Tamil Rebels Say New Leader Arrested

COLOMBO — Sri Lankan authorities questioned the new leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels Friday after he was arrested in Southeast Asia and flown to this island nation.

Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the insurgent group's former chief arms smuggler, assumed the leadership of the Tamil Tigers after government forces routed the rebels in May in northern Sri Lanka and killed their revered leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
A Tamil civilian at the Manik Farm refugee camp on the outskirts of the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya in May. Sri Lanka has directed all international relief agencies, including the Red Cross, to scale down operations following the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels. (Photo: AFP)

Pathmanathan was believed to be based in Southeast Asia in recent years and was one of the few rebel leaders to survive the government offensive that demolished the separatists' shadow state in northern Sri Lanka and ended the quarter century civil war.

But as Pathmanathan, known by his nom de guerre KP, worked to revive the Tamil Tigers, the government pushed for his arrest.

The rebels said in a statement that Pathmanathan was arrested Wednesday near a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A pro-rebel Web site said Pathmanathan had gone to the hotel to meet relatives of the group's slain political leader, Balasingham Nadesan. He left the room to answer a phone call, but did not return, it said.

A Malaysian Defense Ministry spokeswoman said the ministry has no information about the reported arrest, and that it would have been handled by the police. She cannot be identified under the ministry's briefing rules.

Malaysian national police chief Musa Hassan said he knew nothing about an arrest and declined to comment further.

Sri Lanka's Island newspaper, quoting anonymous sources, said Pathmanathan had been captured in Thailand.

Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn denied he was arrested there but said there were "reports that he has been traveling in and out of Thailand."

A Thai military intelligence official said Pathamanathan had been hiding in northern Thailand under a false identity in recent months. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the government did not want to acknowledge his presence in the country.

Sri Lanka's military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said Pathmanathan—who was wanted by Interpol—had been brought to Sri Lanka and was being interrogated. He refused to say where Pathmanathan had been arrested or whether the military or police had custody of him.

The arrest was expected to give President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his allies a boost ahead of local government elections Saturday in the northern towns of Jaffna and Vavuniya, just outside the rebels' former heartland.

The government said the polls proved it was returning democracy to the region, but it has been criticized for banning foreign media from traveling to the towns to cover the elections.

The Sri Lankan authorities planned to hold a news conference Friday to discuss the arrest, a major blow to the rebel group's efforts to regroup after its devastating battlefield defeat.

Soon after the defeat, Pathmanathan declared himself the new leader of the Tamil Tigers, swore off violence and worked to transform a group shunned internationally as a terror organization into a democratic movement for Tamil statehood.

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Hiroshima Calls for Abolishing Nuke Weapons

HIROSHIMA — Hiroshima's mayor urged global leaders on Thursday to back President Barack Obama's call to abolish nuclear weapons as Japan marked the 64th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack.

In April, Obama said that the United States—the only nation that has deployed atomic bombs in combat—has a "moral responsibility" to act and declared his goal to rid the world of the weapons.
Doves fly over the Peace Memorial Park with a view of the gutted A-bomb dome at a ceremony in Hiroshima on August 6 to mark the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombing on the city. (Photo: AFP)

At a solemn ceremony to commemorate the victims of the August 6, 1945, attack, Hiroshima's Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba welcomed that commitment.

"We refer to ourselves, the great global majority, as the 'Obamajority,' and we call on the rest of the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020," Akiba said. The bombed-out dome of the building preserved as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial loomed in the background, and hundreds of white doves were released into the air as he finished speaking.

About 50,000 attended the ceremony, including officials and visitors from countries around the world, though the United States did not have an official representative at the ceremony.

Hiroshima was instantly flattened and an estimated 140,000 people were killed or died within months when the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload in the waning days of World War II.

Three days after that attack on Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped a plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II. A total of about 260,000 victims of the attack are officially recognized by the government, including those that have died of related injuries or sickness in the decades since.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso also spoke at Thursday's ceremony, saying he hoped the world would follow Tokyo's efforts to limit nuclear proliferation.
Smoke billowing 20,000 feet above Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, after the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. (Photo: AFP/The National Archives)

"Japan will continue to uphold its three non-nuclear principles and lead the international community toward the abolishment of nuclear weapons and lasting peace," he said.

The three principles state that Japan will not make, own or harbor nuclear weapons.

Later in the day, Aso signed an agreement with a group of atomic bomb survivors who had been seeking recognition and expanded health benefits from the government.

The anniversary passed during a period of heightened tensions in the region, just months after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test blast in May.

A similar ceremony will be held in Nagasaki on Sunday.

Associated Press writer Jay Alabaster contributed to this report.

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Cambodia Bans 'Miss Landmine' Beauty Pageant

PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government said it will not allow a "Miss Landmine" beauty pageant to take place this week, calling it an insult to the disabled.

"The land mine beauty contest would make a mockery of Cambodia's land mine victims," said government spokesman Khieu Khanarith on Monday. "The government does not support this contest."
Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.

The Ministry of Social Affairs sent a letter to the pageant's organizers last week informing them of the ban and saying the contest would damage "the dignity and honor of our disabled."

The contest was scheduled to be held this Friday. The Ministry of Social Affairs was supposed to be one of the pageant's partners, along with the Ministry of Women's Affairs and other groups, according to the pageant's Web site, http://miss-landmine.org/.

The Miss Landmine site says the pageant's goal is to empower its participants and other disabled people and raise awareness about the dangers of land mines.

The Web siteshows photos of the 20 Cambodian contestants, all in crowns and dresses, with missing limbs. They range in age from 18 to 48.

Organizer Morten Traavik said he was "disappointed" with the government's decision but would still hold the contest over the Internet and announce the winner on December 31.

"I am extremely disappointed with the government's decision," Traavik said. "I have tried to find a solution but we cannot reach an agreement."

Traavik launched the first Miss Landmine pageant in Angola in 2007.

An estimated 4 million to 6 million land mines and other unexploded ordinance remain in Cambodia, a legacy from decades of civil war. Hundreds are killed or wounded every year.

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Malaysia Blanketed in Smoke from Indonesian Fires

KUALA LUMPUR — Fires blazing in Indonesia sent a blanket of haze over neighboring Malaysia's largest city on Wednesday, obscuring the sun and leaving an acrid smell in the air.


The pollution caused the air quality to drop to unhealthy levels in Kuala Lumpur and Sarawak state in eastern Malaysia.
Smoke rises from wildfires in Pelalawan, Sumatra island, Indonesia on July 23. Government negligence, rampant development and illegal land clearing often combined to spark wildfires in Indonesia that annually ravage thousands of acres of forest and could cover parts of neighboring Malaysia and Singapore in thick, noxious haze.)

The haze, which can cause health problems, drifts across the region each year in the dry season when Indonesian farmers illegally set brush fires to clear land for planting.

Malaysia's Department of Environment readings showed air quality was "unhealthy" in six areas around Kuala Lumpur and Sarawak — both of which are close to areas in Indonesia. Only three of 50 monitoring stations across Malaysia recorded "good" air quality, while elsewhere it was "moderate."

Visibility in one town in Sarawak was down to less than 800 yards (meters), according to the Meteorological Department. Generally visibility throughout Malaysia was at least 2.5 miles (4 kilometers). Visibility on a clear day exceeds 6 miles (10 kilometers).

Environment Minister Douglas Unggah Embas is scheduled to fly to Riau province in Indonesia to attend a regional meeting on the problem this weekend.

Unggah has reportedly proposed building dams in peat swamps to pull water from them to fight the fires.

Malaysia and Singapore have complained since 1997 about haze drifting from Indonesia. The last time a severe haze affected those countries was in 2006.

The smog causes health problems and losses amounting to billions of dollars from lost tourism revenue and flight delays due to low visibility, among other things.

Indonesia has argued it lacks the money and the ability to stem the illegal practice of setting the fires as well as the resources to effectively fight them.

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Vietnam Says Booting Buddhist Monks Not Repression

HANOI — Monks following a world-famous Buddhist teacher are being evicted from a Vietnamese monastery for failing to clear their activities with the government, an official said Tuesday, but he denied the dispute was about religious freedom.


Followers of Thich Nhat Hanh, who has sold more than 1 million books in the West, say the government is punishing them because their France-based leader suggested that his native Vietnam's communist government should abolish its control of religion.
Buddhist monks display a container holding what is believed to be a relic of Buddha for devotees during a welcoming ceremony for the relics in Hanoi on June 6. (Photo: Reuters)

However, Bui Huu Duoc of the government's Committee on Religious Affairs, blamed the dispute on a failure to abide by local regulations and said it is normal for governments to oversee the operations of religious groups operating within their borders.

"Managing religious groups doesn't mean controlling them," Duoc, who oversees Buddhist affairs for the committee, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're here to facilitate their efforts to do good things for the country."

However, Duoc did allow that officials were "very surprised" at postings on the main Web site for Hanh's main monastery in southern France calling for the government to disband religious police.

Vietnam formally recognizes less than a dozen religions, and they are all required to register with the state.

Hanh's followers have been asked to leave the Bat Nha monastery in the Central Highlands by early September.

Tensions at Bat Nha boiled over in late June, when a mob descended on the site with sledgehammers, damaged buildings and threatened the Plum Village monks and nuns. Authorities also cut off electricity at the site.

The dispute represents a remarkable turnaround from four years ago, when France-based Hanh returned to his native land after 39 years of exile. He had been forced out of what was then US-backed South Vietnam in 1966 for criticizing the Vietnam War. His return in 2005 made the front pages of state-owned newspapers.

Hanh's brand of Buddhism is very popular in the West. Followers from around the world travel to his Plum Village monastery in southern France to study with him. He is perhaps the best known Buddhist after the Dalai Lama.

Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. He is perhaps the best known Buddhist after the Dalai Lama.
When Hanh's followers first came in 2005, Duoc said, Vietnamese authorities approved their activities. But since July 2008, he said, they have offered 11 courses at the Bat Nha monastery without permission.

Hanh's followers say they have kept the official Vietnam Buddhist Church fully informed.

They were invited to practice at Bat Nha by Abbot Duc Nghi during Hanh's 2005 visit and say they have since spent nearly $1 million expanding the property and adding new buildings.

Nghi could not be reached for comment, but Duoc says the abbot now wants the nearly 400 Hanh followers at the monastery to leave.

Hanh's followers believe Nghi is simply responding to pressure from above.

Duoc also said Tuesday that Vietnamese officials were "very surprised" by postings that appeared on the Plum Village Web site in February 2008. These included suggestions that Hanh made to President Nguyen Minh Triet during a 2007 visit to Hanoi, he said.


Among them was a proposal to abolish the Committee on Religious Affairs, disband Vietnam's religious police, and make modifications to the formal names of both the communist party and the state, known as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

"When we first saw that information posted on the Plum Village Web site, we thought it must have been a mistake," Duoc said.

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Massive Turnout for Aquino Cortege in Manila

MANILA — Masses of mourners chanted the name of former President Corazon Aquino as her body was escorted through the Philippine capital's rain-soaked streets Monday.

The five-hour funeral procession, slowed by mobs of followers, traced some of the same streets where hundreds of thousands of protesters—inspired by the woman in a yellow dress—faced down army tanks 23 years ago and ousted a dictator.
Honor guards stand beside the flag-draped casket of the late former Philippines President Corazon Aquino as it passes by the monument of her assassinated husband Benigno Aquino Jr. at Manila's financial district of Makati, Philippines on Monday. (Photo: AP)

On Monday, tens of thousands left their offices, schools and homes and converged on streets and overpasses, clutching clumps of yellow balloons, waving yellow ribbons and showering confetti on Aquino's flag-draped casket, carried on a flatbed truck bedecked with flowers. Yellow was the symbol of the nonviolent mass "people power" uprising that forced Ferdinand Marcos from power in 1986.

As rays of sunshine broke through the clouds, a man on a bicycle released four doves. Manila's notorious traffic came to a standstill as drivers rolled down windows and put out their hands flashing Aquino's trademark "L'' sign for "laban," or "fight" in Filipino, her slogan in the campaign that toppled Marcos' 20-year repressive rule.

Many of the mourners—nuns, priests, students, wealthy residents and their uniformed maids—wore yellow, Aquino's favored color. Huge banners displayed "Thank You Corazon Aquino" and "You're Not Alone"—an Aquino slogan from the 1986 revolt.

Aquino died early Saturday at a Manila hospital after a yearlong battle with colon cancer. She was 76.

From a school stadium where the casket had been open for public viewing since her death Saturday, the motorcade passed by a "people power" shrine on EDSA highway, where hundreds of thousands of her supporters blocked Marcos' tanks in 1986.

Along Ayala Avenue, where Aquino led many pro-democracy marches, employees from high rises rained yellow confetti on the crowds below—reminiscent of the anti-Marcos protests that Aquino led.

"I have not seen a crowd like this," said Franklin Drilon, Aquino's former Cabinet aide. "The people here are very enthusiastic, people in sandals, people in coat and tie, young and old with babies, they're coming out waving."

Instead of the usual stock figures, the Philippine Stock Exchange's streetside neon screen flashed Aquino's favorite nickname with her portrait and a message: "Goodbye Cory and Thank You So Much Cory."

The funeral convoy briefly stopped at a monument to Aquino's assassinated husband, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr.

"I'm looking out the window now, and I see women crying," said daughter Kris Aquino. "I really just appreciate the love. Everybody's saying thank you to us for sharing my mom."

After driving across the congested capital for nearly five hours, Aquino's funeral convoy reached the Manila Cathedral, where her children, former Cabinet members and fellow pro-democracy activists gathered for a Mass.

Her body will lie in state for public viewing until Wednesday's funeral.

Aquino rose to prominence after the 1983 assassination of her husband upon his return from U.S. exile to challenge Marcos. She later led the largest funeral procession Manila had ever seen, with crowd estimates as high as 2 million, and emerged as a leader of a broad-based opposition movement.

Marcos claimed victory over Aquino in a snap 1986 election, but the polls were widely seen as fraudulent. A group of military officers rebelled against him, triggering three days of "people power" protests by hundreds of thousands that finally toppled Marcos.

In office, Aquino struggled to meet high public expectations. Her land redistribution program fell short of ending economic domination by the landed elite.

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Plane Hits Control Tower at Thai Airport

BANGKOK — A plane skidded off the runway and crashed into an air traffic control tower after landing on the Thai resort island of Samui on Tuesday, killing the pilot, an official said.

About 10 people were hospitalized with minor injuries after the Bangkok Airways flight landed in stormy weather and hit the airport's old tower, said Kanikka Kemawutanond, director-general of the Department of Civil Aviation.
A Bangkok Airways plane is seen after it skidded off the runway while attempting to land during heavy rains on Samui island, Surat Thani province in southern Thailand on Tuesday. (Photo: AP)

The nationalities of those on board were not immediately known.

Samui, located 298 miles (480 kilometers) south of Bangkok, is an island in the Gulf of Thailand popular with foreign tourists.

Kanikka said the ATR72 twin-turboprop had 68 passengers, two pilots and two crew members on board and was flying from Krabi, another popular resort area in southern Thailand.

"The weather was very bad during landing with heavy rain and wind," she said.

The plane hit a building that had once been used as an air traffic control tower but is now part of a fire fighting station, police Maj. Col. Sayan Sartsri said.

"The heavy damage was at the front of the plane where the pilot was. It looks like he suffered from the impact," he said. "We still have a few people stuck in the middle of the plane, waiting to be evacuated."

Kanikka said the Samui airport runway was closed after the accident and at least one Thai Airways flight was canceled.

In 1990, a Bangkok Airways turboprop crashed into a coconut grove short of the airport during heavy rain, killing all 37 people on board.

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Southeast Asia Sharing More Intelligence after Jakarta Attacks

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Thailand's Swine Flu Death Toll Doubles

ANGKOK — Thailand's swine flu death toll nearly doubled over the past week with 44 people now dead from the disease, the government said Wednesday.<सपन क्लास="फुल्ल्पोस्त">

The Public Health Ministry last reported 24 swine flu-related fatalities a week ago.

"The rise in the number of deaths were due a fast spread of the disease, delayed medical treatment, and an increase in the cases of severe respiratory infection," said the ministry's Deputy Permanent Secretary Paijit Warachit.

A quarantine officer monitors Liverpool fans walking through a temperature screening at a checkpoint outside the Rajamangala national stadium in Bangkok on July 22. (Photo: Reuters)
"We have now told medical workers to give the anti-viral medicine as soon as the tests return positive to reduce the number of cases of delayed treatment," Paijit said.

The number of people infected with swine flu jumped to 6,776 from 4,517. Thirty-five people infected remained hospitalized with seven in critical condition.

The ministry urged those with flu symptoms to stay away from public places and seek medical attention if they persist after two days, or immediately if they have prior medical conditions.

Hundreds of schools in Bangkok were closed temporarily for cleaning and disinfection.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva acknowledged Wednesday that the disease has spread quickly but said the government has taken all necessary measures to fight the virus.

Abhisit last week said the spread of swine flu will likely continue through at least 2010.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday said the worldwide death toll from swine flu has doubled in the past month, reaching more than 700 since the start of the outbreak.

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Wife of Malaysian Fugitive Militant Detained

AKARTA — A wife of one of Southeast Asia's most-wanted militants was detained for questioning Wednesday after bombings last week at two luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital that killed seven people, local television reported.

Anti-terrorism police detained Ariana Rahma, one of the wives of Malaysian fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top, TVOne and MetroTV said without citing sources.

Police officials contacted by telephone could not confirm the reports.


This photo released by the Indonesian National Police in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, shows police sketches of two men believed to have carried out the suicide bombing attacks on the Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott hotels last week. (Photo: AP/Indonesian National Police)
However, investigators who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media said Rahma was among four people detained in the town of Cilacap in central Java.

They said Rahma was being taken to Jakarta, where suicide bombers at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels killed seven people, including six foreigners, and wounded more than 50 on Friday. It was the first major terrorist attack in Indonesia in nearly four years.

Eleven people remained hospitalized Wednesday.

No suspects have been officially named, but terrorism experts and investigators were quick to blame the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah or its violent offshoots, which carried out a string of al-Qaida-supported attacks between 2002 and 2005.

Noordin joined Jemaah Islamiyah in 1998 after brief training in the southern Philippines.

Counterterrorism police have stepped up the manhunt for Noordin, who has been at large for many years and narrowly escaped capture several times, saying explosives found at the scene Friday were "identical" to those used in earlier blasts.

On Wednesday, Indonesian police issued sketches of the two men believed to have carried out the suicide attacks, while Malaysian police questioned three of Noordin's supporters.

Noordin allegedly planned the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings and attacks on the J.W. Marriott and Australian Embassy in 2003 and 2004. Together they killed more than 240 people.

The latest bombings killed three Australians, a Dutch couple, a New Zealander and an Indonesian cook. One of the Australian victims was the first diplomat from the country to die in a terrorist attack.

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