43 Philippine soldiers, rebels killed in clash: army

Writer: AFP

Published: 13/08/2009 at 08:00 AM

At least 23 soldiers and 20 Abu Sayyaf militants were killed when the army raided a training camp run by the Al-Qaeda-linked rebels in the southern Philippines, the military said Thursday.

An unidentified wounded Philippine Marine receives a medal at a hospital in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga a day after soldiers and members of the Islamic extremist Abu Sayyaf group clashed in Basilan island. At least 23 soldiers and 20 members of the Abu Sayyaf group were killed while fourteen other soldiers were also wounded.

Fourteen other soldiers were also wounded when the military launched a major offensive on the Islamist militants' camp in the town of Ungkaya Pukan on the remote island of Basilan Wednesday, officials said.

Government troops managed to overrun the camp, but reports from the field said day-long clashes that followed were fierce and led to the heavy casualties, regional commander Major General Benjamin Dolorfino said.

Numerous home-made bombs, ready for detonation, were recovered along with 13 high-powered firearms, he said.

The fighting was the heaviest since at least 29 soldiers were killed in two separate clashes with the Abu Sayyaf in July and August 2007 -- with the bodies of 10 soldiers later being found mutilated.

The military "launched a decisive law enforcement operation targeting the Abu Sayyaf's main training camp in the province", army spokeswoman Lieutenant Steffani Cacho said.

"Recovered from the camp were sizeable quantities of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) rigged to explode while others were ready for use," she said.

The military said they were going after about 200 Abu Sayyaf militants who were involved in the clash and that additional troops may be poured into the remote area.

"The terrain is really very difficult to penetrate," said Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner, overall armed forces spokesman in Manila.

"Follow (up) operations are ongoing and we hope we will be able to get the remnants of this Abu Sayyaf group."

He said the military was "studying whether we need to pour in more troops into the area."

Soldiers who airlifted their dead comrades to a military base in nearby Zamboanga City said those who died were hit by sniper fire.

The clashes were over, General Dolorfino said, but troops were still clearing the area to ensure no insurgents remained.

The Abu Sayyaf was formed in the early 1990s by Islamic firebrand Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani upon his return from Afghanistan, where he fought the Soviets alongside Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Janjalani formed the Abu Sayyaf (Bearers of the Sword) ostensibly to fight for an independent Islamic state.

He was however killed in a 1998 clash with police, and the group quickly degenerated into a terror organisation specialising in bombings and high-profile kidnappings.

The group has raised money by ransoming hostages but has also killed some, mostly through beheading, when they were not paid promptly.

While the Philippine military has killed and captured many Abu Sayyaf leaders -- partly with US assistance -- the extremists remained active and in January they held three international Red Cross workers hostage for several months.

Two hostages were freed in April while the last, Italian Eugenio Vagni, was released on July 12 after nearly six months in captivity.

The Abu Sayyaf is also believed to be working alongside some 30 foreign militants from the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) who are operating in the southern Philippines.

The JI, blamed for the 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia that killed 202, is said to be working with the Abu Sayyaf in plotting bombings in this mostly Catholic nation of 90 million, intelligence officials earlier told AFP.

Filipino intelligence officials said JI militants may also have helped the Abu Sayyaf carry out a spate of bombings in Mindanao in July that killed eight people.

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Climate change turning Aussie birds smaller: study

Writer: AFP

Published: 13/08/2009 at 04:00 PM

Australian birds have shrunk over the past century because of global warming, scientists have found.

A bird is seen during a Taronga Zoo Bird Show in Sydney. Australian birds have shrunk over the past century because of global warming, according to scientists.

Using museum specimens, researchers measured the size of eight bird species and discovered they were getting smaller in an apparent response to climate change.

Australian National University (ANU) biologist Janet Gardner said modern birds were up to four percent smaller than their forebears, a discrepancy she said was statistically significant.

"Birds, like other animals, tend to be smaller in warmer climates, because smaller bodies lose heat more quickly than larger bodies," she said.

"As a result, individuals of the same species tend to be larger near the poles and smaller near the equator."

She said the study showed that modern birds in Sydney had shrunk to the same size as those previously found in sub-tropical Brisbane, some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north and seven degrees of latitude closer to the equator.

Gardner said the study, published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, found that the birds appeared to be adapting to global warming by becoming smaller to minimise heat stress.

The bird species examined by the researchers from the ANU and government science body CSIRO included the grey-crowned babbler, the yellow-rumped thornbill and the variegated fairy-wren Read more!

Taiwan deploys extra troops, anger over rescue grows

Writer: AFP

Published: 13/08/2009 at 08:00 PM

Taiwan Thursday deployed thousands of extra troops as it faced growing public anger and pressure to rescue people trapped by deadly landslides triggered by Typhoon Morakot.

This handout photo released by the Taiwan Military News Agency shows local residents being evacuated from the typhoon-effected village of Laiji in Chiayi County, central Taiwan. Taiwan has deployed thousands of extra troops as it faced growing public anger and pressure to rescue people trapped by deadly landslides triggered by Typhoon Morakot.

The military said 4,000 more soldiers were added to the rescue effort, bringing the total to 38,000, as the death toll from the island's worst floods in half a century rose to 108 with fears it may rise dramatically.

Helicopters were scouring remote areas in the centre and south of the island, dropping food and medicine to cut-off villages and evacuating people to safety, while rain continued to fall.

Nearly 14,000 people have been airlifted to safety since last weekend's typhoon, which dumped three metres (120 inches) of rain, but the government has been accused by survivors and politicians of doing too little, too late.

Dozens of mountain villages populated mainly by indigenous aboriginal tribes have been totally cut off for days after landslides destroyed roads and bridges, leaving them only accessible by air.

Tempers have flared as desperate relatives have gathered at rescue centers -- police and soldiers Wednesday had to push back people who tried to storm their way on to helicopters heading to the stricken zone.

"32 DEAD, SOS," read a sign painted in red on a smashed bridge at the only entrance to the village of Hsinfa, a hot spring resort where bodies were found buried by mudslides.

"We are helpless. We are forgotten. We have been waiting for the helicopters without supplies," one villager told AFP.

President Ma Ying-jeou was confronted by relatives complaining about his government's handling of the crisis on Thursday when he travelled to the county of Yunlin to inspect relief efforts.

Television footage showed dozens of people surrounding Ma, with one man angrily asking: "What is the government doing? It's too late, they cannot be saved."

Ma deflected criticism his administration had been too proud to ask for outside help by saying the United States, Japan, Singapore, China had already made donations and that help from other countries was welcome.

Among the first aid to arrive was a shipment of food and medicines from Singapore, the foreign ministry said.

It said the government had asked for international help providing rescue equipment and that more than 50 countries had sent their condolences or said they were willing to help.

An intense rescue effort has focused on Hsiaolin and several neighbouring villages in Kaohsiung county which were almost totally destroyed by landslides.

While around 1,000 survivors have been found and some 600 airlifted to safety, it is feared more than 100 people could have been buried alive under the rubble.

The National Fire Agency said around 200 people were trapped and awaiting evacuation at another hot spring resort in Liukuei, a township made up of a cluster of mountain villages.

Meanwhile, the military said it had located 700 more survivors in Liukuei Thursday morning and had started moving the group to safety.

Villagers told AFP that more people could have been buried alive as some villages were either flattened or badly damaged in the typhoon.

Typhoon Morakot caused an estimated 280 million US dollars of damage to agriculture and tens of millions of dollars of lost tourism revenue to the scenic mountain regions where hot spring spas are popular.

Five undersea cables were damaged as the typhoon triggered mudslides in the sea off southern Taiwan, disrupting Internet connections and jamming telephone services, said Chunghwa Telecom.

China has so far donated around 16 million US dollars for island's typhoon relief efforts, while Hong Kong pop star and actor Andy Lau was to front a major flood relief fundraising effort in Taipei on Friday.

Morakot was one of the worst typhoons to strike Taiwan in 50 years. In August 1959 a typhoon killed 667 people and left around 1,000 missing.

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North Korea frees South Korean detainee

Writer: AFP

Published: 13/08/2009 at 08:00 PM

North Korea Thursday freed a South Korean worker it had detained since March, raising hopes of better cross-border relations after 18 months of bitter hostility from the communist state.

South Korean vehicles wait to pass a checkpoint at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in Paju in July 2009. The Kaesong estate near the west coast is the last major inter-Korean joint project still operating. North Korea has freed a South Korean worker it had detained since March, raising hopes of better relations after 18 months of bitter hostility from the communist state.

Yu Seong-Jin came home across the tightly guarded frontier in the evening.

"I'm very happy to return home safely," he told a crowd of reporters at the border, thanking all those who worked for his release.

After a brief medical check the engineer for the Hyundai Asan company was to be reunited with relatives waiting near the border, Yonhap news agency reported.

Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jung-Eun had travelled to the North Monday to seek Yu's release, days after former president Bill Clinton went to Pyongyang to meet leader Kim Jong-Il and win a pardon for two American journalists.

Yu, 44, was earlier handed over to Hyundai Asan officials at the Seoul-funded joint industrial estate in the North's border town of Kaesong, where he was detained on March 30.

The North had held Yu incommunicado since then, accusing him of insulting its political system and urging a northern worker at the estate to defect.

Inter-Korean relations have been icy since a conservative government took office in Seoul in February 2008 and took a tougher line on cross-border relations.

International tensions have also risen this year following the North's latest nuclear and missile tests and a US-led drive for tougher sanctions.

However, North Korean officials signalled to Clinton that they want better relations, according to US officials.

An association representing South Korean firms in Kaesong said it hoped Thursday's release "will improve frozen ties between South and North Korea and rejuvenate the Kaesong industrial complex."

Hyun had earlier extended her stay in the North until Friday, heightening speculation she would meet leader Kim as she did in 2007.

The North is still detaining the four-member crew of a South Korean squid fishing boat which sailed across the border on July 30 due to a faulty navigation system.

It told the South Thursday an investigation was still continuing.

Analysts say the North's priority is improving relations with the United States but to do this it must also mend ties with South Korea to some extent.

"The release will be a turning point in frozen ties between the two Koreas," Dongguk University professor Koh Yu-Hwan told AFP. "It reflects Pyongyang's belief it cannot improve relations with Washington without easing cross-border tensions.

"North Korea also badly needs economic help from South Korea to overcome economic difficulties and food shortages, which have worsened this year due to international sanctions and regional tensions."

The Seoul presidential office welcomed the release but said its policy would not change.

"It seems a bit too late, but it is a relief that Yu is finally returning to his family," said spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan.

"The government will continue to maintain its policy consistency toward North Korea."

Some 40,000 North Koreans work for 105 South Korean companies at Kaesong, which was developed mainly by Hyundai.

The auto, shipbuilding and construction giant pioneered business exchanges with the North, opening its first venture -- the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast -- in 1998.

But its projects have been hard hit by the worsening relations.

The Kaesong estate is the last one still operating. Its future has become increasingly clouded since Pyongyang demanded huge extra wage and rent payments from Seoul and detained the engineer.

Tours to Mount Kumgang have been suspended since July 2008, when North Korean soldiers shot dead a Seoul housewife who strayed into a poorly marked military zone.

Hyun's visit was partly aimed at restarting the Kumgang tours, officials say.

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Indonesia police find new bomb cache

Writer: AFP

Published: 13/08/2009 at 05:00 PM

Indonesian police said Thursday they had unearthed a new cache of bomb-making chemicals as part of investigations into the July 17 suicide attacks against luxury hotels in Jakarta.

An armed Indonesian policeman stands posted outside the re-opened Ritz-Carlton hotel in Jakarta, July 2009. Indonesian police said they had unearthed a new cache of bomb-making chemicals as part of investigations into the July 17 suicide attacks against luxury hotels in Jakarta.

Police spokesman Sulistyo Ishak said the chemicals were found Wednesday in a rented warehouse in Bogor, West Java, and could be linked to the terror network of Malaysian extremist Noordin Mohammed Top.

"The materials are being investigated by Detachment 88 counter-terrorism police to find out whether they're similar to those used by Noordin Top's network," he told AFP.

"We can't tell you now what they were going to use this for, such as where and which target."

Police launched a massive raid on a suspected Noordin hideout on Friday but failed to locate the fugitive Malaysian, killing instead one of his alleged accomplices in the hotel attacks after a 17-hour siege.

The dead man was identified by police Wednesday as Ibrohim, who worked at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels as a florist and was said to have played a crucial role in the planning and execution of the July 17 bombings.

Meanwhile scores of people including radical Islamist cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the co-founder of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant movement, attended the funerals of two would-be suicide bombers killed by police on Saturday.

The two alleged Noordin followers were shot dead by police in a raid on a house in Bekasi, between Jakarta and Bogor, where a large amount of explosive materials and a truck rigged as a bomb were also found.

Police said the truck-bomb was going to be used against the nearby residence of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, outside Bogor.

Mourners carried banners praising the men as "martyrs" and encouraging jihad or "holy war" in defence of Islam, as they were buried in their hometown of Solo, one of the hotbeds of Islamist radicalism in the mainly Muslim country.

Police said the identity of the man who had rented the warehouse in Bogor was unknown, but local residents who tipped off police said he bore a resemblance to one of Noordin's accomplices.

"Some said he looked like one of the group members," Ishak said.

The suicide blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels killed seven people, mainly foreigners, and have been blamed on the Noordin network.

The alleged terror financier and recruiter leads an offshoot of Jemaah Islamiyah which carried out the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people, mainly Western tourists.

Noordin, 41, is accused of masterminding a series of attacks against Western targets in Indonesia since 2003 which have killed around 50 people and wounded hundreds.

Jemaah Islamiyah and related militant groups are seeking to unite much of Southeast Asia under an Islamic caliphate, and believe they must kill Westerners to defend Muslims from oppression.

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Pakistan gunfights involving Mehsud men kill 15: officials

Writer: AFP

Published: 13/08/2009 at 04:00 PM

Fighting between pro-Pakistan government forces and militants affiliated to Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud has killed at least 15 people, officials said Thursday.

File photo shows a Pakistani soldier standing with his heavy machine gun in the Swat Valley. Fighting between pro-Pakistan government forces and militants affiliated to Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud has killed at least 15 people, officials said Thursday.

Mehsud's Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan movement appears to have been thrown in turmoil following his presumed death in a US drone attack and analysts say Pakistan must now bolster efforts to eliminate militants in tribal strongholds.

Seven people died in gunfights on Wednesday between Taliban militants and militiamen loyal to a pro-government tribal warlord in the remote South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan, security officials said.

The fighting broke out when militants loyal to Mehsud, whom US and Pakistani officials believe was killed in a US missile attack last week, attacked followers of Turkistan Bitani in Sur Ghar village.

"I can confirm the deaths of seven people in clashes between Taliban and Turkistan Bitani's group," a security official based in the area told AFP.

Another security official in the town of Dera Ismail Khan also said seven died in the gunbattles, but was unable to confirm reports that 20 to 25 people had been killed.

Intelligence officials in the region said Mehsud's men attacked Sur Ghar, burnt 12 houses and killed seven of Bitani's fighters.

Government security forces and helicopters were scrambled to pound Mehsud's men, but there were no reports about any casualties, they said.

In a counter-attack, Bitani's men kidnapped 14 of Mehsud's men, including commander Ismatullah Shaheen, an intelligence official told AFP.

Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels are believed to have fled Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion, carving out boltholes and training camps in the remote mountains of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt.

Pakistani helicopters and security forces killed eight militants in Kurram tribal district on Thursday, another security official told AFP.

The strikes took place at Spurkot village, located between Kurram and Orakzai, another district in Pakistan's tribal badlands.

"Eight militants in commander Tariq's group, which is affiliated with Baitullah Mehsud, were killed in the strike," the official said.

The militants had been hiding in Spurkot after fleeing Darra Adam Khel, a tribal area between Pakistan's northwest capital Peshawar and the garrison town of Kohat, he added.

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