Pakistan backs quick deal on NATO supplies

ISLAMABAD : Pakistan said Wednesday it had ordered officials to finalise an agreement as quickly as possible on lifting a six-month blockade on overland NATO supplies into war-torn Afghanistan.
Islamabad has stopped short of announcing when the transit lines will reopen, but has signalled President Asif Ali Zardari will attend key talks on Afghanistan in Chicago on May 20-21, after a last-minute invitation from NATO. The country shut its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies on November 26 after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
As a result, Pakistani-US relations-already frayed by the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden-plunged into their worst crisis since Islamabad joined the United States in the war on Al-Qaeda after 9/11.
Now Pakistani and US officials are locked in talks to finalise a deal on again allowing thousands of trucks and oil tankers to carry non-lethal supplies from the southern port city of Karachi to landlocked Afghanistan.
Asked if there was any deadline for the talks, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said: "There is no deadline. All departments have been asked to conclude their negotiations in the quickest possible time."
The cabinet on Wednesday welcomed NATO's invitation to Zardari, clearing the way for him to travel to the May 20-21 summit, and it is thought unlikely he would be willing to risk the wrath of Western leaders if the supply lines have not been restored.
By going to Chicago, Pakistan hopes to ease its international isolation and boost its leverage over the future of Afghanistan, as Western countries pull out their combat forces by 2014.
But Islamabad has essentially been forced to climb down on demands for an American apology for the air strikes and an end to drone strikes targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda on its soil.
Sources familiar with the talks say transit fees for the vehicles are the main sticking point and the border will probably reopen by early next week. Islamabad is looking to more than double the payments, which could earn the country up to $1 million a day.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani advised against "emotional decisions, which do not augur well for us in the long run".
He told the cabinet that relations with NATO and the United States were at "a delicate phase where we need to take critical decisions" for Pakistan's "strategic importance" in the region and in its national interest.
Analysts say Pakistan had no choice but capitulate to international pressure to reopen the border, with US cash needed to help boost its meagre state coffers as the government prepares to seek re-election.
The State Department said "considerable progress" had been made on ending the blockade.
"We will continue to work on this throughout the week. Obviously, it'll be a wonderful signal if we can get it done by the time of the summit," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
But the Pakistani government is likely to face an angry backlash over the U-turn from opposition, right-wing and religious parties keen to exploit rampant anti-American sentiment in an election year.
Nor is lifting the blockade likely to solve other problems in the relationship between Pakistan and the United States. AFP
 

  NATO leaders eye final two years of troubled Afghan war

BRUSSELS : After a decade in Afghanistan, NATO leaders gather for a key summit Sunday hoping for a show of unity in the final two years of combat-even though allies are eager to bring troops home.
US President Barack Obama hosts two days of talks in Chicago, witht the allies hoping to demonstrate a renewed commitment to Afghanistan as protesters threaten to flood the streets to denounce a war which has killed thousands of troops and civilians.
Obama and his fellow leaders will take other key decisions for NATO's future, activating the first part of a missile shield for Europe and announcing a slew of military cooperation projects to cope with mounting austerity.
Afghanistan however will be the centrepiece of a summit billed as the biggest in NATO's history, with some 60 nations and international organisations invited, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"I look forward to meeting with President Karzai and my fellow leaders in Chicago to discuss these critical steps that will strengthen Afghan sovereignty while responsibly winding down the war," Obama said on Sunday. The US president said world leaders would discuss how to "effectively advance" the transition process, but the strategy faces growing public impatience as well as French plans to speed up its own withdrawal.
NATO is gradually handing control of security to Afghan forces, with the aim of giving them the lead nationwide next year and drawing a path home for foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
An orderly withdrawal of the 130,000 US-led troops is vital for Obama, who wants to show voters ahead of a tough November election that he can successfully end combat in Afghanistan after withdrawing from Iraq last year.
But the new French president, Socialist Francois Hollande, is set to make waves during his first US trip since taking office on Tuesday by telling allies that he will bring troops home by the end of 2012 instead of next year.
"At this stage we're shuttling out of Afghanistan as fast as we can or even faster," Nick Witney, a defence expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP. "And Afghanistan is facing an empty future."
NATO leaders, he said, "will try to create the impression that everyone's timetable fits the alliance pattern."
Hollande is not the first leader to push for an early withdrawal.
Canada and the Netherlands have already switched to training missions while Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard indicated that her troops could leave next year, although her government later said they would stay through 2014.
But NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insists that the summit will cement the alliance's mantra of "in together, out together."
The mission has been plagued by other challenges, including growing cases of Afghan soldiers turning their guns on their NATO allies and Afghan anger over civilian deaths caused by alliance operations. AFP

  China, Japan hold sea talks on island row

BEIJING : China and Japan hold high-level maritime talks on Wednesday expected to focus on a group of uninhabited islands that are at the heart of an ongoing territorial row between the two countries.
China and Japan have long had strained relations, often triggered by rival sovereign claims in the East China Sea over gas fields and the disputed islands-known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Officials from the two countries' foreign and defence ministries, as well as their maritime affairs departments, will attend the one-day meeting in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou.
"China and Japan reached consensus in December to set up a China-Japan high-level consultation mechanism on maritime affairs," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters Tuesday.
He said there would be "no restrictions on the issues" to be discussed during the first round of talks in Hangzhou.
In 2010, ties between China and Japan hit a low patch after Japanese authorities arrested a Chinese captain for ramming his trawler against Japanese coastguard ships in the area of the disputed Diaoyu or Senkaku islands.
The crisis was eventually resolved through diplomatic channels, but there have been a number of low-scale incidents since then that have fanned tensions between the two countries.
The Wednesday talks could however be overshadowed by the annual conference of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) -- an exile group that seeks to raise awareness of persecution against Uighurs in China-taking place in Tokyo.
Beijing denies any such persecution and accuses the WUC of being closely linked to terrorist groups. It is against any country hosting the organisation and on Monday hit out at Japan for allowing the conference to take place.
Territorial disputes in the seas surrounding China are causing growing alarm in the region and further afield.
Several Asian countries have competing territorial claims to parts or all of the East and South China Seas, most of which involve tiny island chains such as the Diaoyu or Senkaku that are potentially resource-rich.
China and the Philippines are currently involved in a high-profile maritime stand-off over a set of islands in the South China Sea that both countries claim as their own. AFP

   Suu Kyi in cautious nod to US sanctions freeze

WASHINGTON : Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday she would not oppose a freeze on US sanctions but urged caution, warning that her country could slide back after dramatic reforms.
Suu Kyi, who was sworn in May 2 as a member of parliament after spending most of the past two decades under house arrest, spoke via Skype to a rare event in Washington involving former president George W. Bush.
Suu Kyi gave a cautious nod to a call Monday by John McCain, a leading senator of Bush's Republican Party, for a limited-time freeze on most sanctions on Myanmar-similar to a recent move by the European Union.
"That is a way of sending a strong message that we will try to help the process of democratization but if this is not maintained, then we will have to think of other ways of making sure that the aspiration of the people of Burma for democracy is respected," Suu Kyi said, referring to Myanmar by its old name.
"I am not against the suspension of sanctions as long as the people of the United States feel that this is the right thing to do at the moment. I do advocate caution, though," she added.
"I sometimes feel that people are too optimistic about the scene in Burma... You have to remember that the democratization process is not irreversible."
Repeating one of her frequent themes, Suu Kyi said that reforms would only be considered irreversible once the military-long Myanmar's most powerful institution with a history of abuses-firmly committed to changing its ways.
Suu Kyi, the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, enjoys wide respect across the political spectrum in Washington and her views are considered critical to any US decision to lift decades worth of sanctions on Myanmar.
Since taking office a year ago, President Thein Sein has surprised even many cynics by opening talks with Suu Kyi and ethnic rebels, allowing by-elections swept by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and freeing political prisoners.
But Suu Kyi said that Myanmar has not freed 271 political prisoners on a list handed by her party to the home ministry.
"There should be no political prisoners in Burma if we are really heading for democratization," she said.
President Barack Obama's Democratic administration has championed dialogue with Myanmar since taking over from Bush but has been cautious about a full lifting of sanctions, saying it needs to preserve leverage to encourage change.
Bush was in Washington to launch the Freedom Collection, which brings together mementos and lessons from dissidents and reformers. The collection has gone online and will eventually have a physical home at the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. AFP

   N Korea lambasts S Korean presidential hopeful

SEOUL : North Korea on Wednesday lambasted South Korea's conservative ruling party and its leading presidential hopeful Park Geun-Hye, linking her ambitions to the dictatorship of her late father Park Chung-Hee.
The comments by Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the ruling communist party, marked the 51st anniversary of a 1961 military coup by then-Major General Park.
He is credited with spearheading the South's dramatic economic development until his assassination in 1979, at the cost of serious human rights abuses.
The North in recent months has mounted an unusually extreme campaign of personal abuse against current President Lee Myung-Bak as cross-border ties worsen, terming him a rat and "human scum" among a variety of other insults.
It has also been taking aim at Park, seen as a front-runner in the December presidential election. Lee is constitutionally barred from a second term.
"Nothing can hide the crimes committed by the yusin dictator," Rodong said in a commentary, referring to Park Chung-Hee's rule under which political opponents were jailed and tortured.
It said the remnants of Park's dictatorship are "shameless enough" to project his daughter Geun-Hye in a bid to "gratify the greed for power".
Lurking behind this was the ulterior motive of the ruling New Frontier Party to stir up nostalgia about the era of economic development under Park in a bid to rally conservative forces and stay in power, the newspaper said. The North has lashed out at Park Geun-Hye, even though she has distanced herself somewhat from Lee's hard line on cross-border relations. "A dictator's bloodline cannot change away from its viciousness," it said last month. AFP

 UN monitors stranded with Syria activists after blast

BEIRUT : Six members of a UN observer team which came under bomb attack in Syria were forced to stay the night with anti-regime activists in the northwest town of Khan Sheikhun, an activist said Wednesday.
"The monitors had to stay behind after their car was damaged by the blast," said Khan Sheikhun-based activist Abu Hammam.
The monitors were safe and evacuated on Wednesday afternoon, after having witnessed "death with their own eyes" on Tuesday as regime forces gunned down mourners in a funeral procession, Abu Hammam told AFP by telephone.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights accused regime forces of having shot dead 20 people in the procession which turned into an anti-regime rally. While the UN monitoring team tried to evacuate the stranded observers Tuesday, "they were too scared to enter Khan Sheikhun because of the shelling and gunfire."
The six monitors were successfully evacuated Wednesday afternoon, after having spent the night in the restive town.
"The Syrian regime committed a massacre Tuesday during a visit by UN monitors to Khan Sheikhun," said the Britain-based Observatory.
The blast came as the observers made their way in a convoy of vehicles along a narrow street in Khan Sheikhun in the flashpoint province of Idlib, said activists, rebels and the watchdog.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said a homemade bomb exploded in front of the convoy and that three vehicles were damaged but no casualties reported. The incidents took place as Syria's anti-regime revolt entered a 15th month of relentless violence that has killed more than 12,000 people, according to monitors, amid growing fears that a UN-backed peace plan will fail.
"The monitors who spent the night with us in Khan Sheikhun were from Yemen, Brazil, Bangladesh, Denmark, Morocco and Holland," said Abu Hammam. "Two others managed to flee just after the blast, but these six stayed behind."
It was the second roadside bombing involving the observers' vehicles in less than a week, after a convoy in the flashpoint southern city of Daraa wounded six Syrian soldiers on May 9.
Shelling on Tuesday night in Khan Sheikhun was so sustained that media activists fled the makeshift centre they were working in. "The shelling was right next to us... We didn't sleep at all last night," said Abu Hammam. AFP

  Iran calls for rallies against Saudi-Bahrain union 

TEHRAN : Iran has called on its people to stage rallies after this week's Friday prayers to protest against what it described as a US plan to annex Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. The Islamic Propagation Coordination Council, which organises state-backed protests, urged Iranians "to protest against the American plan to annex Bahrain to Saudi Arabia and express their anger against the lackey regimes of Al-Khalifa and Al-Saud." Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) discussed on Monday plans to turn the bloc into a union, starting with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
"This dangerous plot is the result of the American-Zionist-Britain evil triangle to prevent popular uprisings spreading into other countries of the region and to control the internal crisis in Bahrain which has been caused by the inability of the Al-Khalifa regime to control the situation," the council said on its website.
"Al-Saud and Al-Khalifa should be aware that with this kind of plot they will not stop the popular movement in Bahrain and the movement of Islamic awakening in the region," it added.
The announcement comes after Tehran warned Riyadh's plans to form a union with Manama would deepen the crisis in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia had earlier told Iran to keep out of its relations with the tiny Gulf state.
"Any kind of foreign intervention or non-normative plans without respecting people's vote will only deepen the already existing wounds," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.
Iranian MPs on Monday condemned the planned union between the two Gulf countries.
"Bahraini and Saudi rulers must understand that this unwise decision will only strengthen the Bahraini people's resolve against the forces of occupation," they said in a letter, referring to the Saudi-led forces.
"These statements represent a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of the kingdom and an attack on its sovereignty," the foreign ministry said in a letter of protest handed to the Islamic republic's charge d'affairs, according to BNA state news agency. Saudi-led Gulf forces rolled into Sunni-ruled Bahrain in March 2011 to boost the kingdom's security forces which a day later crushed month-old, Shiite-dominated protests. AFP

   South says Sudan stalls on UN talks deadline

KHARTOUM, Sudan : A UN deadline for Sudan and South Sudan to resume talks on oil and other critical issues looked likely to pass without action on Wednesday, as South Sudan accused Khartoum of stalling.
The South's lead negotiator, Pagun Amum, told AFP late Tuesday that his country is ready to resume the African Union-led talks.
Sudan withdrew from negotiations after South Sudanese troops occupied the north's main oil region of Heglig on April 10, in a conflict that led to widespread fears of all-out war. Amum said Juba has sent a letter to the AU mediator, former South African president Thabo Mbeki, saying "we have been ready to resume talks and we are waiting."
Sudan has not reciprocated, Amum said.
"I believe it is because the government of Sudan hasn't been keen to return to talks, which is in violation of the UNSC resolution and the AU roadmap" underlying the UN resolution, he said.
The May 2 United Nations Security Council resolution gave Sudan and South Sudan two weeks-until May 16 -- to unconditionally resume the talks. The unanimous resolution threatened sanctions if its demands are not complied with. It sought to avert a "serious threat to international peace and security" caused by the situation along the disputed border between the two countries, after weeks of fighting. South Sudan's 10-day occupation of Heglig coincided with Sudanese air raids on South Sudanese territory, actions which the UN condemned.
Khartoum's foreign ministry did not respond to AFP's requests for comment about the talks, but it said late Tuesday that Mbeki would likely be in Khartoum this week "to discuss the details of negotiations, like the dates and the agenda."
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, an accused war criminal, said last week that Sudan "will not negotiate about any issues" unless security matters are resolved first.
An African diplomat told AFP that Khartoum does seem ready to negotiate, although "they have their own approach" by placing security first. "They need to obviously agree on the specifics of the agenda for their discussion," he said, declining to be named. Khartoum accuses South Sudan of backing a major insurgency in South Kordofan state, as well as in Blue Nile, and also of working with Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels from Darfur.
The South says it does not back the rebels but suspected JEM fighters were seen alongside its troops during the Heglig occupation. JEM denied involvement.
South Sudan accuses the north of backing insurgents in the South as well. AFP

    France’s new prime minister readies fresh cabinet

PARIS : President Francois Hollande's new Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault got straight to work hiring a cabinet on his first day on the job Wednesday, vowing to get France back on its feet.
Ayrault, a 62-year-old former German teacher, lawmaker and longtime Hollande ally bade farewell to former president Nicolas Sarkozy's premier Francois Fillon and said his first cabinet would meet on Thursday, a public holiday.
"The government will be ready and set up by the end of this afternoon," Ayrault told journalists before heading off to the presidential Elysee Palace to put his cabinet suggestions to Hollande.
"What's essential, and that's why the cabinet will meet already on Thursday, is to get quickly to work to allow France to get back on its feet in a just way."
The Elysee said in a statement that the cabinet line-up would be announced at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT).
Like Hollande, who on Tuesday became France's first Socialist president since 1995, Ayrault has never previously held a ministerial post, but he is mayor of Nantes, a veteran parliamentarian and seen as a consensus builder.
Hollande has been criticised for naming Ayrault, who has a conviction for favouritism in awarding a local government contract, with opponents noting that as candidate he promised not to work with anyone with a criminal record.
He was named to the job of prime minister over other potential candidates, including Socialist Party leader and former labour minister Martine Aubry, who said she had agreed there was no place for her in a government led by Ayrault.
"In such a set-up, we agreed, amicably, that there was no sense in my being in government," Aubry told AFP. "There was no proposal and no negotiation."
"What's certain is that I will campaign for the parliamentary election. All three of us agreed that, under the circumstances, where I can be most useful is at the head of the Socialist Party to be close to Jean-Marc Ayrault," she said.
French media have been rife with speculation about other appointments, with Spanish-born Manuel Valls, 49, mooted as interior minister and Hollande's campaign chief Pierre Moscovici mentioned as foreign or finance minister.
Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister in the government of France's last Socialist president Francois Mitterrand, could get either the defence portfolio or the foreign ministry, observers said. AFP

  Algerian women claw their way into parliament

ALGIERS : Algeria's legislative election saw women take almost a third of the seats, making the national assembly the most gender-balanced in the region but activists say the battle is far from won.
According to a provisional count, at least 145 of the new, enlarged national assembly's 462 seats will be occupied by women, up from a representation of only seven percent in the outgoing house.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed "the high number of women elected" while UN chief Ban Ki-moon "welcomed the increased representation of women in the new parliament."
The May 10 election saw President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's National Liberation Front recover some of its past hegemony while Islamist parties lost ground, failing to ride the religious wave that followed the region's Arab Spring.
"The Arab Spring may be delayed for the Islamists but its flowers have blossomed for women, they will bring colour to parliament and raise their voices in an assembly which was dominated by men for 50 years," said Samia, an unemployed woman in her fifties, in central Algiers.
"With this considerable proportion of women in parliament, we're closing in on true democratic representation in parliament," said Fatima Mustapha, a university teacher.
Women account for 53 percent of the population, 45 percent of magistrates and now control around 32 percent of the national assembly, statistics which place Algeria ahead of Tunisia and Morocco.
Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia boasted that the number of women elected last week also put Algeria ahead of the European Union average.
After ten years of activism by women's rights groups, a new law imposed parliamentary quotas of 20 to 50 percent of women, depending on the size of the constituency.
But feminists stress it remains to be seen how effectively the new women MPs, many of them inexperienced, will work together across party lines.
"Women now have to prove that they deserved their seats," said Nadia
Ait Zaid, a jurist who
runs a centre that campaigned for the quotas and trained some of the women candidates before the election. AFP