Rudd sharpens apology debate
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You either support an apology to the stolen generation or you don't – that's the firm view of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as the opposition considers whether to offer support for the February 13 apology.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson has demanded to see the full wording of the apology before he offers his support.
Mr Rudd has promised to meet with Dr Nelson but also sharpened the decision for the new opposition leader.
"You either support an apology or you don't," Mr Rudd told reporters in Canberra.
"The core content of it will be absolutely clear.
"The language of it and how we approach it in overall terms should be clear as the week progresses."
AAP
Sri Lankan bomb kills 9, wounds 100
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A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew herself up in a packed railway station in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo killing nine people and wounding around 100, the military said.
The blast on the eve of ceremonies to mark the troubled island nation's 60th anniversary came hours after a crude bomb went off in a zoo in the capital wounding four visitors.
Both attacks were blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighting for an independent homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east of the island.
There was no immediate comment from the rebels who have in the past denied targeting civilians.
"When I entered the station after buying a ticket I heard a loud explosion. I ran off with the others," said witness S.Ilangovan after the blast at the crowded Fort station in central Colombo.
The rail station bombing came hours after a crude bomb went off in a zoo in the capital wounding four visitors. None of the animals were hurt in the blast near a bird enclosure at the zoo, which is popular with residents and tourists.
Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, said the attacks appeared to be aimed at sowing panic among residents of Colombo ahead of the celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the country's independence from Britain.
"They are trying to scare people off," he said.
The bombings in Colombo came a day after a bomb also blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels killed 18 people and injured more than 50 civilians in the town of Dambulla in central Sri Lanka.
Fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE rebels has escalated since the government scrapped a six-year ceasefire last month, saying the rebels were using it to rebuild and re-arm.
Troops killed 46 rebels in clashes in the northern areas of Jaffna, Vavuniya and Polonnaruwa and Mannar in the northwest, the military said, adding it lost two soldiers.
Independent verification of battle casualties is not possible, and analysts say both sides tend to exaggerate enemy losses.
The two-decade conflict has killed an estimated 70,000 people
.
Reuters
Fighting restarts around palace in Chad capital
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Fighting restarted around the presidential palace in the Chadian capital N'Djamena where rebels forces have surrounded President Idriss Deby and loyalist troops, residents said.
They said the sound of heavy weapons and machine gun fire could be heard coming from the direction of the presidency complex in the centre of the dusty capital.
"The night was calm but the firing has started up again since about 5 o'clock," an employee at the Novotel hotel, which is located not far from the palace, said.
Rebels seeking to topple Deby fought their way into the capital on Saturday and encircled the palace, demanding that the president leave. But at least two government ministers said that he was remaining inside at the head of loyal troops.
Residents said French military Mirage jets had taken off from the French military base in N'Djamena on Sunday.
A correspondent for Radio France International in N'Djamena reported that they were flying low over the city.
Foreign citizens were also sheltering in the Meridien hotel in the capital, waiting to be evacuated.
"Day only broke 20 minutes or a half hour ago and the heavy artillery has already begun," Katie-Jay Scott of the humanitarian organisation Stop Genocide Now wrote early on Sunday from the Meridien hotel in a blog posted on the group's Website.
France has started evacuating French and other foreign nationals.
Reuters
Indonesians protest push to make Suharto hero
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Indonesian activists held a protest in central Jakarta to protest against calls to make former president Suharto a national hero, a week after the death of the leader who ruled with an iron fist for 32 years.
Suharto, who was ousted in 1998 amid political and economic chaos, died last Sunday at the age of 86 of multiple organ failure.
Supporters of the late former general, including members of Indonesia's largest political party Golkar, want him to be declared a national hero for his contributions to the nation, while opponents say he does not deserve such an accolade.
"We held this protest to refuse the calls for the hero title for Suharto as he committed a lot of human rights violations when he was a president," said Mustar, an activist.
He was among a group of about 50 people from an organisation representing families who said they had suffered rights abuses under Suharto.
During the protest at a central Jakarta square, 1000 mock tomb stones were displayed to represent victims.
Some of the group also carried placards saying "Put Suharto on trial" and "SBY-JK, Where is your promise?", referring to the initials of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and vice-president Jusuf Kalla.
Indonesians are divided over the legacy of Suharto.
The former general is credited by many for pulling millions of Indonesians out of abject poverty, but his rule was also marred by human rights abuses and widespread corruption.
Attempts to bring criminal charges for graft against Suharto were dropped because of the former president's poor health, although before he died he faced a $US1.4 billion ($NZ1.8 billion) civil suit over allegations of misuse of state funds by a charity he headed.
Critics say Suharto and his family amassed as much as $US45 billion in kickbacks or deals. Transparency International put Suharto's assets at $US15-$35 billion, or as much as 1.3 per cent of gross domestic product.
Suharto and his family always denied any wrongdoing.
Reuters
Greenpeace vessel docks in Hobart after whaling mission
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Greenpeace has hailed its two-month pursuit of Japan's whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean a great success as its ship, Esperanza, docked in Hobart.
The 37-strong crew were greeted by crowds of cheering supporters when the ship docked at the Princes Wharf about on Sunday evening.
Greenpeace whale campaign coordinator Sara Holden said the Esperanza's two-month mission had been successful in disrupting the hunt.
She said while the crew, from 22 different countries, was pleased to be back on dry land they had mixed feelings about having to leave the whaling grounds.
Ms Holden said the hunting vessels did not kill whales if they could not access the factory ship to process them.
"We stayed with the factory ship, Nishin Maru, harrying her for 15 days," she said from Hobart.
"During that time not a single whale was killed."
Ms Holden said the campaign would now shift gears to Japan, where opposition to the whale hunt was increasing.
"We feel very strongly there is a big shift happening in Japan," she said.
"We're hoping to translate the pressure generated in the southern ocean into political pressure on the Japanese government."
Ms Holden said the voyage had been challenging.
"It can be pretty harsh," she said.
"The Southern Ocean is the wildest ocean in the world."
AAP
Suicide bomber strikes in Israel
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A Palestinian suicide bomber from the Gaza Strip has killed a woman in southern Israel, the first such attack in the country in a year.
However, Israeli officials said peace talks would not be derailed.
Police said they prevented a second blast in the shopping centre of the town of Dimona by shooting dead an accomplice, also a Gazan, before he could detonate an explosives belt.
One of the attackers said in a farewell video recording he wanted to strike against what he called Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip, territory controlled by Hamas Islamists opposed to President Mahmoud Abbas's peace talks with the Jewish state.
"It was like a war. People were running like crazy. I saw a piece of a human being right there, next to my leg," witness Rosa Enberg told Israel's Channel Two television.
Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor, widely believed to have produced atomic bombs, is located in a heavily guarded compound on the outskirts of the town.
A Gaza-based source in President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction said the "Army of Palestine" wing of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades launched the attack along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Wearing military-style fatigues and clutching an assault rifle, one of the bombers, 20-year-old Loai al-Aghwani, from Gaza City, said in his videotape he hoped his actions would "restore dignity to the Palestinian people".
Standing in front of an al-Aqsa Brigades banner, Aghwani appealed to Abbas and Khaled Meshaal, a Hamas leader, "to end internal division".
A Fatah official in the West Bank denied al-Aqsa involvement. The conflicting statements reflected divisions in Fatah as Abbas pursues US-backed peace talks with Israel, the first in seven years.
"Abu Mazen (Abbas) is a moderate who wants peace. We will continue to negotiate with him," an Israeli official said.
CELEBRATION
Two other militant groups, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, praised the Dimona bombing as retaliation for Israeli raids. Young supporters of Fatah handed out flowers and candy to passing cars in the Gaza city of Rafah.
Abbas condemned the Dimona bombing but also criticised an earlier military raid by Israel in the occupied West Bank.
Police said the suicide bomber blew himself up in Dimona's busy commercial centre, killing himself and the Israeli woman, who was not immediately identified.
"The second terrorist was shot in the head as he tried to set off his bomb belt," said Yossi Porianta, the police chief in Israel's southern Negev region. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said 10 people were wounded.
A Palestinian suicide bomber last struck in Israel on January 29, 2007, killing three people in the southern resort town of Eilat, on the Red Sea.
Hours after Monday's bombing, an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip killed Amer Qarmout, a senior commander in the Popular Resistance Committees, which carries out cross-border rocket attacks. The PRC vowed revenge.
Israeli officials said the two bombers might have entered Egyptian territory after the Gaza-Egypt border was blasted open by Hamas last month, and then infiltrated into Israel through its unfenced frontier with Egypt.
Egypt has since sealed the breach. Al-Aqsa Brigades in Gaza denied Aghwani and Musa Arafat, 23, from the Gazan town of Khan Younis, reached Israel from Egypt.
But Arafat's mother said her son had telephoned her from the Egyptian town of el-Arish.
Reuters
Thousands flee Chad capital, fresh attack feared
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Thousands of civilians have fled Chad's capital N'Djamena after rebels broke off a two-day assault but threatened a fresh attempt to topple President Idriss Deby.
Despite the fears of further attack, the riverside capital of the landlocked oil-producing central African state was relatively quiet. Vehicles filled with soldiers patrolled the city streets and army helicopters flew overhead.
Deby's government, reeling from the latest strike on the city in under two years, said it had beaten off more than 2,000 insurgents who stormed in on Saturday in armed pickup trucks.
The rebel attack, which Chad said was backed by Sudan, drew international condemnation. It forced the European Union to delay the deployment of a EU peacekeeping force to eastern Chad to protect refugees from the war in Sudan's Darfur region.
The UN Security Council urged the international community on Monday to support Chad's government against the rebels.
The government insisted it controlled the city. But the rebels, who denounce Deby's 18-year rule as corrupt and dictatorial, warned N'Djamena's population to flee their homes.
They said their withdrawal from the city late on Sunday was "tactical" and that they were regrouping for another attack. "We're at the gates of the city," rebel spokesman Abderamane Koullamalah told Radio France International (RFI).
A Reuters TV correspondent who crossed into N'Djamena from Cameroon via the bridge over the Logone-Chari river saw 12 bodies, some in uniform, lying in the streets. There was also evidence of widespread looting of cars and homes.
Aid workers estimated several hundred people were injured.
Residents said they feared another rebel assault. Rebel fighters had gone from house to house in some areas, telling occupants to leave because they planned to attack again.
"BATTLE OVER"
From the early hours of Monday, a flood of refugees carrying belongings and children streamed from N'Djamena into Cameroon over the Ngueli bridge.
Some were hurt, including a girl with a bullet wound in the back. Local Cameroon authorities estimated some 15,000 people had fled across the river to the small border town of Kousseri.
Chadian government ministers said N'Djamena was under the control of Deby's forces. "The battle of N'Djamena is over," Foreign Minister Ahmat Allam-mi told French radio.
Chad says the rebels, who include some of Deby's former allies, are armed by Sudan. Khartoum denies this and in turn accuses the Chadians of supporting rebels in its Darfur region.
Rebel leader Timane Erdimi told RFI Deby's army "practically no longer exists". But he said his fighters were turning to face pro-Deby Sudanese Darfuri rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), whom he said were coming to the president's aid.
Several leading Chadian opposition figures, including deputy Ngarlejy Yorongar and opposition coalition spokesman Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, were detained and taken away by government security forces on Sunday, family members said.
France, which has used its military contingent to evacuate at least 700 French and other foreign nationals from its former colony, has insisted it is neutral in the conflict.
But French President Nicolas Sarkozy said before the UN resolution was passed that French forces could intervene more directly if it was adopted.
Sarkozy has ordered French fighter jets to survey the border area with Sudan to ensure there is no "foreign incursion".
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the delay in the deployment of the EUFOR peace force to Chad was temporary.
An attack by anti-Deby forces on Sunday on the eastern border town of Adre opened a new front. Chad's army said it repulsed the assault by Sudanese army troops and rebels. The rebels said they took Adre but this could not be confirmed.
"The current escalation is threatening the full and complete deployment of EUFOR -- putting the lives of civilians at further risk," Tawanda Hondora, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Africa Program, said.
Reuters
US says 9 Iraqi civilians accidentally killed
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American troops hunting al Qaeda militants accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians, the US military said, the latest in a series of mistakes in which innocent Iraqis have died.
The deaths south of Baghdad on Saturday, which Iraqi police said were caused by a helicopter air strike, were announced as Iraq said it would soon begin talks with US officials on a long-term bilateral agreement between Washington and Baghdad.
While the US State Department has said the talks will not determine future US troop numbers in Iraq, they will focus on the role of US forces after the U.N Security Council mandate for multinational forces in Iraq expires at the end of 2008.
A child was among those killed in the strike near Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, the US military said. Three civilians, including two more children, were wounded.
"We offer our condolences to the families of those who were killed in the incident and we mourn the loss of innocent civilian life," it said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.
The military gave no further details but Iraqi police at the scene said US helicopters had fired on a checkpoint manned by a neighbourhood police patrol after a US convoy was attacked.
Police said women were among the victims.
The neighbourhood units, formed by mainly Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs, have been credited with contributing to sharp falls in violence. Attacks across Iraq have fallen by 60 per cent since 30,000 extra US troops were deployed by last June.
The US military said commanders near Iskandariya met a local tribal sheikh after the incident. The wounded had been taken to US hospitals for treatment, it said.
OTHER INCIDENTS
In a similar incident last November, US forces said they had killed 25 insurgents during operations against al Qaeda near Taji, north of Baghdad.
But the head of a Sunni Arab tribal group in the area said as many as 45 of his men had been killed when they were bombed by US aircraft as they manned a checkpoint.
A month earlier the US military said five women and a child were among 11 people killed in air strikes against men planting a bomb near Samarra last October. Villagers said 14 innocent civilians were killed in the strikes.
The killing of Iraqi civilians by US soldiers has long put a strain on relations between the two countries. Critics say US forces often call in air strikes against militants without taking reasonable care to find out who else is in the area.
The US military says militants often deliberately use civilians as shields against attacking US forces.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that talks with US officials would begin in the third week of February on a pact that would lay the basis for long-term strategic ties between Washington and Baghdad. He gave no precise date.
US officials have said the talks will set out the framework for matters such as whether US soldiers can be put on trial by host governments. The issue of immunity for private security contractors working for American government departments is also expected to be discussed.
Both sides have said the pact should be concluded by July.
"This agreement will bring economic, security, political, and diplomatic benefits to Iraq and set up a sympathetic relationship with the American people," Dabbagh said.
The US embassy was putting together its team for the talks but an exact date had not been set, an embassy spokeswoman said.
US ambassador Ryan Crocker said late last month that the pact would "frame the bilateral relationship for the years and even decades ahead". Iraq has vowed that the United States will never have permanent bases on its soil.
Reuters
