Thai troops battle protesters, Thaksin urges talks

Thai troops battled anti-government protesters in central Bangkok on Friday, attempting to seal off their encampment after an assassination attempt on a renegade general unleashed a new wave of violence.

AFP said, Thailand's fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra called on the government to pull back troops and restart negotiations with his "Red Shirt" supporters after deadly clashes in Bangkok.

"The government's actions clearly constitute grave infringement of human rights and criminal offences for which the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and all concerned must be responsible," Thaksin said in a statement released by his legal adviser in Bangkok.

Troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds on protesters in at least three roads surrounding the central Bangkok shopping district they have occupied for nearly six weeks, a Reuters witness said.

Two people were killed in the clashes and at least 18 were wounded, including three journalists, since the clashes erupted Thursday night, according to hospitals and witnesses.

A Bangkok-based Canadian journalist working for France 24 television station was among the wounded, the station said. Two Thai journalists were also shot.

Thaksin urged Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to order troops back to their barracks, revoke the state of emergency in place in parts of the country and immediately reopen talks with protesters to reach a peaceful solution.

He called on Abhisit to "negotiate with all sides in the country to find an acceptable and genuine reconciliation plan to establish true democracy and justice in Thailand and move the country forward.

The army said it did not plan a crackdown on Friday on the main protest site where thousands of the red-shirted demonstrators, including women and children, have gathered, protected by medieval-like walls made from tyres and wooden staves soaked in kerosene and topped by razor wire.

"We will allow protesters to leave the area today. And they will be able to leave safely," army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd told reporters, adding that authorities were attempting to seal off the protesters and cut off their supplies.

Analysts said a possible split between a police force that shares the protesters' loyalties to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra and the military will make it more difficult to contain the violence.

Underlining that, a Thai policeman fired bullets at soldiers while giving cover to protesters, a Reuters witness said. A police spokesman denied the incident took place.

The crisis, in which 31 people have been killed and more than 1,400 wounded since April, has paralysed parts of Bangkok, scared off investors and has begun to hit the wider economy.

Protesters remained defiant.

"They are tightening a noose on us but we will fight to the end, brothers and sisters," a protest leader, Nattawut Saikua, told a cheering crowd of about 10,000 at the main protest site.

The cost of insuring Thai debt jumped the most in 15 months and Thai bond yields fell to a nine-month low on Friday as the wave of violence prompted investors to rush to the relative safety of government debt.

Five-year credit default swaps, used to hedge against debt default but also to speculate on country risk, jumped by more than 30 basis points to 142 basis points.

SEALING OFF PROTEST SITE

Protesters had formed their own checkpoint overnight at the famous Suan Lum night market to stop soldiers from sealing off roads around their main fortified encampment in Bangkok's commercial heart. That became one of the main battlegrounds.

They set fire to a bus, motorbike and tyres as they retreated, and soldiers took control of an intersection leading to a road lined with hotels, the U.S. ambassador's home and several embassies, which were closed and evacuated.

Troops fired rubber bullets into a nearby park after gunshots were heard, Thai television said.

Soldiers used tear gas and water cannon before dawn at the Nana intersection, packed with shops and racy go-go bars. Skirmishes flared in other parts of the city as the protesters remained defiant, vowing to fight to the death.

The latest violence followed tough security measures imposed on Thursday evening to reclaim Bangkok's commercial district after the collapse of a reconciliation plan proposed last week by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Abhisit is under enormous pressure to end the protests, which began with festive rallies on March 12 and descended into violence that is stoking concerns over the outlook of Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy.

The shooting and a security cordon marked the start of a violent crackdown in which the Thai government stands a good chance of clearing the streets, the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy said.

"But it will not end the polarisation that has led to the current instability -- ensuring that the pressure from the red shirts will persist and that political volatility will remain a persistent problem for Thailand for the forseeable future".

It is unclear who shot a renegade general who has been in charge of security for thousands of protesters occupying a 3 sq-km (1.2 sq-mile) stretch of central Bangkok since April 3.

Khattiya Sawasdipol, a suspended army specialist better known as "Seh Daeng" (Commander Red), was shot in the head, apparently by a sniper, while talking to reporters on Thursday evening.

He underwent brain surgery and was in critical condition.

Khattiya had been branded a terrorist by the Thai government, which accused him of involvement in dozens of grenade attacks that have wounded more than 100 people.

But in recent days he was equally critical of other red shirt leaders, accusing them of embracing Abhisit's proposed "national reconciliation" which unravelled after protesters refused to leave the streets.

Speculation was rife as to who might have tried to assassinate him with fingers pointing at the military, shadowy militants who have appeared in previous incidents of violence, and from the ranks of red shirts themselves.

His shooting sparked half a dozen confrontations overnight between rock-throwing protesters and armed security forces on the outskirts of the protesters' barricaded encampment.

One protester was shot in the eye and died after a group of red shirts confronted soldiers armed with assault rifles next to a park in the Silom business district, witnesses said. Some protesters hurled rocks and troops fired in return.

Most businesses and embassies in the area have evacuated staff and were closed for the day. Apartment complexes were mostly empty after the government warned it would shut down power and water supplies, and landlords urged tenants to leave.

Dolphin, turtle deaths eyed for links to oil spill

Scientists are examining samples from seven dolphins and over 100 sea turtles found dead along the US Gulf Coast in the past two weeks to see if they were victims of the giant oil spill in the region, wildlife officials said on Thursday.

All of the deaths are being investigated as suspected casualties of the oil gushing unchecked since April 20 from a ruptured wellhead on the floor of the Gulf off Louisiana because of their proximity in time and space to the spill.

But none of the dolphins or turtles examined showed any obvious visible signs of oil contamination. Necropsies -- the animal equivalent of autopsies -- are being performed and analyzed to determine if oil ingestion caused the deaths.

The investigations of most of the animals are still pending, and none has yet confirmed oil as a cause of death.

The information about dolphin and sea turtle mortality and the investigation into the cause of those deaths came from two sources close to the Gulf's wildlife spill-response teams who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The seven dolphins and 106 sea turtles were found along the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama over the past two weeks, the sources said.

One heavily decayed dolphin carcass was seen on the beach at the very tip of Port Fourchon in southeastern Louisiana. Gooey, rust-colored globs believed to be oil debris began washing ashore on that beach on Wednesday night.

A few deaths were ruled out as spill-related because they occurred before the spill or were animals that were known to have been sick or injured beforehand, the sources said.

TOO SOON FOR CONCLUSIONS

Wildlife officials have expressed particular concern for the well-being of sea turtles in the Gulf following the spill because all five species that inhabit the region are endangered, and it is their spring nesting season.

But experts say large numbers of sea turtle deaths this time of year is not uncommon.

On a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, officials of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it was still too early to draw firm conclusions from the latest wildlife casualties in the Gulf.

"We don't have definitive information for most of the ... (animals) that have been found," said Jane Lubchenco, Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere.

Impacts on bird life has been relatively light to date, according to wildlife specialists.

"So far, relatively few birds have been brought in with oil on their feathers," said David Ringer of the National Audubon Society, who put the number at between 12 and 20.

"The birds that have been brought in are birds that catch fish in open waters" and would have come in contact with oil there, he said.

Taliban find safe haven in Karachi

Hundreds of Taliban fleeing from Pakistan's restive northwest have taken refuge in the teeming commercial hub of Karachi, where a growing nexus with banned militant organisations is a headache for law enforcement.

A huge Pashtun population, mostly in the suburbs of the city of 18 million people, provides shelter to these militants, according to security officials.

Pakistan's financial capital has largely been spared direct militant attacks. But the man accused in the failed New York bombing, Faisal Shahzad, and his contacts in Karachi have highlighted the militant networks operating here.

The arrest of dozens of low-key members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, from the metropolis is evidence of their presence, officials say, and they have developed close ties to banned outfits as well as criminals.

A senior security official involved in anti-militant operations said militants are now working in smaller, independent groups, with no direct link to the central command, which makes it tougher to turn small catches into larger successes.

"The TTP and most of the jihadi outfits like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Jundullah share the same ideology, and in Karachi we have established that they are working together," said the official, requesting not to be named.

"They work in groups of 10-15 people, with one local amir (commander) and at times with no direct link to the main TTP leaders like Hakimullah Mehsud, so it makes it very difficult to trace their wider links," he said.

"And these groups not only have Pashtun militants, but also those from Punjab and Baluchistan, and even locals."

FUND RAISING

Officials said the groups, mostly working independently of each other, are involved in extortion rackets, bank robberies and kidnappings, as well as planning new attacks.

"A key source of funds for the Taliban is extortion, especially from the well-settled Pashtun businessmen in Karachi," said another senior security official.

"It's simple. They send a letter to them demanding money and nobody dares say no. And if the businessmen refuse, their families and properties back in the northwest will not be safe," said the official.

The groups often kidnap relatives of wealthy Karachites in the tribal areas, he said, and extort ransoms from their local targets.

Officials said there is also evidence of the involvement of these militants in cyber crimes.

"Some of these militants have managed to make illegal money transfers from other peoples' accounts using the online banking systems. We have arrested a few people already and are investigating further," said one official.

PLANNING ATTACKS

Officials said there would have been more attacks in Karachi, but for the city's massive intelligence network.

"There have been too many arrests to suggest that they have not attempted attacks on Karachi, but they have been foiled," said the first official.

Last year, militants attempted to target the city's main oil storage depot next to the country's largest port.

"That attack would have been a disaster and thankfully we managed to foil that," said Chaudhry Aslam, a senior police official who arrested the alleged masterminds of the attack.

"The man behind that attack was Akhtar Zaman, the Karachi commander of TTP, and he hailed from Waziristan," he said.

He also said that Karachi police have arrested dozens of TTP militants from Waziristan, some of them with ready-to-use suicide jackets and huge quantities of explosives and sophisticated weapons.

The number of new recruits by militants in Karachi has been reduced thanks to better intelligence, officials said, though some radical madrassas as well as small, private gatherings in people's homes still provide fresh legs for these organisations.

Also, the ongoing military operation in the country's northwest means that some of the fleeing militants have no choice but to lay low in their safe havens in Karachi, at least for now.

"Most of the Taliban coming to Karachi are 'B' and 'C' category," said senior police investigator Raja Umer Khattab.

"They hide here, work here as labourers, and some of them are probably waiting for the right time to go back to the tribal areas and fight again."

Bangladesh, UK reject Huji 'torture' claims

The British government had no involvement in the 'serious mistreatment' of Gholam Moustafa, an alleged leader of the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), a British High Commission spokesman tells bdnews24.com

The Bangladesh foreign ministry also told bdnews24.com that it had not received any information that Moustafa, a Briton, had been mistreated by his own law-enforcement officers.

Saida Muna Tasneem, a director general from the foreign ministry, said that the government would investigate any allegation passed to it by the British mission.

An article in Wednesday's edition of the UK's Guardian newspaper claimed that Bangladesh authorities had seriously mistreated Moustafa in detention and that officials of MI5, the UK's counter-intelligence agency, may have been complicit.

The newspaper said that according to his family, "Moustafa appeared to have a swollen face when he was paraded before television cameras shortly after his arrest."

It goes on to say: "When he appeared in court 11 days later [on 27 April] a journalist working for the Guardian could see that he was unable to stand throughout the proceedings, at one point sinking to his knees."

It stated that he had told a British consular official that "he had been forced to assume stressful positions for long periods during questioning at a detention centre known as the Taskforce for Interrogation Cell, where the use of torture is alleged to be common."

The newspaper did not set out any actual evidence of british government complicity in the alleged torture.

A spokesman for the British High Commission told this correspondent on Thursday that the High Commission first came to know about Moustafa's arrest through a newspaper report on 16 April, the day after he was detained.

"This was a Friday. On Sunday, 18th April, the next working day, we sent a formal request for consular access to the foreign ministry and we followed this up with phone calls," he said.

The High Commission spokesperson said it usually takes about six to eight weeks for the Bangladesh government to give consular access.

However, he said on April 29, two weeks after his arrest, the British mission received a letter from Moustafa's UK solicitors containing allegations that he was being mistreated.

On that day, he said that the High Commission sent an "urgent access request" to the foreign ministry and two days later, on May 1, it received permission to see him. The next day, consular officials met Moustafa at Dhaka Central Jail.

The spokesperson declined to comment on what Moustafa had told the officials when they had met. "Anything that was said in that conversation is confidential," he said.

The spokesperson told bdnews24.com that prior to this meeting, no British government official had any contact or conversations with either Moustafa or the law-enforcing officers that were involved in his detention.

"On the question of allegation of torture, we take any such allegations very seriously. The UK government's position on torture is clear. We condemn it wholeheartedly. We do not torture people and we do not ask others to do so on our behalf," he said.

He added that a further application for consular access had been sought from the Bangladesh authorities.

"We will continue to offer Moustafa appropriate help and support in accordance with our consular responsibilities," he stated.

Moustafa was arrested in Sylhet for trying to organise and strengthen HuJI.

The alleged militant was earlier arrested on Dec 2, 2007 from a house in the capital's Bashundhara residential area, where allegedly a pistol and five books calling for holy war were found in his possession.

For this offence, Mostafa was sentenced to 17 years in prison in Bangladesh but secured bail from the High Court.

Boy survives as over 100 die in Libya plane crash

A Libyan plane arriving from South Africa disintegrated on landing at Tripoli airport Wednesday, killing more than 100 people but an eight-year-old Dutch boy was a miracle survivor, officials said.

Libyan television showed teams of emergency workers sifting through the wreckage of the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330, which was scattered in a wide arc across the landing area.

"It exploded on landing and totally disintegrated," one security official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate official word on the cause of the crash, which occurred as the plane was landing at around 6:00 am (0400 GMT).

The airline listed 93 passengers and 11 crew members on board its flight 8U771 from Johannesburg.

"I can confirm the crash but not the number of the dead," said Bongani Sithole, an official of the airline at Johannesburg airport. "We hear that it happened one metre (yard) away from the runway."

A Libyan security official earlier told AFP that all those on board the flight had died but an airport official said in fact an eight-year-old boy from the Netherlands had miraculously survived and was rushed to hospital near Tripoli. He could give no details on the condition of the boy.

The crew members were all Libyan nationals, the official added.

An AFP correspondent said the crash site had been sealed off by security officials and ambulances and emergency vehicles were seen rushing between the airport and the capital, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) apart.

The wreckage could be seen in the distance but no plumes of smoke were evident. Weather conditions were good at Tripoli on Wednesday morning, with only light clouds in the sky.

Afriqiyah Airways said on its website that it operates an Airbus fleet.

It started operations with five leased planes and signed a contract with Airbus at an exhibition in Paris in 2007 for the purchase of 11 new planes, the website said.

It was founded in April 2001 and at first fully owned by the Libyan state. The company?s capital was later divided into shares to be managed by the Libya-Africa Investment Portfolio.

On April 21, the airline announced that flights were back to normal after disruptions due to the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that grounded flights in Europe last month.

Last June, a 12-year-old girl was the sole survivor of a Yemeni plane crash off the Comoros.

Wednesday's crash was the deadliest air accident in Libya since December 22, 1992 when a Libyan Arab Airlines plane crashed near Tripoli airport killing 157 people.

Twenty-two people were killed in an oil company plane crash in January 2000.

In other major accidents, 79 people were killed when a Korean Air crashed in Tripoli in July 1989.

And 59 people died in a Balkan Bulgarian Airlines crash near Benghazi in December 1977, while 36 passengers and crew died when a Central African Airways came down in August 1958, also near Benghazi in eastern Libya.

New coalition government sets out agenda

The first coalition government since 1945 unveiled its ministerial team on Wednesday and said it would speed up efforts to cut the country's budget deficit as it emerges from a deep recession.

New Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives struck a coalition deal with the third-placed Liberal Democrats that aims to overcome their ideological differences, but which critics say could lead to instability.

The coalition must cut a budget deficit running at more than 11 percent of GDP. It adopted Conservative plans to cut 6 billion pounds of spending this financial year, earlier than the Liberal Democrats wanted.

"No government in modern times has ever been left with such a terrible economic inheritance," Cameron told a joint news conference with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. "We know there will be difficult decisions ahead."

Clegg, who is the new deputy prime minister, said the government would be "radical and reforming" when needed and a source of stability.

"At a time of such enormous difficulties, our country needed a strong and stable government," he said.

The coalition's plans include:

- Introduction of a banking levy;

- Commission to investigate the possibility of separating retail and investment banking;

- Plans to give Bank of England control of macro-prudential regulation and oversight of micro-prudential regulation;

- Raising non-business capital gains tax to bring it close to income tax levels;

- Cap on non-EU immigration.

The agreement, reached early on Wednesday five days after an inconclusive election, ended 13 years of rule by the centre-left Labour Party under Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown.

"There is going to be a significant acceleration in the reduction of the structural budget deficit," new chancellor George Osborne told reporters.

Markets welcomed the agreement, hopeful a government led by the Conservatives would take swift action to cut the country's debts. Gilt futures jumped and sterling enjoyed a strong performance overnight, losing some ground later to trade broadly steady against the dollar.

The Conservatives are traditionally seen as hawkish on defence, and stocks in the sector were up 2.35 percent on the FTSE 350 index.

MINISTERIAL TEAM
Former Conservative deputy leader William Hague is the new foreign secretary and Ken Clarke will run the justice department. Lib Dem Vince Cable, a former economist, is the new business secretary.

Cameron, a 43-year-old former public relations executive, took over as prime minister after Brown admitted defeat in efforts to broker a deal with the LibDems. He is Britain's youngest prime minister in almost 200 years.

The Conservatives are parliament's largest party after last week's election but fell 20 seats short of an outright majority. With the LibDems, they will have a majority of 76 seats.

Thai election plan scrapped as tensions rise

The Thai government on Wednesday cancelled plans for a November election and scrapped talks with protesters occupying Bangkok's commercial district for nearly six weeks, but softened its line on an earlier crackdown threat.

Hours after announcing they would shut off power and cut water supplies from midnight to thousands of anti-government protesters, authorities postponed the plan, saying it would hurt residents in the ritzy district more than the demonstrators.

But the government said it would take other measures to seal off the central Bangkok area packed with hotels, embassies, businesses, high-end apartments and two public hospitals.

"Tonight, we will start preventing taxis and cars delivering protesters into the area and tomorrow, we will divert some public transportation into the area as well," army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd told reporters. "Details are still being worked out."

The threats follow the unravelling of a peace plan proposed last week by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to end a political crisis that has killed 29 people, paralysed parts of Bangkok and slowed growth in Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy.

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Leaders of the mostly rural and urban poor protesters remained defiant, refusing to leave their 3 sq km (1.2 sq mile) encampment and challenging the government from behind medieval-like walls built of tyres and sharpened bamboo staves.

"We will die here if we must. Your threat will not work," Nattawut Saikua, a protest leader, told cheering supporters after the government said it may use force to disperse them if other measures failed.

The decision to postpone cutting off water and power followed outcry by residents, thousands of whom were urged by their landlords to leave and find temporary accommodation.

Several diplomats, meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, expressed concern over how the hastily announced measures would affect their embassies, according an Asian diplomatic source present at the meeting.

Severing supplies would have presented a huge logistical challenge and may not have even worked. The protesters said they would survive with their own power generators and food sources.

Attempts to intercept their supplies also risked clashes on the fringes of the area or inside their sprawling tented camp, where women and children were among about 6,000 protesters.

SQUEEZING ECONOMY

"I don't see how cutting supplies could be effective," said Karn Yuenyong, director of independent think-tank Siam Intelligence Unit. "It's not an easy task and may not be worth it, especially if protesters can bypass it."

He said it could also spark violence following a series of clashes, grenade attacks and shootings since April 10, when a failed attempt to disperse protesters in another area of Bangkok led to a night of fighting that killed 25 people.

"A resolution without a clash is becoming increasingly unlikely," he added.

Thailand's finance minister said the crisis could trim 0.3 percentage point off Thailand's targeted annual growth rate this year of 4.5 to 5 percent.

Abhisit had offered an election on Nov. 14 -- a year before one is due -- to try to end rallies that began in mid-March with a demand for an immediate poll.

The red-shirted protesters, mostly supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a coup in 2006, accepted the election date -- an offer now withdrawn -- but are pushing other demands.

They say the British-born, Oxford-educated Abhisit lacks a popular mandate after coming to power in a parliamentary vote 17 months ago and heading a coalition the military helped cobble together after the courts dissolved a pro-Thaksin party.

Some of their leaders now face terrorism charges connected to the protests and say they will only disperse if a deputy prime minister faces criminal charges over the April 10 clash, accusing the government of double standards.

At the protest site, where a ramshackle network of tents, trailers, food stalls and mobile toilets has spread across some of the capital's smartest streets, there was no sign of protesters packing up or greater security force activity.

"It just shows they are not interested in making up," said Komsan Sukpradit, a 48-year-old red shirt guard patrolling the area after getting blessed by a chanting Buddhist monk. "They will crush us given a chance and we can't let that happen."

Sirinaj Jantoh, who works at a marketing agency in the area, said she feared the government's threat may escalate tension.

"It's going to make it harder to come in to work," she said. "Maybe we will work from home for a while, especially if there is no power. I just hope the red shirts leave soon -- they have caused enough trouble already."

The protests are the latest instalment in a political crisis that has festered since Thaksin's populist premiership, exposing deep divisions between the rural and urban poor and the Bangkok middle classes and traditional royalist elite.

Foreign investors have turned negative since violence flared in April and have sold 17.4 billion baht ($539 million) in Thai shares in the past five sessions, cutting their net buying so far this year to 21 billion baht as of Tuesday.

War crimes probe chief resigns

War crimes probe chief Abdul Matin has resigned, home state minister Shamsul Haq Tuku tells bdnews24.com.

Tuku said on Wednesday, "Matin submitted his resignation voluntarily to the home secretary in the morning."

On 25 March, the government formed a tribunal to try people alleged to have committed war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War. On the same day the seven-member investigation agency was also constituted, with Matin as its chief.

Matin's resignation came days after a government advisor alleged that Matin was an activist of the Islami Chhatra Shangha (ICS), student wing of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami.

ICS members have been accused of taking part in war crimes during 1971, in particular relating to the abduction of intellectuals mainly on Dec 14-15, 1971 just days before the surrender of Pakistan army on Dec 16.

Matin has however strenuously denied any involvement in Islamist politics.

Prime minister's advisor on education, social development and political affairs Alauddin Ahmed on Apr 30 alleged that Matin had run for a college election backed by the defunct Islami Chhatra Shangha, predecessor to the Islami Chhatra Shibir.

He said, "The investigating agency chief was a presidential contender backed by Chhatra Shangha at the college."

"With him heading the agency, it is easy to conceive the future of the trial, the matter should be treated seriously," the advisor had added.

He also said one of the investigation agency's members had refused to start work, apparently for his lack of confidence in the probe chief.

But Matin, a former bureaucrat, on May 2 said that he had run for the vice presidency at BM College students' union elections as an independent candidate in 1963.

Matin said after completing his master's, he joined the Mymensingh Judges' Court as a civil judge at the end of 1971, when the Liberation War was still on, considering his family's welfare and the 'overall situation'.

"Doing a job and being a razakar (collaborator) are not the same."

Denying the allegation, he said, "I have never been involved with any political party since my student days until now."

Asked following Ahmed's accusations if he would resign, Matin had said, "The government has appointed me in this position. I will decide if it wants me to."