Inter-Korean summit possible despite shelling: S.Korea

SEOUL — South Korea's President Lee Myung-Bak has expressed willingness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, despite this week's shelling by the communist state which raised tensions on the peninsula.

"I'm always ready to meet with Chairman Kim Jong-Il," Lee said in an interview with the BBC Thursday in Davos, where he attended an economic forum.

His office released a transcript Friday.

"However, if we meet, we have to engage in fruitful dialogue and hold enough discussions on the North Korean nuclear issue," Lee said.

"When we get into a situation where (such a summit) may be helpful for peace on the Korean peninsula and the settlement of the nuclear issue, there is no reason why I can't meet him, even within this year."

North Korea Thursday staged a second day of live-fire artillery exercises near its tense sea border with South Korea, ignoring criticism from Seoul and Washington.

Seoul's military reported no shelling Friday as of mid-morning.

But Yonhap news agency said the North was carrying out ground, sea and air military exercises.

The agency, quoting a military source, said air force jet fighters were staging a combat exercise. South Korean aircraft -- in their customary response -- scrambled in a counter-manoeuvre.

The North's ground troops were staging a field exercise by mechanised brigades and navy warships were holding an exercise near their bases, the agency said.

The defence ministry could not immediately confirm the report.

Lee said the North's recent actions could be aimed at delaying its return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks, or pressing demands for a peace treaty with the United States and inter-Korean dialogue.

"However, this is not a good method," he said.

Before it returns to the nuclear disarmament negotiations, Pyongyang wants Washington to agree to discuss a formal peace treaty to replace the 1950-53 Korean War armistice.

Analysts have said the North is raising tensions with its shelling to show that a peace pact on the heavily armed peninsula is necessary.

Lee told the BBC that Pyongyang is playing for time by making a gesture towards dialogue instead of giving up its nuclear weapons.

He said the North does not face an imminent collapse.

Kim has somewhat recovered from health problems and the country's long-standing economic difficulties would not trigger an immediate breakdown, the South Korean leader said.

Media reports have said the two Koreas held talks last year about a possible summit following months of hostility, but talks broke down due to differences over conditions.

They went ahead with summits in 2000 and 2007.

Qaeda says CIA attack 'revenge' for drone killings: SITE

KABUL — Al-Qaeda hailed the suicide bombing at a CIA base in Afghanistan that killed seven agents as "revenge" for the deaths of top militants in US drone strikes, the monitoring group SITE said Thursday.

A Jordanian identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi who was said to be a triple agent blew himself up at the base in Khost near the Pakistani border on December 30 in the deadliest attack against the CIA since 1983.

The head of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, said the bomber wrote in his will that the attack was revenge for "our righteous martyrs" and named several top militants killed in drone attacks in Pakistan, SITE reported.

These included Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban blamed for a wave of deadly attacks including the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

Mehsud was killed when a US missile slammed into his father-in-law's house on August 5 last year.

Another militant named was Abu Saleh al-Somali, described as part of Al-Qaeda's core leadership and responsible for plotting attacks in Europe and the United States, was killed in a drone strike in the North Waziristan area in December last year.

The area is a stronghold of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who fought with the Taliban when US-led troops invaded Afghanistan and is reputed to control up to 2,000 fighters whom he sends across the border but who do not attack in Pakistan.

Washington has put Pakistan at the heart of a new strategy for turning around the eight-year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, hinging success on dismantling militant sanctuaries along the porous border.

Attacks by unmanned US spy planes have soared in the past year, while the extremists have vowed fierce retaliation.

Jihadist websites have said that Balawi was a triple agent who duped Western intelligence services for months before turning on his handlers.

The Jordanian intelligence services, believing the bomber to be their double agent, took him to eastern Afghanistan with the mission of finding Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, the websites and Western intelligence agents cited by US media said.

He blew himself up at Forward Operating Base Chapman, killing seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, a top intelligence officer and member of the royal family.

Intelligence experts said it was possible that the base let its guard down in searching the bomber because he was a coveted informant.

It was the deadliest single incident for the CIA since 1983, when eight agency employees were believed to have been among the dead when Islamic militants bombed the US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans and 58 French.

The attack came as the United States increasingly relies on the CIA and other covert forces to pursue strategic goals. CIA and special forces were at the forefront of the US invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks, paving the way to overthrow the Taliban's extremist regime.

The attack also killed two contractors with XE, the controversial private security firm once known as Blackwater, US media reported.

The two apprently were among seven CIA operative and a Jordanian intelligence officer killed in the December 30 attack, reportedly by a Jordanian double agent who blew himself up inside Forward Operating Base Chapman. Related article: Blackwater staff among CIA-base victims: reports

Their deaths were reported by local newspapers in Washington state and Virginia.

Vatican to review security after attack on Pope

It was the first time a potential attacker came into direct contact with Benedict during his nearly five-year papacy.

Virtually anyone can get into a papal mass: tickets are required but are easy to get if requested in advance. Identification cards are not necessary to gain entrance, although visitors must pass through a metal detector.

Spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said it's not realistic to think the Vatican can ensure 100 per cent security for the Pope considering he is regularly surrounded by tens of thousands of people for his weekly audiences, masses, papal greetings and other events.

The Pope is protected by a combination of Swiss Guards, Vatican police and Italian police. When he moves around St. Peter's Square during his weekly Wednesday audience, he does so in an uncovered white jeep; when he travels overseas or outside the Vatican, he usually uses one outfitted with bulletproof glass.

There have been other security breaches at the Vatican.

In 2007, during an open-air audience in St. Peter's Square, a mentally unstable German man jumped a security barrier and grabbed the back of the pope's open car before being swarmed by security guards.

In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in the abdomen by Turkish gunman as he rode in an open jeep at the start of his weekly audience in the Vatican piazza.

Attacker taken for treatment

His alleged attacker was taken to a clinic for treatment.

In 2008, she had also attempted to jump the barricade but was tackled by security before she could reach the Pope.

On Thursday night, the Pope was attacked while walking down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass. The Pope was dragged down, after which Maiolo, who was not armed, was swarmed by bodyguards.

Benedict lost his miter and his staff in the fall. He remained on the floor for a few seconds before being helped back up by attendants. At that point, a few shouts of "Viva il papa!" (Long live the Pope!) rang out, followed by cheers from the faithful.

After the incident, Benedict, flanked by tense bodyguards, resumed his walk to the main altar. He appeared somewhat shaken, and leaned heavily on aides and an armrest as he sat down in his chair.

Vatican to review security after attack on Pope

The Vatican will review security procedures after a woman jumped a barrier and rushed at Pope Benedict for the second time in two years, managing to knock him down before being pulled away by security, a spokesman said Friday.

While Benedict, 82, was unhurt in the fall, a retired Vatican diplomat, Roger Cardinal Etchegaray, 87, suffered a broken hip in the commotion.

The incident in St. Peter's Basilica raised fresh questions about security for the pontiff after officials said the woman involved had jumped the barrier at the 2008 midnight mass in a failed bid to get to the pontiff. She even wore the same red-hooded sweat shirt.

Vatican officials said the woman, identified as Susanna Maiolo, 25, was a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems.

Just hours after the incident, Benedict delivered his traditional Christmas Day greetings in 65 languages from the loggia overlooking St. Peter's Square.

Preparing to deliver his speech, the Pope seemed a bit shaky but showed no signs of any problems once he began speaking. He did not mention the incident.

Instead, he spoke on a number of themes, saying humanity has been affected by the "grave financial crisis," but even more by a moral crisis and "the wounds of wars and conflicts."

The 82-year-old Pope also spoke about the troubles in the Middle East and the "little flock" of Christians who live in the region.

"At times it is subject to violence and injustice, but it remains determined to make its own contribution to the building of a society opposed to the logic of conflict and the rejection of one's neighbour," he said.

He spoke of the Roman Catholic Church’s role active role in imploring an end to injustice in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and called on those in Madagascar to overcome their divisions

Turning his attention to North America and Europe, he said the church has been urging people to leave behind their "selfish" mentality, "to advance the common good and to show respect for the persons who are most defenceless, starting with the unborn.”

Palestinian village caught amid Israel settlements

QARIOUT, West Bank — In this West Bank village surrounded by Israeli settlements, a Palestinian farmer says he has documents proving he owns his land. On a nearby hill, Jewish settler Batya Medad says she too has proof of ownership — the Old Testament.

This quarrel over the land Palestinians claim for their future state is the chief roadblock in Middle East peace efforts.

Mohammed Muqbil was born in this West Bank village in 1939; Medad has lived in neighboring Shiloh since its creation four decades later. They speak different languages and have never met, though their homes lie less than a mile apart.

And between them lies the harsh conflict over Israel's West Bank settlements.

The Palestinians have refused to resume negotiations until all settlement building stops. Last month, Israel's government announced a 10-month halt to new construction in hopes of bringing the Palestinians to the table. But east Jerusalem and some 3,000 homes already under construction were exempt and the Palestinians rejected it.

Qariout, a rocky village of 2,600 people about 20 miles north of Jerusalem, illustrates why Palestinians are desperate to halt the spread of Jewish settlements.

Beyond the political issue of their effect on borders for any future Palestinian state, settlements restrict daily life in hundreds of West Bank villages and gobble up farmland — Qariout has lost two-thirds of its land since 1979.

That was the year Shiloh was founded — the first settlement created in the area. Two other settlements have since sprung up, along with six smaller wildcat outposts, which, although illegal under Israeli law, get electricity, water and protection from the government.

Together, they surround Qariout on three sides and deny it access to about two-thirds of its land, according to the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, which tracks settlements.

The Israeli government has officially allocated 28 percent of the village's original 2,100 acres to nearby settlements, said Dror Etkes of Yesh Din. Another 35 to 40 percent has been taken unofficially by settlers or the Israeli army, he said.

Settlers sometimes fence off or cultivate plots, chasing off Palestinians who try to reach them, Etkes said. At other times, Israeli authorities seize land to build army posts or roads between settlements. Once a road is built, villagers can rarely reach the land beyond it, he said.

At the same time, Israel refuses to let the village pave the mile-long road to the highway and regularly bulldozes it shut, calling it "illegal" and forcing villagers to make a 13-mile detour.

Muqbil said he has lost two of his three plots to settlements. The army confiscated one in 1982 and settlers now grow grapes on it. Settlers chased him from another in 2003, then planted olive trees, he said.

His remaining plot, near the Shvut Rachel settlement, has been a battleground since 2000. Settlers have plowed up his wheat, harvested his olives, prevented him from working and even beat him up, he said. In 2007, a settler uprooted his 300 trees with a bulldozer.

Muqbil's father farmed the plots before the 70-year-old farmer was born, and Muqbil said he has documents from Israel and Jordan, ruler of the West Bank until 1967, proving his ownership.

He also keeps an inch-thick stack of Israeli police reports he filed after each incident — all to no avail, he said.

Yesh Din has documented 14 incidents near Qariout of criminal trespassing and attacks on Palestinians by settlers in the last two years.

But complaints rarely bear fruit.

An Israeli police statement said that of 60 cases involving damaged trees in the West Bank over the past three years, only three brought indictments. That's because the vandalism is often carried out at night by "lone perpetrators" and Palestinians sometimes wait months or years to file complaints, the statement said.

Neta Patrick of Yesh Din's legal team said "such investigations are not the top priority of the Israeli police." Investigators rarely collect forensic evidence or check settlers' alibis when looking into alleged settler crimes, she said.

Muqbil now reaches his remaining field only a few times a year, in coordination with the army. He has planted 70 new olive trees, which won't produce for five years. He worries they won't live that long.

"I'm scared they'll tear them out again," he said.

Shmaya Tiran, a spokesman for the Shvut Rachel settlement, said Muqbil's claims are "lies he tells the media."

"He invaded our land and planted crops, not the other way around. This land belongs to us, not to him. Nobody here attacked him," he said.

Some Israelis view the settlements as a front line of defense against their enemies; others call them a religious imperative.

In Shiloh, a town of 2,200 people, billboards advertise new homes, and foundations have been laid for about 10 new buildings. The community has two schools, a seminary, three synagogues and a swimming pool, said Medad.

The Bible gives Jews the right to live in Shiloh, she said.

"In most of the Western world, when you swear on the Bible, you are swearing that Shiloh is Jewish," she said.

Medad and her husband immigrated from Great Neck, N.Y., to Israel in 1970. She said when they came to Shiloh the hills were covered with wildflowers because "nobody had ever walked here, nobody had cultivated it, nobody owned it."

She is 60 and vows no peace deal can make her leave.

"I don't need anybody's permission to live here. The Jewish people have a long, long history. We don't have to listen to upstarts," she said.

Behind Medad stood about 30 trailers for new residents waiting for homes, followed by rows of greenhouses. Shiloh and its neighbors are surrounded by security roads lined with surveillance cameras, concertina wire and guard dogs every 30 yards to keep Palestinians away and prevent attacks.

Medad denied her Arab neighbors had history in the area and said she rarely thinks about them.

"If they want to live in peace with us, they can stay," she said. "If they don't want peace, then they should go."

In Qariout, Mayor Abdelnasser Bedawi says true peace would require settlers to leave. "How can you make a state when there are settlements all over the West Bank?" he asked.

He recalled his childhood when he'd swim in a local spring and play in a field where his family grew wheat and tomatoes.

Today, he doesn't let his 7-year-old son leave the village for fear he'll run into settlers. He's not sure where the boy would go anyway: Both the field and the spring now lie inside Shiloh.

Associated Press writer Ian Deitch contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

Mugabe: Zimbabwe's unity govt has 'short life'

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said Saturday the unity government is short-lived and he plans to regain his hold over the country he has ruled for nearly three decades.

Mugabe appeared triumphant after being re-elected to the leadership of his ZANU-PF party, which has been severally weakened after it lost its parliamentary majority in last year's contested elections.

The 85-year-old leader was forced into a power-sharing deal with former rivals after the 2008 poll, but many fear it is doomed to fail as Mugabe clings on to power.

"The inclusive government has a short life of 24 months," he said. "So we must be ready for the elections and we must not be defeated like we were last year. We must win resoundingly and regain the constituents we lost."

A new election date has not been set, but many observers fear that the build up will see the return of the violence that has marred previous polls.

Joice Mujuru, a former guerrilla fighter in the bush war, retained her post of second vice president. John Nkomo was elected as the party's other vice president to replace Joseph Msika, who died this year.

Zimbabwe's ambassador to South Africa, Simon Khaya Moyo, will take over from Nkomo as party chairman.

The party has been long divided over who should eventually succeed Mugabe, but the liberation hero has thwarted any challenges to his leadership.

On Friday, Mugabe lashed out at about 10,000 delegates, saying infighting was "eating" the party and had cost them last year's election.

Election officials declared a runoff was necessary after the 2008 vote, but opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai dropped out, citing attacks against his supporters. Mugabe was later declared the winner, but he formed the unity government in February with Tsvangirai as prime minister.

Zimbabwe is struggling to emerge from political gridlock, economic collapse and international isolation and sanctions.

Critics blame Mugabe's land reform policies for Zimbabwe's economic meltdown after he ordered the seizures of thousands of white-owned farms in 2000, disrupting the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket.

However, on Saturday, Mugabe remained characteristically defiant.

"Land reform is irreversible," he said. "We took the land and we are not going to hand it to the white farmers."

Italian police arrest Mafia number two in Sicily

ROME — Italian police arrested two Mafia leaders on Saturday, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said, a day after he was accused of links to the organisation.

Gianni Nicchi, the 28-year-old thought to be the Mafia's second in command, was found hiding in an apartment a few hundred metres (yards) from the main court in Palermo, Sicily, Berlusconi told journalists.

Police also arrested alleged Mafia number three Gaetano Fidanzati, 74, on a street in the northern city of Milan, Berlusconi said.

"This is the best response to all the slander made by irresponsible people who, by doing this, are only slinging mud" at Italy, Berlusconi said.

Bersluconi appeared to be referring to testimony by an ex-Mafia member on Friday that mob chief Giuseppe Graviano had said Berlusconi and one of the future prime minister's allies, Senator Marcello Dell'Utri, had aided the Mafia.

The crime boss said he "got everything thanks to the reliability of these people," before giving the names of Berlusconi and Dell'Utri, the turncoat Gaspare Spatuzza told a Turin court.

Graviano said the Sicilian Mafia had "the country in their hands" thanks to the help they received, Spatuzza said.

Both Berlusconi and Dell'Utri have vehemently denied ties to the Mafia, and after Saturday's arrests, the prime minister repeated his assertion that his government "had done more than any other to fight organised crime in the last 20 years".

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni welcomed the arrests, while national anti-Mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso said Nicchi had been last major Palermo criminal at large.

"If we carry on like this, there will be no names left on the list of 30 most wanted criminals," he said.

Nicchi, the son of a Mafia criminal serving a life sentence, was sentenced to 18 years in jail in January 2008 for extortion and Mafia links

A crowd gathered at the Palermo police station to see him arrive, and officers were clearly overjoyed at the arrest.

Fidanzati was freed from prison in 2006 but wanted on suspicion of Mafia links since December 2008.

Blair adviser: US did not expect to stabilize Iraq

LONDON — American troops did not expect to play a role in stabilizing Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, a key adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday.

David Manning, who served as a Blair's top foreign policy aide before being appointed ambassador to Washington in 2003, told a British inquiry into the Iraq war the American military did not believe peacekeeping was their responsibility.

"The American military thought that they were fighting a war and when the war was over they were expecting to go home," he said.

Manning said British troops in Basra talked to local people, but that American troops were not willing to do the same.

"I was very struck ... by the reluctance of U.S. soldiers to get out of their tanks, to take off their helmets and to trying to build up links with local communities," he said. "They looked still much more in fighting mode than in peacekeeping mode."

He also said he believed Paul Bremer — the U.S. diplomat charged with overseeing the reconstruction of Iraq — made the situation worse by disbanding the army and trying to bar members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party from public life.

The inquiry, which is in its second week, is not set up to apportion blame or hold anyone liable for the conflict, but it does have the potential to embarrass officials in the U.S. and Britain who argued — wrongly — that the war was justified because Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction and building close links with al-Qaida.

Jeremy Greenstock, the former British ambassador to the United Nations, told the inquiry on Friday that the U.S. was "hell bent" on war with Iraq from the very beginning and undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the invasion. Manning's predecessor as ambassador to the United States, Christopher Meyer, also testified that the U.S. was looking for connections between Iraq and Sept. 11 within hours of the attacks.

Manning echoed Meyer's claim, saying that then-President George W. Bush talked about possible links between Saddam Hussein, al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden right after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, but that Blair had counseled caution.

"The prime minister's response to this was that the evidence would have to be very compelling indeed to justify taking any action against Iraq," Manning said, adding that the British leader followed the conversation up with a letter stressing the need to focus on the situation in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida was based.

Manning said Blair had initially said Britain could only support the United States in military action against Iraq through the United Nations, though he did later accept that military action may be possible during a meeting with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002.

"I look back at Crawford as the moment that he (Blair) was saying: 'Yes, there is a route through this that is an international, peaceful one, and it is through the U.N. But if it doesn't work, we will be willing to undertake regime change.'"

Manning said Blair asked British officials to present him with some options for military operations in Iraq in June and July 2002, though he did not want to make a firm decision at the time.

Over the weekend, Blair denied that he had tried to gag his main legal advisor Peter Goldsmith after he questioned the legality of the Iraq war in a letter.

The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that Blair sidelined Goldsmith after the letter, but when asked by CNN on Sunday if it was true that he had bullied Goldsmith into keeping quiet, Blair replied: "No, its not."

Blair refused to comment further on the claims, saying: "I think the best thing with this inquiry is actually to let us all give our evidence to the inquiry."

World powers draft resolution on Iran for IAEA meet: diplomats

VIENNA — World powers have drafted a resolution to be voted on by the UN atomic watchdog later this week condemning Iran for concealing a second uranium enrichment site, diplomats said on Tuesday.

The five permanent members of the United States Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany have drawn up a draft resolution to put to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency at a two-day meeting starting Thursday, a western diplomat told AFP.

But it was not yet certain whether the text would win the support of the majority of board members in negotiations ahead of the meeting, so the so-called P5+1 may finally decide to issue it merely as a statement rather than put it to the vote, another diplomat said.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the matter.

The IAEA has not adopted a resolution on Iran since February 2006. But Iran's shock revelation in September that it has been building a second enrichment plant -- in defiance of UN sanctions to halt uranium enrichment altogether -- has enraged even Russia and China, which have previously been reluctant to join western countries' call for tougher action against Iran.

The P5+1 met in Brussels last week where there was a high level of agreement on the seriousness of the latest revelation, the diplomats said.

Iran revealed to the IAEA in September that it had built a second uranium enrichment plant inside a mountain near Qom, triggering new outrage in the West over the nuclear drive, even though Iran denies it is trying to build a bomb.

Iran has been enriching uranium for several years at a plant in the central city of Natanz, in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions. Uranium is used for fuel for civilian reactors, but in highly enriched form can also make the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

In its first official report since IAEA experts inspected the Qom site last month, the watchdog complained a week ago that Tehran's delay in disclosure "does not contribute to the building of confidence."

Iran said the site was planned as a back-up plant should the Natanz plant be bombed.

During their visit to the Qom site, IAEA inspectors verified that the plant was built to contain around 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges, but experts say that would not be sufficient to cover a civilian power programme,

The Natanz plant currently has around 8,000 centrifuges installed.