Haiti quake rescuers find girl alive after 15 days

A 16-year-old girl has been pulled out of the rubble in the Haitian capital, Port-au Prince, 15 days after the earthquake struck, rescuers say.

Darlene Etienne was said to be happy but dehydrated. Rescuers said she had survived by drinking water from a bath.  Her rescue comes five days after Haitian government officially ended the search and rescue operation. Meanwhile President Rene Preval has said parliamentary elections due to be held on 28 February will be postponed. As many as 200,000 people died in the 12 January earthquake. More than 130 people have been pulled alive from the rubble.
Bath water A rescue worker described the discovery of the teenager, two weeks after the quake destroyed the city, as a "miracle".
"I don't know how she happened to resist that long," said rescue worker JP Malaganne. The 16-year-old was found in the rubble of a house near the College St Gerard, which one of her relatives said she had just started attending. Neighbours had been searching in the rubble of their homes in the central Carrefour-Feuilles district when they heard a weak voice and called rescue teams to help. They managed to locate the girl in the wreckage and less than an hour later had dug a hole to pull her out, covered in dust. Rescuer Claude Fuilla told the Associated Press news agency: "She couldn't really talk to us or say how long she'd been there but I think she'd been there since the earthquake.
"I don't think she could have survived even a few more hours." Darlene was given water and oxygen before being taken to a French field hospital and medical ship.
"She just said 'Thank you', she's very weak, which suggests that she's been there for 15 days," said Samuel Bernes, head of the rescue team that discovered her. He described her location within the rubble as "in a pocket, surrounded by concrete". The BBC's Karen Allen, in the Haitian capital, said that rescue workers had told her the teenager was trapped in the bathroom when the quake struck and was able to survive by drinking water from a bath.
On Tuesday, rescuers discovered a 31-year-old man who had been trapped for 12 days after being caught in one of the numerous aftershocks that rocked the city after the earthquake. In announcing the election delay, Mr Preval said he would not seek to remain in office beyond the end of his term in February 2011.
He added: "I don't think the time is right to hold elections now given the conditions in which people are living."

Age-old sumo faces call for change

TOKYO: Last summer a landslide election changed the face of Japanese politics. Now the 2,000-year-old national sport of sumo faces its own shake-up if a group of reformist rebels have their way.

The Japan Sumo Association has been thrown into turmoil by seven breakaway members who have demanded sweeping changes to boost the waning popularity of the sport, which has been hit by a series of scandals in recent years.

Leading the reformist charge in the ritualistic, male-only sport is former grand champion Takanohana, 37, who wants to start by having the association’s 10 board members openly elected rather than decided behind closed doors.

Takanohana’s goal is to revive the sport, which has faced increasing competition, first from baseball and more recently football, and to introduce it in schools to breed a new generation of home-grown wrestlers.

“I want to expand the spirit of reform,” Takanohana last week told reporters. “A lot of people aged around 40 like me are thinking of trying to help develop the association beyond its factions.”

The association — made up of stablemasters, top athletes and judges — in 1968 introduced elections to its board, which manages the sport and organises tournaments, ticket sales and broadcasting rights.

But in practice, the body has only held three votes since then because most years the make-up of the board was decided in backroom talks by influential faction leaders, usually leaving 10 candidates for 10 board positions.

In recent years, the reclusive body has had to react to a series of scandals, including the deadly “hazing” of a teenage wrestler, one fighter’s arrest for illegal drug use and allegations of match-fixing.

Many Japanese were shocked by the 2007 case of a stable master, now in jail, who ordered the brutal “toughening up” treatment of a 17-year-old wrestler who died after being beaten with a beer bottle and baseball bat.

A study by the Japan Sumo Association found that 90 per cent of sumo stables allowed violent beatings of trainees, and punishments such as forcing salt or sand into their mouths.

There has also been disquiet over the rising dominance of foreign fighters, mainly fromMongolia and Eastern Europe but as far as Brazil and Tonga, who have been willing to put up with the gruelling lifestyle of the sumo fighter.

Sumo has not had a Japanese-born champion in more than three years, and in recent tournaments more than one third of competitors have been foreigners.

The spring tournament that ended Sunday saw Mongolian sumo grand champion Asashoryu clinch his 25th trophy.

To revitalise the sport, Takanohana has announced his candidacy for election, hoping for the kind of change that transformed Japan’s politics last August, when a centre-left party ended more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule and pledged an end to business as usual.

Takanohana has said he has prepared a “manifesto” for change, although he has given away few details other than a plan to make sumo a required course at elementary and junior high schools.

His first aim is to bring greater transparency to the board’s management through truly open elections to help the sport reform — a call that promptly saw him and his six allies evicted from his faction, called Nishonoseki.

Musashigawa, the head of the association, shrugged off the call for change, saying: “Reform, reform.... What reforms does he want? We are already doing that.”

Undeterred, Takanohana, who won 22 Emperor’s Cups during his career and who now owns a sumo stable, said his resolve is “unshakable,” declaring: “I want to move forward firmly.”

His candidacy is expected to force the association to hold an election for 10 new board members on February 1 in which 109 members can cast their votes.

Whatever the outcome, Takanohana has already made sumo history.

“I have never heard of such a daring act within sumo circles,” retired sumo great Muneyoshi Fujisawa, who spent 20 years in the ring and five years coaching, told AFP.

“His actions may not be easily accepted by the sumo world which has long cherished conformity and discipline.”

Facebook: A valuable Internet commodity?

Alyssa Ravasio displays her page on the social networking site Facebook, while attending school in Los Angeles January 26, 2010. – Reuters

LOS ANGELES: College senior Alyssa Ravasio gave up MySpace on the day she got a Facebook account and never looked back. She has already lost interest in Twitter. But how does Facebook know it can keep her loyalty?
The brief history of the Internet is littered with the ghosts of websites that people have abandoned in their relentless pursuit of something newer, faster, better and cooler.
Tech-savvy Ravasio, a 21-year-old UCLA student designing her undergraduate degree around the Internet's impact on society and communication, is irked by changes privately owned Facebook has made.
But for now, she says, Facebook is keeping her allegiance because of a concept called “technological lock-in.” In other words, the site has become an essential part of her life.
“I think Facebook is the most valuable Internet commodity in existence, more so than Google, because they are positioning themselves to be our online identity via Facebook connect,” Ravasio said.
“It's your real name, it's your real friends, and assuming they manage to navigate the privacy quagmire, they're poised to become your universal login,” she said. “I would almost argue that Facebook is the new mobile phone. It's the new thing you need to keep in touch, almost a requirement of modern social life.”
THE QWERTY KEYBOARD
Technological lock-in is the idea that the more a society adopts a certain technology, the more unlikely users are to switch.
Its the reason why the QWERTY keyboard layout, devised for typewriters in the 1870s, is still the standard despite the development of several more logical configurations.
And Facebook, which has more than 100 million users in the United States and 350 million worldwide, appears to have nearly achieved technological lock-in, according to web marketing research company Comscore.com.
In December, for example, Facebook recorded nearly 112 million unique visitors in the United States, compared to 57 million for MySpace and 20 million for Twitter, according to Comscore.
Users also spent much longer on Facebook, averaging 246.9 minutes in December, compared to 112.7 minutes on MySpace and 24.3 minutes on Twitter.
“It's something that feeds on itself,” Comscore director Andrew Lipsman said. “The more people who come into the network, the more connected they become to each other and there actually becomes a greater cost to leaving the network.”
“At some point it becomes a critical mass,” he said. “It becomes so strong that its difficult to unlock and I think Facebook has reached that point.”
Skeptics might say that the same argument could have been made for MySpace just a few years ago, when it reigned supreme among social networking sites to the extent that few American teens would be caught dead without an account.
'THEIR GAME TO LOSE'
But those who study web trends say that MySpace, while wildly popular, never quite reached the worldwide domination of Facebook, which then-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg started in his dorm room in 2004.
Facebook initially limited membership to Harvard, then universities, a move that heightened the draw for teens. And once Facebook opened registration to anyone in 2006, it was flooded with members between the ages of 25 to 45.
Tim Groeling, a professor of communication studies at UCLA, said that because it was possible to sign up for Facebook without dumping MySpace, many young people had accounts on both sites until the center of gravity slowly shifted to Facebook.
“MySpace wasn't focused as much on the social networking aspect, which they seem to enjoy. It wasn't quite the tight-knit social machine that Facebook seems to be,” he said.
“Facebook has a certain amount of lock-in that's going to be hard for people to get past,” Groeling said. “It's possible it could happen, but it has to overcome a high threshold of user cost. It's their game to lose at this point.”
Ravasio says that, technological lock-in aside, Facebook could potentially lose her if it keeps annoying her, as it did when it abruptly changed a default privacy setting so that members' pictures were public.
“All these (Internet) companies saying they'll figure out how to monetize later seem to be forgetting that 'monetizing'
has historically always meant a degradation of user experience quality,” she said.

Apple unveils “iPad” tablet device

Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs holds the new " iPad" during the launch of Apple's new tablet computing device in San Francisco, California. —Photo by Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs took the wraps off the “iPad” tablet on Wednesday, looking to define a new category of wireless device that will play video, games and all sorts of other media, reported Reuters.

Jobs, who returned to the helm last year after a much-scrutinized liver transplant, is hoping to sell consumers on the value of tablet computing after numerous technology companies had failed to do so in recent years.

Called the “iPad,” the device is Apple's biggest product launch since the iPhone three years ago, and arguably rivals the smartphone as the most anticipated in Apple's history.

After months of feverish speculation on the Internet and among investors, Jobs took the stage at a jam-packed theater in San Francisco and, with his famed showman's flair, began detailing the device's basic features.

The iPad has a near life-sized touch keyboard and supports Web browsing. It comes with a built-in calendar and address book, Jobs said.

Technology enthusiasts had expected to see a sleek, full-color, 10-inch gadget with a touchscreen interface and wireless connectivity, designed for snacking on all sorts of media from videos to games to electronic books and newspapers.

Despite the buzz surrounding the launch and Apple's storied golden touch on consumer electronics, the tablet is not necessarily an easy sell, analysts say.

Consumer appetite for a gadget that sits somewhere between a smartphone and a laptop has yet to be proven, though plenty of devices such as Amazon.com's Kindle e-reader are vying for that market.

Apple had been mum, so the market had been rife with speculation about the device.

Shares of Apple have generally risen ahead of Wednesday's event.

The stock slipped on Nasdaq to about $201.67, still within reach of its all-time high of $215.59 logged on Jan. 5.

As iPod sales wane, Apple is looking for another growth engine and hopes to find one in the tablet. But the move is not without risk. Consumers have never warmed to tablet computers, despite many previous attempts by other companies.

In an online poll on reuters.com, 37 percent of more than 1,000 respondents said they would pay $500-$699 for the tablet.

Nearly 30 percent weren't interested, while 20 percent said they would pay $700-$899.

Benazir Bhutto documentary featured at Sundance festival

Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari (L), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (C) and Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, the children of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, arrive for the premiere of the documentary film "Bhutto" at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah January 23, 2010. —Reuters Photo

PARK CITY: An ambitious documentary featured at this week’s Sundance Film Festival is taking a dual-track approach to delve into the fascinating life of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s assassinated former prime minister.
Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O’Hara’s “Bhutto,” in competition at the major independent film showcase in the mountains of Utah, examines the many contours of Bhutto’s life, a woman as loved as she was controversial.
But it also goes a step further, managing in just under two hours to place her tragic story in the broader context of Pakistan’s history and its troubled relations with rival neighbour India after independence.
“That was the most difficult thing – making sure that we are giving you an enormous amount of information,” co-director Hernandez told AFP. “And to make it entertaining was the only way to do that.”
Ultra-slick editing, dynamic music and graphics, animation – the directors pulled out all the stops to captivate their audience.
Producer Duane Baughman was quick to acknowledge that his “goal was to make it as commercial, as active, as exciting, as moving as commercial movies.”
It may be 115 minutes on the silver screen, but “that was the very minimum to get the story,” he added.
“We don’t feel like there is anything extraneous in there that we could have cut without losing something. Of course, every filmmaker feels that, but when you are talking about a country and a person, it’s pretty tough.”
And yet the highly polished, produced aspect of “Bhutto” manages not to take away from its documentary strength.
The entire Bhutto family, friends and biographers sketch the portrait of a female figure who twice clinched victory as prime minister – the first woman to occupy such a high post in any Muslim country – and was on a third run for power when she was killed in a gun and suicide attack two years ago.
“You mention the name of Bhutto, in Pakistan especially, and you will have no shortage of people who hate her and of people who love her,” said Baughman.
For Hernandez, Bhutto “was polarizing in many ways. The reasons speak so much about her, because there was a lot of things to say, on both hands.”
Not satisfied with outlining her compelling successes, including restoring democracy to Pakistan, the documentary also tackles the many accusations of corruption that marred her name and that of her husband, current President Asif Ali Zardari.
Eerily enough, it is Bhutto’s voice itself that narrates the film, culled from recordings for her autobiography.
“It’s one of our proudest achievements,” said Baughman, noting that the tapes were recorded about 20 years ago.
“They were in a basement, unheard before by any public audience.”
Through Bhutto, the documentary also traces the fate of her family, dubbed “Pakistan’s Kennedys.”
It is a family dominated by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former president and prime minister hanged by a military regime.
Assassinations, violent deaths or unexplained ones, internal conflict, glory and exile – this roller-coaster ride forges the Bhutto legend.
“You cannot have a conversation about those families without also asking ‘what would have been.’ What would have been in a JFK (John F. Kennedy) second term, what would have been in a BB (Benazir Bhutto) third term?” Baughman said.
But the film is also proof that Bhutto’s two terms were already enough to fill history books.
“Her legacy will be debated for the generations to come,” Baughman added. —AFP

It is a well known fact that smoking is injurious to health, however, the story does not end here. A recent study warns that middle-aged male smokers with high blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels can give up the ghost about a decade earlier than their healthier counterparts. Not a hundred or a thousand, but 19,000 people were tested in a survey and followed up 38 years later to prove this theory. Hence, it emphasises the hazardous effects of smoking and promoting the importance of a healthy lifestyle generally in the masses. This study has been published in the British Medical Journal recently, by Dr Robert Clarke from the University of Oxford. It was designed to find out the extent to which high blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol cut life expectancy. The study warns that middle-aged male smokers with high blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels face dying about a decade earlier than their healthier counterparts from 50 years of age. The study was started in 1967-70. All 19,000 participants aged 40-69 had their height, weight, blood pressure, lung functioning, cholesterol and blood glucose levels measured and recorded. It also completed a questionnaire regarding their previous medical history, smoking habits, employment grade and marital status. At the start of the study 42 per cent of the men were smokers, 39 per cent had high blood pressure and 51 per cent had high cholesterol. They were followed up nearly 40 years later in 2005 by which time 13,501 had died. However, the life expectancy of men, who had all three of the major risk factors, was cut by 10 years from the age of 50—down to 73 from 83 years. While those who have none of these risk factors can expect to live until 83. Since the 1970s death rates from heart diseases have been dropping at a snail's pace as people have stopped smoking and improving their diet and lifestyle. The study only involved men but its findings applied to women as well. The research was conducted to encourage people to give up smoking and adopt a better and healthier lifestyle. If smoking is given up and measures are taken to deal with high blood pressure and obesity, it will lead to increased life expectancy. It has also proved that modest differences in heart risk factors can accurately predict significant differences in life expectancy. All men and women over 40 should have a health check, which includes monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Programmes to discourage smoking, promoting healthy eating and leading active lifestyles should be encouraged from the childhood in order to prevent these avoidable risk factors. People from the disadvantaged background are more likely to die younger as they tend to smoke more, eat less healthy diets and suffer more from psychosocial stress. They are in the dire need of help.

The ten films will be shown at the London International Documentary Film Festival in May this year. –Flickr photo

ISLAMABAD: 'Filmmaking for Social Change, 2010' will provide 30 young filmmakers from Karachi and Lahore the opportunity to produce ten films that will be shown at the London International Documentary Film Festival (LIDF) in May this year.
The project will provide young Pakistani filmmakers with access to an international platform to showcase the voices and stories of ordinary Pakistanis and raise awareness in Pakistan and the UK.
According to a press release issued by the British High Commission on Thursday, the festival will provide a platform to highlight the real issues of people and their demand for a positive change in their lives.
As part of the project, a “Pakistan National Short Film Competition” will also be held. This competition will be open to all young Pakistani filmmakers on the same theme.
The winning film from this competition, and the films produced for the Filmmaking for Social Change 2010 project will be shown at the LIDF, and screened throughout Pakistan as well.
Moreover, the films would be broadcast on Pakistan national television channels and also be available for online viewing on the website www.filmmakingforsocialchange.com. The website will also feature regular blogs about the project.
The project is being launched by the British High Commission in collaboration with a local partner, Eckova, and the London International Documentary Festival. –APP

HEALTH WARNING: Smoking hazards

It is a well known fact that smoking is injurious to health, however, the story does not end here. A recent study warns that middle-aged male smokers with high blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels can give up the ghost about a decade earlier than their healthier counterparts.

Not a hundred or a thousand, but 19,000 people were tested in a survey and followed up 38 years later to prove this theory. Hence, it emphasises the hazardous effects of smoking and promoting the importance of a healthy lifestyle generally in the masses.

This study has been published in the British Medical Journal recently, by Dr Robert Clarke from the University of Oxford. It was designed to find out the extent to which high blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol cut life expectancy. The study warns that middle-aged male smokers with high blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels face dying about a decade earlier than their healthier counterparts from 50 years of age.

The study was started in 1967-70. All 19,000 participants aged 40-69 had their height, weight, blood pressure, lung functioning, cholesterol and blood glucose levels measured and recorded. It also completed a questionnaire regarding their previous medical history, smoking habits, employment grade and marital status.

At the start of the study 42 per cent of the men were smokers, 39 per cent had high blood pressure and 51 per cent had high cholesterol.

They were followed up nearly 40 years later in 2005 by which time 13,501 had died. However, the life expectancy of men, who had all three of the major risk factors, was cut by 10 years from the age of 50—down to 73 from 83 years. While those who have none of these risk factors can expect to live until 83.

Since the 1970s death rates from heart diseases have been dropping at a snail's pace as people have stopped smoking and improving their diet and lifestyle. The study only involved men but its findings applied to women as well.
The research was conducted to encourage people to give up smoking and adopt a better and healthier lifestyle. If smoking is given up and measures are taken to deal with high blood pressure and obesity, it will lead to increased life expectancy. It has also proved that modest differences in heart risk factors can accurately predict significant differences in life expectancy.

All men and women over 40 should have a health check, which includes monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Programmes to discourage smoking, promoting healthy eating and leading active lifestyles should be encouraged from the childhood in order to prevent these avoidable risk factors. People from the disadvantaged background are more likely to die younger as they tend to smoke more, eat less healthy diets and suffer more from psychosocial stress. They are in the dire need of help.

Nato, Russia and Pakistan back new Afghan plan

Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani meeting with the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in Brussels.—Online.

BRUSSELS: Nato said on Wednesday it had secured new pledges of support for its Afghan operation, and its top military officer said he believed international solidarity meant the tide had turned in the struggle against the Taliban. 

“The mood has changed, the tide has changed: we will succeed, we are convinced we will succeed,” Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola said after a meeting of all countries contributing to the Nato-led military effort in Afghanistan. 

“We will see at the end of this year the light on the horizon,” he told a news conference a day before political and military leaders, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, gather in London for a one-day conference on Afghanistan. 

In a further positive move, Russia’s military chief General Nikolai Makarov held talks with Nato military leaders for the first time since the 2008 Georgia war, and promised more support for operations in Afghanistan, Di Paola said. 

“We have agreed a number of areas of cooperation ...certainly Afghanistan, the fight against terrorism, is one of them,” he said, adding that the two sides would discuss a plan for expanded cooperation in May. 

Di Paola said Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who took part in the Brussels talks, had been “incredibly in tune” with the approach advocated by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal. 

“There was a feeling in the room that we are getting it right,” he said, adding that Thursday’s conference should produce better coordination on operations in Afghanistan and lead to the Afghans taking more charge of security. 

“The determination, commitment of all countries, the international community ... fundamentally to have a positive outcome from the international engagement in Afghanistan, that will become a reality,” Di Paola said. 

TRANSIT DEAL

Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier that he had finalised a deal with Kazakhstan on transit to Afghanistan, which should help the alliance reduce reliance on a route through Pakistan that is often attacked by the Taliban. 

The deal should allow Nato to implement an existing agreement with Russia for the transit of non-lethal supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan, which the alliance hopes to expand. Nato would also like to see Russia providing more helicopters for the Afghan armed forces, as well as weaponry, including assault rifles and artillery. 

Russia has said it will do all it can to help Nato in Afghanistan, short of sending troops to a country from which Soviet forces were forced to withdraw in 1989 after an unsuccessful 10-year war.—Reuters

Chief Justice rules out clash between institutions

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. — Reuters photo

ISLAMABAD: Following Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's parliamentary address on Wednesday, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry also ruled out any clash between institutions.
"There will be no clashes between institutions and I want to strengthen democracy in Pakistan," he said.
These remarks were made by Chief Justice Chaudhry during the hearing of a case regarding promotions of government employees.
The chief justice also appreciated the parliament for not validating the actions of November 3, 2007, saying that the judiciary is here to protect the parliamentary system and democracy.
Speaking to the National Assembly, Prime Minister Gilani had stressed the importance of respecting the constitution. He had also urged all official institutions to work within their domains.

Oil price rise nears $80 a barrel

Oil prices have climbed to more than $79 a barrel, reaching the highest levels for five weeks.

During Monday's trading in London, US crude touched $79.12 a barrel before falling back later to $78.77.

Heating oil futures led the gains, while London Brent crude rose by more than a dollar to $77.32 a barrel.

Prices rose following forecasts of colder weather in the United States, and the expectation of increased consumption and falling reserves.

That would indicate that demand was rising and signal an improvement in the US economy.

The north-east of the US is also the world's largest heating oil market.

On Thursday last week, benchmark crude rose $1.38 to settle at $78.05. Oil markets were closed on Friday for Christmas.

Falling supplies?

Inventory figures detailing the amount of oil held in stock are expected later this week from the Energy Information Administration.

News of low stock levels could push oil prices above $80 a barrel by the end of the year, according to Clarence Chu, a trader with Hudson Capital Energy in Singapore.

Better employment figures in the US last week also helped to lift hopes of economic recovery and raised expectations of stronger consumer spending and oil consumption.

Afghanistan parliamentary election postponed

Last year's presidential election was marred by fraud

Afghanistan is to postpone its parliamentary elections by four months until September, the country's election commission has confirmed.

Elections were to take place before 22 May under the constitution but a new date of 18 September has been set.

The commission cited a lack of funds and security concerns for the delay.

Last year's presidential election was marred by fraud, and Western nations have been pushing for reforms ahead of the parliamentary vote.

'Sensible decision'

Fazil Ahmad Manawi, a senior election commissioner, told reporters in Kabul: "The Independent Election Commission, due to lack of budget, security and uncertainty and logistical challenges... has decided to conduct the [parliamentary] election on September 18, 2010."

United Nations funds are available to fund the elections but have been made contingent on reforms to the system.

The US and other Western nations have said that another election marred by fraud could undermine their strategy in the country.

The chief UN envoy Kai Eide said this month that Afghan law did provide for a delay to the polls, although President Hamid Karzai had wanted the original date to be met.

One international diplomat told the Reuters news agency the postponement was "a pragmatic and sensible decision which will allow time for reform of the key electoral institutions to enable cleaner parliamentary elections".

Underlining the continuing security concerns, Nato said that three US service members were killed in two separate bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan on Sunday.

London conference

Afghanistan is also facing ongoing political uncertainty, with a number of cabinet posts still vacant following the re-election of Mr Karzai as president.

Hamid Karzai had wanted to observe the original election date

Parliament has twice rejected many of Mr Karzai's nominations for a new cabinet, forcing the president to direct deputy ministers or other caretaker figures to run their ministries.

The uncertainty comes ahead of a key conference on Afghanistan in London next week.

Improving the governance of Afghanistan will be a key issue at the conference, along with security.

Western nations will try to cement their strategy both for increased foreign troops and a strengthened Afghan force.

US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said last week the "strategy for Afghanistan is settled" and the London summit would implement it.

A panel of officials from Afghanistan, the UN and countries contributing troops recently agreed to increase the size of the Afghan National Army from the current figure of about 97,000 to 171,600 by the end of 2011.

Last year, US President Barack Obama announced a review of strategy, saying he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Nato allies agreed to send at least 7,000 extra troops to support the US surge.

The commission earlier said it needed about $50m from international donors to part fund the estimated $120m election budget.

United Nations funds are available to fund the elections but have been made contingent on reforms to the system.

The US and other Western nations have said that another election marred by fraud could undermine their strategy in the country.

The chief UN envoy Kai Eide said this month that Afghan law did provide for a delay to the polls, although President Hamid Karzai had wanted the original date to be met.

One international diplomat told the Reuters news agency the postponement was "a pragmatic and sensible decision which will allow time for reform of the key electoral institutions to enable cleaner parliamentary elections".

Underlining the continuing security concerns, Nato said that three US service members were killed in two separate bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan on Sunday.

London conference

Afghanistan is also facing ongoing political uncertainty, with a number of cabinet posts still vacant following the re-election of Mr Karzai as president.

Parliament has twice rejected many of Mr Karzai's nominations for a new cabinet, forcing the president to direct deputy ministers or other caretaker figures to run their ministries.

The uncertainty comes ahead of a key conference on Afghanistan in London next week.

Improving the governance of Afghanistan will be a key issue at the conference, along with security.

Western nations will try to cement their strategy both for increased foreign troops and a strengthened Afghan force.

US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said last week the "strategy for Afghanistan is settled" and the London summit would implement it.

A panel of officials from Afghanistan, the UN and countries contributing troops recently agreed to increase the size of the Afghan National Army from the current figure of about 97,000 to 171,600 by the end of 2011.

Last year, US President Barack Obama announced a review of strategy, saying he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Nato allies agreed to send at least 7,000 extra troops to support the US surge.

North Korea responds angrily to South's talk of strike

North Korea's nuclear programme has heightened regional tensions

North Korea has responded angrily to the South's suggestion that it could launch a pre-emptive strike against Pyongyang's nuclear facilities.

South Korea's defence minister had said this could occur if there were indications that the North was preparing a nuclear attack.

The North's official news agency said any attempt to do so would be treated as a declaration of war.

It added that it would be met with swift and decisive military action.

Tensions between the two nations rose after Pyongyang pulled out of six-party talks on its nuclear programme last April following widespread condemnation of a long-range missile launch.

International pressure grew following a nuclear test in May - which drew UN sanctions and further missile tests.

Conditions

The six-party talks, involving the two Koreas, plus the United States, China, Japan and Russia, began in 2003.

They seek to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programme in return for aid and security guarantees.

Late last year, North Korea said it may be willing to return to the talks.

But earlier this month Pyongyang set down conditions, saying it would not return to the stalled talks until sanctions against it were lifted.