Strict curfew after four new deaths in Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Thousands of Indian police and paramilitary forces enforced a strict curfew in much of Kashmir on Tuesday after security forces shot dead four protesters, police and witnesses said.

Government forces have struggled to contain almost three months of violent demonstrations by Kashmiris ignited by the killing of a 17-year-old student by police on June 11.

A total of 69 protesters and bystanders have been killed over the past three months, mostly by security forces who have used live ammunition on rallies after being pelted with stones.

Troops sealed off neighbourhoods in Srinagar and other towns with barbed wire, iron gates and abandoned carts to prevent residents from leaving their homes to stage protests against the killings.

“We are enforcing a strict curfew to maintain the peace,” police officer Pervez Ahmed told AFP.

Four people were killed Monday in the northern village of Palhalan when security forces opened fire on protesters during fresh demonstrations against Indian rule in Kashmir.

Residents told visiting reporters that the protests were peaceful and that no one was throwing stones at the time of the shooting.

Authorities have launched a probe.

“Senior police officers have taken a serious view of the firing. Ammunition of the policemen is being checked to fix the responsibility,” an official statement said.

The deaths brought people out onto the streets of Srinagar and other Muslim-dominated towns in Kashmir Monday evening and the anti-India demonstrations continued until early Tuesday, witnesses said.

In highway towns residents squatted on the roads and held noisy demonstrations amid chants of “Freedom for Kashmir!” and “Oh! Tyrants, oh! killers, leave our Kashmir.”

In Srinagar, young Kashmiris attacked several police stations with rocks, bricks and petrol bombs.

The Muslim-majority Kashmir region has been fought over by India and Pakistan since the partition of British-ruled India in 1947, with the region now cut in two along a UN-monitored line of control.

Many on the Indian side reject rule from New Delhi and an estimated 47,000 people have been killed in the violent insurgency that has raged for much of the past 20 years.

Iran says it has the right to bar UN inspectors

TEHRAN: Iran’s nuclear chief says Tehran has the right to bar some U.N. inspectors from monitoring its disputed nuclear program.

The late Monday comments by Ali Akbar Salehi are in response to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency expressing alarm about Iran's decision to bar some of its inspectors.

The report followed Iran’s recent decision to strip two inspectors of the right to monitor its nuclear activities after they reported what they said were undeclared nuclear experiments.

The semiofficial Isna news agency quotes Salehi as saying Iran asked the agency to replace the two.

The West suspects that Iran's nuclear program is geared toward making weapons. Iran denies the charge. – AP

Iraqi Al Qaeda group says it behind army base raid

BAGHDAD: Al Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a daylight raid by suicide bombers on an army base in central Baghdad in which 12 people died.

US forces became involved in Sunday’s fighting less than a week after formally ending combat operations in Iraq.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for al Qaeda-linked insurgents, said in a statement posted on a radical Islamic website that five suicide bombers were involved.

The first attacker blew up an explosives-laden vehicle at the back gate of the military compound and four attackers wearing suicide vets and armed with assault rifles and grenades then stormed the compound and occupied a building, it said.

“The engagement lasted inside the compound more than an hour, when the crusaders' planes and some of their patrols became engaged,” the ISI statement said, referring to US troops that ended up joining the gunfight.

“God has granted to the Holy Men the killing and the wounding of dozens of treacherous officers, soldiers and security leaders and after they ran out of ammunition, they exploded their vests upon the vanguard of the disbelievers who tried to storm the building.”

After Washington declared combat operations in Iraq formally over, the remaining 50,000 US soldiers there will focus on advising and helping Iraqi police and troops before a full withdrawal next year. However, they will still get involved in fighting if attacked.

The attack took place just over two weeks after at least 57 Iraqi army recruits and soldiers were killed by another suicide bomber at the same compound.

Insurgents are targeting Iraqi police and troops as the US military gradually pulls out more than seven years after invading. The failure of Iraqi leaders to agree a new government six months after an election has also stoked tensions.

Overall violence has fallen sharply since the height in 2006/07 of the sectarian warfare unleashed after the invasion.

But attacks by a Sunni Islamist insurgency are still a daily occurrence.

The end of the US combat mission has raised fears of a return to broader bloodshed. – Reuters

Indonesian volcano blows again, biggest eruption yet

BERASTEPU: An Indonesian volcano that lay dormant for 400 years shot ash 5 km into the air on Tuesday, its biggest eruption since it became active last week, and experts warned of more blasts to come.

Mount Sinabung, in northern Sumatra island, first erupted on August 29. Villages on its slopes have been evacuated and around 24,500 people are living in refugee camps, disaster officials said.

“It was the biggest eruption yet and the sound was heard from 8 kilometres away. The smoke was 5,000 metres in the air,” said Indonesia's chief vulcanologist, Surono, who goes by only one name as do many Indonesians.

“I think this will not be the last eruption. It will happen again,” he said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said the ground shook for around three minutes during the blast.

Heavy rain mixed with the ash to form muddy precipitation that is lying a centimetre thick on buildings and trees.

Electricity in one village has been cut off, but there have so far been no casualties.

The area around the volcano is largely agricultural and the nearest big city is Medan, some 50 km away

Villages within a six kilometre radius of the volcano have emptied out, with only a handful of people staying behind to guard homes. – Reuters

Saving flood-hit Pakistan has global implications: UNDP

NOWSHERA: The world must help Pakistan rebuild homes and livelihoods destroyed by devastating floods to secure hearts and minds in the militant-hit nation, the UNDP's regional head told AFP.

Global cash pledges have been slow coming to bolster rescue and relief efforts ongoing in the flood-damaged nuclear nation, where more than 21 million people have been affected by a month of monsoon-triggered floods.

Now helping Pakistanis rebuild homes and businesses, reduced to rubble by the unprecedented deluge, will be even more important to long-term regional and global stability, said UN Assistant Secretary General Ajay Chhibber.

“Now that the water has receded in large parts... what's clear from these visits is that the early recovery needs to start now,” said Chhibber, the Asia-Pacific head of the UN Development Programme, during a visit Monday to the militant-hit northwest.

“If there's greater unrest in Pakistan it will have much greater regional and global implications.

“This is a country that is a very large, very important country in the region, a very large, very important country in the globe, so that battle for the hearts and minds of people here is very important.”

Last week the UN said that despite an improvement in aid donations after a visit by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in mid-August, extra pledges had “almost stalled” since a week earlier.

The UN has warned that the slow pace of pledges could impede relief operations and says Pakistan faces a triple threat to food supplies -- with seeds, crops and incomes hit.

An initial relief appeal has been about two thirds funded, and Chhibbers said a second appeal would be launched on September 17, seeking help for the next steps in Pakistan's recovery.

The millions made homeless, many living in makeshift shelters, will need to be encouraged back to their land, even if their homes have been destroyed, in order to restore the social fabric of communities, said Chhibber.

An initial 100 million dollars would also be required to establish cash-to-work schemes, paying the landless poor to clear debris and begin rebuilding schools, community and health centres.

“You can see people milling around, they need things to do,” said Chhibber after visiting the northwest town of Nowshera, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 19 people were killed Monday in the latest suicide bombing to hit the militant-riddled provin

London commuters struggle as strike closes subway

LONDON: Millions of Londoners are struggling to get to work by road, rail boat and bicycle as a strike by London Underground workers shuts down much of the city’s subway system.

Thousands of maintenance workers, drivers and station staff walked off the job for 24 hours in a dispute over planned job cuts that they say will hit service and safety.

More than 3.5 million people use the subway system, known as the Tube, daily.

Transport for London said Tuesday some services were operating on six of the city's 11 subway lines.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union said support for the strike was strong and only a skeleton service was running.

Buses were packed, and thousands of people were expected to use extra boat services on the River Thames.

The strike is due to end Tuesday evening. – AP

Floods threaten hundreds more Australian homes

WANGARATTA: Rising flood waters threatened hundreds of Australian homes Tuesday, after scores were inundated by weekend storms which caused millions of dollars of damage, officials said.

Water police and emergency helicopters were on standby to rescue stranded residents in the southeastern state of Victoria, and the government announced the formation of a special advisory body to help direct recovery efforts.

Residents in Wangaratta, in the state’s northeast, sandbagged homes in fears that a levee would burst, while officials worried that 500 properties downstream in Shepparton could be cut off by rising waters.

The State Emergency Service said 300 homes and businesses had already been damaged to some extent by the flooding in Shepparton and towards Horsham in the state's west after the weekend deluge.

“We’ve potentially got another 290 properties that are potentially at risk of being flooded,” a spokeswoman told AFP.

“Our main area of concern at the moment is Shepparton. The Goulburn River is still rising. It's expected to peak later today or into tomorrow.” Victorian Premier John Brumby said the floods had caused “significant damage” and there would be a multi-million-dollar clean-up bill.

“I've said that I think there will be tens of millions of dollars of damage,” Brumby told reporters.

“There will be roads, there will be bridges, there will be community infrastructure which is damaged due to inundation.”

But Brumby also said that benefits from the rains in the predominantly farming regions, which have spent the best part of a decade in drought, “far outweighs the damage that's occurred”.

“But that equation may just change a little over the next week to two weeks,” he said, adding that further minor to moderate flooding was likely later this month in the state's north. – AFP