SEOUL  ( 2008-04-01 09:55:23 ) : 

North Korea on Tuesday launched its first verbal attack on South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak since he took office, saying his tougher policy towards Pyongyang would have ‘catastrophic consequences.’
The lengthy and vitriolic attack, describing Lee, who took office in late February, as a US sycophant and a traitor, comes as tensions are rising between the two nations.
“Lee Myung-Bak should not misjudge the patience and silence so far kept by the DPRK (North Korea),” declared a commentary in Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the ruling communist party.
“The Lee regime will be held fully accountable for the irrevocable catastrophic consequences to be entailed by the freezing of inter-Korean relations and the disturbance of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula due to its sycophancy towards the US and its moves for confrontation with the north.”
On Sunday the North’s official media claimed that Seoul was planning a preemptive military strike and threatened to turn South Korea into “ashes” if it went ahead.
In the past six days the North has expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex, test-fired missiles, accused Seoul of breaching a disputed sea border and threatened to suspend all dialogue.
Seoul media reports say sorties by the North’s jet fighters have also increased near the heavily fortified border.
The commentary on Tuesday was carried in a 2,100-word report on the Korean Central News Agency.
It expressed anger at Lee’s tougher stance on cross-border relations, especially his decision to link long-term economic aid to progress in nuclear disarmament and to raise the North’s human rights record.

KABUL  ( 2008-04-01 19:30:58 ) : 

President Hamid Karzai headed on Tuesday to a Nato summit where he is to tell countries tackling a Taliban-led insurgency that Afghanistan lacks the capacity to effectively fight terrorism, his office said.
Karzai is due to address a special session on Thursday of the April 2-4 summit at which countries in the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are expected to pledge extra troops and resources to the battle.
A statement from Karzai’s office announcing his departure said the president’s speech would cover “the lack of capacity to effectively fight terrorism.”
It would also touch on the need for the Afghan National Army to take greater responsibility for security in Kabul and other major cities, and the Nato strategy in Afghanistan, it said.
Karzai would meet the heads of several nations with troops taking part in ISAF, including the leaders of major players Britain and Canada, as well as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has just sent a new envoy to Afghanistan.
After the Nato summit, Karzai was to travel Friday to Hungary, which has about 200 troops in ISAF, to meet top officials there, his office said.
He was accompanied by his foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, and defence minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, as well as other top officials.

TASHKENT  ( 2008-03-28 00:29:28 ) : 

The US military is not planning to use Uzbekistan as a base for operations in Afghanistan, Washington’s ambassador to Tashkent said on Thursday, dispelling media reports about such plans.
“The United States does not currently have a military base in Uzbekistan and has not asked for a military base in Uzbekistan. This issue is not on the agenda,” ambassador Richard Norland, who spoke in Russian, told reporters.
Norland said, however, that US personnel operating under Nato command have been allowed on a “case-by-case” basis to transit to Afghanistan through a German air base at Termez in southern Uzbekistan since January 31.

LONDON  ( 2008-03-28 11:14:02 ) : 

Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview published on Friday against the use of ‘unhelpful rhetoric’ at next week’s Nato summit in Romania.
Speaking to the Financial Times from Brussels, Scheffer said the success of the meeting of the Nato-Russia Council (NRC) at the April 2-4 summit would depend largely on the tone that Putin, who will make way in May for his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev, takes at the summit.
“Let’s try to avoid unhelpful rhetoric, like ‘We will target missiles on nations A, B and C’,” Scheffer told the business daily.
“That is not only unhelpful but it makes me remember a time when I was growing up when there was a Berlin wall and an Iron Curtain … So let us refrain from rhetoric.”
He continued: “The volume of music we get next week will to a large extent depend on the tone that President Putin uses in the NRC. I do not know what that tone will be.”
The Nato chief added that he had seen “hopeful, positive results” after US-Russia talks on American plans for a missile defence shield in eastern Europe.
He also said that he was unsurprised at how hard US President George W. Bush was pushing for Georgia and Ukraine to be granted Nato membership, which Russia has criticised.
“I know President Bush well, and I know he is committed to giving as many nations as possible the right to enjoy what he and I consider basic human values and to defend those values,” Scheffer said.

MOSCOW  ( 2008-03-28 15:18:22 ) : 

Russia is ready to help Nato on Afghanistan, provided that Moscow’s security interests, including a halt to eastward expansion of Nato, are respected, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said on Friday, Interfax news agency reported.
Russia is “considering the possibility of deepening” co-operation with Nato over Afghanistan, but this will not happen “if each other’s lawful security interests are not taken into account,” the official, Alexander Grushko, told Interfax.
He highlighted Nato expansion plans — with ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine high on the waiting list — as a key security concern of Moscow.
“Further steps toward realising Nato’s ‘open doors’ policy does not strengthen the security of Nato itself, nor the security of countries declaring their intention to join the alliance, nor, moreover, the security of Russia,” Grushko said.
“This project is from the political past, and does not concern the real security demands of our day,” he said.
Grushko spoke just days before the April 2-4 Nato summit in Bucharest, where President Vladimir Putin will be attending.
Topping the Nato agenda will be the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and discussions on possible expansion of the 26-nation alliance to include former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine — a possibility that has infuriated Moscow.
Nato has been negotiating with Russia over the possible use of Russian and Central Asian territory to send supplies for the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But Grushko denied press reports that Moscow was bargaining with Nato to offer help in Afghanistan in return for Nato denying Georgia and Ukraine Membership Action Plan status, which clears the way to membership.
“There is no trade-off and there cannot be one,” he told Interfax.

KOHAT, Pakistan, March 28 (Reuters): Sectarian violence intensified in a tribal region of northwest Pakistan Friday, with at least 22 people reportedly killed in gunbattles, said Qalb-i-Hassan, a newly elected provincial legislator from Kohat town. Fighting overnight was concentrated in three villages of Kohat district of North West Frontier Province and the tribesmen were armed with semi-automatic weapons, machine guns, mortars and rockets. “I have reports that at least 22 people were killed in fighting overnight,” said Kamran Zeb, a senior administrator in Kohat. The latest clashes, between the Mishti and Kachai tribes, brought the toll to more than 50 in an outbreak of sectarian violence that began last week.

But until recently, the neighborhood was considered dangerous even by many Bogotános. In 2002, theRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the left-wing guerrilla group known as FARC, detonated a car bomb and launched mortars into the neighborhood to protest the inauguration of President Álvaro Uribe. Civilians were killed. But even before this, La Candelaria was crumbling, and its dark streets were home to thieves and thugs.

Through the dark times, however, a scrappy bohemian identity was forged and, with the violence fading, the city has started promoting La Candelaria as a cultural and artistic center. The revival was capped in January with the opening of the Centro Cultural Gabriel García Márquez (Calle 11, No. 5-60; 571-283-2200; www.fce.com.co). The circular complex of tawny bricks houses a large bookstore, a sleek casual cafe, galleries and a performance hall where readings and children’s arts workshops are held.

Juan Valdez Café, Colombia’s homegrown answer to Starbucks, occupies a space with a patio on the center’s lower level, and is a perfect place to people-watch while enjoying an expertly made cup of the country’s most famous (and legal) export.

The creative energy can also be felt on nearby streets. Home to several university buildings, the neighborhood now throbs with tiny candlelit bars and restaurants popular with students and artists. Many places still use wood fireplaces to chase out Bogota’s nighttime chill.

El Gato Gris (Carrera 1A, No. 13-12; 571-342-1716) serves good crepes and pastas, and has cozy nooks connected by narrow staircases that evoke a child’s playhouse. If you’re too high up in the rafters to feel the glow of the fireplace, order a sweet mulled wine, a La Candelaria staple.

Bogotá loves theater, and La Candelaria is home to the city’s most famous. Teatro de Cristóbal Colón (Calle 10, No. 5-32; 571-284-7420) built in 1885 in the heavy-on-the-gilt Republican style, is where Colombia’s symphony orchestra and visiting companies play. Coming attractions include a performance of “Cymbeline” by the Kneehigh Theater ofBritain.

Next door to the theater is the completely restored Hotel de la Ópera (Calle 10, No. 5-72; 571-336-2066; www.hotelopera.com.co), housed in two 19th-century town houses that were once home to Simón Bolívar’s personal retinue of guards. The hotel features 14-foot-high ceilings, antique Italian furnishings and a new full-service spa, with rooms starting at $165.

After dark, students make their way to Escobar Rosas (Calle 15, No. 4-02; 571-341-7903), a disco where reggaetón, salsa and European house music can all be heard. The club has an easy door policy and is packed on weekends.

“Of all the neighborhoods in Bogotá, La Candelaria is the most cosmopolitan,” said Luis Fernando Garzón, a local city council member. “There is a wonderful mix of people here, the students, the working people, the intellectuals, the wealthy. All kinds.”

LA CANDELARIA, Bogotá’s oldest neighborhood, sits along the foothills that hem in the city’s east side. A warren of one-way streets lined with Spanish colonial stucco and tile-roofed buildings, the neighborhood was home to Colombia’s best-loved poets and politicians, a sort of living historical monument.

PESHAWAR: The Pakistani Taliban have offered in a recent telephone conversation to lay down arms if President Pervez Musharraf quits, his policies are reviewed and Islamic laws are enforced in Pakistan.

In an exclusive telephone interview with Kyodo News, a spokesman for Taliban Commander Baitullah Mehsud said the Taliban launched their struggle because of the “wrong” policies of Musharraf, particularly in tribal areas.

“We have said it loud and clear that the wrong policies of government must be abandoned, Musharraf should be removed and Islamic laws enforced. These three things will guarantee that we will stop our struggle,” spokesman Mullah Omar said.

Pakistani tribesmen have waged a war on the Pakistan Army, which has deployed 100,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan after complaints that al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban remnants and their Pakistani supporters are launching attacks into Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan.

Mehsud has been declared united leader of all the militant groups resisting Pakistan Army operations in South Waziristan and is urging all other militant groups in North Waziristan and Swat to join him.

“All the groups in South Waziristan have united under Baitullah Mehsud and have made it clear that it is necessary for Taliban to unite and combine under the flag of Baitullah Mehsud,” Omar said.

Baitullah Mehsud is known to be a former inmate of the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison who was released after interrogation.

On his return, he started a resistance against U.S. and Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas.

The Pakistan government has declared him a proclaimed offender, but he is emerging as a legend in tribal areas for his resistance to the army and his support to the resistance against the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Omar denied Mehsud has an affiliation with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and declared he was leading the struggle only within Pakistan.

“Our formation is by our tribal people only and no one else, like al-Qaeda or the Afghan Taliban is involved,” he said. The spokesman did, however, express full support for al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

“The Taliban in Pakistan respect (Osama) bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar and we consider them heroes of Islam. We think they are alive and leading Muslim mujahideen from the front, but we do not know their whereabouts,” he said. – Kyodo