Obama seeks new partnership with Pakistan

WASHINGTON:  The Washington Post reports that the White House is seeking to bring Pakistan into a new strategic partnership that would increase trade and military cooperation between the two nations.

The newspapers said Monday that President Barack Obama's offer was in a two-page letter this month to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. The letter, delivered by national security adviser James Jones, included a blunt warning that the U.S. would not tolerate support within Pakistan's military and intelligence operations of insurgents fighting in Afghanistan.

The letter, the Post said, also assured the Pakistanis that the U.S. would increase its efforts in Afghanistan and plans no early pullout.

The Post says Pakistan has been the subject of a long strategy review that concluded that a failure in Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, would be far worse than in Afghanistan.

Saddam ordered attack on Radio Free Europe: TV

PRAGUE:  Saddam Hussein ordered his secret agents to attack the Prague headquarters of U.S. run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to end broadcasting to Iraq, a Czech intelligence service spokesman said on Sunday.

The attack was ordered by the then Iraqi leader in 2000 and Iraqi intelligence agents planned to use weapons including rocket propelled grenades, Kalashnikov rifles and submachine guns, spokesman Jan Subert told Czech TV Nova.

"Saddam Hussein ordered his intelligence to violently disrupt Iraqi broadcasting of the Radio Free Europe and for this operation he provided significant financial means," Subert told the station.

He said the weapons had been stockpiled for the attack after they were brought into the country in an Iraqi diplomatic car.

It was not known when the attack was due to take place but Subert told the television station that Czech intelligence discovered the plot and the Iraqis submitted the weapons to Czech authorities in 2003.

The plan was for the attack to take place from the window of a nearby flat that the Iraqis planned to rent as an office for a fake company, he said.

There were fears the broadcaster, financed by the U.S. Congress, might be target of an attack after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

In 2003, the police and the army temporarily boosted security in and around the radio station's offices, located at the top of Wenceslas square in the historic centre of Prague at an old communist parliament premises.

The headquarters have since been moved to a new closely guarded building in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Prague.

Nepal govt heads to Everest for landmark meet

NEPAL:  Nepal's cabinet will meet in the shadow of Mount Everest next week to highlight the impact of global warming on the Himalayas ahead of United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen, officials said Saturday.

Twenty-six ministers, together with staff, will travel to the town of Gorakshep, high up in the foothills of Everest, for the special climate-themed meeting, said Bishnu Rijal, press advisor to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal.

"We're going to host a ministerial level cabinet meeting on Friday, December 4 at Gorakshep to draw the attention of the whole world" to the effects of global warming on the Himalayas, he told AFP.

"Our glaciers are melting and glacial lakes are growing and are on the verge of overflowing. That will create a Himalayan tsunami. Even though we do not contribute to global warming, our country is highly vulnerable."

The U.N. talks, aimed at setting targets to curb greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, take place Dec. 7-18.

Gorakshep, a sandy plateau 5,165 meters (17,000 feet) above sea level, is the last village before the Everest base camp and the place from where mountaineers seeking to climb the celebrated peak set out.

Originally the cabinet planned to meet at the base camp itself, a little higher at 5,360 meters (17,585 feet).

But the venue was changed as it was too difficult to get all the ministers and officials there by helicopter, Rijal said.

Russia train disaster was terrorist attack: official

RUSSIA:  A train disaster that killed more than 39 people and injured 100 was caused by a bomb, indicating it was a terrorist attack, the head of Russia's FSB domestic intelligence service said on Saturday.

The alleged attack on an upscale passenger train speeding through the forest from Moscow to Saint Petersburg mangled and overturned carriages across the tracks and down the railway embankment as scores of orange-vested rescue workers searched urgently for further victims that could be trapped under the wreckage.

The incident occurred late Friday and targeted the same train hit by a bomb attack in August 2007 that injured dozens of passengers, and officials said they believed the latest incident was also caused by a bomb.

"Operational-investigative teams are treating as their main theory the detonation of an unidentified device by unidentified persons," Vladimir Yakunin, head of the state firm Russian Railways, said earlier on television.

"To put it simply, a terrorist attack," Yakunin said.

Witnesses including passengers on the train and inhabitants living near the site said they heard a loud bang just before the train went off the rails and police told AFP at the site there was a large crater under the track.

An unnamed security official quoted by the Interfax news agency said the crater was around one meter (three feet) in diameter.

A blast along the track in the 2007 attack ripped out a long segment of rail, causing the train to careen off the tracks.

The crater could have been caused by an "explosion from a device placed underneath one of the wagons," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted another security official as saying.

There were conflicting reports on the death toll, but Alexander Basulin, an official at the emergency situations ministry, was quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency as saying "in all, there are 39" dead.

Basulin said this number comprised 25 victims found immediately and another 14 people discovered later, outside the train carriages.
Health Minister Tatyana Golikova said 95 people were injured and hospitalized.

Saudi flashfloods kill 77 as Muslims perform Hajj

Floods gridlocked major roads by traffic in Saudi

JEDDAH: A day-long downpour fouled the start of the annual Hajj (pilgrimage) on Wednesday, soaking thousands of people as they walked from Mecca to Mina and killing up to 77 people with the number expected to rise. Flashfloods also caused snarling traffic that trapped buses for hours.

Millions of Muslims from around the world continued their pilgrimage on Thursday in the holy city of Mecca as Hajj reached its climax with pilgrims ascending to the top of Mount Arafat, which is the integral part of the annual event.

Pilgrims then made their mass move (nafra) from Mount Arafat to Muzdalifah after sunset to continue the remaining rituals of the annual Hajj within the coming few days.