Five African Union peacekeepers killed in Darfur

Source: CNN.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) — Unidentified gunmen killed five African Union peacekeepers in the Darfur region of western Sudan, the deadliest single attack against the force since late 2004, an AU spokesman said Monday.

The five were guarding a water point near the Sudanese border with Chad when they came under fire Sunday, Noureddine Mezni said. Four soldiers were killed in the shooting, and the fifth died of his wounds Monday morning.

Three gunmen also were killed, he said.

“We strongly condemn this cowardly attack against the very people who are working hard to achieve peace in Darfur,” Mezni told Reuters. “It was totally unprovoked.”

The new bloodshed came after the new U.N. humanitarian chief, John Holmes, said during a visit to the region last month that aid efforts in Darfur — the largest in the world — could collapse if the situation keeps deteriorating.

Asked if the assailants’ bodies were identified, Mezni said: “An investigation is under way, and there will be a statement with more details.”

The killings bring to 15 the number of African Union personnel killed in Darfur since the troops were deployed in late 2004. A senior Nigerian officer working with the mission has been missing since he was kidnapped in December.

The African Union operates an overstretched 7,000-strong force in Darfur. Sudan has rejected the deployment of a larger U.N. force in the region, where violence has persisted despite a 2006 peace agreement between the government and one rebel faction.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Monday reiterated his position that the AU had the main security responsibility for Darfur but said a “dialogue” was under way on other issues.

Sudanese officials recently said they were willing to review U.N. proposals for easing the violence in Darfur, where AU forces have failed to tackle the bloodshed.

Al-Bashir stressed, however, that the key to ending the conflict in Darfur rests with the Sudanese.

“The solution to the Darfur issue must be a national responsibility, with the sons and daughters of Sudan,” al-Bashir told parliament.

The U.N. Mission in Sudan condemned the attack, stressing in a statement “the urgent need to identify those responsible for the attacks … and to hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

That may not be easy. U.N. officials and aid workers say all types of armed groups are exploiting Darfur’s chaos, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell them apart.

Experts estimate that around 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have fled their homes since the conflict flared in 2003, when rebels took up arms against Khartoum, charging it with neglect. The government says 9,000 people have died.

Darfuris say government-backed Janjaweed militias have stormed through their villages, killing, raping and burning down their huts. The government says it has no ties to the Janjaweed, which it calls outlaws.

The attack on AU forces came a day after a helicopter carrying the African Union deputy force commander came under fire on its way from western Darfur to the force’s headquarters in El Fasher, the region’s biggest town.

Japan deploys missile near Tokyo

Source: CNN.

IRUMA, Japan (Reuters) — Japan trucked its first ballistic missile interceptors to an air force base north of Tokyo on Friday in an effort to beef up its defenses against its unpredictable neighbor North Korea.

The deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) launchers, capable of shooting down incoming missiles in the final stage of flight as they near their target, was sparked by Pyongyang’s firing of a ballistic missile in 1998 that flew over Japan.

But Tokyo rushed the equipment into service a year ahead of schedule after North Korea unnerved the region last year by firing more missiles and testing a nuclear device.

“We consider it very meaningful to deploy the air defense missiles close to metropolitan Tokyo, which is the center of business and political activities,” Kazumasa Echizen, the Iruma air base public-information chief, said in a statement. “We will continue our efforts to be ready for any possible emergencies.”

About 50 demonstrators shouted and waved banners as a line of green trucks carried the equipment through the gates of the base, about 40 km (25 miles) from central Tokyo, before dawn on Friday.

“Bringing PAC-3s to places like Iruma makes them the focus of interception strategy and therefore at risk of becoming the target of attack by other countries,” an activist group said in a statement condemning the deployment as a “military performance”.

Closer to Tokyo

The relatively short range of PAC-3 interceptors — about 20 km (12 miles) — means they are likely to be deployed closer to the center of the capital to protect financial and government hubs. More interceptors are set to be deployed at bases around the country over the next few years.

The United States has already deployed its own PAC-3s at a base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, and has deployed ship-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) missile interceptors at Yokosuka, west of Tokyo.

The new interceptors are the first to be controlled by the Japanese government, which has been pushed into a tighter defense relationship with the United States as regional tensions rise.

Tokyo’s close involvement in U.S. defense strategy in Asia, while not as controversial as Washington’s planned shield in eastern Europe, stretches the boundaries of Japan’s pacifist constitution. Russia reacted angrily to U.S. plans to place parts of such a shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Japan limits military activities strictly to self-defense, meaning it is unable to shoot down a missile which is not headed for its own territory. The restriction annoys some officials in the United States.

Tokyo plans to equip one of its own warships with SM-3 interceptors, intended to shoot down ballistic missiles in the mid-phase of flight while outside the earth’s atmosphere, by the end of this year.

It will attempt to bring down a dummy missile using its own ship-based SM-3 interceptors in a test later this year, Lieutenant-General Henry Obering, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, told the House Armed Services Committee this week, in the first such test by a U.S. ally.

Japan’s spending on missile defense is set to increase by 30.5 percent to 182.6 billion yen ($1.55 billion) in the financial year that starts next month.

Friday’s deployment came after a setback for Japanese intelligence this week, when one of the set of four satellites it launched to monitor North Korea broke down. It is not scheduled to be replaced until 2011.

Bank threatens to sue over NK funds

Source: CNN.

HONG KONG, China (AP) — A majority foreign-owned North Korean bank has threatened legal action if money it holds in a Macau bank is transferred to China, a report said Tuesday.

Such a move threatens to derail a U.S.-North Korean deal that was crucial in getting the North to agree to start shutting down its nuclear program.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official has met with North Korean officials to try to resolve the financial dispute, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Daniel Glaser, deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, met with officials from the North Korean embassy in Beijing on Monday, his spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said.

North Korea refused last week to return to nuclear disarmament talks until about $25 million of its funds frozen at a blacklisted Macau bank is transferred to the Bank of China.

The fund transfer was supposed to occur last week but was delayed for reasons that haven’t been fully explained.

On Tuesday, the International Herald Tribune reported that a British businessman, Colin McAskill, has threatened legal action by the Pyongyang-based Daedong Credit Bank if $7 million of the funds is moved to the Bank of China account. McAskill has agreed to buy Daedong Credit Bank, which is majority foreign-owned, and is representing it in discussions with Macau authorities, the report said.

McAskill told The Associated Press that the report was accurate but declined to comment further on the record.

The $25 million was frozen in September 2005 after the U.S. accused the Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, of helping North Korea launder money and handle counterfeit U.S. currency.

The move enraged the North Koreans, who boycotted the nuclear talks for more than a year. They recently returned to the negotiations after the U.S. agreed to settle the banking issue. The funds were to be transferred to a North Korean-owned account at the Bank of China to be used for humanitarian purposes in North Korea.

But McAskill said the $7 million that belongs to Daedong Credit Bank was earned from legitimate joint ventures between foreign companies and North Korea, the report said.

“Daedong’s money must be separated from the political arena,” it quoted him as saying. “We wish to leave the money in Macau until we can make arrangements to transfer it to one of our normal correspondent banks.”

The U.S. has decided to cut off Banco Delta Asia from the American financial system. Once this becomes effective in mid April, it will be difficult for the Macau lender to move money out of U.S. currency accounts because most U.S. dollar transfers are processed in the U.S., the report said.

McAskill said Daedong Credit Bank wanted to beat the deadline by getting permission to move its money to a temporary account in another Macau bank, the report said.

China, Russia urge Iran to play ball

Source: CNN.

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) — The presidents of Russia and China have called on Iran to fulfill the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions over its disputed nuclear program.

Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao also said Monday in a joint statement that their countries — permanent, veto-wielding Security Council members — were ready to “search for a comprehensive, long-term and mutually acceptable solution to the Iranian nuclear problem.”

“Russia and China are calling on Iran to take the necessary constructive steps to fulfill the U.N. Security Council resolutions and (International Atomic Energy Agency) board decisions and believe that Iran … has the right to pursue peaceful use of nuclear energy while observing its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” the statement said.

They emphasized again that the increasingly tense dispute should be resolved “exclusively through peaceful means.”

Russia and China joined other members of the Security Council on Saturday in voting to impose new sanctions on Iran. The sanctions included the banning of Iranian arms exports and the freezing of assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Iran rejected the sanctions and later announced a partial suspension of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“We intend to extend our partnerships in all areas,” Putin said after the statement was signed. “The development of trade and economic relations remains the priority.”

“The strengthening of the strategic cooperation between Russia and China … is very important from the point of view of a multi-polar world and the democratization of the international relations,” Hu said.

The visit by Hu to Moscow comes amid efforts by both countries to bolster what they say is a “strategic partnership” forged since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Before Hu’s arrival, Russian and Chinese officials said that North Korea’s nuclear efforts — as well as Iran’s — would be on the agenda.

Like Russia, China has been reluctant to join the United States and other Western nations in an aggressive push for punitive sanctions against Iran, which says its nuclear programs are of a peaceful nature.

Washington and some of its allies fear the Iranian efforts are a cover for producing atomic weapons.

The new sanctions could be lifted if Tehran helped assuage global concerns, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak said earlier, according to ITAR-Tass.

Earlier on Monday, the Russian state-run company building Iran’s first atomic power plant said that Tehran had made its first payment toward the delayed construction of the Bushehr plant since a dispute over financing halted the project.

Moscow and Tehran have been at loggerheads over financing of the plant, and Russia earlier this month said that nuclear fuel would not be supplied this month, as had been planned. The delays prompted Russia to indefinitely postpone the reactor’s launch, set for September.

Iran, meanwhile, angrily denied falling behind in payments and accused Russia of caving in to U.S. pressure to take a tougher line on Tehran for defying international demands to halt parts of its nuclear program.

Russian officials denied media speculation that it was putting political pressure on Iran under cover of the financial dispute.

“The fact that our Iranian partners have overcome their difficulties is positive, however, it far from compensates for the requirements of the (project) that have arisen during the period of nonpayment,” Atomstroiexport spokesman Sergei Novikov said in a statement.

The company also said the new payment was just half of the monthly amount needed for a normal construction schedule to be resumed.

Myanmar allows foreign media into new capital

Source: CNN.

NAY PYI TAW, Myanmar (Reuters) — Myanmar’s secretive military government has allowed foreign journalists into its new capital for the first time since it quit the leafy colonial-era Yangon in October 2005.

“As far as I know, visas were granted to everyone who applied for them this time, including those who used to be on the blacklist,” an Information Ministry official said on Monday.

About 50 foreign journalists had been given visas to cover Tuesday’s Armed Forces Day ceremonies in Nay Pyi Taw, which translates as Royal City, he said without naming names on the blacklist.

Senior General Than Shwe, the 74-year-old paramount leader, will speak to 10,000 soldiers on a parade ground overlooked by statues of three former Burmese kings.

But the main draw for foreign reporters is Nay Pyi Taw, 240 miles (385 km) north of Yangon, to which the military moved the government overnight.

The government, which rivals North Korea in its isolation, argues the site midway between coastal Yangon and the second city of Mandalay will work better as a national capital.

But exiled dissident groups say they believe the military, which has ruled the former Burma in one form or another since 1962, was paranoid after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Some say astrological forecasts swayed Than Shwe into an abrupt move before the capital was ready while other analysts have suggested he was merely copying Burmese kings who liked to build a new capital to mark the beginning of a new dynasty.

Still, there is more for the foreign journalists to see than only six months ago, when the place was more of a construction site surrounded by jungle-clad hills than a city.

About half a dozen hotels have been opened recently, all fully booked by diplomats and other people attending the Armed Forces Day ceremonies.

And already there are complaints.

One journalist thought $70 a night for a room was reasonable. “But they charge an extra 20 dollars per night for the use of Internet from your room,” he said.

However, the big challenge is simply getting to Nay Pyi Taw.

There are three flights a week from Yangon and getting a seat is difficult. So most people drive.

It takes at least seven hours to get to Nay Pyi Taw by car along the two-lane Yangon-Mandalay road that passes through the busy centers of about 20 towns.

“A new six lane highway is under construction bypassing all these towns. When it is finished, you will be able to make it in under five hours,” driver Ko Kyaw Soe said.

“However, if they don’t lift the ban on the import of cars, you will have to travel on the new road by old jalopies like mine,” he said pointing to his 1996 model Toyota, a relatively young vehicle in a country where vintage cars are common.