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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Even in death, Kim Dae-jung unites Koreas

By JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – In death as in life, Kim Dae-jung managed to bring the two rival Koreas together.

Hours before his funeral Sunday, North Korean officials dispatched to Seoul to pay their respects to the Nobel Peace Prize winner held talks with South Korea's president — the first high-level inter-Korean contact after many months of tension.

They relayed a message about bilateral relations from North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during a half hour of "serious and amicable" talks with President Lee Myung-bak, Lee's spokesman said.

It was a fitting breakthrough on a day of mourning for a man who made history by traveling to Pyongyang in 2000 to meet Kim Jong Il for the first summit between leaders of the two countries.

"Farewell, Mr. Sunshine," read yellow placards held up by mourners who packed the plaza outside City Hall on Sunday to watch a broadcast of his funeral at the National Assembly. Kim died Tuesday at the age of 85.

The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty. Tanks and troops still guard the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone bisecting the peninsula.

Kim Dae-jung, however, was respected on both sides of the border. As president from 1998 to 2003, he advocated a "Sunshine Policy" of engaging the isolated North and sought to ease reconciliation by plying the impoverished nation with aid.

In 2000, he traveled to Pyongyang for the summit with Kim Jong Il. Raising their hands aloft in a sight that would have been unimaginable just years earlier, the two Kims pledged to embark on a new era of peace on the Korean peninsula.

The following years saw a blossoming of reconciliation projects, including the emotional temporary reunions of thousands of family members separated by the Korean War, the restoration of a cross-border cargo train and inter-Korean business ventures.

Some criticized the flow of money to North Korea, which has evaded years of international pressure to dismantle its nuclear program.

Relations have been tense since Lee, a conservative, took office in February 2008, abandoning the Sunshine Policy and insisting that North Korea must prove its commitment to international nuclear disarmament pacts before it can expect aid.

Pyongyang, in response, ditched the reconciliation talks and most of the inter-Korean projects and routinely excoriated Lee in state media as "scum" and a "traitor" to Korean reconciliation.

The North also has been locked in an international standoff with the U.S. and other nations over its atomic ambitions after launching a rocket, test-firing missiles and conducting an underground nuclear test this year.

However, there have been signs the tensions may be easing. After welcoming former President Bill Clinton during his mission to secure the release of two jailed American reporters, the North freed a South Korean citizen held for four months. Pyongyang also said it would allow some joint projects to resume.

Kim Dae-jung's death prompted condolences from Kim Jong Il, who authorized the high-level delegation of six to pay their respects — the first time the North has sent officials to mourn a South Korean president.

Led by senior Workers' Party official Kim Ki Nam and spy chief Kim Yang Gon, the delegation went straight to the National Assembly mourning site Friday to leave a wreath on behalf of Kim Jong Il and bow before Kim's portrait.

Extending their trip by a day, three North Korean officials met Sunday morning with Lee, relaying Kim Jong Il's thoughts on "progress on inter-Korean cooperation," presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said. He declined to quote the exact message, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

The South Korean president then detailed his government's "consistent and firm" policy on North Korea and reiterated the need for "sincere" dialogue between the two Koreas, the spokesman said.

"We're returning in a positive mood," Kim Ki Nam told reporters before departing.

Hours later, a somber funeral took place at the National Assembly, where Kim — who endured torture, death threats and imprisonment during his decades as a dissident — triumphantly took the oath of office as South Korea's president in 1998.

Though best known abroad for his efforts to reach out to North Korea, Kim Dae-jung was admired at home for devoting his life to the fight for democracy during South Korea's early years of authoritarian rule.

A native of South Jeolla Province in the southwest, he went up against Seoul's military and political elite. He narrowly lost to Park Chung-hee in a 1971 presidential election — a near-win that earned him Park's wrath. Weeks later, Kim was injured in a traffic accident he believed was an assassination attempt, and barely survived a Tokyo abduction engineered by South Korean intelligence.

In 1980, tens of thousands took to the streets in Kim's southern stronghold, Gwangju, to protest the junta that seized power when Park was assassinated in office. Kim, accused of fomenting the protests, was sentenced to death.

International calls for leniency resulted in a suspended prison sentence, and he went into exile. Returning in 1985, he helped usher in a new era of democracy in South Korea.

"We love you, Mr. President Kim Dae-jung. We will not forget you," read one banner outside the National Assembly. "Democracy, peace, human rights: We will carry out your will, Mr. President," read another. Yellow ribbons and balloons lined the street leading to parliament.

Memorials nationwide for the man dubbed the "Nelson Mandela of Asia" for his lifelong struggle for democracy attracted some 700,000 people, the government said.

Prime Minister Han Seung-soo praised Kim in a eulogy as a passionate leader who dedicated his life to democracy, human rights, peace and reconciliation. He recalled Kim's resilience during the hard fight for democracy, and his skillful handling of the financial crisis of the late 1990s.

"Today we are overwhelmed with heartbreaking grief and sorrow. The whole of Korea is truly overcome with great sadness," Han said at the multifaith ceremony held under a blistering sun.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was among the dignitaries who joined more than 20,000 for the funeral at parliament. Another 14,000 mourners gathered outside City Hall to watch a broadcast of the ceremony, police said.

"My heart feels so empty. I'm so sad," said Kim Nam-yeop, 53. "He is someone who sacrificed his entire life for democracy, North-South Korean peace, and our economy."

Kim was buried at the national cemetery in Seoul, a blanket knit by his widow and a Bible tucked into his coffin.

"I hope you'll leave with the spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness," his wife, Lee Hee-ho, told mourners at City Hall. "This is my husband's last wish."

Mullen: Afghan fight 'serious and deteriorating'

By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The top U.S. military officer described the situation in Afghanistan as "serious and deteriorating," but refused to say Sunday whether defeating a resilient enemy would require more than the 68,000 American troops already committed.

Adm. Mike Mullen also expressed concern about eroding public support as the U.S. and NATO enter their ninth year of combat and reconstruction operations.

The comments from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff underscore the challenges that the U.S. and its allies face against a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida fighters who use safe havens in neighboring Pakistan to hide and launch attacks.

In broadcast interviews, Mullen and U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said that last week's presidential election in Afghanistan was historic, given the threats of intimidation voters faced as they headed to polling stations. It could be several weeks before it's known whether incumbent Hamid Karzai or one of his challengers won.

"We're not sure exactly what the level of voter turnout was," said Eikenberry, a retired three-star Army general. "Taliban intimidation, especially in southern Afghanistan, certainly limited those numbers."

President Barack Obama's strategy for defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida is a work in progress as more U.S. troops are put in place, Mullen said.

The situation in Afghanistan needs to be reversed in the next 12 month to 18 months, he said. But Mullen wouldn't say whether more American forces troops would be needed.

A large number of civilian experts is also required to help bring stability to Afghanistan's government and develop the economy, he said.

"I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over the last couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated," Mullen said.

Three years ago, the U.S. had about 20,000 forces in the country. Today, it has triple that, on the way to 68,000 by year's end when all the extra 17,000 troops that Obama announced in March are to be in place. An additional 4,000 troops are arriving to help train Afghan forces.

"I recognize that we've been there over eight years," he said. "But this is the first time we've really resourced a strategy on both the civilian and military sides. So in certain ways, we're starting anew."

"We're just getting the pieces in place from the president's new strategy on the ground now," he said. "I don't see this a mission of endless drift. I think we know what to do."

The Obama administration is awaiting an assessment about the situation from the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal. That report is expected in about two weeks and will lead to decisions about whether more troops are necessary.

"His guidance from me and from the secretary of defense was to go out, assess where you are, and then tell us what you need," Mullen said. "And we'll get to that point. And I want to, I guess, assure you or reassure you that he hasn't asked for any additional troops up until this point in time."

Just over 50 percent of respondents to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this past week said the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting.

Mullen, a Vietnam veteran, said he's aware that public support for the war is critical. "Certainly the numbers are of concern," he said. But, he added, "this is the war we're in."

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he wants the military leadership in Afghanistan to use the same aggressive approach that Gen. David Petraeus used successfully in Iraq.

McChrystal should say exactly how many troops he needs in Afghanistan, let the Congress debate it and Obama would make the ultimate decision, McCain said.

Troops in Afghanistan should "clear and hold" an environment for people so that economic and political progress can be made, he said. McCain said he worries McChrystal will be pressured to ask for lower troop totals than he needs.

"I don't think it's necessarily from the president," he said. "I think it's from the people around him and others and that I think don't want to see a significant increase in our troops' presence there."

On the question of what it will take to turn the tide in Afghanistan, McCain echoed Mullen's projection: "I think within a year to 18 months you could start to see progress."

McCain acknowledged that public opinion on Afghanistan is slipping. But he said that opinion could be reversed.

"I think you need to see a reversal of these very alarming and disturbing trends on attacks, casualties, areas of the country that the Taliban has increased control of."

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Obama's leadership on Afghanistan to bolstering public support.

"He really can't just leave this to the Congress, to General McChrystal, and say, folks, sort of, discuss this, after the report comes in," Lugar said.

Mullen and Eikenberry appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and CNN's "State of the Union." Lugar was on CNN. McCain's interview Friday with ABC's "This Week" was aired Sunday.

Hurricane Bill spinning past New England shores

By JASON BRONIS, Associated Press Writer

EDGARTOWN, Mass. – Hurricane Bill taunted the New England coastline from a distance Sunday, after closing beaches and setting off a string of safety warnings for weekend boaters, swimmers and surfers along the eastern seaboard.

President Barack Obama took no chances and planned a later arrival for his family vacation at Martha's Vineyard, which remained under a tropical storm warning early Sunday.

Forecasters said that the hurricane was moving away from the New England coast offshore and closer to Nova Scotia, and was expected to approach Newfoundland by Sunday night. By early Sunday, it was about 275 miles (445 km) south-southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and about 185 miles (300 km) east of Nantucket, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Massachusetts' coastline and a storm warning covered Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast.

Even as it weakened to a Category 1 hurricane Saturday, the tempest churned up rough seas and dangerous rip tides.

In Nova Scotia, provincial parks were shut down and people were advised to stay clear of beaches.

"The waves, they're very pretty to look at but very dangerous," said Barry Manuel of the Halifax Emergency Management Office.

By early Sunday, the storm had maximum sustained winds near 85 mph (140 kph) and was moving 26 mph in a north-northeast direction.

The Obamas delayed their planned Sunday morning departure from Andrews Air Force Base to Sunday mid-afternoon because of the weather, White House aides said. The worst of Bill was expected to pass east of Martha's Vineyard before the Obamas arrival.

As plans changed Saturday for the first family, nearly all south-facing beaches on the island were closed to swimmers and large signs blocked roadways to shorefronts. Lifeguards used caution tape to rope off access points, and police patrolled the beach to enforce the closings.

"The concern we have now is that the riptides are very strong," said lifeguard James Costantini. "There's a very strong undertow."

But longtime Vineyard vacationer Jack DeCoste, 69, of Plymouth, Mass., was unimpressed with the storm as he lounged in a beach chair in Edgartown.

"I don't think it's going to impact things that much," DeCoste said. "I think it'll be in and out of here fairly quickly."

At Robert Moses State Park in New York, the beach was shut down as the high tide submerged the sand, though the beach opened later for sunbathing. Along some beaches in Delaware and New Jersey, no swimming was allowed.

"It's just too dangerous right now," Rehoboth Beach Patrol Capt. Kent Buckson said.

The same high waves that worried safety officials, however, had surfers buzzing.

In Atlantic City, N.J., surfers gathered Saturday on beaches where 20-foot waves were expected. But only a few were willing to take their boards into the big swells.

Atlantic City Beach Patrol Chief Rod Aluise told The Press of Atlantic City that some surfers just stood on the beach "with their eyes popping out" at the size of the waves.

"This is only for experienced surfers," Aluise said.

The stormy conditions were expected to last through the weekend.

"It takes a while for the ocean to relax" after strong storms, said Gary Conte, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "Until it does, riptides will make dangerous sport" for surfers and swimmers.

Hurricane Bill moved past Bermuda earlier Saturday, leaving behind sunny skies, debris and flooding, but no casualties. The storm cut power to about 3,700 customers and flooded some roads. All ferry service was canceled until Sunday.

Meanwhile, forecasters said Sunday that Tropical Storm Hilda had strengthened slightly far out in the Pacific but was not threatening land. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph) and was about 2,025 miles (3,260 km) west-southwest of the tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, and 1,125 miles (1,810 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.

South Korea holds state funeral for Kim Dae-jung

By JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – Tens of thousands of mourners filled the lawn outside parliament for the state funeral Sunday of ex-President Kim Dae-jung, a longtime defender of democracy and advocate of reconciliation who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to reach out to communist North Korea.

The solemn funeral was the first held at the National Assembly, where Kim — who endured torture, death threats and imprisonment during his decades as an opposition leader — triumphantly took the oath of office as South Korea's president in 1998.

In central Seoul, thousands watched a broadcast of the funeral, many holding yellow balloons and waving small yellow posters that read: "Farewell, Mr. Sunshine: Without you, we would never have known democracy."

The mourning period for Kim, who died Tuesday at age 85, lasted six days. Memorials nationwide for a man dubbed the "Nelson Mandela of Asia" for his lifelong struggle for democracy have drawn some 700,000 people, officials said, including a high-level North Korean delegation dispatched by leader Kim Jong Il.

The delegation did not attend the funeral but held talks Sunday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, in Lee's first high-level contact with North Korea's regime.

Relations between the two Koreas have been tense since the conservative Lee took office in February 2008, but the talks Sunday with officials bearing a verbal message from Kim Jong Il were "serious and amicable," a presidential spokesman said.

"Thank you! Thank you! We're returning in a positive mood," senior Workers' Party official Kim Ki Nam told reporters as the delegation departed for their flight.

The two Koreas remain officially in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty. Tanks and troops still guard the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone bisecting the peninsula.

Kim Dae-jung, however, was respected on both sides of the border. As president from 1998 to 2003, his "Sunshine Policy" advocated engaging the isolated North and sought to ease reconciliation by plying the impoverished nation with aid.

He traveled to Pyongyang in 2000 for a summit with Kim Jong Il — the first between leaders of the two Koreas. Raising their hands aloft in a sight that would have been unimaginable just years earlier, the two Kims pledged to embark on a new era of peace on the Korean peninsula.

The following years saw a flowering of reconciliation projects, including the emotional temporary reunions of thousands of Korean family members separated during the Korean War, the restoration of a cross-border cargo train and inter-Korean business ventures.

Some criticized the flow of money to North Korea, which has evaded years of international pressure to dismantle its nuclear program.

Ties have been tense since Lee abandoned the Sunshine Policy, insisting that North Korea must prove its commitment to international nuclear disarmament pacts before it can expect aid.

Pyongyang, in response, ditched the reconciliation talks and most of the inter-Korean projects. The North also has been locked in an international standoff with the U.S. and other nations over its atomic ambitions after launching a rocket, test-firing missiles and conducting an underground nuclear test earlier this year.

However, there have been signs the tensions may be easing. After welcoming former President Bill Clinton during his mission to secure the release of two jailed American reporters, the North freed a South Korean citizen held for four months. It also said it would allow some joint projects to resume.

Kim Dae-jung's death prompted condolences from Kim Jong Il, who authorized a high-level delegation of six to pay their respects — the first time the North has sent officials to mourn a former South Korean president.

Led by Kim Ki Nam and spy chief Kim Yang Gon, the delegation went straight to the National Assembly mourning site Friday. Dressed in black, they left a wreath on behalf of Kim Jong Il, bowed before Kim's portrait and lighted incense, with red badges depicting Kim Il Sung, North Korea's late founder, pinned to their suits.

Extending their trip by a day, three North Korean officials met Sunday with Lee for a half hour, relaying Kim Jong Il's thoughts on "progress on inter-Korean cooperation," Seoul presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said.

The South Korean president then detailed his government's "consistent and firm" policy on North Korea and reiterated the need for "sincere" dialogue between the two Koreas, the spokesman said.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported that the two sides discussed "developing the relations between the North and the South."

Though best known abroad for his efforts to reach out to North Korea, Kim Dae-jung was beloved at home for devoting his life to the fight for democracy during South Korea's early years of authoritarian rule.

A native of South Jeolla Province in the southwest, he went up against Seoul's military and political elite. He narrowly lost to Park Chung-hee in a 1971 presidential election — a near-win that earned him Park's wrath. Weeks later, Kim was injured in a traffic accident he believed was an assassination attempt, and barely survived a Tokyo abduction engineered by South Korean intelligence.

In 1980, tens of thousands took to the streets in Kim's southern stronghold, Gwangju, to protest the junta that seized power when Park was assassinated in office. Kim, accused of fomenting the protests, was sentenced to death.

International calls for leniency resulted in a suspended prison sentence, and he went into exile. Returning in 1985, he helped usher in new era of democracy in South Korea.

Prime Minister Han Seung-soo praised Kim as a passionate leader who dedicated his life to democracy, human rights, peace and reconciliation. He also recalled Kim's resilience.

"Today we are overwhelmed with heartbreaking grief and sorrow. The whole Korea is truly overcome with great sadness," Han said at the multifaith ceremony held under a blistering sun. Kim was Catholic but in a reflection of the different faiths observed in South Korea, the funeral included Christian and Buddhist rites.

Kim's distraught widow, Lee Hee-ho, bowed deeply before a portrait of her late husband. President Lee, former presidents and foreign leaders who were among the more than 20,000 who attended the funeral also paid their respects at the altar. Kim is to be buried in the national cemetery in Seoul.

Another 14,000 mourners gathered outside City Hall, police said.

"It hurts me so much. I'm so distressed that we lost someone who devoted his entire life to peace, democracy and, ultimately, us," Lee Eun-ah, 35, said tearfully at City Hall.

The funeral comes just three months after the suicide of former President Roh Moo-hyun, a political ally who succeeded Kim Dae-jung in the Blue House and maintained his Sunshine Policy. Roh jumped to his death amid a growing corruption investigation implicating his family.

Afghan commission: fraud filings could sway vote

By HEIDI VOGT and JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writers



KABUL – Charges of fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election are extensive enough that they could sway the final result, the commission investigating the complaints said Sunday.

The independent Electoral Complaints Commission has received 225 complaints since polls opened Thursday, including 35 allegations that are "material to the election results," said Grant Kippen, the head of the U.N.-backed body. The figures include complaints about both the presidential balloting and provincial council polls.

Millions of Afghans voted in the country's second-ever direct presidential election, although Taliban threats and attacks appeared to hold down the turnout, especially in the south.

President Hamid Karzai's top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, accused the president of rigging the vote in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday. Another presidential candidate has displayed mangled ballots that he said were cast for him and then thrown out by election workers.

Election observers have said the voting process was mostly credible, but are cataloging instances of fraud and violence.

The most common complaint in the 35 high-priority allegations was ballot box tampering, Kippen said. He stressed that the number was likely to grow. The commission has only received complaints filed at provincial capitals and Kabul so far and is still waiting for complaints that were filed at polling sites.

The top Afghan monitoring group has said there were widespread problems with supposedly independent election officials at polling stations trying to influence the way people voted. That group, the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, also catalogued violations such as people using multiple voter cards so they could vote more than once, and underage voting.

The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan said allegations of vote rigging and fraud are to be expected, but observers should wait for the official complaints process to run its course before judging the vote's legitimacy.

"We have disputed elections in the United States. There may be some questions here. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I expect it," Richard Holbrooke told AP Television News in the western city of Herat. "But let's not get out ahead of the situation."

Holbrooke said the U.S. government would wait for rulings from Afghanistan's monitoring bodies — the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission — before trying to judge the legitimacy of the vote.

"The United States and the international community will respect the process set up by Afghanistan itself," Holbrooke said. He has been in Afghanistan observing the vote, following a trip to Pakistan last week.

The first preliminary results will not be released until Tuesday, and final certified results won't come until next month. If neither Karzai nor Abdullah gets 50 percent of the vote among a field of some three dozen candidates, then they will go to a runoff, probably in October.

In the interview Saturday, Abdullah said he was in contact with other campaigns to explore the possibility of a coalition candidacy in case none of the 36 candidates won enough votes to avoid a runoff.

The accusations of fraud against Karzai, which Karzai's spokesman denied, are the most direct Abdullah has made against the incumbent in a contest that likely has weeks to go before a winner is proclaimed. Both Abdullah and Karzai claim they are in the lead based on reports from campaign poll-watchers monitoring the count.

"He uses the state apparatus in order to rig an election," Abdullah said. "That is something which is not expected."

Abdullah said it "doesn't make the slightest difference" whether Karzai or his supporters ordered the alleged fraud.

"All this happens under his eyes and under his leadership," Abdullah said. "This is under his leadership that all these things are happening, and all those people which are responsible for this fraud in parts of the country are appointed by him."

Abdullah said government officials in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces, including a provincial police chief and a No. 2 provincial election official, stuffed ballot boxes in Karzai's favor in six districts. He also said his monitors were prevented from entering several voting sites.

Karzai's campaign spokesman Waheed Omar dismissed Abdullah's allegations and claimed the president's camp had submitted reports of fraud allegedly committed by Abdullah's followers to the Electoral Complaint Commission. Omar said losing candidates often claim fraud to "try to justify their loss."

Nile Delta: 'We Are Going Underwater. The Sea Will Conquer Our Lands'

The Nile Delta is under threat from rising sea levels. Without the food it produces, Egypt faces catastrophe.

Maged Shamdy's ancestors arrived on the shores of Lake Burrulus in the mid-19th century. In the dusty heat of Cairo at the time, French industrialists were rounding up forced labor squads to help build the Suez Canal, back-breaking labor from which thousands did not return. Like countless other Egyptians, the Shamdys abandoned their family home and fled north into the Nile Delta, where they could hide within the marshy swamplands that fanned out from the great river's edge.

As the years passed, colonial rulers came and went. But the Shamdys stayed, carving out a new life as farmers and fishermen on one of the most fertile tracts of land in the world. A century and a half later, Maged is still farming his family's fields. In between taking up the rice harvest and dredging his irrigation canals, however, he must contemplate a new threat to his family and livelihood, one that may well prove more deadly than any of Egypt's previous invaders. "We are going underwater," the 34-year-old says simply. "It's like an occupation: the rising sea will conquer our lands."

Maged understands better than most the menace of coastal erosion, which is steadily ingesting the edge of Egypt in some places at an astonishing rate of almost 100 meters a year. Just a few miles from his home lies Lake Burrulus itself, where Nile flower spreads all the way out to trees on the horizon. Those trunks used to be on land; now they stand knee-deep in water.

Maged's imperial imagery may sound overblown, but travel around Egypt's vast, overcrowded Delta region and you hear the same terms used time and again to describe the impact climate change is having on these ancient lands. Egypt's breadbasket is littered with the remnants of old colonizers, from the Romans to the Germans, and today its 50 million inhabitants jostle for space among the crumbling forts and cemeteries of those who sought to subjugate them in the past.

On the Delta's eastern border, in Port Said, an empty stone plinth is all that remains of a statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who built the Suez Canal; somewhere along the Delta's westernmost reaches, the long-lost tomb of Cleopatra lies buried. With such a rich history of foreign rule, it's only natural that the latest hostile force knocking at the gates should be couched in the language of occupation.

"Egypt is a graveyard for occupiers," observes Ramadan el-Atr, a fruit farmer near the antiquated town of Rosetta, where authorities have contracted a Chinese company to build a huge wall of concrete blocks in the ocean to try to save any more land from melting away. "Just like the others, the sea will come and go - but we will always survive."

Scientists aren't so sure. Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared Egypt's Nile Delta to be among the top three areas on the planet most vulnerable to a rise in sea levels, and even the most optimistic predictions of global temperature increase will still displace millions of Egyptians from one of the most densely populated regions on earth.

The Delta spills out from the northern stretches of the capital into 10,000 square miles of farmland fed by the Nile's branches. It is home to two-thirds of the country's rapidly growing population, and responsible for more than 60% of its food supply: Egypt relies unconditionally on it for survival. But with its 270 kilometers of coastline lying at a dangerously low elevation (large parts are between zero and 1m above sea level, with some areas lying below it), any melting of the polar ice caps could see its farmland and cities - including the historical port of Alexandria - transformed into an ocean floor. A 1 meter rise in the sea level, which many experts think likely within the next 100 years, will cause 20% of the Delta to go underwater. At the other extreme, the 14 meter rise that would result from the disappearance of Greenland and western Antarctica would leave the Mediterranean lapping at the northern suburbs of Cairo, with practically all of the Delta underwater.

Already, a series of environmental crises are parking themselves on the banks of the Nile. Some are subtle, like the river's quiet vanishing act in the Delta's northern fields; others, like the dramatic collapse of coastal lands into the ocean, are more striking. Major flooding is yet to become a reality but, from industrial pollution to soil salinity, a whole new set of interconnected green concerns is now forcing its way into Egyptian public discourse for the first time.

"The Delta is a kind of Bangladesh story," says Dr. Rick Tutwiler, director of the American University in Cairo's Desert Development Center. "You've got a massive population, overcrowding, a threat to all natural resources from the pressure of all the people, production, pollution, cars and agricultural chemicals. And on top of all that, there's the rising sea. It's the perfect storm."

Follow the Nile north out of Cairo on the old agricultural road, and you find it hard to pinpoint where the city ends and the lotus-shaped Delta begins. Carpeted with redbrick apartment blocks and spliced with streets in every direction, the lush greenery of the Nile's splintered arteries is almost impossible to appreciate in isolation. This is where the urban and the rural get lost in each other, with livestock living in doorways and workers camping out in fields. In the past, literary giants venerated the Delta's wild marshlands; today, any clear-cut divisions between the metropolis and the countryside have long faded away.

Urban encroachment - the steady chipping away at arable land through unauthorized construction - haunts the Delta everywhere you look. Despite a web of legislation outlawing illegal building practices and theoretically "fencing off" agricultural land, in every direction the sweeping vista of wheat fields and rice paddies always ends abruptly in a cluster of half-built homes. There are more than 4,000 people per square mile in the Delta; it's hard to think of any other place where humans and the environment around them are more closely intertwined. With Egypt's present-day population of 83 million set to increase to more than 110 million in the next two decades, the seemingly unstoppable spread of bricks and mortar over the soil is both the most visible symptom of the country's demographic time-bomb and an inevitable response to it.

More people in the Delta means more cars, more pollution and less land to feed them all on, just at a time when increased crop production is needed most. Yet the desertification of land through human habitation is, worryingly, only the beginning of the problem. Although few in the Delta have noticed it yet, the freshwater of the Nile - which has enabled Egypt to survive as a unified state longer than any other territory on earth - is creaking under the strain of this population boom. The world's most famous river has provided the backdrop to all manner of dramas throughout history, real and fictional. Now, around its northernmost branches where the minarets and pylons thin out and the landscape becomes more windswept, another is playing out to devastating effect.

The villain is salinity. I visit one of the worst-affected regions, Kafr el-Sheikh, on a Friday morning when the fields have emptied out for the noon prayer. The streets are eerily silent; with its people gone, the area takes on the appearance of one of Italo Calvino's fantastical string cities, chock-a-block with the shells of human habitation but no living souls remaining. The exception is Maged, who owns six feddan (about six acres) of land near the village of el-Hadadi.

Maged is halfway down a hole when I approach his house. Clambering out apologetically, he explains that German experts visited this area last year and declared that the fresh water being pumped to local villages "wasn't fit for a dog to drink". After months of phone calls to the national water company, none of which were answered, Maged decided to lay down a new set of pipes himself in the hope it would improve the quality of drinking water for his two young daughters. It's hot, exhausting work, which he fits in between his farming duties and a new part-time job as an accountant in a local alfalfa plant. "We don't have much time on our hands at the moment," Maged says, dusting himself off and gulping down some fresh melon juice. "Nobody can make a living solely off the land any more."

On a tour of his fields, I see why. The rich brown soil has greyed out in recent years, leaving a barren salt-encrustation on the surface. The cause is underground saltwater intrusion from the nearby coast, which pushes up through the soil and kills off roots. Coastal farmland has always been threatened by saltwater, but salinity has traditionally been kept at bay by plentiful supplies of fresh water gushing over the soil and flushing out the salt. It used to happen naturally with the Nile's seasonal floods; after the construction of Egypt's High Dam in the 70s (one of the most ambitious engineering projects on earth), these seasonal floods came to an end, but a vast network of irrigation canals continued to bring gallons of fresh water to the people who worked the land, the fellahin, ensuring salinity levels remained low.

Today, however, Nile water barely reaches this corner of the Delta. Population growth has sapped its energy upstream, and what "freshwater" does make it downriver is increasingly awash with toxins and other impurities. Farmers such as Maged now essentially rely on waste water - a mix of agricultural drainage and sewage - from the nearby town of Sidi Salim.

The result is plummeting fertility; local farmers say that whereas their fathers spent just a handful of Egyptian pounds on chemicals to keep the harvests bountiful, they now have to put aside between 25 and 80% of their profits for fertilizers just to keep their crops alive.

"We can see with our own eyes that the water is no good, it's less and less pure," Maged says. He points out huge swaths of neighboring land that once glimmered with rice paddies; recently they have been dug up and replaced by fish farms, the ground too barren for crop cultivation. Further out, in the village of Damru, the green fields of 10 years ago are cracked and brown, now put into service as informal football pitches and rubbish dumps.

Experts believe the problem is only going to get worse. "We currently have a major water deficit in Egypt, with only 700 cubic meters of freshwater per person," explains Professor Salah Soliman of Alexandria University. "That's already short of the 1,000 cubic metres per person the U.N. believes is the minimum needed for water security. Now, with the population increase, it will drop to 450 cubic meters per person - and this is all before we take into account the impact of climate change."

That impact is likely to be a 70% drop in the amount of Nile water reaching the Delta over the next 50 years, due to increased evaporation and heavier demands on water use upstream. The consequences of all these ecological changes on food production are staggering: experts at Egypt's Soils, Water and Environment Research Institute predict that wheat and maize yields could be down 40% and 50% respectively in the next 30 years, and that farmers who make a living off the land will lose around $1,000 per hectare for each degree rise in the average temperature.

The farmers here feel abandoned by the state; there are regular dismissive references to the "New Age", a euphemism for the much-hated regime of President Hosni Mubarak, whose neoliberal reform programs and widespread corruption scandals have provoked a wave of popular discontent across the country. This disconnect between the state and its people has led to distrust of government scientists who think coastal erosion, rather than freshwater scarcity, is the main reason for the farmers' problems. And, in a worrying twist for Egypt's creaking economy, the erosion isn't only affecting farmers. "Unfortunately, most of our industry and investment has been built on sites very close to the shore," says Soliman. "There's only so much water we can hold back."

Ras el-Bar is a small holiday resort at the mouth of the Nile's Damietta branch. This was the summer paradise that Nobel prizewinning novelist Naguib Mahfouz's well-heeled characters would escape to when the heat of the capital became unbearable; today its squat pink lighthouse and endless boulevards of deserted, low-rise holiday homes have the faded feel of a 50s Disneyland.

Although still popular in July and August, Ras el-Bar has been overtaken as a seaside destination by the brash consumerism of a new generation of towns: Sharm el-Sheikh, Marina, Hurghada. In place of tourists, however, new factories have arrived here in abundance, including some that nearby residents believe are poisoning the air. The arrival of one industrial plant in Damietta, which coincided with the ministry of environment's last-minute decision not to designate the area a protected nature reserve, is a familiar story of shady backdoor deals, public outrage and the studious disregard of local opinions. In this case, the locals managed to postpone the factory's construction, but other plants remain. "In the morning here you can see nothing but smoke," says Mohammed Fawzia, who is fishing in a canal down by the side of an industrial complex run by the state-owned Mopco company. "Take photos of it for us so we can show who is killing our children. We want the factories gone."

Many Cairo-based experts, however, insist that the task of coping with the dramatic ecological changes faced by the Delta is made harder by the ignorance of people such as Mohammed. They claim the fellahin are too uneducated to change their ways. But they are wrong: while farmers in the southern Delta, where Nile water is still relatively plentiful, have little knowledge of climate change, those in the north are painfully aware of the science behind the death of their land. However, they also have little time to listen to the harrying of a government which is widely seen to preach green rhetoric on the one hand but is only too willing to sell out the environment on the other, along with the local people.

Money talks in Egypt, and sustainable development is forgotten when the interests of the rich and powerful - such as the industrial plants in Damietta or the influential Badrawi clan in Daqahliyah - are at stake. The repression and self-interest of Mubarak's inner circle have left them bereft of any moral authority on environmental issues.

And while scientists, academics and community organizers are making a concerted effort to educate Egyptians about the dangers of climate change, there is confusion over whether the focus of all these programs should be on promoting ways to combat climate change, or on accepting climate change as inevitable and instead encouraging new forms of adaptation to the nation's uncertain ecological future.

Efforts are further hampered by a popular feeling that this is a crisis made by the west. "We're not responsible for climate change," says Soliman, pointing out that Egypt's contribution to global carbon emissions is an underwhelming 0.5%, nine times less per capita than the U.S. "But unfortunately the consequence of climate change is no respecter of national borders."

The scale of the crisis - more people, less land, less water, less food - is overwhelming, and has infected discussion of climate change with a toxic combination of cynicism and fatalism at every level. There are senior environmental officials in top scientific jobs here who do not believe climate change is real; others are convinced the problem is so great that human intervention is useless. "It's down to God," one environmental officer for a major Delta town tells me. "If the Delta goes we'll find new places to live. If Egypt was big enough for Mary and Joseph, then it will be big enough for all of us."

Of course, if sea levels do rise significantly, "then the debate is over," says Dr. Tutwiler. "The land will be underwater and crop production will be over."

As a result, many now believe that Egypt's future lies far away from the Delta, in land newly reclaimed from the desert. Since the time of the pharaohs, when the Delta was first farmed, Egypt's political leaders have rested their legitimacy on their ability to feed it by taming the Nile. Mohammed Ali, Lord Cromer and Gamal Abdel Nasser all launched major projects to control and harness the river's seasonal floods; now Mubarak is following in their footsteps - not by saving the Delta, but by creating a bewildering array of canals and pumping stations that draw water out from the Nile into sandy valleys to the east and west, where the desert is slowly being turned green.

You can see evidence of these new lands on the Delta's fringes; mile upon mile of agri-business-owned fields peeking out behind the advertising billboards of the Cairo-Alexandria desert road. The billboards depict gated compounds and luxury second homes, escapist dreams for the Egyptian upper-middle class.

The new lands behind them are another sort of escape, this time for the whole country. Their very water-intensive existence is, though, only hastening the demise of the Delta; once the glittering jewel of Egypt and bedrock of its survival, but now a region whose death warrant may already have been signed.

Invasion of the Nile: The Delta's troubled history

-- 4,000 - 3,000 B.C. approx. - The Delta is populated by migrants from the Sahara and intensive farming begins in the region.

-- 1,300 B.C. approx. - According to the Bible, the Delta is home to the Israelites, and miraculously survives God's plague of hail.

-- 343 B.C. - The Persians kill Egypt's last native pharaoh, ushering in more than 2,000 years of foreign rule over the Delta.

-- 332 B.C. - Alexander the Great invades and founds Alexandria at the tip of the Delta.

-- 30 B.C. - Cleopatra and Marc Anthony kill themselves.

-- 639 A.D. - Muslim Arabs sweep into the Delta, forcing out the Byzantine rulers.

-- 1517 A.D. - The Delta is absorbed into the Ottoman Empire and ruled from Turkey.

-- 1798 A.D. - Napoleon Bonaparte begins a three-year French occupation.

-- 1805 A.D. - The Albanian pasha Muhammad Ali seizes power but his dynasty falls under the control of the British Empire.

-- 1952 A.D. - Gamal Abdel Nasser restores Egyptian rule for the first time in two millennia

-- 1970 A.D. - The Aswan Dam is completed, ending seasonal flooding in the Delta.

-- 2007 A.D. - Delta declared among top three areas vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Alexandria: An Ancient City Under Threat

Alexandria has been through several reincarnations: as a small Pharaonic town in the 4th century B.C., as the capital of Egypt for 1,000 years, and as a cosmopolitan melting-ground in the early 20th century. While most of its former glories are already lying on the seabed, scientists now fear the city's outer fringes could be among the first victims of any rise in sea levels.

A rise of only 1 meter will leave the city center cut off from the mainland. If it does disappear, its literary chroniclers may provide some comfort. Lawrence Durrell called it "the capital of memory", a city where recollections stay "clinging to the minds of old men like traces of perfume upon a sleeve". The Greek poet Constantine Cavafy shared Durrell's sense of being trapped by history. In what may prove a remarkable piece of foresight, he wrote in The City:

"You'll find no new places, you won't find other shores.

The city will follow you. The streets in which you pace

will be the same, you'll haunt the same familiar places,

and inside those same houses you'll grow old.

You'll always end up in this city. Don't bother to hope

for a ship."

Despair, then death: The Rohingya riddle

The deaths of two teenagers held for seven months at Ranong detention center highlight the inadequacies of government policies and facilities to deal with boat people

Writer: Piyaporn Wongruang

They say that despair can kill a man, and so it did with two teenage Rohingya held in the Ranong detention center for seven months. Two doctors who treated the detainees at the center said the pair basically starved themselves to death after becoming dispirited and refusing to eat or exercise. The official reason for the two teenagers' deaths is "natural causes" caused by cardiac arrest.

"Their minds were just so sick that they lost enthusiasm for everything," said one of the doctors based at the center who preferred to remain anonymous. "They refused to take food and they refused to move around. They told me that they were desperate and didn't know what to do with their lives any more. They told me that it's better to kill them than to detain them like this."

The deaths go to the heart of Thailand's problems dealing with illegal immigrants and refugees, and the inadequacy of current policies and facilities to deal with the growing number of cases.

Abdul Salam, 18, died on June 30 on the way to Ranong Hospital. Hammatula, 15, was found dead in the detention center at 4am on Aug 13, a day after a medical check by one of the doctors. The two were among 78 ethnic Muslim Rohingya boat people fleeing Burma who were intercepted by the navy near Surin Island on Jan 26, and sent to the center a few days later.

Abdul's and Hammatula's bodies were covered in wounds, after allegedly being tortured by the Burmese military during their boat trip, according to the doctor at the center. The medical team treated the teenagers' wounds in the first few months of their detention, but the pair were overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. According to the same doctor, they gradually became fatigued, hardly moving and sitting or lying down most of the time.

Source: Bangkok Post.
Link: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/22531/despair-then-death-the-rohingya-riddle.

They died from hopelessness

Time heals all wounds, as the saying goes. Not only that, time also makes you forget and helps you to move on. In one particular case, it seems time has made Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the people of Thailand forget about the Rohingya refugees.

Before the Songkran riot, before Sondhi Limthongkul's attempted assassination, before the Thaksin phone-ins and before the controversy over appointing the new police chief, the Rohingya was the issue that rocked the young prime minister's newly appointed government.

In January, Rohingya refugees arrived on the shores of Thailand. The story made headlines across the world due to alleged abuses by Thai security forces - abuses that included accusations of systematic torture and shipping them back out to sea with no food or water, to die. PM Abhisit went on CNN and other western media outlets, promising to investigate the matter and to rectify the Rohingya problem.

The media submitted photos and video clips of the alleged torture to the authorities. An internal government investigation found the evidence inconclusive, and then everyone forgot about the Rohingya.

We all moved on until this past week's reports that two Rohingya refugees, or illegal immigrants, died in the detention center in Ranong. According to human rights activists, Abdul Salam, 18, died two months ago after vomiting blood several times. Last week Hammatula, 15, died without any signs of distress. However, Thongchai Keeratihatthayakorn, a doctor in Ranong, said the two had died of sudden inflammation of the heart.

An 18-year-old and a 15-year-old died from heart attacks? That's suspicious. Some reports speculate that they died from starvation. That's more likely, but yet they were fed regularly at the detention center. Did they starve themselves to death on purpose? But then, to what purpose?

No, heart attack or starvation may have been the nail in the coffin, but the true cause of their death was hopelessness. According to a source who's a doctor at the detention center, the detainees received food and medical care in the Ranong detention center. Which obviously wasn't five-star service, but nor was it death-inducing.

What the two Rohingya lacked, according to the source, was hope, a future.

Why were they hopeless?

Seven months of detention and counting, over 70 refugees (each has been fined 2,000 baht by the Ranong Court for entering Thailand illegally) cramped in a single room in a two-storey building. These aren't hardened criminals or prisoners of war. These are simply third world villagers and peasants. People who have suffered through poverty and oppression in their homeland, then braved the sea to find new hope and opportunity, only to be allegedly abused by Thai security forces and thrown into prison. Sitting cramped and idle for seven months and counting, not knowing what's to become of them.

The world has forgotten about them. They don't know how long they will remain there. Nobody tells them anything. They may not have been mistreated in the detention center, but they have been neglected and mistreated all their lives and, for the past seven months, by the Thai authorities and all those concerned at the policy level.

Neglected and mistreated because the authorities did not have the care, the time or the inclination to solve the Rohingya problem. No direction, no policy and no solution. For seven months the two Rohingya who died sat cramped and idle.

Without hope and without a future, they simply became withdrawn, stopped eating and stopped caring. They had lost the will to live. Whether it's a sudden heart attack, vomiting to death, or simply lying down and dying - it's all one and the same. They died from hopelessness. If things do not change, Abdul Salam and Hammatula are simply the first two to go.

Meanwhile, another 10 or so have fallen sick due to fatigue and malnutrition from their long detention. The remaining Rohingya have been transferred to the detention center at Suan Phlu, in Bangkok.

It has been seven months since the Rohingya story first broke. From then until now, the only change for these Rohingya has been from one detention center to another. Meanwhile, the prime minister, the media, the people of Thailand and the world have moved on to what we see as "bigger problems" - and of course, the red versus yellow and the economy are issues that affect our lives directly. What happens to 78 (minus two) Rohingya won't change our lives any.

Deputy Immigration Bureau chief Phitak Jarusombuti said the bureau would not reveal how long the Rohingya would be detained. That's exactly the problem. How long will they have to endure until more of them simply lose all hope, lay down and wither away?

For the world at large, time may change, time may heal, time may make us forget and move on. But for the two dead Rohingya, nothing did change for seven months. They simply sat in the same place, looked at the same walls, cramped and idle, with nothing to do but see and remember their sufferings, locked in a prison in body and mind, unable to move on. Hopelessness.

Source: Bangkok Post.
Link: http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/22538/they-died-fromhopelessness.

US envoy 'expects' disputes over Afghan election

By HEIDI VOGT and JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan said Sunday that allegations of vote rigging and fraud are to be expected in the Afghan presidential election but observers should wait for the official complaints process to run its course before judging the vote's legitimacy.

"We have disputed elections in the United States. There may be some questions here. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I expect it," Richard Holbrooke told AP Television News in the western city of Herat. "But let's not get out ahead of the situation."

Millions of Afghans voted Thursday in the country's second-ever direct presidential election, although Taliban threats and attacks appeared to hold down the turnout, especially in the south.

President Hamid Karzai's top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, accused the president of rigging the vote in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday. Another presidential candidate has displayed mangled ballots that he said were cast for him and then thrown out by election workers.

Election observers have said the voting process was mostly credible, but are cataloging instances of fraud and violence.

The top Afghan monitoring body has said there were widespread problems with supposedly independent elections officials at polling stations trying to influence the way people voted. The group also catalogued violations such as people using multiple voter cards so they could vote more than once, and underage voting.

Holbrooke said the U.S. government would wait for rulings from Afghanistan's monitoring bodies — the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaint Commission — before trying to judge the legitimacy of the vote.

"The United States and the international community will respect the process set up by Afghanistan itself," Holbrooke said. He has been in Afghanistan observing the vote, following a trip to Pakistan last week.

Preliminary results will not be released until Tuesday, but final certified results won't come until next month. If neither Karzai nor Abdullah gets 50 percent of the vote among a field of some three dozen candidates, then the two will go to a runoff, probably in October.

In the interview Saturday, Abdullah said he was in contact with other campaigns to explore the possibility of a coalition candidacy in case none of the 36 candidates won enough votes to avoid a runoff.

The accusations of fraud against Karzai, which Karzai's spokesman denied, are the most direct Abdullah has made against the incumbent in a contest that likely has weeks to go before a winner is proclaimed. Both Abdullah and Karzai claim they are in the lead based on reports from campaign poll-watchers monitoring the count.

"He uses the state apparatus in order to rig an election," Abdullah said. "That is something which is not expected."

Abdullah said it "doesn't make the slightest difference" whether Karzai or his supporters ordered the alleged fraud.

"All this happens under his eyes and under his leadership," Abdullah said. "This is under his leadership that all these things are happening, and all those people which are responsible for this fraud in parts of the country are appointed by him."

Abdullah said government officials in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces, including a provincial police chief and a No. 2 provincial election official, stuffed ballot boxes in Karzai's favor in six districts. He also said his monitors were prevented from entering several voting sites.

Karzai's campaign spokesman Waheed Omar dismissed Abdullah's allegations and claimed the president's camp had submitted reports of fraud allegedly committed by Abdullah's followers to the Electoral Complaint Commission. Omar said losing candidates often claim fraud to "try to justify their loss."

North Korea's Kim sends message to South's leader

By Kim Yeon-hee

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean envoys in Seoul to mourn the death of a former president on Sunday held their first talks with the current leader since he took office about 18 months ago and delivered a message from Kim Jong-il.

The meeting lasted about 30 minutes, officials said. It is the latest sign that the impoverished North is re-emerging from its shell after a nuclear test in May and missile launches that were met with tightened U.N. sanctions and further isolation.

The South's presidential Blue House would not disclose the content of the message, which was likely the first formal communication between the North's Kim and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak since the latter came to office vowing to take a tougher line with his country's prickly communist neighbor.

North Korea had all but cut ties with Lee, calling him a "traitor to the state" in anger at his government's policies of ending unconditional aid and linking handouts to Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

"President Lee said, if South and North Korea solve problems through dialogue and in a sincere manner, there is nothing we cannot resolve," presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said in a televised briefing.

"The North delegation expressed its gratitude for allowing the meeting and suggests both sides can cooperate and resolve (problems)," the spokesman said of the meeting at the Blue House.

ECONOMY IN TROUBLE

The delegation arrived on Friday in what was the North's first dispatch of envoys to the South in nearly two years. They were expected to leave just before the state funeral for former President Kim Dae-jung, South Korean officials said.

Kim, awarded the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the first summit between the two Koreas that led to a dramatic warming of ties between the rival states, died on Tuesday at the age of 85.

If the North repairs ties with the South, which once supplied it with aid equal to about 5 percent of its estimated $17 billion a year GDP, the impoverished state could then receive a much needed boost to its coffers, analysts said.

North Korea's broken economy has been hit hard by the U.N. sanctions aimed at cutting off a vital source of foreign currency it derives from missile and arms sales.

Few believe it is ready to give up nuclear weapons -- the one thing that gives it leverage and the threat of which has won it repeated concessions in the past.

Inter-Palestinian dialogue postponed

Egypt postpones the inter-Palestinian dialogue between Fatah and Hamas until the end of Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations, Palestinian sources say.

The decision to postpone the latest Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks, which were previously shifted from Aug. 7 to Aug. 25, was taken after Fatah Chief Mahmoud Abbas decided to call together the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in Ramallah on Aug. 26 for two days.

The PNC is to convene to elect new members of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) executive committee. Those elected will fill the seven vacant posts in the 18-member executive committee.

The 30-day fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Saturday, ends on Sept. 21, while Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations will last for three days. Thus the dialogue will resume after the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays, the source said.

Nepali youth to be listed in Guinness Book of World Records

A Nepali youth has been able to register his name in the Guinness Book of World Records for holding highest number of tennis balls on a single palm for the longest time, reports say.

Rohit Timilsina, 25, a school teacher by profession has been able to set world record by holding 21 lawn tennis balls of International Tennis Federation standard 14.32 seconds.

Timilsina has surpassed the record of Arnand Desch, a Frenchman who had a record of holding 19 such balls for 10 seconds.

Timilsina performed the feat at a public function attended by tennis officials Surya Bhushan, Sarad Lama, Supreme Court Registrar Dr Ram Krishna Timilsina, and representatives of media, among others on June 14, 2008 at the Satdobato Lawn Tennis Court.

News clippings, video and audio footages were sent for recognition as a world record to the Guinness Book of World Records Headquarters, London, with the help of an organization named People Face.

Timilsina's name will be published in the 2010/11 edition of the Guinness Book.

Outside mountaineering, very few Nepalis have been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Yemen seizes Iranian-made weapons in rebel caches

SANAA (AFP) – The Yemeni army has seized Iranian-made weapons used by Shiite rebels who are locked in fighting with government forces in the north of the country, a security official said on Saturday.

"The troops... have discovered six storehouses for weapons that belong to the Huthi rebels and contain some Iranian-made weapons, including machine guns, short-range rockets and ammunition," the official said.

The official said the weapons were found as the troops advanced on rebel positions in areas near the rugged mountainous city of Saada, where the army launched an offensive called Operation Scorched Earth 12 days ago against the rebels.

Last week, Information Minister Ahmed al-Lawzi indirectly accused Iran of supporting the Zaidi Shiite rebels, who are also known as Huthis, in the fighting.

Witnesses meanwhile reported that fierce battles were raging in the troubled north as the army stepped up its offensive, killing or wounding dozens of people.

The rebels, who accuse government forces of having killed dozens of civilians, said in a statement that they captured 80 soldiers, while locals said two Huthi leaders were killed in ferocious clashes on Friday night.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh pledged on Wednesday to crush the Shiite rebellion after the fighting that began in the Saada province on the border with Saudi Arabia spread to the Amran province to the south.

The rebels, led by Abdul-Malek al-Huthi, have been engaged in fighting with government forces on and off since 2004. The government accuses them of seeking to reinstate imamate rule, which ended in a republican coup in 1962.

But the Huthis say they are defending their villages against what they call state aggression.

An offshoot of Shiite Islam, the Zaidis are a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen but form the majority community in the north. President Saleh is himself a Zaidi.

Bomb kills militant spokesman in NW Pakistan: police

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A remote-controlled bomb exploded in a car Saturday killing a militant spokesman and his driver while wounding five others in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, police said.

"Two people were killed and five others were injured in the car bombing," Peshawar police chief Sifwatullah Ghayyur told AFP.

"The bomb was planted in the car and was detonated by a remote control," he said, identifying the victims as Mubeen Afridi, spokesman for militant group Ansar-ul-Islam which operates in Khyber tribal district near the Afghan border, and his driver.

Police suspect that rival group Lashkar-e-Islam could be behind the bombing, Ghayyur said.

Bomb disposal chief Shafqat Malik said that up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of explosives were used in the device which was planted under the car.

Sahibzada Anis, the head of district administration, said that the bombing took place on a busy road near the main government hospital, but there were fewer people out due to the onset of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Television footage showed the white Toyota car reduced to a pile of mangled steel as investigators collected evidence.

Markets and other businesses were immediately shut down in the area after the blast panicked residents and traders, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Last year the government launched a major operation against militant groups in Khyber which sent their leaders running into the mountains bordering Afghanistan, after the militants threatened to take over Peshawar.

Militants were also attacking convoys supplying NATO and US troops in Afghanistan passing through Khyber.

Ruthless new Pakistan Taliban leader named

By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – The commander named by members of the Pakistani Taliban as its new leader is as ruthless as his predecessor, taking credit for several attacks, and could order more in the coming weeks to prove the terror network is still in business.

While the appointment of 28-year-old Hakimullah Mehsud suggests the Taliban may be regrouping after the reported killing of its ex-chief Baitullah Mehsud in a CIA missile strike Aug. 5, questions remained Sunday as to whether the al-Qaida allied group will be able to unite around him.

Also unclear is the direction the movement will take under new leadership. Baitullah was known for ordering suicide strikes against Pakistani civilian, government and security targets, often in spectacular fashion in major cities far from border areas.

Hakimullah may decide to direct some or all of his forces across the border in Afghanistan like other jihadi commanders in the northwest, joining insurgents there in the fight against U.S. and NATO forces as they try to stabilize the country eight years after the invasion.

Two close aides to another commander, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday a 42-member Taliban council, or shura, had appointed Hakimullah new leader in an unanimous decision. Like other members of the network, he insisted Baitullah was alive but sick, hence the need for a new chief. U.S. and Pakistani officials are almost certain he is dead.

"Now all these talks of differences should end," said one of the aides, Bakht Zada. "There have not been any differences ever."

Mohammd Amir Rana, an expert on Pakistani militant groups, said he believed the Taliban had not agreed on a replacement, regardless of Mohammad's aides' remarks.

"Maulvi Faqir Mohammad is trying to manipulate the race by announcing to the press that Hakimullah is the head," he said. "Until now there is no consensus," adding supporters of his major rival, Waliur Rehman, did not accept Hakimullah.

Hakimullah comes from the same tribe as Baitullah and had been seen as a likely replacement.

Earlier this month, Pakistani intelligence agencies claimed Hakimullah had been killed in a shootout between rival factions over who should to take over a movement that controls large swaths of territory close to the Afghan border, up to 25,000 men and much arms and cash.

Hakimullah called The AP and other news agencies to prove he was still alive after those reports.

His apparent selection as head could shore up the Taliban, said Kamran Bokhari, director of Middle East analysis with Stratfor, a global intelligence company.

"It's an attempt to stabilize the group after the initial reports of infighting," Bokhari said, noting the loss of Baitullah was "a massive blow to the organization."

As military chief of Baitullah's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban Movement, Hakimullah commanded three tribal regions and had a reputation as Baitullah's most ruthless deputy. He first appeared in public to journalists in November 2008, when he offered to take reporters on a ride in a U.S. Humvee taken from a supply truck heading to Afghanistan.

Authorities say he was behind threats to foreign embassies in Islamabad, and there was a 10 million rupee ($120,000) bounty on his head. Hakimullah claimed responsibility for the June 9 bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar, and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier this year.

Since Aug. 5, Pakistani officials have been keen to portray the Taliban as in disarray, saying commanders and the rank-and-file were fighting among themselves. At one point, Mohammad — who comes from a different part of the tribal region — claimed to have taken over the leadership.

While it is unclear whether he will be able to maintain unity, Hakimullah was likely chosen for his operational capabilities, said Bokhari, adding fresh suicide bombings could be expected.

More attacks would demonstrate the Pakistani Taliban was still intact, he said.

"I think that the decision of the shura to appoint this particular individual is based on that consideration."

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the government had received intelligence reports about Hakimullah's appointment "as the chief terrorist" but there was no official confirmation.

Another close Mohammad aide, Sher Zamin, also confirmed that Hakimullah had been elected as the new Taliban chief.

Hurricane Bill's winds weaken as it nears US

By JASON BRONIS, Associated Press Writer

EDGARTOWN, Mass. – A weakening Hurricane Bill spun northward Saturday, churning up rough seas, creating dangerous rip tides and closing beaches to swimmers up and down the eastern seaboard, including President Barack Obama's planned vacation spot, Martha's Vineyard.

The Category 1 hurricane was expected to pass the mainland well off New England, but was still packing high winds and waves that had safety officials urging extreme caution.

At Robert Moses State Park in New York, the beach was shut down as the high tide submerged the sand, though the beach opened later Saturday for sunbathing. Along some beaches in Delaware and New Jersey, no swimming was allowed.

"It's just too dangerous right now," Rehoboth Beach Patrol Capt. Kent Buckson said.

Late Saturday evening, Bill had maximum sustained winds near 85 mph (140 kph) and was about 200 miles (315 km) south-southeast of Nantucket, Mass., and about 430 miles (700 km) south-southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

A tropical storm warning remained in effect late Saturday night for Massachusetts, including the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, meaning tropical storm-force winds of 40 mph (64 kph) or more could hit the coastline in the next 24 hours.

The worst of Bill was expected to pass about 150 to 200 miles east of Martha's Vineyard before Obama's arrival on Sunday. The Obamas delayed their planned Sunday morning departure from Andrews Air Force Base to Sunday mid-afternoon because of the weather, White House aides said.

On Saturday, nearly all south-facing beaches on the island were closed to swimmers and large signs blocked roadways to shorefronts. Meanwhile, lifeguards used caution tape to rope off access points, and police patrolled the beach to enforce the closings.

"The concern we have now is that the riptides are very strong," said lifeguard James Costantini. "There's a very strong undertow."

Longtime Vineyard vacationer Jack DeCoste, 69, of Plymouth, Mass., was unimpressed with the storm as he lounged in a beach chair in Edgartown.

"I don't think it's going to impact things that much," DeCoste said. "I think it'll be in and out of here fairly quickly."

The high waves that worried safety officials had surfers buzzing. Scott Fisher, 38, was at Nantasket Beach in Hull, where the morning's moderate waves were expected to build throughout the day.

"People wait all summer for this," he said.

The storm was expected to reach Canadian waters early Sunday, and the Canadian Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch Saturday for areas of Nova Scotia, where winds speeds could hit 74 mph (120 kph) with gusts of 87 mph (140 kph).

In Nova Scotia, provincial parks have been shut down and people advised to stay clear of beaches.

"The waves, they're very pretty to look at but very dangerous," Barry Manuel of the Halifax Emergency Management Office said Saturday.

In Atlantic City, N.J., surfers gathered Saturday on beaches where 20-foot waves were expected. But only a few were willing to take their boards into the big swells.

Atlantic City Beach Patrol Chief Rod Aluise told The Press of Atlantic City that some surfers just stood on the beach "with their eyes popping out" at the size of the waves.

"This is only for experienced surfers," Aluise said.

The stormy conditions were expected to last through the weekend.

"It takes a while for the ocean to relax" after strong storms, said Gary Conte, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "Until it does, riptides will make dangerous sport" for surfers and swimmers.

Hurricane Bill moved past Bermuda earlier Saturday, leaving behind sunny skies, debris and flooding, but no casualties.

The storm mostly spared the pink-sand shores, though it cut power to about 3,700 customers and flooded some roads along the northern coast. The airport was closed overnight and expected to reopen Saturday afternoon. All ferry service was canceled until Sunday.

Bermudians and tourists awoke to some water on the roads, rain and gusting winds.

"It was something to behold. I've never been in a hurricane before," said ESPN sportscaster Kenny Mayne, who hoped to return to the U.S. on Sunday.

A government spokeswoman said the British territory's hospitals had no storm-related patients.

Meanwhile, forecasters said Tropical Storm Hilda formed far out in the Pacific on Saturday but was not threatening land. It had maximum sustained winds near 40 mph (65 kph) and was not expected to strengthen.

On Saturday evening, it was about 1,980 miles (3,185 km) west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula and 1,175 miles (1,895 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.

Wildfires approach Athens, hospitals evacuated

By DEMETRIS NELLAS, Associated Press Writer

ATHENS, Greece – Dozens of wildfires broke out across Greece, torching olive groves, cutting off villages and sending residents fleeing Saturday as one of the largest blazes swept perilously close to the capital's northern suburbs.

The fires north of Athens were reported in an area more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) wide, and forced authorities to evacuate two large children's hospitals, camp sites, villages and outlying suburban areas threatened by blazes that sent huge clouds of smoke over the capital and scattered ash on city streets.

Anti-aircraft missiles were removed from a base north of Athens threatened by fire, the army said.

With planes and helicopters grounded after nightfall, Fire Service officials said their effort — aided by a lull in strong winds — was concentrated on protecting more than six towns where homes were under threat.

Volunteers and army conscripts helped hundreds of firefighters ring the endangered towns.

"Firefighters are working in extremely difficult circumstances," Prime minister Costas Karamanlis said. "Our priority is the protection of human life and property,"

Some villages threatened lay near the town of Marathon, from which the modern long-distance foot race takes its name.

Local officials said the fire damaged power lines, causing blackouts and water supply outages in many areas after nightfall.

Several hundred people were evacuated from two Athens suburbs. Traffic clogged roads leading south; in places, the flames licked as close to the road as 30 meters (yards).

As the fire closed in on towns and villages north of Athens, residents and volunteers tried desperately to prevent the blaze from engulfing houses.

Scores of residents fled on foot, by motorbike and in cars. Some ran down the road away from the flames. Elderly residents were carried from their homes by firefighters.

Municipal officials said dozens of houses had been destroyed but the government's Civil Protection Agency did not confirm those reports.

The government declared a state of emergency Saturday in greater Athens as officials warned that high winds were set to return Sunday.

"The coming night will be especially difficult," Fire Service spokesman Yiannis Kapakis said. "We urge people to remain calm and, in any case, not panic."

He said 75 fires had broken out across Greece since early Saturday morning — including blazes on the island of Evia, Skyros and Zakynthos as well as in parts of central and southern Greece.

Greece is plagued by forest fires every summer. In 2007, the worst blazes in decades killed more than 70 people.

"This is one of the worst fires we've ever seen in this area," said Nikos Koukis, a municipal official on the fire-stricken area of Grammatiko, north of Athens. "This is a beautiful, green area. I'm not sure we can any longer say this is true."