World News joined 6

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Gunmen who took up to 250 Pakistani school children hostage on Monday in a northwestern town freed them all and surrendered to tribal elders, a government spokesman said.

Violence and lawlessness has spread across Pakistan in recent months, seeping out of remote tribal regions on the Afghan border into cities and towns, raising fears about the stability of the nuclear-armed US ally.

"All the children have been released and the criminals have surrendered to the jirga," said interior ministry spokesman Javel Iqbal Cheema. A jirga is a council of tribal elders. Cheema said none of the children was hurt.

Cheema said the gunmen were members of a kidnap gang but government officials and police had earlier said there were about seven Islamist militants holding the children in the school in Bannu town.

President Pervez Musharraf told a news conference in London the gunmen were "extremists".

The gunmen fled into the school in the North West Frontier Province town and took the children hostage after they had kidnapped a health department official and his driver, police said.

Police chased the gunmen and one was killed in a clash before the rest fled into the school, police said. The health official and his driver were freed.

Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz had said there were between 200 and 250 children in the school.

Cheema said authorities in the area would hold talks with the council of elders on the fate of the gunmen.

DECAPITATED POLICEMEN

Separately, the military said heavy fighting was going on between security forces and militants in two areas of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.

Security forces have this month been battling insurgents led by an al Qaeda-linked militant chief the government said was behind last month's assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

One soldier had been killed and nine wounded in the fighting on Monday, the military said.

More than 150 militants and 20 soldiers have been killed in the South Waziristan fighting this month.

In neighbouring North Waziristan, two soldiers were killed in a militant attack on a checkpost, while three policemen were killed in another attack in the Orakzai tribal region on Sunday night, intelligence officials said.

Authorities also found the bodies of two decapitated policemen in the scenic Swat valley in North West Frontier Province on Sunday night, officials there said.

Security forces began an offensive to clear hundreds of well-armed militants out of the valley in November.

In another part of the northwest, security forces recaptured on Sunday a road tunnel that had been seized by militants, killing about two dozen of them.

Troops in the area, in the Darra Adam Kheil tribal region, came under fire on Monday but held their positions, the military said.

Militant violence has surged since July, when the security forces stormed a radical Islamabad mosque where militants defying the government had amassed a large quantity of weapons.

Hundreds of people have been killed in a wave of attacks, including many suicide bombings, since then.

The United States, which is leading the battle against Taliban militants in neighbouring Afghanistan, is concerned about increasing al Qaeda and Taliban efforts to destabilise Pakistan.

But President Pervez Musharraf, who has ruled out allowing foreign troops to operate on Pakistani soil, has rebuffed US proposals to let the CIA have greater latitude in Pakistani tribal areas, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

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Reuters

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Protests erupted in western Kenya and machete-wielding mobs have faced off in the Rift Valley after scores died in ethnic violence, complicating mediation efforts by former UN boss Kofi Annan.

In the normally peaceful Rift Valley town of Nakuru, a mortuary worker said that 64 corpses were lying in the morgue, all victims of the past four days of ethnic fighting.

Gangs from rival communities have been fighting each other with machetes, clubs, and bows and arrows in Nakuru and nearby Naivasha, both famous for their lakes teeming with wildlife.

In the worst incident of the latest flare-up, eight people were burned to death locked inside one house in Naivasha.

The violence since Kenya's December 27 election has now gathered a momentum of its own – linked to decades-old land disputes, wealth inequalities and past British colonial rule – and pushed the total death toll beyond 800 people.

"It's very dangerous now. There seems to be much more of an organising hand behind it on all sides," Britain's Africa minister Mark Malloch Brown told the BBC on a visit to Kenya.

"This country is hurting. Its economy is way down."

The number of 250,000 refugees, from one of Kenya's darkest episodes since independence in 1963, looked sure to swell as thousands more fled the chaos in Naivasha and Nakuru.

In the pro-opposition western town of Kisumu on Monday, police fired teargas and bullets in the air as several thousand people took to the streets to complain about the deaths of members of their Luo ethnic community in the Rift Valley.

"Almost the whole of Kisumu is up in smoke," said Eric Odhiambo, a motorcycle taxi-driver. "People are mad at killings of Luo in Naivasha yesterday. . . But there are so many rioters."

Residents said two protesters were shot dead.

The dispute over President Mwai Kibaki's re-election – which the opposition says was rigged – has plunged Kenya into a spiral of violence, battering its image as an east African trade and tourism hub and one of the continent's more stable nations.

While the initial focus of protests was the tallying of the presidential vote, which local and foreign observers said was flawed, rivalries over land, business and power dating back to the beginning of independence have now come to the fore.

Analysts say colonial Britain's divide-and-rule policies among different communities created wounds that have festered since, and have been routinely exploited by politicians to muster support at election time.

Attacks in the immediate aftermath of Kibaki's win were mainly against his Kikuyu tribe – the largest and richest in Kenya – but members of that group, including the outlawed Mungiki gang, have begun fighting back, Kenyans say.

In Naivasha, a 1000-strong group of mainly Kikuyus brandishing axes, sticks, machetes and hammers faced off with several hundred Luos – some of whom were also armed – asking to be allowed to leave the town, a Reuters witness said.

Dozens of riot police kept the two groups apart as they faced off right outside the Lake Naivasha Country Club, near the town's famous lake, usually a popular tourist attraction.

"We want these Luos to go back home. They chased and killed our people. Now we want the same thing to happen to them," said Kikuyu protester Joseph Maina, holding a plank of wood.

Reuters verified 19 deaths in Naivasha on Sunday.

A correspondent in the town heard screams into the night. Some locals were burning piles of furniture on the street.

Echoing earlier scenes in the Rift Valley when Kikuyus were targeted, mobs stopped cars on the main highway and demanded passengers' identity cards. One man was beaten before being kicked under the wheels of a minibus as it sped to safety.

Negotiators led by Annan have told the rival camps of Kibaki, and opposition leader Raila Odinga, to select four representatives each and study a blueprint for further talks in the next 24 hours, an official involved in the mediation said.

Government officials and watchdog Human Rights Watch accuse opposition leaders of organising attacks against Kikuyus in the Rift. The opposition has retorted that criminal gangs have been dispatched against their supporters.

Police said 254 arrests had been made overnight.

Annan visited trouble-spots over the weekend and said the crisis in Kenya had gone well beyond an electoral dispute.

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Reuters

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The uncovering of an illegal kidney transplant racket in a booming IT city has gripped India, with reports hundreds of poor labourers may have been duped or forced into donating organs to wealthy clients, including foreigners.

Hundreds of people from across northern India had their kidneys removed at a private house, which had a state-of-the-art operating theatre hidden inside, after being lured to Gurgaon, a city of hi-tech companies just outside New Delhi.

"We suspect around 400 or 500 kidney transplants were done by these doctors over the last nine years," Mohinder Lal, Gurgaon's police chief, told the Hindustan Times.

Several people have been arrested, including some doctors, police said.

The case, one of the largest transplant rackets reported in India in recent years, has dominated the country's headlines and sparked calls for the government to tighten regulation of kidney transplants to stop backstreet operations as global demand rises.

"Dr Horror" was how India's Mail Today described the ringleader of the racket in a front-page headline.

The doctor accused of heading the group may have fled the country, according to police, quoted as saying he appeared to have been tipped off. As many as 50 medical officials may have been involved in the racket.

At least five foreigners – two US and three Greek citizens – were found in a luxury guesthouse operated by the doctor running the racket, Lal was quoted as saying by local media.

Police said they have since been allowed to leave India.

Many victims complained they were taken to the house with promises of a job, and then duped or forced at gunpoint to sell their kidneys.

Labourers, many who gathered every day in parts of Gurgaon to look for any kind of job, were offered around 50,000 rupees ($NZ1650) for their kidneys. They were sold to wealthy clients for 10 times as much.

"I was approached by a stranger for a job. When I accepted, I was taken to a room with gunmen," Mohammed Salim told NDTV television.

"They tested my blood, gave me an injection and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I had pain in my lower abdomen and I was told that my kidney had been removed."

Suspicious neighbours said they had noticed blood running out of the house's gutters, as well as blood-soaked bandages and even bits of flesh thrown into an open plot near the house.

Kidney failure has become more common in rich countries, often because of obesity. But a shortage of transplant organs has fuelled a black market that exploits needy donors.

In "transplant tourism", rich patients pay tens of thousands of dollars to receive kidneys in poor countries, where payments are typically about $US1000 in the black market.

Illegal transplants are not new in India.

Last year, police in southern India said they had uncovered evidence of illegal trade in kidneys sold by poor fishermen and their families whose livelihoods were destroyed by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

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Reuters

That's terrible news...Thanks for this.

I just watched a documentary on this and it was quite disturbing. People getting robbed of their organs! Truly, nothing is sacred anymore.

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Half of Fiji's population is without power and water and tourists remain stranded after a category two cyclone hit the country, killing up to four people.

About 450,000 people are without basic services after Cyclone Gene hit on Fiji's second largest island Vanua Levu and the tourist hub of Nadi on the largest island Viti Levu yesterday, causing flooding.

It struck the Mamanuca and Yasawa Island groups, popular with tourists, today.

Fiji's Disaster Management Office (DMO) is scrambling to assess the damage.

"Right now we are not sure of the damage. Most of the electricity is off and many places are without water," DMO spokesman Pajilai Dobui said.

He said the cyclone's destructive winds, gusting to 150kph, had destroyed homes in some parts of the country.

The worst affected areas appeared to be Labasa, in Vanua Levu's north, and other communities in the island's southwest.

Two linesmen working for a power company were killed when they were hit by falling high-capacity lines near Fiji's second largest city Lautoka, on Viti Levu, the Fiji Electricity Authority said.

Dobui said a 16-year-old girl in need of medical care had also died after being unable to reach a hospital.

And an 81-year-old man is thought to have died after the cyclone blew over a kerosene lantern, burning down his home, Dobui said.

He said he was hopeful that tourists stranded in the Mamanuca and Yasawa island groups had been spared the worst of the cyclone.

"We have yet to receive any reports from them," he said.

Abi Puisasa, from the Beachcomber Island Resort in the Mamanuca Islands, said guests had spent the night in a dormitory to ensure their safety.

Alex Butta, who manages the Bekana Garden Island Resort off Viti Levu's west coast, said the cyclone had brought down trees but the hotel appeared to have escaped unscathed and there was no flooding.

"It has been a long night. I think flights have been delayed. We can't risk taking people across the seas," he said.

Lily Millar, from the Nanuya Island Resort in the Yasawa group, said there was little damage to the property, but guests had been unable to leave due to high seas.

Fiji's Meteorological Service this afternoon said Gene was about 150km west of Nadi and was moving out to sea.

It is likely to intensify as it sits over the water and continues on a path that could see Vanuatu's main island of Efate threatened in about two days time.

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AAP

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/698226.jpg
CALMING TALK: US President George W Bush will seek to calm fears over the American economy with his final State of the Union speech this afternoon.
President George W Bush has sought to calm Americans' fears about the troubled economy while charting a course he hopes will keep him relevant in his final year in office.

With the specter of recession supplanting the Iraq war as the public's top concern, Bush in his final State of the Union address acknowledged that growth was slowing but insisted that the country's long-term economic fundamentals were sound.

He prodded Congress to act quickly on a $US150 billion economic stimulus package laid out last week.

"In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth. But in the short run, we can all see that growth is slowing," Bush said in a globally televised speech to the US Congress.

Bush touted security gains in Iraq he ascribed to a troop buildup he ordered last January and reasserted that any further drawdown of forces would depend on his commanders' recommendations.

He also renewed his call for Iran to stop enriching uranium and to "come clean" about its nuclear intentions. "Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear: verifiably suspend your nuclear enrichment, so negotiations can begin," Bush said.

Politically weakened by the unpopular war in Iraq, eclipsed by the race to choose his successor and scrambling to stave off lame-duck status, Bush presented no bold new ideas.

His seventh State of the Union speech was a chance, however, to set the tone for his waning months in the White House and try to salvage his frayed legacy before leaving office in January 2009.

But sandwiched between Saturday's Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina and Tuesday's Republican contest in Florida, Bush will struggle to make himself heard above the growing din of the 2008 election campaign.

At the top of his speech agenda was a $US150 billion stimulus package meant to avert recession in an economy suffering from high oil prices and a housing slump.

"At kitchen tables across our country, there is concern about our economic future," Bush said and urged Congress to complete work on the plan.

He is trying to head off attempts by some Senate Democrats to expand the plan beyond the tax rebates and business investment incentives agreed with House of Representatives leaders last week.

The impetus for compromise is that no one, least of all an unpopular president nearing the end of his watch, wants to be blamed for an economic meltdown before the November 4 elections.

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Reuters

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A fisherman who survived a shark attack aboard a fishing boat off Queensland says his skipper put his hand down the shark's throat to free his mangled leg.

Gold Coast fisherman Jarryd Tinson, 20, hauled a three-metre mako shark onto a tuna boat about 7.30am (9.30am NZT) on Sunday, more than 100 nautical miles off Coolangatta.

But Mr Tinson said the shark did "a big banana" on him as he was about to clean it.

The 90kg shark whipped around and bit him on the right calf when he stepped over it.

"It was just a normal fishing day, hauled up a shark and got him on deck and was on standby to clean him and yeah ... misjudged him, he was laying there placid," Mr Tinson told the Nine Network from his Gold Coast Hospital bed.

"I went to step over him and he did a big banana on me and yeah, just took to my knee, thought he had a big bit of bait."

Mr Tinson said the skipper and two crew members came to the rescue, as they desperately tried to pull the shark's jaws apart.

"The skipper put a bit of a hole in there, just below the jaws, and then got the hand in there to try to pull it open," Mr Tinson said.

"One or two crew were on the nose side, trying to pull it away but just so lucky he didn't do any spins on me ... because if he did a spinner, I'd be walking away with half a calf."

Mr Tinson, who had surgery to repair his damaged leg, said the pain was severe as he recovered from the ordeal.

"Most of the damage really happened when the shark let go and ripped down my leg and then it took bits of skin off," he said.

Mr Tinson said he was raring to get back on the water within two weeks and make some good money from a big haul.

"Because the money's been pretty good, I was thinking about the next trip and if my leg was going to be all right," he said.

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AAP

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The Mormon Church is well prepared to deal with nearly unprecedented scrutiny resulting from the White House bid of one of its followers despite the death of influential church leader Gordon Hinckley.

During his 12 years as church president, Hinckley surpassed goals for building new temples, saw the faith become one of the world's fastest growing, launched a strategy to reach out to an American public largely ignorant about the religion and oversaw a rise in church assets to at least $US25 billion ($NZ33 billion).

The 97-year-old Hinckley, who died on Sunday evening, has probably left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a good position to deal with the attention generated by Mitt Romney's quest for the Republican presidential nomination, said Terryl Givens, an author of several books on the church.

Hinckley "laid the groundwork for much more interfaith dialogue and for a much more effective public relations sensibility," Givens said. "All the pieces are in place for the church to feel that they're well prepared for this Mormon moment."

Hinckley gave numerous interviews to major news media and took part in a torch relay when the 2002 Olympic Winter Games came to Salt Lake City - an event that also thrust the church into the limelight.

"The church is really accustomed to having the spotlight on it and anxious to respond" to questions on doctrine and history," added Givens, professor of literature and religion at Virginia's University of Richmond and author of "The Latter-day Saint Experience in America."

"It allows them to tell their side of the story," he said of the tasks facing Hinckley's successor.

The faith, founded in 1830 and for years isolated on the frontier in the US mountain west, is one of the fastest-growing and most affluent religions, with an estimated $US25 billion in assets in 1999 and more than $US5 billion in annual income.

More than half of its 12.9 million members live outside the United States, with a flourishing flock in Latin America.

Romney's White House bid has thrust the faith into a new level of scrutiny as many evangelical Christians - a key Republican base which Romney has tried to woo by changing tact and embracing opposition to abortion rights - tend to view Mormonism as a cult.

The path for picking a successor from among the church's senior leadership is well fixed in church history but the actual process is not likely to happen until after Hinckley's funeral.

Tradition suggests the longest-serving member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the church's second-highest governing body behind the First Presidency, would become the next president. If that happens, 80-year-old Thomas Monson would become the next leader of the church.

President George W Bush said on Monday he was deeply saddened by Hinckley's death, adding that he had "the heart of a servant and the wisdom of a leader ... a tireless worker and a talented communicator who was respected in his community and beloved by his congregation."

Romney told reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, that Hinckley was "a man of great character and courage" and "one of the great leaders in our faith."

He said he had spoken to Hinckley as he mulled a campaign for the White House and "he smiled and said it would be a great experience if you won and a great experience if you lost."

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Reuters

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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the government will apologise to indigenous Australia's stolen generations when parliament resumes next month, but will not establish a compensation fund.

Mr Rudd said his campaign promise would be realised during the parliament's first sitting, but did not give a date for the formal apology.

He said the apology was necessary because long-standing problems plaguing indigenous communities could not be addressed until it was made.

"The intention is to build this bridge of respect between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia," Mr Rudd told the Seven network.

"(Then) we can get on with the business of closing the gap in terms of life expectancy, education levels and health levels between indigenous and non-indigenous communities."

He reiterated a promise that no compensation fund would be established following the apology.

"We will not be establishing any compensation funds," Mr Rudd said.

He also said individual Australians have the right to oppose the move, saying the apology was not coming from the non-indigenous citizens.

"We'll be making it clear that we'll be speaking in the government's name," he said.

"The judgment I have made is ... let's get this symbolic act of apology right and then let's move on together.

"Both symbols and substance are important - that's the truth of it."

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AAP