France confirms informal talks to Hamas

France has had informal contacts with Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that rules Gaza, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Monday.

Kouchner, speaking on Europe-1 radio, was confirming a report in the daily Le Figaro that quoted a retired diplomat as saying, that he met with the Hamas leaders a month ago.

Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States. Fatah had dominated Palestinian politics for decades, but was trounced by Hamas in the 2006 parliamentary elections. In June 2007, the militant Islamic group took Gaza by force, triggering a crisis among Palestinians.

France has had contacts with Hamas leaders ”for several months,” Kouchner said, adding that France was not in formal negotiations. ”These are not relations, they are contacts. We must be able to talk if we want to play a role,” the minister said.

A former ambassador to Iraq, Yves Aubin de la Messuziere, told Le Figaro that he had met a month ago in Gaza with Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas strongman, and Ismael Haniyeh, the Hamas Prime Minister. Apparently, de la Messuziere was acting on behalf of the French government.

”They assured (me) that they were ready to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, which amounts to an indirect recognition of Israel,” the moderate Palestinian president and Fatah’s leader, de la Messuziere said. He was also quoted as saying, ”they said they were ready to stop suicide attacks and, what surprised me is that the Islamist leaders recognise the legitimacy of Mahmoud Abbas.”

Abbas’ West Bank government is in a bitter rivalry with the Hamas regime in Gaza.

Kouchner, in the radio interview gave nuanced response, saying that Hamas was ”more flexible than before”, but for the moment does not recognize the state of Israel.

Kouchner said, the talks with Hamas were not held on a regular basis.

”We must try, but we must do so clearly and with (full knowledge) of our partners,” Kouchner said.
In June, during an official visit to Israel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ”will go to Palestine for several hours,” the foreign minister said, adding that Sarkozy will not be meeting with Hamas.

During his visit to Israel this month to honor the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding, US President George W Bush predicted Al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas will one day be defeated as Muslims
”recognise the emptiness of the terrorists’ vision and the injustice of their cause.”

Bush hopes to achieve a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel before he leaves office in January, and international Mideast envoy Tony Blair is working towards that end.

Mosul’s Al-Qaida figure arrested in Iraq

Iraqi officials said police on Monday arrested a man suspected of being a top Al-Qaida figure in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, where security forces have been carrying out an intensified crackdown to root out the terror network.

The US military said it was looking into the report. Reports of high-level Al-Qaida arrests in the past have sometimes proven incorrect.

Maj Gen Ahmed Taha, of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, identified the detainee as Al-Qaida in Iraq’s ”wali” - or ”governor” - in Mosul, which would make him the terror network’s top figure in the city and surrounding region.

But a security official involved in the detention said officials were still interrogating the detainee, Abdul-Khaliq al-Sabawi, to confirm whether he is the Mosul wali. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the arrest.

Al-Sabawi was captured in a morning raid in Salahuddin province, which neighbors Mosul’s Ninevah province to the south, said Taha, director of the ministry’s internal affairs office. He did not elaborate.

Some of Mosul’s Al-Qaida figures are believed to have fled or stayed out of the city before the sweep began more than a week ago - the latest in a series of high-profile operations launched by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to break the hold of armed groups in several areas around the country in the past two months.

So far, more than 1300 people have been arrested in and around Mosul in the operation, though 240 were cleared of suspicion and released, said Maj Gen Hussein Ali Kamal, the deputy interior minister for intelligence and security affairs.

Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has been the most prominent Al-Qaida in Iraq urban stronghold since the group lost control of cities in the western province of Anbar over the past year.

Al-Qaida presence

Al-Qaida militants and other Sunni Arab insurgents have used the city to carry out major attacks in northern and central Iraq in recent months.

US-backed Iraqi forces have been carrying out targeted raids on suspected militants in the city and so far the sweep has seen almost no clashes a sign insurgents are seeking to lay low or escape.

The Defense Ministry reported the first death in the crackdown, saying raids Monday left one militant dead, along with 78 people arrested. The ministry statement gave no details on how the death occurred.

On Sunday, US-Iraqi forces increased a parallel operation in regions between Mosul and the Syrian border aimed at intercepting fleeing al-Qaida figures, an official in the Iraqi security forces’ Ninevah command center said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the press.

Al-Maliki ordered the Mosul sweep after two similar crackdowns against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra and Baghdad’s Shiite stronghold of Sadr City. The Basra crackdown, which began in late March, sparked a wave of violence by Shiite militias across the south.

The intensified fighting has since been calmed by fragile truces, but skirmishes, raids and sporadic attacks have continued.

Lt Col Farhan Qassim, the police chief of the southern town of Suq al-Shiyoukh, was killed on Monday morning by a bomb that exploded in his office, police in the nearby city of Nasiriyah said. The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared becoming targets themselves.

The town, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, was the scene of heavy fighting on April 19 between police and members of the Mahdi Army the militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr that left 22 people dead.

The attack was the latest sign of infiltration of police by Shiite militiamen. A week ago, a bomb detonated in the province’s main police command in Nasiriyah, wounding two officers. Four policemen were arrested soon afterward.

Farther south, Iraqi solders and police launched pre-dawn raids in four neighborhoods of Basra, including two Shiite militia enclaves, arresting several suspects, Basra’s operations command Maj Gen Mohammed Jawad Huwaidi said, without giving a precise number of arrests.

The sweep was targeting gunmen believed to be behind an attack on a police checkpoint in the center of the city that killed a policeman and wounded three others, Huwaidi said.

Also on Monday, Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab party said it rejected an apology made by the US military after an American sniper used a Quran for target practice. The unidentified soldier was disciplined and removed from Iraq, the military said on Sunday.

Zardari acquitted in drug trafficking case

A Pakistani court on Monday acquitted chairman of ruling PPP Asif Ali Zardari in a decade-old case linking him to drug trafficking, saying there was no ‘’substantial evidence” against him.

This was the last of numerous cases filed against Zardari, 51, in the 1990s after the dismissal of the Pakistan People’s Party government led by his slain wife Benazir Bhutto.

Additional Sessions Judge Ejaz Hussain Awan acquitted Zardari, who took over Pakistan Peoples Party leadership after Bhutto was killed in an attack on her rally in December, after the public prosecutor requested that the charges be dropped, as the government had found no substantial evidence.

Zardari’s counsel Latif Khosa said the case was designed to victimise his client and there was no evidence against him.

The judge agreed with the arguments and acquitted Zardari whose slogan-shouting supporters were present outside the court in large numbers.

After the verdict, Khosa told reporters that the case was based on falsehood and no witnesses had made statements against Zardari.

Zardari had been charged with providing ”aid, assistance, facilitation, abetment and shelter” to six persons allegedly involved in drug trafficking.

The prosecution had claimed that he received a ‘’share” in the narcotics business from persons who sent a major drug consignment to Europe and India in 1995 and 1996.

The PPP leader had maintained that he had been framed. All graft charges filed against Zardari in Pakistan and abroad have been scrapped in line with the controversial ordinance issued by President Pervez Musharraf last year to grant amnesty to PPP leaders.

Zardari was acquitted by Sindh High Court, last month of involvement in the murder of Murtaza Bhutto, brother of his wife.

Myanmar allows ASEAN aid effort

Myanmar agreed on Monday to an international relief effort led by its regional allies to help more than two million cyclone victims still critically short of life-saving food, shelter and medicines.

As the junta declared three days of national mourning, the UN’s top aid official John Holmes got a first-hand look at the scale of a disaster that has left at least 133,000 people dead or missing.

The regime agreed to allow its Southeast Asian neighbours to help but stopped short of permitting a full-scale aid operation, despite warnings the most vulnerable survivors would soon start to die unless they get help soon.

Nor did it indicate any softening in its refusal to allow in foreign aid workers in anything like the numbers needed to reach an estimated 2.4 million people still in desperate need 17 days after the tragedy struck.

Instead it struck a compromise at emergency talks here for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to coordinate assistance.

”The foreign ministers have agreed to establish an ASEAN-led coordinating mechanism,” Singapore’s George Yeo said after hosting his counterparts here, including Myanmar’s Nyan Win.

He said Nyan Win told the meeting the estimated damage from the cyclone was ”well over 10 billion US dollars” and that the regime had agreed to accept the immediate despatch of medical teams from other ASEAN nations.

Thirty medical personnel from each of Myanmar’s nine fellow ASEAN members will be sent to Myanmar in addition to contingents from India, Bangladesh and China.

Yeo said ASEAN would work with the United Nations to hold an ”international pledging conference” in the impoverished country’s main city Yangon on May 25 to pool aid.

”We have to look at specific needs and specific offers of help. There will not be an uncontrolled entry of foreign personnel into Myanmar,” Yeo said.

ASEAN has been frequently criticised over its reaction to regional crises and its failure to force Myanmar’s junta to respect human rights and promote democracy, notably when last year’s pro-democracy protests were crushed.

The regional grouping warned donors that ”international assistance given to Myanmar, given through ASEAN, should not be politicised.”

”On that basis, Myanmar will accept international assistance,” Yeo said.

The May 2-3 cyclone was Southeast Asia’s worst natural disaster since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, but the junta long suspicious of the outside world had stonewalled on offers of help.

Its reluctance to allow in all but a tiny proportion of the relief that is needed has frustrated UN and other humanitarian agencies as well as the French and US navy waiting off the coast with aid-laden ships.

The United Nations says only a fraction of the supplies needed are getting through to people in the Irrawaddy Delta, where whole villages were lost.

”This is not of the quantity or frequency required to meet the needs of the affected populations,” it said in a daily update.

The delta region has been all but closed off to reporters and most other foreigners, making it impossible to get an up-to-date independent picture of the situation on the ground.

People who have slipped through say the situation is almost unbearable - hungry people in leaking huts, stinking corpses rotting by the roadside, and most survivors still without any government aid.

Holmes, the UN’s relief coordinator, arrived on Sunday in Myanmar carrying a letter to junta leader Than Shwe from UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

Ban himself is to visit the country later in the week, after failing to get Than Shwe even to take his phone calls.

A UN spokesman in Myanmar said Holmes visited the disaster area earlier in the day but gave no details about his trip.

Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said after the Singapore talks that the aid effort was ”better late than never,” and the ASEAN-led mechanism ”will be the driving force to mobilise resources and humanitarian assistance from countries around the world.”

Myanmar was ”more receptive” to receiving medical teams and after that, it ”might be more willing or receptive” to foreign aid workers, he added.

Nyan Win for his part insisted his government was never opposed to foreign aid, vowing that, ”If we need to issue the visas (to foreign aid workers), we will issue it.”

China stands still to mourn quake victims

Flags flew at half-mast, public entertainment was cancelled and 1.3 billion people were asked to observe three minutes of silence on Monday as China began three days of mourning for victims of the country’s massive earthquake.

Officials asked for the horns of cars, trains and ships and air raid sirens to sound as people fall silent at 2:28 pm local time (0628 GMT) - exactly one week after the quake splintered thousands of buildings and killed over 32-thousand people.

The Olympic torch relay - a potent symbol of national pride in the countdown to August’s much anticipated Beijing games - was also suspended during the mourning period.

The national flag in Tiananmen Square, which is raised in a solemn ceremony every morning at dawn, flew at half mast on Monday. State television repeatedly broadcast the ceremony.

To mark the mourning period, the logos of all newspapers were printed in black. Trade on China’s stock and commodities exchanges will also be suspended for the three-minute period of silence, the Securities Regulatory Commission said on its website.

China’s National Grand Theatre will cancel or postpone all performances during these three days.

The mourning period begins as the hope of finding more trapped survivors dwindles, and preventing hunger and disease among the homeless became more pressing.

As the second week of China’s worst disaster in a generation began, the hunt for survivors in the rubble turned glum despite remarkable survival tales among thousands who were buried by the earthquake.

The official Xinhua News Agency slowed its steady run of rescue news, with just three such rescues reported on Sunday, including that of a woman in Yingxiu town reached by soldiers after 150 hours.

With more corpses discovered everyday, the confirmed death toll rose to 32,476, the State Council, China’s cabinet reported.

However, the government says it expects the final death toll from Monday’s massive earthquake to pass 50-thousand.

Meanwhile the injured numbered more than 220-thousand.

Jenna’s wedding enlivens civil war village

So close and yet so far: Tiny Crawford is sort of like a bridesmaid at arm’s length from
Jenna Bush’s wedding on Saturday.

All of the action is at President George W Bush’s 1600- acre ranch 11 kilometres outside this one-stoplight town.

Friday night’s rehearsal dinner was even farther away -87 kilometres from the ranch in a town called Salado, meaning the more than 200 Bush family and friends invited to the nuptials might never even set foot downtown Crawford.

”It’s a private ceremony. It’s an exciting time for the Bush family,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said on Thursday. ”They’re all beginning to converge here in Texas and in Crawford and I know the president and Mrs Bush are really looking forward to this weekend.”

The bride, first lady Laura Bush and daughter Barbara weren’t even in Crawford most of on Friday.

Early in the day, the three attended a bridal lunch for family and friends at an inn in Salado, more than an hour’s drive south of Crawford.

They stayed the day in the small tourist village, founded before the Civil War, getting ready for the evening events. The president made his way solo to Salado.

There the parents of the groom, Henry Hager, hosted the rehearsal dinner for members of the family and the wedding party at the Old Salado Springs Celebration Centre in the heart of the town filled with coffee shops, western-style stores, antiques, eateries and clothing shops.

Then later, all of the wedding guests, some just arriving in the area, were invited to what was billed a ”Texas-sized celebration” at the Salado Silver Spur Theatre in the village, once a stagecoach stop.

With no hotels in Crawford, local residents are more likely to welcome tourists who just want to say they were here when Jenna married her longtime boyfriend.

Beauty queen grilled for crush on Pak Prez

A Pakistani beauty queen who recently expressed a desire to date President Pervez Musharraf is being chided for ”bringing a bad name to Pakistan”.

Reigning Miss Pakistan World Mahleej Sarkari surprised everyone last month by saying she ”loved” Musharraf and wanted to ”date” him. She even had pictures of herself blowing kisses at a Musharraf portrait posted on a website.

Following the brouhaha over this ”breaking news”, Toronto-based Sarkari, was invited by a Pakistani TV channel to its Dubai studio recently for an interview. Though the beauty queen accepted the invite graciously, she was shocked by the host’s aggressive tone during the interview.

Sarkari was ”berated for bringing a bad name to Pakistan” for her participation in beauty pageants and particularly her comments on Musharraf, the weekly Friday Times reported.

The beauty queen said the interviewer seemed to be on a mission to discredit her and Musharraf. When Sarkari returned to Toronto, she telephoned the producer and objected to being lured to Dubai with false promises, but he said he was not at fault and was merely ”following orders”.

Sarkari recorded her phone conversation with the producer and has sent the tape to a rival channel.

She had dedicated a long post to Musharraf on the Pakistani pageant’s website. ”Going to international pageants we have found out how much Musharraf is known to all beautiful young girls, the beauty queens. Some have replied, ”Oh yes, the general man (sic).” While others have said ”’the man who rules Pakistan’,” she wrote.

”Everything positive… I think personally Musharraf Sahab is very good-looking. Some Pakistani politicians may not agree with these gorgeous women. You know like Benazir, all men around the world thought she was a beauty, similarly Musharraf is a hunk. He has enough charisma to have young girls going nuts,” goes the beauty queen’s post.

Sarkari said she would love to date Musharraf if he asked her out. ”Yes, any time…I like him a lot…,” she told a news portal.

Earlier this week, another Pakistani beauty queen claimed she and Musharraf are ”old friends”. Maria Mateen, who has bagged many beauty awards, however, told a TV channel that she had no desire to date Musharraf as they were ”already good friends”.

Pak ready to deport Dawood: Gillani

Pakistan will take action against any terrorist group operating against India from its soil and consider a request for extraditing underworld don Dawood Ibrahim if New Delhi provides ”authentic proof” in this regard, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani has said.

Gillani said his government could also consider India’s request for access to terrorist leaders like Masood Azhar, who was released in return for safety of passengers of Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar in 1999, if it is backed by evidence.

Rejecting India’s concerns over terrorism in Kashmir being financed and executed by Pakistan-based groups like Lashker-e-Taiba with the backing of the Inter-Services Intelligence, he said, ”We are already working with the whole world against extremism and terrorism and our point of view is extremely clear that we are against them.”

”We have lost our own leader (former premier) Benazir Bhutto because of (terrorism). How can I deny that? We are fighting against terrorism,” Gillani said in a TV interview.

When pointed out that several outlawed terrorist groups like Lashker-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Al-Badr re-emerged in Pakistan in recent months after changing their names, Gillani said his government would act against such groups.

”We are against terrorism and we are against terror groups. We will not be supporting any terrorist,” said Gillani.

Hezbollah to withdraw fighters from Beirut

Hezbollah said on Saturday it was withdrawing its gunmen from Beirut neighbuorhoods seized in sectarian clashes after the army ordered its troops to establish security and called on fighters to clear the streets.

But while tensions in the capital appeared to be defusing, at least 12 people were killed and 20 wounded when pro- and anti-government groups fought in a remote region of northern Lebanon, Lebanese security and hospital officials said. It was the heaviest toll for a single clash since sectarian fighting began on Wednesday.

Hezbollah and its allied seized large swaths of Muslim west Beirut Friday, demonstrating their military might in a power struggle with the government.

Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, in his first public statement since the sectarian violence erupted, said Lebanon can no longer tolerate Hezbollah having weapons.

He called on the army to restore law and order and remove gunmen from the streets and accused Hezbollah of staging a coup.

After Saniora’s speech, the army called for gunmen to withdraw from the streets of Beirut and reopen the roads. It ordered army units ”to continue to take measures on the ground to establish security and spread state authority and arrest the violators.”

China’s Hu says Japan visit ’successful’

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday said his five-day visit to Japan, which has seen the traditional rivals commit to closer ties but also met protests over Beijing’s rule in Tibet, was a success.

On the final day of his trip, only the second visit ever by a Chinese head of state to Japan, Hu visited the Toshodaiji Temple, a revered Buddhist temple built by Chinese monk Ganjin in 759 when the city was the nation’s capital.

The choice of Nara is seen as a bid to remember times when bilateral relations were amicable, unlike the two countries’ tortured recent history tainted by Japan’s militarism before and during World War II.

”This visit was harmonious and successful,” Hu told reporters before leaving Nara.

”Cooperation between China and Japan has produced big achievements in various fields. I believe further progress will be made in the future,” he said.

Hu also visited the Horyuji Temple, the world’s oldest surviving wooden structure, built more than 1300 years ago, where he said, ”It is good for both countries to stay friendly and peaceful.”

There was, however, open dissent Saturday, with dozens of protesters gathered in front of the temple waving Tibetan flags and chanting ”Free Tibet!” as Hu arrived, while pro-Tibet demonstrators rallied in the streets of Nara.

Inside the temple, a calmer atmosphere prevailed as Hu listened, nodding and smiling, to a narrative on the history of the structure from a Buddhist monk.

Hu is due to visit the headquarters of Japanese electronics giant Matsushita in Osaka, before heading home.

The two leaders on Wednesday agreed to start regular summits to ease decades of tension coloured by Japan’s brutal invasion of China, and pledged that Asia’s two largest economies would not see each other as a threat.

During his stay in Japan this week, Hu has not been short on friendly gestures, offering to lend two giant pandas to a Japanese zoo and shedding his jacket and glasses to show off his table tennis prowess.

The Chinese president has repeated conciliatory remarks aimed at improving ties, praising Japan’s ”peaceful” role in world affairs and voicing gratitude for Japan’s decades of low-interest loans to China since the end of World War II.

This new spirit of friendship makes a stark contrast to the atmosphere just a few years ago.

Jiang Zemin, the only other Chinese president to come to Japan, publicly berated his hosts on his 1998 visit for not offering a stronger apology over past militarism, foreshadowing a decade of tension between the two countries.
China broke off high-level dialogue with Japan during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, citing his insistence on visiting a shrine that venerates Japanese war dead including war criminals.

China’s clampdown in Tibet has overshadowed Hu’s visit, with thousands of protesters demonstrating in Tokyo on his arrival Tuesday. On Thursday, more than 100 protesters waved Tibetan flags on the university campus where Hu gave a speech.

Tibet’s government-in-exile says more than 200 people have been killed in the Chinese crackdown. China denies this and instead blames Tibetan ”rioters” and ”insurgents” for killing 21 people.