged last year to bring al-Megrahi home and raised his hand victoriously to the crowd as he exited the plane. They then sped off in a convoy of white sedans.

International photographers and camera crews — along with most Libyan broadcast media — were barred from filming the arrival at the airport, which decades ago had been part of a U.S. air base.

Al-Megrahi's release disgusted many victims' relatives.

"You get that lump in your throat and you feel like you're going to throw up," said Norma Maslowski, of Haddonfield, New Jersey, whose 30-year-old daughter, Diane, died in the attack.

"This isn't about compassionate release. This is part of give-Gadhafi-what-he-wants-so-we-can-have-the-oil," said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey. Her 20-year-old daughter, Theodora, was killed.

At home, al-Megrahi, 57, is seen as an innocent scapegoat the West used to turn this African nation into a pariah. At the airport, some wore T-shirts with his picture and waved Libyan and miniature blue-and-white Scottish flags. Libyan songs blared in the background.

"It's a great day for us," 24-year-old Abdel-Aal Mansour said. "He belongs here, at home."

Moammar Gadhafi lobbied hard for the return of al-Megrahi, an issue which took on an added sense of urgency when al-Megrahi was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. He was recently given only months to live.

The former Libyan intelligence officer was convicted in 2001 of taking part in the bombing on Dec. 21, 1988, and sentenced to life in prison for Britain's deadliest terrorist attack. The airliner exploded over Scotland and all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground died when it crashed into the town of Lockerbie.

Al-Megrahi's conviction was largely based on the testimony of a shopkeeper who identified him as having bought a man's shirt in his store in Malta. Scraps of the garment were later found wrapped around a timing device discovered in the wreckage of the airliner. Critics of al-Megrahi's conviction question the reliability of the store owner's evidence.

He was sentenced to serve a minimum of 27 years in a Scottish prison. But a 2007 review of his case found grounds for an appeal, and many in Britain believe he is innocent. He served only eight years.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said although al-Megrahi had not shown compassion to his victims — many of whom were American college students flying home to New York for Christmas — MacAskill was motivated by Scottish values to show mercy.

"Some hurts can never heal, some scars can never fade," MacAskill said. "Those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive ... However, Mr. al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power."

He added that he had ruled out sending the bomber back to Libya under a prisoner-transfer agreement, saying the U.S. victims had been given assurances that al-Megrahi would serve out his sentence in Scotland.

"I don't understand how the Scots can show compassion," said Kara Weipz, of Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Her 20-year-old brother Richard Monetti was on board the doomed flight. "I don't show compassion for someone who showed no remorse."

As al-Megrahi's white van rolled down street outside Greenock Prison on his way to the airport in Glasgow, Scotland, some men on the roadside made obscene gestures. He later appeared on the airport tarmac dressed in a white tracksuit and baseball cap.

In a statement following his release, al-Megrahi stood by his insistence that he was wrongfully convicted.

"I say in the clearest possible terms, which I hope every person in every land will hear — all of this I have had to endure for something that I did not do," he said.

He also said he believed the truth behind the Lockerbie bombing may now never be known.

"I had most to gain and nothing to lose about the whole truth coming out — until my diagnosis of cancer," he said, referring to an appeal that he dropped in order to be freed. "To those victims' relatives who can bear to hear me say this, they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss that they have suffered."

Gadhafi engineered a rapprochement with his former critics following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He renounced terrorism, dismantled Libya's secret nuclear program, accepted his government's responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families.

Western energy companies — including Britain's BP PLC — have moved into Libya in an effort to tap the country's vast oil and gas wealth.

Briton Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died on Flight 103, welcomed the Libyan's release, saying many questions remained about what led to the bomb that exploded in the cargo hold.

"I think he should be able to go straight home to his family and spend his last days there," Swire told the BBC. "I don't believe for a moment this man was involved in the way he was found to be involved."

Among the Lockerbie victims was John Mulroy, the AP's director of international communication, who died along with five members of his family.

British PM greets Muslims with Ramadan Mubarak

Abu Dhabi, Aug 20 : The 'message of compassion and justice is strong in Islamic faith', British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said in his Ramadan greetings to Muslims, WAM news agency reported Thursday.

Ramadan, the month of fasting, begins Friday or Saturday subject to the appearance of new moon.

"Ramadan is a time for family and friends. A time when Muslims around the world focus more on others than themselves. As you come together everyday (during Ramadan) to break the fast, thoughts will be of faith, families and togetherness. It will also be a time for prayer, contemplation and reflection, a time to remember those who are less fortunate today," said Brown in a message released by the British embassy here Thursday.

He said the the message of Islamic justice "is universal that unites all".

"I take this opportunity to say: May your Ramadan be peaceful and blessed. Ramadan Mubarak to you all."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has also sent his wishes to the Muslim community around the world.

There are around two million Muslims in Britain.

At least 21 dead amid fierce fighting in Somalia

Militants re-take town seized by government forces

MOGADISHU: Twenty-one people died Thursday as the battle for southern and central Somalia intensified when Ethiopian-backed pro-government forces thrust into areas held by Al-Shebaab fighters. Forces from the transitional federal government (TFG) supported by militias from the Sufi group Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa attacked the town of Bulobarde in central Somalia, sparking fierce clashes, witnesses and commanders said.

Meanwhile, Al-Shebaab fighters retaliated by attacking their rear in the key town of Beledweyn, near the Ethiopian border, they said.

Bulobarde is located some 200 kilometers north of the capital Mogadishu and is the main town on the road linking the capital Mogadishu to Beledweyn.

According to locals and military commanders, at least 21 people, mainly combatants, were killed during the first hours of fighting in Bulobarde.

Residents said the fighting was the heaviest the town had seen in a long time and that both sides used heavy machine-guns and anti-aircraft weapons.

“The fighting has stopped for now but the warring sides are still facing off in one neighborhood … I personally saw the bodies of 18 fighters and the death toll could be much higher,” local resident Abdurahman Ali said.

Abdikarim Muktar, a grocer, said the heaviest fighting occurred near a bridge over a river dividing the town.

“Most of the people died near the bridge where the fighting was fierce. The government forces were pushed back from that area,” he said.

But as Al-Shebaab forces attempted to hold off the pro-government offensive in Bulobarde, they also moved to recapture Beledweyn, witnesses said.

“Al-Shebaab forces launched an attack from a neighboring region and entered the town,” said Abdullahi Moalim Hassan, an elder in Beledweyn.

“There was intense exchange and they took control of the western part of the town. Eight people have been injured, most of them civilians.”

An alliance of clan militias, government forces and Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa fighters earlier this week recaptured two strategic southwestern towns from Al-Shebaab without any fighting. Residents say the Islamist insurgents on Wednesday wrested back control of the town of Bulohawo, which sits just across the border from the Kenyan town of Mandera.

Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa and allied groups have recently inflicted serious losses on Al-Shebaab, who had controlled much of central and southern Somalia in recent months.

Earlier this week, the premier of Somalia’s interim administration reshuffled the Cabinet to offer a tougher response to a bruising insurgency.

Al-Shebaab and the more political Hezb al-Islam on May 7 launched a broad military offensive in Mogadishu and other regions, leaving President Sharif Sheikh Ahmad’s power hanging by thread.

Tuesday’s reshuffle saw a new defense minister brought in and a powerful deputy appointed to bolster the government’s war effort.

According to residents and fighters, some of the pro-government groups involved in the latest counter-offensive to weaken Al-Shebaab have received training in Ethiopia. Ethiopian government spokesman Bereket Simon made no secret of the fact that his regime was propping the new war effort against Al-Shebaab, an Al-Qaeda-inspired organization listed as a terrorist group by Washington.

Source: The Daily Star.
Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=105522.

Turkey renames villages as part of Kurdish reforms

Ibon Villelabeitia

Reuters

ANKARA: Turkey has begun restoring names of Kurdish villages and is considering allowing religious sermons to be made in Kurdish as part of reforms to answer the grievances of the ethnic minority and advance its EU candidacy. Premier Tayyip Erdogan has said his government will push democratic reforms to address decades-old grievances from the Kurdish population and help end a 25-year conflict between the state and separatist militants.

Erdogan, who has given few details on the measures and their timeframe, is seeking public, military and parliamentary support for his “Kurdish initiative,” aimed at persuading Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels to lay down arms and end an insurgency that has killed some 40,000 people.

The conflict has long hampered Ankara’s European Union membership bid and weighed on the local economy.

Analysts say some of the measures will require difficult legal and constitution reforms for which Erdogan needs broad consensus, but the main opposition parties have rejected a call for talks, arguing the process threatened Turkey’s unity.

Turkey’s estimated 12 million Kurds out of a population of 72 million have long complained of discrimination by the state.

Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party, which first came to power in 2002, has taken some steps to expand political and cultural rights for Kurds, partly under pressure from the EU.

Haberturk daily said the provincial council of Diyarbakir in the mainly Kurdish southeast had restored the old Kurdish name to a hamlet and the state-appointed provincial governor had not objected. The governor had challenged similar moves by the council in court in the past.

Villagers had applied to the council for it to accept the name Celkaniya for their settlement in place of the Turkish name Kirkpinar. The council is dominated by the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP).

“This is a very positive development. We are still in shock. The government’s democratic initiative project is bearing fruit for the first time in Diyarbakir,” the paper quoted council chairman Sehmus Bayhan, from the DTP, as saying.

More than 12,000 village names, some 35 percent of the total, were changed in Turkey between 1940-2000 under a “Turkification” drive, according to a report by Milliyet daily.

The name change initiative, dating back to the Ottoman era before World War I, was also designed to give Turkish names to places with Armenian, Greek and Bulgarian names, it said.

Hurriyet newspaper reported Interior Minister Besir Atalay, who has been holding talks with political parties, business groups and Turkey’s generals on the “Kurdish initiative,” as saying he would discuss with the country’s religious authorities the possibility of sermons being made in Kurdish.

Under the plan, sermons in the main cities in the southeast will remain in Turkish but in villages where the population is completely Kurdish, preachers will be allowed to choose whether they conduct sermons in Turkish or Kurdish.

Erdogan was due to chair a national security meeting later on Thursday to discuss the Kurdish reforms with ministers and the country’s top commander, General Ilker Basbug.

The jailed guerrilla leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, had been expected last weekend to issue a “road-map” of his own on how to resolve the conflict, but this has been delayed.

Mistrust of Sunni militias threatens Iraq stability

August 21, 2009

Aubrey Belford

Agence France Presse

BAGHDAD: At a desolate lot filled with car wrecks in the Dora neighborhood of south Baghdad, members of one of the Sunni militias recruited to fight Al-Qaeda proudly show how they got rid of the jihadists. Their commander, who gave his name only as Mohammad, points into the scrub where he said the militants stored their weapons, set up an Islamic court and buried dozens of victims. All gone – for the time being – thanks to his men.

Mohammad’s fighters are part of a grassroots movement of mostly Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents backed and funded by the US since 2006 that has been widely credited with reining in Al-Qaeda and its allies.

But with the program now in the hands of the Iraqi government, there are concerns that late wages and delays in finding jobs for nearly 100,000 armed Sunnis – and lingering sectarian mistrust – could send some militiamen back to the insurgency and help fuel fresh instability.

For the fighters in Dora, known as Sahwa, or Awakening, Council members, there is a sense that good deeds are going unrewarded by the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

“We started the Sahwa because of the cruelty and oppression of insurgents against the people here,” said Mohammad, a thickset middle-aged man with a vintage chrome pistol at his hip.

“We saw how these gangs were slaughtering and beheading 12- and 15-year-olds in the streets, stealing and looting,” said the commander of some 60 fighters, who is a former member of the Baath Party of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

But since the Iraqi government took control of paying him and his men in April, he said wages have been cut and paid late. Twenty of his men have quit already.

His fighters have also seen few of the 16,000 jobs that have been created in the security forces and civil service specifically for the Sahwa, while he and his top assistants are the subject of arrest warrants that, although currently suspended, hang as a looming threat.

“If we’re gone, I’m 100 percent sure Al-Qaeda will return … There are sleeper cells. If we leave our positions, the area will be clear for them and they’ll come back in a minute.”

The government has promised to incorporate 20 percent of the Sahwa into the police and military, and find civil service jobs for many of the rest, but the process is fraught with risks.

The US military has also expressed concern over the integration process.

A Pentagon report in July argued: “The slow pace of integration has the potential to undermine Sunni confidence in the GoI [Government of Iraq], and, if not corrected, could undermine security progress.”

In Dora, where brown-uniformed Sahwa fighters continue to man the checkpoints, one militiaman said he feels little trust in the government. “We should get medals,” he said, requesting anonymity. “Instead, we are wanted men.”

Source: Daily Star.
Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/Aug/21/Mistrust-of-Sunni-militias-threatens-Iraq-stability.ashx.

More than half of America against the war in Afghanistan for first time

By Mail Foreign Service

August 20, 2009

More than half of America is against the war in Afghanistan for the first time, a poll has revealed.

Fifty-one per cent of those polled now say the war is not worth fighting, an increase of five percentage points in five months.

At the same time, the number of those in favor of the U.S. presence in the region has slumped to a meager 32 per cent.

Fifty-one per cent of those polled now say the war is not worth fighting, an increase of five percentage points in five months

Ominously for President Barack Obama, the same percentage opposed the Iraq conflict in 2004 at the start of George Bush’s disastrous slide in popularity.

The new ABC-TV/Washington Post poll comes as U.S. military chiefs are expected to ask Mr Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan.

But the poll shows that by a near two-to-one majority, Americans want just the opposite. Forty-five per cent want to pull troops out while only 24 per cent are in favor of increasing the force.

In January, before President Obama authorized sending an additional 17,000 troops to the country, U.S. public opinion strongly backed the move. And two years ago 56 per cent were in favor of the war, with 41 per cent against it.

Approval for Mr Obama’s handling of the Afghan conflict has dropped fastest - by nearly 20 percentage points - among left-of-centre Democrats who usually support him.

Only 34 per cent thought yesterday’s general election in Afghanistan would produce an effective government, with a meager three per cent being 'very confident.’

Afghanistan’s gunpoint election

James Cogan

20 August 2009

By any measure, today’s presidential election in Afghanistan is a travesty. The poll takes place under conditions of a continuing foreign military occupation to prop up a puppet government that is notorious for its human rights abuses, corruption and failure to provide for the basic needs of the vast majority of the population.

The incumbent president and leading contender, Hamid Karzai, who was installed in office in 2002 by the US, is widely despised by the Afghan people. Excluded from the field of major candidates is anyone who opposes the US-NATO occupation, despite the fact that it is opposed by a large majority of the population, particularly in the southern Pashtun region, where Taliban influence is strong. Karzai’s leading rival and former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, was previously a spokesman for the Northern Alliance militias that helped the US topple the Taliban.

Despite the boosting of US and NATO troop numbers, the Taliban and its allies hold sway over large areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan and are calling for an election boycott. In at least 60 percent of the country, polling stations are at risk of attack. Some 440 out of 7,000 stations will not be opened at all as they cannot be protected. Around 100,000 foreign troops and 180,000 Afghan government army and police personnel are being deployed to secure the vote.

The Taliban and other insurgent groups, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami movement, are intensifying their efforts to drive US and NATO troops from the country and overthrow the pro-US government. All of the leading presidential candidates are promising peace talks and even power-sharing with the insurgents, but, with their support growing, the Taliban and Hekmatyar have stated that they will not enter into talks under conditions of foreign occupation.

To prove their reach, the insurgents have carried out high-profile attacks over the past week against the nerve centres of the occupation. The NATO headquarters and the nearby US embassy in Kabul were targeted by a massive vehicle bomb on August 15. On Tuesday, Taliban fighters managed to position mortars within range and fire shells into the grounds of the heavily guarded presidential palace in the heart of the capital.

Numerous other attacks on US and foreign troops, Afghan security forces, election candidates and government officials have taken place this month, including in the northern provinces of the country where the Taliban insurgency was once believed to have no presence. The US/NATO death toll for August has already reached 50, following on from the war-high of 75 fatalities in July. Each month, at least 150 government troops and police are also being killed, though official figures are rarely released.

The vote is expected to be very low in the south and east. An Afghan judge in Uruzgan province told McClatchy News: "Only 10 to 20 percent of the people will be able to vote. When 80 percent of the people can’t vote, how can this be a transparent election?"

While the US will undoubtedly blame Taliban violence, eight years of indiscriminate air attacks, ground assaults and thousands of arbitrary detentions have generated deep-seated hostility to the occupation and its Afghan collaborators.

The US invasion has essentially placed back in power the Northern Alliance—the grouping of ethnic-based warlords who were overthrown by the Taliban in 1996. The only new faces are a collection of grasping émigré businessmen who have returned from the US and Europe to profiteer from multibillion-dollar "reconstruction" and "aid" projects.

In the central and northern provinces, the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazari warlords will largely dictate the outcome. Karzai is expected to be the main beneficiary. His two vice-presidential candidates and other supporters are prominent Northern Alliance members, and he is backed by a number of anti-Taliban Pashtun powerbrokers in the south—including his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is accused of organising much of the opium and heroin trade out of Kandahar province.

Even the Obama administration has had to admit that the result will be tarnished by wholesale ballot-rigging, primarily by electoral officials appointed by Karzai. It is believed that there at least 3 million duplicate or fraudulent voter registration cards in circulation, out of a total of 17 million. The BBC revealed this week that its undercover journalists had no difficulty arranging to buy 1,000 cards—for $10 each—on the streets of Kabul.

If Karzai does not win outright, he will be forced into a run-off with the second highest vote-getter. The most recent opinion poll conducted by the US International Republican Institute gave Karzai 44 percent against 26 percent for his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Two other prominent candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Ramazan Bashardost, each polled less than 10 percent.

The fraudulent character of the poll is underscored by the Obama administration’s overt meddling. Despite having loyally served the US-led occupation, Karzai has faced increasing criticism in the US over his administration’s corruption and lack of public support. Karzai’s own limited criticisms of air strikes have rankled the US military. Despite Washington’s claim to neutrality, US ambassador Karl Eikenberry appeared publicly earlier this year alongside two of Karzai’s leading rivals.

The White House also signaled its displeasure towards Karzai by publicly condemning the return to Afghanistan last Saturday of ethnic Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum—one of the brutal warlords in the pre-Taliban period and a key US ally during the 2001 invasion. Last year, Dostum was pressured to go into voluntary exile in Turkey after he murdered a political opponent. Having returned at Karzai’s invitation, Dostum immediately called for a vote for the incumbent president.

The US embassy issued a hypocritical statement declaring that Dostum faced "questions of his culpability for massive human rights violations." The charge referred not to his war crimes in the 1990s, but to the mass killing of Taliban prisoners captured by his Northern Alliance fighters in Kunduz in 2001. No mention was made of the involvement of CIA operatives and US Special Forces in a similar massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif. (See: "A cover-up of US massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif")

The US and its allies appear to be aiming at preventing Karzai from winning outright in the first round. The British ambassador in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwell, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday night that a second round of voting would help "convince people the process was real."

Even if Karzai does win the poll, his position is hardly secure. David Kilcullen, a leading advisor to US military commanders, described Karzai in the harshest language earlier this month and ominously compared him with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, whom the Kennedy administration had assassinated in 1963.

Washington is quietly pushing a plan to strip the president of many of his powers by installing an unelected "chief executive officer" to take over the day-to-day operations of the Afghan government. Among the possible candidates is Ashraf Ghani, who has worked for the foreign policy wing of the Brookings Institute, the World Bank and the United Nations.

Once the election is out of the way, the Obama administration and the Pentagon will push ahead with plans for a major escalation of the war. Tens of thousands of additional US troops have been put in place, and US commanders are preparing to call for many more to be sent to kill and be killed in this brutal neo-colonial war.

James Cogan

Gaza mothers, newborns affected by Israeli blockade

GAZA CITY, 20 August 2009 (IRIN) - Inadequate infrastructure, lack of equipment and a shortage of hospital staff are contributing to the deterioration of hospital care for mothers and newborns in Gaza, according to a July 2009 assessment by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Jerusalem.

WHO attributes the dismal state of Gaza’s healthcare system to the Israeli blockade since June 2007, when Hamas took over control of the territory.

"The Israeli blockade affects the supply of medical equipment and conditions in the maternity wards, and perpetuates the isolation of healthcare professionals, making it difficult to maintain international standards of practice," said Tony Laurence, head of the WHO West Bank and Gaza Office in Jerusalem.

The maintenance and updating of equipment is not adequate, and the supply of drugs and laboratory materials is not constant, according to WHO.

"Ten types of essential medications for maternal care, like Prostin gel that induces labour, are out of stock," said Munir Al-Bursh, head of Gaza’s Department of Pharmaceuticals, adding that they were unable to import spare parts for ultra-sound equipment and Computed Tomography (CT) scanners.

Safa Ahmed, aged 21, gave birth to her baby girl Rataj this week at As-Shifa, Gaza’s primary hospital, but was discharged just two hours after the delivery.

Mothers stay an average of two hours in Gaza hospitals after delivery due to a lack of beds, said the WHO report, which advocated that they stay in hospital for at least six hours after delivery for post-partum examinations.

As-Shifa’s overcrowded maternity unit deals with an average of 1,200 births a month.

"There were 7-8 women per room," said Safa. "My husband had to look in pharmacies outside the hospital for Prostin gel and blood thinners while I was delivering." Patients say those drugs are not readily available. If the drugs are provided by the hospital they are covered by the patient’s insurance, but if bought at a pharmacy outside, the patient pays out of her own pocket.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) provides some medications and medical supplies, but they are not always able to bring things in, said ICRC’s communications officer in Gaza Mustafa Abu-Hassanain.

Few trained midwives

There is a lack of professional staff in maternity and neonatal wards, particularly trained midwives, said Lubna Al-Sharif, a WHO officer in Gaza. "Knowledge is outdated regarding international standards of proper mother and child healthcare, due to the isolation created by prolonged border closures," said Al-Sharif.

"There is a lack of working foetal monitors and incubator parts, like ultra-violet lamps," said Al-Sharif, "and there are problems with infection control resulting from a lack of sinks, soaps and hand towels."

The blockade prohibits imports of construction materials like cement - without which it is difficult to rehabilitate and maintain hospitals, according to WHO.

Shlomo Dror, a spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Defense, said: "Medical supplies have priority [as imports into Gaza], and secondly is food from international organizations. There is a government decision not to allow a humanitarian crisis to occur in Gaza."

The Israeli Defense Ministry says it is not obliged to allow into Gaza anything other than basic humanitarian supplies necessary for survival, and is concerned certain medical technologies could be used for other more sinister means.

Karzai and Warlords Mount Massive Vote Fraud Scheme

Gareth Porter,

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (IPS) - Afghanistan's presidential election has long been viewed by U.S. officials as a key to conferring legitimacy on the Afghan government, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his powerful warlord allies have planned to commit large-scale electoral fraud that could have the opposite effect.

Two U.S.-financed polls published during the past week showed support for Karzai falls well short of the 51 percent of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff election. A poll by Glevum Associates showed Karzai at 36 percent, and a survey by the International Republican Institute had him at 44 percent of the vote.

Those polls suggest that Karzai might have to pad his legitimate vote total by much as 40 percent to be certain of being elected in the first round.

But Karzai has been laying the groundwork for just such a contingency for many months. By all accounts, he has forged political alliances with leading Afghan warlords who control informal militias and tribal networks in the provinces to carry out a vote fraud scheme accounting for a very large proportion of the votes.

Karzai chose Muhammad Qasim Fahim, the ethnic Tajik warlord who had been vice-president and defense minister in his government until the 2004 elections, as his running mate. In return for their support, he promised Hazara warlords Haji Muhammad Moheqiq and Karim Khalili that new provinces would be carved out from largely Hazara districts in Ghazni and Wardak provinces, as reported by Richard Oppel of the New York Times.

The socio-political structure of Afghanistan remains so hierarchical that warlords can deliver very large blocs of votes to Karzai by telling their followers to vote for him, and in some provinces - especially in the Pashtun south - by forcing local tribal elders to cooperate in voter fraud schemes.

The system in which warlords pressure tribal elders to deliver the vote for Karzai was illustrated by a village elder in Herat province who said he had been threatened by a local commander with "very unpleasant consequences" if the residents of his village did not vote for Karzai, according to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

As early as last May, the country's independent election monitoring organization, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), had documented a suite of voter registration practices that laid the groundwork for massive voter fraud.

FEFA observers, who observed voter registration in 194 of 400 voting registration centres in four provinces during one stage of the process, found that nearly 20 percent of the voters registered, on average, were under age – in many cases as young as 12 years old.

It is now estimated that 17 million voter registration cards have been issued, which means that nearly 3.5 million cards may have been issued to children.

FEFA observers also found rampant distribution of multiple voting cards. During the third phase of registration, they observed at least four incidents of such abuses in 85 percent of the centres. The voter registration staff was seen handing out cards even before applicants had been registered.

In one case, the FEFA observers saw about 500 voting cards being given to a single individual.

Another element in the Karzai scheme involves the registration of women without their actually being physically present, often on the basis of lists of names given to the registration officials. The list system for registering women was found in 99 percent of registration stations in Paktika province and 90 percent of those in Zabul and Khost provinces.

During the final phase of the registration, many centres were found to be allowing males to take the registration books home, where they supposedly obtained the fingerprints of the women.

In some of the most insecure and traditional provinces, such as Logar and in Nuristan, more than twice as many cards were issued to women as to men in 2009, and in Paktika, Paktia and Khost, 30 percent more women were registered than were men.

In Kandahar women represent 44 percent of those with voting cards. The young female MP Fawzia Koofi told The Australian that such levels of women registered could not be genuine.

The result has been to create a vast pool of voting cards, very few of which will be used by women to vote.

Reports by journalists about the acquisition of voting cards by the local strongmen indicate that this distribution of voting cards to people who would not vote was part of a plan to stuff the ballot boxes to increase the vote for Karzai.

The Times of London quoted a tribal elder in Marja district of Helmand province last week as saying that the warlord and former governor Sher Mohammad Akhudzada was organizing the vote for Karzai in the province, and that he and other tribal elders were responsible for buying voting cards from voters who had registered.

Independent analyst Alex Strick van Linschoten, who is based in Kandahar, has reported schemes using police to purchase voter registration cards in several districts in the province.

Writing in the New York Times magazine Aug. 9, Elizabeth Rubin reported that an unnamed political figure in Kandahar told her in June he had manufactured 8,000 voter "fake" registration cards that had sold for 20 dollars each.

Some observers believe that various factors may constrain Karzai's effort to use warlords to swing the election. Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann told IPS he is counting on the use of indelible ink on the voters' fingers to make it impossible for people to vote more than once.

He recalls, however, that the "indelible" ink used in the 2005 election turned out to be washable after all.

Neumann also hopes the existence of the Election Complaints Commission, an independent body with three international members nominated by the United Nations, will be a check on massive vote fraud.

That body investigates complaints of voter fraud and has the right under Afghan election law to order the invalidation or recounting of votes or even the conducting of new polling where it finds evidence of fraud. But it has no sub-national presence and will be heavily dependent on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), which handles all the documentary evidence pertaining to such complaints.

More problematic is the fact that the IEC is not "independent" of the Karzai regime at all. Its seven members were all appointed by Karzai, and its chairman has made no secret of his partisan support for the president.

The IEC will likely seek to cover up complaints of major fraud, and the complaints body may not be able to do much about it.

Neumann put the odds of an election that would be "good enough" in the eyes of the Afghans at "50-50".

But counterinsurgency specialists are more pessimistic. Larry Goodson of the U.S. Army College, who was on the U.S. Central Command team that worked on a detailed plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier this year, told IPS, "The reality is there is going to be a lot of cheating and fraud."

Goodson said the danger for the United States in the Karzai election plan is that it "could be perceived by Afghans as promoting the legitimization of someone who is widely perceived as illegitimate."

Australian counterinsurgency specialist David Kilcullen, who will shortly become a senior adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, declared at the U.S. Institute of Peace Aug. 6, "The biggest fear is Karzai ends up as an incredibly illegitimate figure, and we end up owning Afghanistan and propping up an illegitimate government."

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

Despite low turnout, Afghan vote declared a success

By Jonathan S. Landay and Hashim Shukoor, McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government and the principal opposition candidate declared the country's second presidential election a success Thursday, despite strong indications that Taliban threats and attacks had kept voters at home in southern and eastern Afghanistan .

The country's largest independent election-monitoring organization, the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan , which deployed some 7,500 observers around the country, said it would withhold judgment while it assessed reports of irregularities, violence and low turnout, however.

The reports, the organization said, "raise concerns about the quality of today's elections, and about the impact of the reported incidents of violence — some gruesome."

At least 26 people died in Election Day violence: eight Afghan soldiers, nine police officers and nine civilians, according to Defense Minister Rahim Wardak and Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar .

The toll could go higher. A battle between security forces and Taliban in Baghlan province may have killed as many as 40, including the district police chief, according to Afghan and Western officials.

Afghans defied "rockets, bombs and intimidation and came out to vote. We'll see what the turnout was, but they came out to vote. That's great. That's great," President Hamid Karzai declared at a news conference after the polls closed.

The closest of Karzai's 36 challengers, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah , also seemed satisfied. He said that unrest, alleged official vote-tampering for Karzai in southern Kandahar province and very low turnout in many areas "will not be at a level that would question the legitimacy of the election."

"Whatever it (the result) is, we will accept it," he said.

An election in which the rivals agree on the result could bolster President Barack Obama's ability to cite progress as he seeks support for a new counterinsurgency strategy expected to call for more U.S. troops and tens of billions in additional funds to expand the Afghan security forces along with civilian aid and reconstruction programs.

"Lots of people have defied threats of violence and terror to express their thoughts about the next government," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in Washington . "We will await what happens and continue to monitor."

Karzai is favored to win another five-year term. However, support for Abdullah rose in the campaign's closing days, and it wasn't clear that Karzai would be able to avoid a runoff by capturing more than 50 percent of the vote.

Ballot counting began immediately after the polls closed, but preliminary results aren't expected until Saturday.

Attendance was reportedly much higher in western and northern regions than in the east and the south, where U.S.-led international troops and Afghan security forces are struggling to contain the Taliban and allied Islamic extremist groups nearly eight years after the U.S.-led invasion in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Still, the overall turnout was expected to fall far short of the 70 percent achieved in the 2004 presidential election, which Karzai won with 55.4 percent of the vote. Since then, his popularity has plummeted as the Taliban -led insurgency, civilian casualties, the foreign troop presence and drug trafficking-fueled corruption have grown.

The polls were to have closed at 4 p.m. after nine hours of voting, but the Independent Election Commission decided to extend that by an hour.

Commission Chairman Azizullah Ludin said that 95 percent of the 6,185 polling centers had opened. He said he had no reports of major security or voting problems, but added that there were too few ballots delivered to some voting stations.

Ludin scoffed at charges by Ramazan Bashardost , a presidential candidate and former planning minister, that the indelible ink used to mark people's fingers to ensure that they didn't vote more than once could be washed off easily.

"I would give a prize if anyone appears and claims that he was able to rub off the ink," Ludin told a news conference.

In the ragged tent he uses as an office, Bashardost and several aides held up fingers from which the ink had washed off, however. Bashardost also produced a complaint endorsed by a member of the Election Complaints Commission after the ink on his finger rubbed away.

"This is not an election. This is a comedy," said Bashardost, whom pre-election polls had put in third place. He blamed the snafu on Karzai.

A Taliban campaign of bombings and intimidation aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the vote overshadowed the election. There were also deep concerns about fraud, driven by the distribution of millions of phony and duplicate voter registration cards and the lack of voter lists.

A Western official, who asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly, said that most of the known incidents of violence had occurred before 9:30 a.m. , indicating that they were aimed at suppressing voting.

The worst violence Thursday was reported in northern Baghlan province, where a large number of people were killed in the town of Baghlan-e-Jadid in a three-hour battle between security forces and insurgents who tried to block the main road to prevent polling, Afghan and Western officials said.

Helaluddin Helal, a parliamentarian from Baghlan, said the district police chief was among the dead and that up to 40 Taliban had been killed.

Insurgents launched rockets and mortars into Kandahar , the largest city in the Taliban's southern heartland, and Lashkar Gah , the capital of the neighboring opium-producing province of Helmand, where thousands of U.S. Marines and British troops are deployed, residents and Afghan and Western officials said.

"At 10 this morning, there was a rocket attack. So far, six to seven rockets have been fired," Haji Jan Mohammad, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, said by telephone from Lashkar Gah . He said that at least three people were killed, including two children.

He estimated that voter turnout was below 20 percent in the city, which is more secure than the rest of the insurgency-racked province.

Mohammad Nabi , the deputy police chief in southeastern Uruzgan province, thought that province-wide turnout was less than 40 percent.

"People had no interest" in the election "although security was ensured," he said, adding that the Taliban had fired at least seven rockets at the provincial capital of Tirin Kot but that only one landed in the city and it caused no casualties.

Noor Ahmad , a resident of Zhari District , in Kandahar province, said by telephone that his relatives told him "there has been no election" in the area because the Taliban had blocked the roads.

Ahmad, who was speaking from Kandahar city, said the Taliban had exchanged fire with security forces in the city and that "except for two or three children, you don't see anyone in the street. The turnout is very low, perhaps less than 5 percent."

Several bombings were reported in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, and police said that officers had killed two Taliban suicide bombers in an hourlong gunfight outside a police station in the southeast neighborhood of Karte Nau.

Turnout in Kabul appeared to be low, driven down by recent suicide bombings, one outside the headquarters of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force and the other against an ISAF convoy.

"The turnout is very low. Naturally, the reason is the explosions a few days ago," said Mohammad Wazir , who was in charge of the polling station at Habibia High School , Afghanistan's most prestigious secondary school.

Security was tight across Kabul , with police manning checkpoints on streets empty of the usual chaotic traffic and pedestrians. Officers anxious about suicide attacks frisked drivers and passengers. Most shops and businesses were shut.

Not everyone was deterred from voting, however.

"Why should I be afraid?" Abdul Ahmad , a 48-year-old laborer, said after he voted in the old city area of Shor Bazaar. "This is my soil. I haven't left the country in 30 years of war."