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SOFIA: Every last Bulgarian soldier is now withdrawn from Iraq as the plane with the last contingent touched down on Sofia Airport Wedensday. The soldiers were welcomed with military honors by Defense Minister Nikolai Conev and the General Staff of the Bulgarian Army's chief - General Zlatan Stoykov. Bulgaria began its participation in the operation of Coalition forces for stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq in 2003. For two tears five battalions of the army's ground forces participated in the operation with 500 military personnel rotating every six months. In the period between 2003 and 2005 Bulgaria Bulgaria's Parliament authorized the sending of Bulgarian military contingent consisting of up to 155 people to guard the Center for temporary detention and protection in Camp Ashraf, as part of multinational coalition forces in Iraq.

ISTANBUL: Turkish police on Wednesday arrested 30 people suspected of belonging to the Al-Qaeda network, a news agency reported. Anti-terrorist police arrested 15 suspects in Istanbul and 15 more in two other regions of the country, the report said without giving further details. They also seized documents and other material during the operation, the report added. The arrests are the latest in a string of detentions in Turkey. In August, eleven alleged members of Al-Qaeda were arrested in southeastern Turkey, accused of establishing a group named the Muslim Revenge Brigade in order to carry out attacks. They are due to be tried later this month. A Turkish Al-Qaeda cell was held responsible for attacks in Istanbul in November 2003 against two synagogues, the British Consulate and a British Bank which left 63 people dead and hundreds more wounded. Last year, seven men were jailed for life over the bombings, among them a Syrian national who masterminded and financed the attacks.

SEOUL: South Korean MPs barricaded themselves into a parliamentary committee room Thursday after opponents smashed down the door, as tempers flared over a bid to ratify a US free trade pact. The scuffle began as dozens of the governing Grand National Party's (GNP) members, helped by security guards, occupied the room to start procedures to approve the deal. About 150 opposition legislators and aides pushed or elbowed other ruling party legislators outside the closed room, witnesses said. Some opposition members with a chisel and hammers broke down a door and used a nearby fire hose to spray water into the room but GNP legislators inside immediately put up a barricade with sofas and chairs. Security guards used a fire extinguisher to stop the scuffle. The opposition MPs staged a sit-down protest after their repeated attempts to break into the room failed. A GNP member was hospitalised for injuries in his hand, according to Yonhap news agency. The GNP insisted that the pact, signed b...

CHICAGO: President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday named three veteran regulators to round out his economic team and vowed to revamp regulatory rules to prevent a repeat of the financial and economic debacles the country is suffering through. His announcement came as he lays the groundwork for a giant economic stimulus package, possibly $850 billion over two years, aimed at reviving the flagging economy. It would rival drastic government actions taken to fight the Great Depression in the 1930s. Obama blamed regulators for the financial debacle, saying they “dropped the ball.'' Regulators, he said, "have been asleep at the switch.'' American people, watching their investments tank, are frustrated that “there's not a lot of adult supervision out there,'' Obama added. At a Chicago news conference, Obama named Mary Shapiro to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Daniel Tarullo to fill...

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered aides to draw up plans for closing the "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo, a declared priority for President-elect Barack Obama, a spokesman said Thursday. Gates wanted to be ready in case Obama decides to take action on Guantanamo soon after assuming office next month, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "He has asked his team for a proposal on how to shut it down, what will be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from that facility, and at the same time protect the American people from dangerous terrorists," he said. "The request has been made, his team is working on it so he can be prepared to assist the president-elect should he wish to address this very early in his tenure," Morrell said. The prison, which currently has about 250 inmates, was opened in early 2002 to hold detainees captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the US "war on terror....

WASHINGTON: Kyrgyzstan has announced it will close down an American military base on its territory used to send troops to Afghanistan, according to a report by media. "It is a matter of time until we close the base and since there are no more military actions in Afghanistan, one can therefore talk about putting an end to the activities of the base at Manas," Kyrgyz President Kurman Bek Bakiyev told a newspaper in an interview, which was re-published later. The Manas Air Base is used by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the U.S.-led coalition forces operating in Afghanistan. If indeed the base will be closed, the Americans and their allies would face severe difficulties in transferring their forces to Afghanistan. Three years ago, the Americans had to evacuate their bases in another former Soviet country, Uzbekistan, following a political row between the latter and the U.S.

SEOUL: North Korea's government has poured scorn on US President George W. Bush over the Baghdad shoe-throwing incident, saying the outgoing leader deserved it. An Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush at a press conference on Sunday during the US leader's farewell visit to the country, in an incident that became an instant sensation in the Arab world. Muntazer al-Zaidi, protesting at the US invasion and occupation of his country, hurled shoes at Bush but he dodged the shoes and Zaidi was arrested. North Korean state media routinely heap scorn on the Bush administration and its "war on terror". Bush in turn described the North in 2002 as part of an "axis of evil" and once said he loathed its leader.

WASHINGTON Outgoing US President George W. Bush said he did not regret his wartime decisions. "I was a wartime President and war is very exhausting. War is hard for a country. And, you know, I made the decision that we were going to win." "The other part of my presidency that's been hard is we've had, you know, huge economic turmoil recently," he added. In an interview to US television, Bush said he is considering a farewell speech to share the lessons of his eight-year term and to spur vigilance about the "terrorist threat." "Thinking about it. Thinking about it. A lot of presidents have, and I'm giving it serious thought," Bush said in an interview with a television when asked if he was planning a farewell speech before he leaves the White House on January 20. Bush said he has already talked it over with a speechwriter. "I don't want it to be you know, kind of a real emotional goodbye. If I give it, it's going to be try...

KOLKATA: India sealed part of its border with Bangladesh on Friday amid fears the latest outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus had spread to new areas, officials said. Authorities in West Bengal state have killed about 10,000 birds in the Malda district, which borders Bangladesh since Tuesday, despite resistance from villagers who want more compensation, after tests proved a new outbreak in the area. Hundreds of thousands of birds have also been culled in India's northeastern Assam state and neighbouring Meghalaya since an outbreak was detected there last month.

NEW DELHI: India on Friday said it was obliged to "consider the entire range of options that exist" with the failure of Pakistan to deliver on its promise of not supporting terror activities. "Terrorism remains a scourge for our region. If a country cannot keep the assurances that it has given, then it obliges us to consider the entire range of options that exist to protect our interests and people from this menace," Indian external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee said, without naming Islamabad. Mukherjee said the terror attacks on the financial capital of the country reflected the extent to which the terrorists have spread their network. The external affairs minister, however, did not elaborate on the course of action to be taken by the government following Pakistan's failure to act on its assurance of dismantling terror infrastructure on its territory. "The Mumbai terrorist attack is the latest instance of how sub-regionalism, regionalism and multilater...

LONDON: Protesters are shaking their shoes at the U.S. Embassy in London in a show of support for a jailed Iraqi journalist who threw his own footwear at President George W. Bush during a news conference in Iraq. Journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi became an instant folk hero after the incident on Sunday. It was a vivid demonstration of Iraqis' dismay over the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the country. Britain's Stop The War Coalition said Friday that the act expressed the unreported feelings of millions in Iraq and beyond that the Bush occupation has been a disaster. The coalition organized the small protest, which drew a crowd of about 50 in front of the embassy to protest Al-Zeidi's arrest.

NEW DELHI: Amnesty International on Friday slammed India's new anti-terror legislation to beef up police powers in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, saying it violates international human rights treaties. The London-based human rights group called on India's president not to approve the legislation, which would double the number of days police can detain terror suspects before filing charges, from 90 days to 180, as well as boost their powers to conduct searches. Both houses of India's Parliament passed the bill this week, following last month's attacks on Mumbai by suspected Islamic terrorists that killed 164 people. It now needs President Pratibha Patil's approval before becoming law. "While we utterly condemn the attacks and recognize that the Indian authorities have a right and duty to take effective measures to ensure the security of the population, security concerns should never be used to jeopardize people's human rights," Madhu Malhotra, Asia Pac...

LONDON: The first person to be convicted in Britain for the crime of directing terrorism has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 10 years. Thirty-three-year-old Rangzieb Ahmed was convicted of heading a three-man Al-Qaida cell which was planning mass murder. Justice John Saunders told Ahmed today that he was "an extremely dangerous man." Co-defendant Habib Ahmed was sentenced to a minimum of nine years for being a member of a terror group. The jury in Manchester had heard that Rangzieb Ahmed gave two diaries to Habib Ahmed that contained details of al-Qaida operatives written in invisible ink.

NEW DELHI: Despite India-Pakistan ties entering a phase of chill, Iran on Friday hoped that New Delhi would keep its future energy needs in mind and persist with negotiations on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project. Maintaining that the U.S. was instrumental in the tepid progress of the IPI project, visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh told journalists, “Sporadic terrorist incidents, wherever they are, should not deter the will and the determination of collective vision and wisdom of the Asian leaders to continue their march of progress.” The Iranian Minister’s observations come at a time when India has put ties with Pakistan in the deep freeze and seems to be doing a rethink on its pre-Mumbai terror strikes offer to hold a trilateral meeting in the national capital here on the IPI gas pipeline project. The Minister, who declined to comment on the presence of terrorist elements in Pakistan, was of the opinion that the Mumbai terror attack should not...

WASHINGTON: India may have ruled out the military option against Pakistan in the aftermath of Mumbai terror attacks but the international intelligence community continues to believe that strikes in PoK and elsewhere could still happen. Global intelligence service Stratfor, in its latest report, said, "Indian military operations against targets in Pakistan have in fact been prepared and await the signal to go forward." It added, "These most likely would take the form of unilateral precision strikes inside Pakistan-administered Kashmir, along with special forces action on the ground in Pakistan proper." The private sector intelligence service said that unlike the massive movements of 2002 during Operation Parakram, India's preparations this time were more under the radar and not visible to the world at large. Its only indication was the fact that the Border Security Force (BSF) has been put on high alert on the western sector as well as the eastern sector — this p...

MOSCOW: An Israeli envoy urged Russia on Friday not to sell weapons to Iran that could be used to attack the Jewish state, a news agency reported. The news agency quoted Israeli Defense Ministry envoy Amos Gilad as saying Israel expects Russia to respect his country's interests. "The deliveries of dangerous armaments to our enemies won't serve the interests of peace and, for instance, can help Iran wipe Israel off the face of earth," Gilad was quoted as saying. "So we expect Russia to demonstrate responsibility on the issue." Gilad, who was visiting Moscow, was responding to a question about possible deliveries of Russian S-300 air defense missiles to Iran. Some Russian media have claimed that a deal has already been struck to sell the missiles, but Russian officials have denied it. Russia has previously sold Tor-M1 air-defense missiles and other weapons to Iran in deals criticized by the U.S. and Israel. The long-range S-300 is a much more advanced weapon t...

SEOUL: South Korea Friday completed its troop pullout from Iraq, ending a four-year mission to help reconstruct the war-torn nation. The last group of 519 soldiers who had been stationed in the northern city of Arbil and a 102-member air support unit in Kuwait arrived home earlier in the day. Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo hosted a ceremony at a military base in southern Seoul to disband the units, known as Zaytun (olive) in Iraq and Daiman in Kuwait. "Zaytun and Daiman improved the overseas operational capability of our military and significantly contributed to raising the reputation of our country," he said. South Korea sent 3,600 engineering and medical troops to Iraq in 2004, the third largest foreign troop presence at the time. It extended the deployment four times at the request of its close ally the United States but gradually cut the numbers. The unit suffered no battle casualties. President Lee Myung-Bak made a brief visit to shake hands and take pictures with soldiers...

COPENHAGEN: Three Danish soldiers serving with NATO forces in Afghanistan were killed and one was injured Friday when their vehicle was hit by an explosion in southern Helmand province, the Danish military said. "Three Danish soldiers in the Danish battalion were killed and one was injured on Friday afternoon when their armoured vehicle drove over a roadside bomb or mine," the military said in a statement. The blast occurred near the town of Gereshk. The injured soldier was transported to a field hospital at Camp Bastion for treatment, the military added. The deaths bring to 21 the number of Danish troops killed in the country since Copenhagen deployed soldiers there as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in 2001 -- one of the highest per-capita death tolls among coalition forces. "It is a sad day for Denmark," Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared, saying he was "deeply touched" by the deaths of three soldiers in "the f...

JOHANNESBURG: The first runner-up of Miss World 2008 Parvathy Omanakuttan said she was done in by the jury alleging that its decision to adjudge her only second best was "unfair". "I have performed better than others in the personality and question-answer round. This is not just that. All those who watched it felt like that. I feel the jury's decision was unfair", Parvathy(21), who was adjudged the first runner up from among 108 contestants at the Miss World pageant in Johannesburg, told local tv channel. "I had confidence. I could do well. The question-round did not come as a challenge to me considering my background in literature," said Parvathy. Reita Faria (1966), Aishwarya Rai (1994), Diana Hayden (1997), Yukta Mookhey (1999) and Priyanka Chopra (2000) were the previous five Indian beauty queens who had won the coveted title.

WASHINGTON: Vice president-elect Joseph Biden told US television that the US economy was in "much worse shape" than he thought and needed a second stimulus package to prevent it from tanking. "The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," Biden told in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday. He said a second big stimulus package would be needed to keep from "absolutely tanking." "Every single person I've spoken to agrees with every major economist. There is going to be real significant investment, whether it's 600 billion or more, or 700 billion, the clear notion is, it's a number no one thought about a year ago," he added. He said president-elect Barack Obama's team was absolutely focused on creating jogs and spending on energy and information technology infrastructure to get the economy on the right path.

CHICAGO: Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich said Friday he was not guilty of trying to seal president-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat and vowed to fight to stay in his job. Gov. Rod Blagojevich said day he will be vindicated of criminal corruption charges and has no intention of letting what he called a ``political lynch mob'' force him from his job. ``I will fight. I will fight. I will fight until I take my last breath. I have done nothing wrong,'' Blagojevich said, speaking for about three minutes in his first official public comments since his arrest last week on federal corruption charges. The Democrat is accused, among other things, of plotting to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

LONDON: British Defence Secretary John Hutton compared the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to the Nazis and said Western forces faced a long fight to defeat insurgents in Afghanistan, in an interview on Saturday. Hutton told a British daily that troops in the violence-scarred country were defending British values in the same way they did in World War II. "We know that we must tackle the threat at source, it is not just going to go away," he said. "It is a struggle against fanatics that may not challenge our borders but challenge our way of life in the same way the Nazis did." After Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed on Thursday that most British forces would pull out of Iraq by the end of July next year, Hutton said British soldiers would be in Afghanistan for the long haul. His words hint at Britain's willingness to add more troops to its existing 8,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan, where fighting against a resurgent Taliban has cost the lives of 134...

CHICAGO: President-elect Barack Obama signaled a major shift in trade policy and labor relations as he rounded out a cabinet of 'rivals' tasked with implementing an ambitious US economic recovery plan. Obama, who leaves Saturday for a Christmas holiday in Hawaii, said trade agreements will have to be reciprocal and include "enforceable" environmental and labor standards to prevent a "race to the bottom" and a further loss of US jobs. "In the global economy we must compete and win if we are going to strengthen the middle class and forge bonds with other nations to contribute to peace and stability around the world," Obama said as he completed his cabinet line-up. "But I also believe that any trade agreement we sign must be written not just with the interests of big corporations in mind, but with the interests of our whole nation and our workers at heart." Obama, who takes office on January 20, also named Democratic lawmaker ...

WASHINGTON: US President George W. Bush has said that the Middle East peace talks are a hard but "irreversible" process as he met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas one month before he leaves the White House. Speaking beside the US leader, Abbas said Palestinians are "practically committed" to negotiations launched by Bush a year ago and was confident incoming President Barack Obama would pick up where Bush leaves off. Their comments came as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that renewed violence against Israel following the end of a six-month truce by Abbas's rival Hamas movement will only hurt the Palestinian goal of statehood. Abbas paid tribute to the "foundation" of negotiations laid by Bush. However Abbas, whose authority is limited to the occupied West Bank, found his calls were ignored by Hamas which ousted his forces and seized control of the coastal enclave of Gaza in June 2007. With Hamas accusing Israel of failing to resp...

ISLAMABAD: The Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC) in occupied Kashmir, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has emphasized that Indo-Pak relations would not improve and peace would elude South Asia unless Kashmir dispute was resolved in accordance with Kashmiris' aspirations. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement issued in Srinagar maintained that the right of self-determination is an inalienable right of Kashmiris and so-called elections can't be substitute to it. "Even India's first Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru had promised to give the right of self-determination to Kashmiris. Since 1947 Kashmiris have been offering sacrifices for attaining the right," he said. Mirwaiz said that the United Nations Secretary General, Ban-Ki Moon recently stressed that until India and Pakistan address the Kashmir dispute, the tension will hamper the relations between the two countries. The APHC Chairman pointed out that New Delhi is using cheap tactics to suppress...

SHANGHAI: The mainland is willing to help Taiwan in face of current global financial crisis, a senior Communist Party of China (CPC) leader said here on Saturday. "If the worsening world economic situation continues and the Taiwan side asks for help to solve economic difficulties, the mainland is willing to offer assistance with utmost efforts," said Jia Qinglin, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau. Jia, also chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks at the 4th Cross-Straits Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan began here Saturday morning.

BAGHDAD: All those arrested on accusations of conspiring to restore the outlawed Baath party, which ruled Iraq for 35 years until Saddam Hussein was ousted, have been released, the interior minister said. Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told reporters on late Friday that those in custody were released without any charges being filed. An investigating judge issued "an order to release all of the them because they are innocent," Al-Bolani said adding there was no evidence they conspired to restore the Baath party. He provided no further details. Al-Bolani said 19 people were released from custody and that charges will be dismissed against the remaining four who are not in custody. Earlier in the day, al-Bolani told reporters at a news conference that the charges were baseless and were politically motivated by those trying to undermine the interior ministry. The release of the 19 came just after Iraqi officials began playing down the arrest of the officials from Iraq's thr...

NEW YORK: The United States circulated a UN resolution that would protect Iraqi assets from seizure by governments, companies or individuals after the mandate for the US-led multinational force ends, UN diplomats said. The draft resolution would extend for one year the arrangements under the UN mandate for the American-led multinational force in Iraq which expires Dec 31. Similar legal protection under an executive order signed by President George W Bush expires in May, and Iraq is expected to seek an extension of that order as well. The UN resolution authorising the multinational force is being replaced by a new US-Iraq security pact which requires American forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30 and the entire country by Jan 1, 2012. The draft resolution was sent to Security Council members late Thursday and is likely to be put to a vote early next week, US diplomats said. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in an interview that he has spoken to council members and doe...

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has taken some "positive steps" after the Mumbai terror attacks for which India has blamed a Pakistan-based group but "they are not nearly enough", according to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. During her recent visit to the region to show solidarity with India and ask Pakistan to deal with the terror groups operating from its territory, she found that civilians "were very much in charge and making decisions", Rice said at an event here. "It's a new civilian government just finding its footing in Pakistan. But it seemed to me that the civilians were very much in charge and making decisions," she said when asked if the civilian government in Pakistan has control over its military, security forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). "And thus far, we've seen some positive steps, though they're not nearly enough at this point," she said at the event at the Council on Foreign Relations, accordi...

BANGKOK: New Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva on Saturday defended his cabinet against accusations that top jobs were going to unseasoned politicians, as the nation awaited royal approval of the ministerial line-up. Abhisit has vowed to bring reconciliation to Thailand and boost an economy battered by six months of protests against the last government, which ended on December 3 after a court dissolved the ruling People Power Party (PPP). Oxford-educated Abhisit was voted in by parliament on December 15 with the help of defecting MPs, but the Democrat Party leader's cabinet has already hit a snag with business leaders criticising some ministers as inexperienced. Local media reported that the outcry prompted a last-minute change of industry minister, before the list went to the revered king for royal approval late Friday ahead of the official announcement of the line-up. Speaking at a Democrat Party retreat on the southern island of Samui, British-born Abhisit urged members...

KABUL: The United States plans to send between 20,000 and 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan by next summer, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said here Saturday. General David McKiernan, the US commander in Afghanistan, has asked for more than 20,000 extra US soldiers to counter a rise in insurgent violence, seven years after US forces first invaded the country to oust the Taliban from power. "The troops that were asked for in joint discussions with General McKiernan is what we're going to need for the foreseeable future. So I don't see an increase any higher at this point than 20 to 30,000," Mullen told reporters. Mullen said he hoped the extra troops -- including four combat brigades, an aviation brigade and other support forces -- could be deployed by mid-2009. "We're looking to get them here in the spring, but certainly by the beginning of summer at the latest," he said. The build-up could nearly double the US ...