Rocket, gunmen attacks in Baghdad
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Baghdad's heavily fortified "Green Zone" has come under heavy rocket or mortar attack, and police said at least two people had been killed outside the government and diplomatic compound.
In a separate incident, gunmen in three cars opened fire on pedestrians in a religiously mixed southern Baghdad district, killing at least seven and wounding 16, police said.
The US-protected Green Zone in central Baghdad area was often hit at the height of sectarian violence a year ago, but attacks have become rarer with improved security across Iraq.
In northern Mosul, a suicide truck bomber killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 30, including civilians, in an attack on an Iraqi army base, the Interior Ministry said. US commanders describe Mosul as al Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq.
The US military said it killed 12 insurgents in a raid on a house east of Baquba after local media reported an operation in the town of Balad Ruz, 70km (45 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
"Six of the terrorists killed had shaved their bodies, which is consistent with final preparation for suicide operations," spokesman Major Winfield Danielson said.
Mosul and Baquba are the capitals of two of four northern provinces where offensives were launched this year against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda fighters who regrouped there after being driven out of strongholds around Baghdad and western Anbar.
While there was no immediate indication of who was responsible for Sunday's Green Zone attacks, the US military has blamed past missile strikes on rogue elements of anti-US Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.
Sadr last month renewed a seven-month-old ceasefire for his militia, which the US military has credited for contributing to sharp falls in violence across Iraq.
However, there are fears the ceasefire may be unraveling after Mehdi Army fighters clashed with Iraqi and US forces in the southern city of Kut and southern Baghdad last week.
The Iraq war last week moved into its sixth year, US President George W Bush marking the anniversary of the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein with an upbeat speech in which he said the United States was on track to victory.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the insurgency and sectarian violence between majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Muslims since the invasion, although attacks across Iraq have fallen 60 per cent since last June, US commanders in Iraq say.
With the number of US troops killed in Iraq nearing 4,000, the war remains a major issue in the US presidential campaign.
BARRAGE
The first barrage of about a dozen blasts aimed at the Green Zone started just before 6am (0300 GMT). Unusually, a second barrage of about eight more followed about four hours later.
Police sources said two people were killed and about 10 wounded by apparent misfires or randomly aimed Katyusha rockets, one in northeast Baghdad and one in central Bab-al-Sheikh.
US embassy officials confirmed "indirect fire" attacks on the Green Zone, a term used to describe rocket or mortar fire.
"The assessment at this time is that it caused no deaths or major casualties," US embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said.
A large plume of thick black smoke could be seen rising from one part of the Green Zone, which houses many government ministries and diplomatic missions, including the US embassy. Sirens could be heard warning people to take cover.
Two US attack helicopters circled over an area in the Iraqi capital's northeast soon after the first attack on the 10 sqkm (4 sq mile) Green Zone, located on the western bank of the Tigris River that cuts through Baghdad.
Reuters
Four policemen, one rebel killed in Kashmir clash
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Four policemen and a militant have been killed after a gun battle in Kashmir's main city, police said.
The encounter, the first in past eight months in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, broke out after police raided a militant hideout.
"Militants hiding in a house fired indiscriminately. We have lost four policemen," Srinagar police chief Syed Ahfadul Mujtaba said.
He said a top militant of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group was also killed.
The violence comes days after rebels exploded a powerful bomb in the heart of Srinagar, killing one person and wounding about two dozen.
Rebel violence has fallen across Kashmir after India and Pakistan, who claim the region in full but rule in parts, started a slow-moving peace process in 2004, officials say.
But people are still killed in daily shootouts and occasional bomb attacks.
On Saturday, suspected separatist guerrillas dragged out a village headman from his home and killed him by slitting his throat in north Kashmir, police said.
The Indian army said this month it expected militant incursions from Pakistani Kashmir to increase once the snow starts melting along the mountainous border region as summer approaches.
More than 42,000 people have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir, mainly Hindu India's only Muslim majority state, since a revolt against New Delhi broke out in 1989.
Reuters
Protester 'burns himself' at Myanmar pagoda
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An unidentified man apparently suffering from economic hardship in military-ruled Myanmar has set himself ablaze in the country's historic Shwedagon Pagoda, witnesses said.
The man in his 30s did not shout anti-government slogans, but complained about difficulties in his life and the rising cost of living, before setting himself ablaze on Friday's Tabaung Full Moon Day, a significant religious day for Buddhists, witnesses said.
"It was about 8.40 when he poured petrol on his body and ignited himself with fire from a candle," a woman who was among hundreds of worshippers at the pagoda that night, told Reuters. "There was chaos when some eyewitness shouted that there was a fire."
Security is generally tight at the pagoda, one of the holiest Buddhist shrines in the capital of the former Burma and guards and police quickly closed the gates of the pagoda for about a half-hour, she said.
The pagoda has been a focal point in previous political uprisings, including last year's pro-democracy demonstrations. A sharp spike in fuel prices sparked the biggest protests in 20 years last August and September, with tens of thousands of monks and civilian demonstrating in Yangon and other cities.
The rallies prompted a brutal crackdown on protesters, in which the United Nations says at least 31 killed.
A government medical source told Reuters the man had burns on 70 percent of his body and was being treated in a Yangon hospital, but declined to give further details.
The opposition National League for Democracy said the protester was not one of its members.
Reuters
Cheney says Israel's security is paramount
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US vice-president Dick Cheney has said that Washington was doing its utmost to push forward Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations while dealing with emerging threats in the Middle East.
Cheney, who began a visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank on Saturday, kicked off a day of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders by attending an Easter service in a small stone chapel at the US Consulate in Jerusalem.
He then met Israeli President Shimon Peres, who told him "time is of the essence" in US-brokered negotiations with the Palestinians that Washington hopes can lead to a peace deal by the time George W Bush leaves office in January 2009.
Bush made his first presidential visit to Israel and the West Bank two months ago. He is expected to make another trip soon.
"We're obviously dedicated to doing all we can as an administration to try to move the peace process forward and also obviously actively involved in dealing with the threats that we see emerging in the region, not only threats to Israel but threats to the United States as well," Cheney said.
He did not elaborate on the nature of the dangers.
Palestinians accuse Israel of undermining the talks through settlement building on occupied land in and near Jerusalem and by refusing to remove West Bank roadblocks and mounting offensives against militants firing rockets from the Gaza Strip.
Cheney was to visit the occupied West Bank later in the day and meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as well as Prime Minister Salam Fayyad before leaving for Turkey, his last stop on a nine-day visit to the Middle East.
IRAN
Cheney met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Saturday, who said their talks would include concerns about Iran and Syria, as well as the peace process with the Palestinians.
Israel believes Iran's nuclear program is aimed at building atomic weapons and could pose a threat to the existence of the Jewish state.
Oil-rich Iran, one of Israel's most bitter enemies, denies it is seeking atomic arms and says it is pursuing its nuclear program and uranium enrichment for power generation.
At a joint news conference with Olmert on Saturday, Cheney said Washington's commitment to Israel's security was "enduring and unshakable".
He said Israel had a right to protect itself always against "terrorism, rocket attacks and other attacks from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction".
Israel tightened its economic and military cordon around the Gaza Strip after Hamas Islamists routed Abbas's more secular Fatah forces and seized control of the coastal territory in June.
The United States, Cheney said, would never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called Cheney's comments "provocative and completely biased in favor of the Israeli occupation".
Reuters
Bali bombers face execution after final appeal withdrawn
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Three Bali bombers on death row over the 2002 bombings could soon be executed after a dramatic end to their final appeal today.
Their lawyer Fahmi Bachmid today withdrew from their last-ditch legal appeal, bringing it to an abrupt end.
Outside court, Chief Judge Ida Bagus Putu Madeg said the judges would now treat the appeal, known as a judicial review, as if it had "never existed".
"With this, whatever happened in the previous hearings is considered to not exist," Madeg told AAP after the hearing for convicted terrorist Imam Samudra.
"We will not convey this (case) to the Supreme Court because it's not something for which a decision is needed.
"So the case will stay here. It is considered that the judicial review request never existed."
Denpasar District Court had held three separate judicial review hearings, one for each of the three terrorists: the so-called smiling assassin Amrozi Nurhasyim; his brother Ali Ghufron (alias Mukhlas); and Imam Samudra.
The trio played key roles in the Bali nightclub bombings on October 12, 2002, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
But the hearings became weighed down by a protracted bid to either have the bombers brought to Bali to testify or to have the appeal held in Cilacap District Court, off central Java, closer to their island prison.
No witnesses were called to testify in any of the four hearings.
In court today, Bachmid presented a letter formally objecting to the decision not to move the hearing or bring the convicted terrorists to the Bali court.
"We really object to the judges' decision," Bachmid said.
"The reasons are really unreasonable according to the existing law."
But after a brief adjournment, Chief Judge Madeg said the judges retained their position.
Bachmid then thanked the judges, but said he had no alternative but to withdraw from the case.
"I will give it (the case) back to Amrozi, Samudra and Ali Ghufron, whether to continue with the judicial review or not," he said.
Outside the court an angry Bachmid rejected accusations the entire case had been a tactic to stall the executions.
He said the trio must now send a letter if they wanted to formally withdraw the appeal, a point disputed by prosecutors.
The prosecutor in Amrozi's case, I Wayan Suila, said there was no obligation for the judges to ask the convicted terrorists if they wanted to withdraw the case, and it was now considered closed.
Indonesia's Attorney General's Office had said the execution would not be carried out until after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the appeal.
Asked if today's events meant the executions were now back on track, Attorney General's Office spokesman BD Nainggolan said: "Yes".
"They are not submitting a judicial review but there is still other legal avenues available (to them)," he added.
"We will ask them whether they are going to submit for clemency or not.
"If they don't submit the clemency (request), then the process of execution could be started.
"We don't know when this process will start because we haven't received the report from Bali."
AAP
Taiwan's president instructs envoys to spread UN word
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Taiwan's president, stung by the rejection of a referendum on UN membership that angered China and other major powers, is taking a last stab at swaying world opinion to get a seat on the body, a senior official said.
President Chen Shui-bian instructed Taiwan diplomats abroad to tell their host governments that despite the referendum's failure on Saturday, Taiwan people still wanted UN membership.
The referendum asked whether Taiwan should apply to enter the UN under the name "Taiwan".
"Even though this referendum didn't pass, Taiwan still wants to get in," Joseph Wu, Taiwan's top envoy to the United States, told Reuters by phone. "Taiwan is a bit afraid that China will distort this into saying we have no urge to join.
"This, I think, isn't right," Wu said. "So we here have told the relevant personnel to spread the word."
The diplomatic foray could be Chen's last after almost eight years in office, Wu said.
Chen is an anti-China firebrand who often upset Beijing and irritated Taiwan's strongest ally, the United States. On May 20, the opposition Nationalist Party's Ma Ying-jeou takes over as president.
China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. It has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control and has repeatedly blocked Taiwan's attempts to join the United Nations.
Taiwan lost its UN seat, which it had held under its legal name, the Republic of China, to Beijing in 1971.
China welcomed the rejection of a referendum, Taiwanese media reported. The United States, Russia and Britain had also criticised the referendum.
Reuters
Oil trucks attacked on Pakistan-Afghan border
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Suspected militants in Pakistan have attacked oil tankers supplying fuel to foreign forces in Afghanistan, destroying 36 tankers and wounding up to 70 people.
The attack took place on Sunday night in Torkham, the main crossing point on the Afghan-Pakistani border just west of the Khyber Pass, where about 100 oil tankers were parked in a field.
"We have reports of 60 to 70 injured but none in critical condition," said a senior official in Jamrud, the main town in the Khyber tribal region.
The militants set off two bombs that started a fire and many people who had gathered in the field were hurt when some of the tankers exploded, said the official, who declined to be identified.
"There were huge flames. People began running when the fire spread," said witness Waheed Afridi.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, the second on oil tankers bound for Afghanistan in two weeks, but the official blamed militants.
Foreign forces fighting the Taliban in land-locked Afghanistan get many of their supplies via Pakistan, where militants have been stepping up attacks on supply lines.
Pakistan has been battling militancy in its lawless tribal lands on the Afghan border since US-backed forces toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States
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Reuters
Muslim's conversion conflict hits Vatican
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Pope Benedict called for an end to injustice worldwide in his Easter message and expressed joy at continuing conversions to Christianity hours - after he baptised a prominent Italian Muslim convert.
The pope celebrated an Easter Mass for tens of thousands of people in driving rain in St Peter's Square as Christians around the world commemorated Christ's resurrection.
The wind and rain that has whipped most of Europe did not spare Rome as the German pontiff, wearing white and gold vestments, said Mass while the crowd huddled under umbrellas.
The mass came some 12 hours after an Easter vigil service on Saturday night where, in a surprise move, the pope baptized Muslim-born convert Magdi Allam, 55, an outspoken journalist and fierce critic of Islamic extremism.
At the morning Mass, the pope read a prayer saying that after Christ's resurrection some 2000 years ago "thousands and thousands of people converted to the Christian faith" and he added: "This is a miracle that still renews itself today".
The Egyptian-born Allam's conversion to Christianity - he took the name "Christian" for his baptism - was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before the Saturday night service began.
Allam, who is a strong supporter of Israel and who an Israeli newspaper once called a "Muslim Zionist," has lived under police protection following threats against him, particularly after he criticized Iran's position on Israel.
Writing in Sunday's edition of the leading Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Allam said he realized that he was in greater danger but he has no regrets.
"INNATE EVIL"
Allam wrote: "... the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual".
His conversion, which he called "the happiest day of my life," came just two days after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the pope of being part of a "new crusade" against Islam.
The Vatican appeared to be at pains to head off criticism from the Islamic world about the conversion of Allam, who defended the pope in 2006 when the pontiff made a speech that many Muslims perceived as depicting Islam as a violent faith.
"Conversion is a private matter, a personal thing and we hope that the baptism will not be interpreted negatively by Islam," Cardinal Giovanni Re told an Italian newspaper.
Still, Allam's highly public baptism by the pope shocked Italy's Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it.
"What amazes me is the high profile the Vatican has given this conversion," Yaha Sergio Yahe Pallavicini, vice-president of the Italian Islamic Religious Community, told Reuters. "Why could he have not done this in his local parish?"
In his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message delivered after the Mass, the pope decried "the many wounds that continue to disfigure humanity in our own day".
"These are the scourges of humanity, open and festering in every corner of the planet, although they are often ignored and sometimes deliberately concealed; wounds that torture the souls and bodies of countless of our brothers and sisters," he said.
He called for "an active commitment to justice ... in areas bloodied by conflict and wherever the dignity of the human person continues to be scorned and trampled," mentioning Darfur, Somalia, the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon and Tibet.
He then wished the world a happy Easter in 63 languages
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Reuters
