Tight security in Kashmir ahead of Indian holiday

By AIJAZ HUSSAIN,Associated Press Writer AP - Monday, January 26

SRINAGAR, India - India's Republic Day celebrations passed peacefully in Indian Kashmir amid intense security Monday as separatists called for a general strike in the Himalayan region to protest Indian rule.

Thousands of police and security forces were on patrol, frisking people and searching vehicles for arms and explosives in Srinagar and Jammu, the two main cities in India's Jammu-Kashmir state.

India celebrates its Republic Day on Jan. 26 every year to commemorate the 1950 adoption of its constitution. The country gained independence from Britain in 1947.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where most people favor independence from mainly Hindu India, or a merger with Muslim Pakistan. The region is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety.

Separatist groups have been fighting since 1989 to end Indian rule. The uprising and a subsequent Indian crackdown have killed more than 68,000 people, most of them civilians.

"We've made elaborate security arrangements to thwart any militant plans to disrupt the Republic Day functions," said B. Srinivas, a senior police officer. "But we're also making it sure that the arrangements should not cause any inconvenience to the movement of people."

There were no disruptions to the morning celebrations, but streets were largely deserted.

Each year separatist groups fighting Indian rule in the disputed region press for a boycott of the celebrations on Jan. 26, calling it a "black day."

Most people in Jammu-Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, do not participate in the Republic Day celebrations, either out of opposition to Indian control or fear of militant attacks. The celebrations are usually limited to government and military employees in heavily guarded stadiums.

France and Spain deploy troops after storm kills 25

BORDEAUX, France (AFP) – France and Spain deployed troops Monday to join massive recovery efforts after violent storms killed 25 people and left hundreds of thousands without electricity across southern Europe.

Mourners meanwhile gathered in the northeastern Spanish town of Sant Boi de Llobregat to bury four children killed at the weekend when gale-force winds brought the roof and wall of a sports hall down on their heads.

Thousands of workers beavered on both sides of the border to restore power and reopen roads and rail lines blocked by trees uprooted by the worst storms to hit southwestern France and northern Spain in a decade.

The tempest has meanwhile barreled across the Mediterranean to batter Italy, where a young woman was swept to her death by a wave as she walked on a beach near the southern city of Naples.

Torrential rain also triggered a mudslide on the main highway south of Naples, killing two people and injuring five, rescuers said, revising an earlier toll of three dead.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited scenes of destruction on Sunday, and said the emergency response had been far better than back in 1999 when a tempest killed scores and uprooted millions of trees.

In the southwestern French regions of Aquitaine, Midi Pyrenees and Languedoc-Roussillon, the storm plunged 1.7 million homes into the dark and by Monday lunchtime 680,000 of them were still without power.

"Three thousand agents from across France, backed by specialist companies and teams of electricians from England, Germany and Portugal, have been mobilized to reconnect clients," electricity grid operator ERDF said.

An extra 650 soldiers were due in the storm-struck regions Monday to back up the 300 deployed since Sunday.

Phone operator France Telecom said it also had 3,000 technicians working to restore service for 200,000 fixed line and mobile customers.

Many rail routes were still cut on Monday but the main Bordeaux-Paris line was running again. The SNCF state rail company said it had around 1,000 workers removing trees from rail lines and repairing overhead cables.

Much of the Gironde and Landes regions have key forestry industries but huge areas were flattened by the storm, officials said, adding that more than half of the trees in the area appeared to have fallen.

Across the Pyrenees in Spain, where more strong winds were forecast for Monday, troops have also been called in to help with clean-up operations and help restore electricity for some 50,000 homes still cut off.

Spanish firefighters were still battling two forest fires sparked by electricity pylons brought down by the tempest.

Eight people were killed in France, including four who inhaled carbon monoxide from electricity generators they used during power outages in two separate incidents.

Two drivers were killed by falling trees Saturday in the Landes department, while flying debris killed a 78-year-old outside his home. A 73-year-old woman died in the Gironde department when a power cut halted her breathing machine.

But most of the deaths were in Spain, where the four children died near Barcelona when the roof and wall of a sports hall came down on their heads as winds in some places reached more than 180 kilometres (110 miles) an hour.

They were playing baseball on Saturday outside the centre as the storm -- which saw 20-metre (70-foot) high waves battering the Atlantic coast -- gathered force and they ran inside to shelter.

Two more deaths were reported in Spain on Monday. Two people were found dead in the northwestern Galicia region apparently from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator they set up after a power cut, officials said.

Fourteen died in total in Spain, including a woman crushed by a wall, another who died after a door lifted by the wind slammed into her, and a police sergeant killed by a falling tree as he was directing traffic.

Hamas says no unity talks while Fatah holds prisoners: report

CAIRO (AFP) – The detention of Hamas activists by Fatah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will scupper reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian groups, a Hamas official was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah are expected to resume reconciliation talks in Cairo on February 22, Salah al-Bardawil told Egypt's Al-Masry Al-Yom daily, but the Islamists will not attend while a "single (Hamas) prisoner" remains in jail.

"We will not sit down (with Fatah) until they release (Hamas prisoners), and whoever does not want to release them does not want reconciliation," he said.

Bardawil headed a delegation of Hamas officials from Gaza that met over the weekend with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to bolster a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and restart Palestinian unity talks.

Another member of the delegation, Jamal Abu Hashim, met with Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed on Monday in a preparatory meeting for the reconciliation talks.

"It was a consultative meeting to break the ice and to go forward toward reconciliation," Ahmed said in a press conference on Monday.

Ahmed told AFP that he and Abu Hashim had agreed to follow up on the meeting.

The Egyptian-brokered talks between Fatah and Hamas broke off in November when Hamas boycotted a meeting in Cairo, saying Fatah continued to arrest its members in the West Bank.

"Hamas needs guarantees from others, and also how will it go to reconciliation talks while 650 of our leaders are in Abu Mazen's jails?" he said, referring to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Both Hamas and Fatah have detained each other's members since Hamas, which won an upset victory in 2006 parliamentary elections, seized the Gaza Strip the following year. Fatah remains in control of the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel's Netanyahu: Existing settlements will grow

By AMY TEIBEL and ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM – The front-runner in Israel's election next month said he would allow existing West Bank settlements to expand for "natural growth" — a policy likely to face opposition from the Palestinians and the new U.S. administration.

The comments by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in an Israeli newspaper on Monday, just two days before Washington's new Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, is expected to make his first visit to the region. Mitchell, a critic of Israel's West Bank settlements, is expected to meet with Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, and focus on ways to revive peace talks in the wake of Israel's recent offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu, an opponent of current U.S.-backed peace talks, was quoted by the Haaretz daily as telling international Mideast envoy Tony Blair at a meeting Sunday that he would continue Israel's policy of allowing existing settlements to expand.

"I have no intention of building new settlements in the West Bank," Netanyahu was quoted as saying. "But like all the governments there have been until now, I will have to meet the needs of natural growth in the population. I will not be able to choke the settlements."

A Netanyahu spokeswoman, Dina Libster, confirmed the quotes were accurate. Blair's office did not return messages seeking comment.

Settlement construction in the West Bank has been a key obstacle to peace talks over the years. The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank as part of a future independent state that would also include the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. They say Israel's settlements, now home to 280,000 people in the West Bank, make it increasingly difficult for them to establish a viable state.

Nearly all Israeli settlement construction over the past decade has taken place in existing West Bank communities. And Netanyahu's positions do not significantly differ from outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has allowed construction in existing settlements to continue even while holding peace talks with the Palestinians.

Still, Mitchell's appointment has some Israeli leaders worried that the new administration of President Barack Obama will be tougher on Israel than the Bush administration was. In 2001, Mitchell called for a freeze on all Israeli settlement construction when he led an international commission to investigate violence in the Middle East.

Polls show Netanyahu's Likud Party handily winning the Feb. 10 elections, a victory that would allow him to reclaim the premiership he held between 1996 and 1999. Netanyahu has said he would try to refocus peace talks on building the Palestinian economy and governing institutions.

That approach does not sit well with Palestinian negotiators, who want the talks to continue focusing on resolving the key disputes with Israel over settlements, final borders, the fate of disputed Jerusalem and a solution for Palestinian refugees.

Further complicating the peace talks is the Hamas militant group's takeover of Gaza in June 2007. Israel on Jan. 17 ended a devastating three-week military offensive against Hamas.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have agreed that the foundation for any peace accord would be the internationally backed "road map" peace plan, which explicitly bans all settlement construction, including natural growth, and requires the Palestinians to dismantle militant groups. Israel has argued that natural growth should not be included in the ban.

In Gaza, the EU's top humanitarian official, Louis Michel, announced euro58 million ($74 million) in aid to Palestinians, including euro32 million ($41 million) earmarked to "respond to the dramatic humanitarian situation in Gaza" following Israel's offensive. But he said none of the funds would be channeled to Hamas, which he said "is acting in the way of a terrorist movement."

The EU, like Israel and the U.S., considers Hamas a terrorist group. Still, voicing the comments in the heart of Hamas' stronghold carried extra significance.

Michel also called for those responsible for the recent violence to be investigated on both sides. The Israeli offensive, launched to halt years of Hamas rocket attacks, killed nearly 1,300 people, more than half of them civilians, and caused extensive damage to Gaza's infrastructure. Thirteen Israelis also died in the fighting.

Hamas probe 'to unveil military failings over Gaza'

LONDON (AFP) – Hamas has launched a probe which is expected to be extremely critical of the failures of its military wing during the recent Gaza offensive, the respected Jane's Defense Weekly magazine said Monday.

Citing an unnamed top Hamas military commander, Jane's said a full report due soon would be critical of almost every decision taken by battlefield commanders during the 22-day assault, which ended last week.

The source quoted by Jane's added that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and his followers had effectively pushed for a conflict that it was not ready for.

The report will highlight the losses of interior minister Said Siam and around 50 of Hamas's top explosives experts as among the most significant.

Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and intelligence department have admitted shortcomings in how they responded to Israeli attacks, Jane's added, which Palestinian officials say killed over 1,300 people.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said last week that it lost only 48 fighters during Israel's Operation Cast Lead, although Israel has reported killing more than 500 Hamas members.

Heavy criticism has been leveled at Ezzedine al-Qassam commanders who unilaterally declared an end to the truce with Israel on December 19, even though conflict preparations such as building a new safe communications network were incomplete, Jane's said.

The investigation will also reportedly look at why fighters were unable to achieve many of their defensive aims.

London-based Jane's highlighted the failure to defend the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and the weak response to Israeli naval forces.

The news came as European Union (EU) aid commissioner Louis Michel toured war-torn Gaza, labeling conditions "abominable" and saying that its "terrorist" Hamas rulers bear responsibility for the fighting.

AQIM Considers Ceasefire In Algeria

* Middle East Newsline
* January 26, 2009

CAIRO [MENL] -- The Al Qaida network in North Africa has been mulling the prospect of a ceasefire.

Algerian security sources said senior members of AQIM were discussing a ceasefire announcement with Algeria. The sources said the AQIM leadership did not appear united on the issue, although the ceasefire proposal has been embraced by several commanders.

"The terrorist network is having an increasingly difficult time with financing and operations, and there are some who want a break," a security source said.

Shalit should not be part of Gaza truce deal: Hamas

CAIRO (AFP) – Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit should not be part of a deal to end the siege of Gaza, a Hamas leader said after talks in Cairo, where the Islamists said they were mulling an 18-month renewable truce.

Hamas leaders held talks with Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman on Sunday aimed at shoring up the ceasefire that ended 22 days of war in Gaza and opening up its borders, days after a similar visit by an Israeli envoy.

Shalit, captured by Gaza-based militants including Hamas in 2006, is "a separate issue and should be dealt with in the framework of a prisoner exchange only," Gaza-based Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha told the state MENA news agency.

"Hamas does not agree to link the release of Shalit with a truce and the lifting of the blockade."

Suleiman, Egypt's pointman for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, said that Israel had proposed an 18-month renewable truce and "we will examine the proposal in detail and respond to Egypt," Taha was quoted as saying.

An Egyptian truce plan foresees opening up Gaza crossing points that have been more or less sealed for 18 months, securing Gaza's borders to prevent weapons smuggling and reconvening Palestinian reconciliation talks.

Ending smuggling through tunnels from Egypt and eking out a new deal to reopen Egypt's Rafah crossing with Gaza -- the only one that bypasses Israel -- are crucial to the truce talks' success.

Taha said the matter of Rafah is "complex and thorny."

"We are open to the presence of European observers, Turkish observers and forces from Gaza's national security to open (Rafah) on a temporary basis until the formation of a national unity government."

Under a 2005 deal, Rafah can only be opened to normal traffic if EU observers and forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority which was ejected from Gaza in 2007 are present.

Hamas wants to "complete the truce, lift the siege and reopen the crossings before engaging in (Palestinian national) reconciliation," Taha said.

Several Palestinian factions, including from president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine began arriving in Cairo on Sunday for further truce and reconciliation talks.

A delegation from Islamic Jihad is expected to join the talks on Monday.