CENTRAL ASIA

CLERICS OUTRAGED OVER REPORT SOLDIERS DESECRATED TALIBAN BODIES

KABUL, Afghanistan – Islamic clerics expressed outrage yesterday at television footage that purportedly shows American soldiers burning the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters to taunt other militants, and warned of a possible violent anti-American backlash.

President Karzai condemned the alleged desecration and ordered an inquiry. The operational commander of the American military in Afghanistan, which launched its own criminal probe, said the alleged act, if true, was “repugnant.” Worried about the potential for anti-American feelings over the incident, the State Department said it instructed American embassies around the globe to tell local governments that the reported abuse did not reflect American values.

Cremating bodies is banned under Islam.

In Washington, the American government also condemned the alleged incident. The allegation was “very serious” and “very troubling,” a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

IRAN SAID TO BE WORKING WITH INSPECTORS

Diplomats and officials said yesterday that Iran has handed over sensitive documents to U.N. nuclear inspectors and allowed them to question a senior official about activities that could fuel atomic weapons – concessions that may thwart American efforts to bring Tehran before the Security Council.

At issue is how much centrifuge and related technology Iran received from the nuclear black market starting in the 1980s and where that equipment is.

There are suspicions that part of the technology, which can enrich uranium either to low-grade fuel or the fissile core for nuclear warheads, has not been declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency and has been used by the military to make bombs.

The IAEA hoped that Iran’s decision to cooperate with inspectors over the enrichment program would help the probe into those suspicions, the diplomats and officials told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information was confidential.

A U.S. official familiar with the issue said Iran was making “important concessions” in handing over the documents and allowing the interview after nearly two years of stalling. But Tehran still had not met other demands, including giving access to military sites identified by Washington as possibly being used for weapons related experiments, the official said. – Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

RELIEF CHIEF URGES STRONGER EFFORT TO SAVE QUAKE SURVIVORS

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan – The top U.N. relief coordinator warned yesterday that bold initiatives like the Berlin Airlift are needed to save as many as 3 million people left homeless by the South Asian earthquake as winter approaches in the Himalayas.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, reported three quake survivors died of tetanus, reinforcing fears that disease and infected injuries could drive the 79,000 death toll far higher.

Jan Egeland, the U.N. relief coordinator, appealed to NATO and other potential donors to step in with an army of helicopters to fly in relief supplies and evacuate perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.

“The world is not doing enough,” Mr. Egeland said in Geneva. “We should be able to do this.”

He called for “a second Berlin air bridge” – nonstop flights reminiscent of the American and British airlift of essential supplies into West Berlin in the late 1940s when Soviet troops blocked the city’s road links to the West for nearly 11 months. At one point, cargo planes landed in West Berlin at the rate of one a minute.

– Associated Press

NORTH AFRICA

GOVERNMENT, DARFUR REBELS END LATEST ROUND OF TALKS

Sudan’s government and rebels ended a sixth round of talks on the crisis in the country’s western Darfur region yesterday, announcing no agreements but pledging to reconvene in a month to push forward the slow-moving peace process.

Fighting between two rebel factions, which splintered earlier this year from the main Sudan Liberation Army, complicated more than a month of talks in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. The sides agreed to meet again November 21 in Abuja.

The parties signed a statement saying “some progress was made” in discussions over human rights and power-sharing at the national and local levels.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

UNESCO APPROVES PACT AIMED AT PROTECTING CULTURAL DIVERSITY

PARIS – UNESCO’s member nations voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve a pact on protecting cultural diversity after a bitter debate left America isolated in opposition to what it sees as a threat to sales of American movies and music. The convention – championed by the European Union and Canada – aims to promote ethnic traditions and minority languages and to protect those local cultures from the negative effects of globalization, UNESCO said.

America argued the convention could be used to erect trade barriers against cultural exports such as films and pop music as well as indirectly curtail free speech.

Calling the text “deeply flawed,” the American delegation proposed 28 amendments to the draft, but all were rejected. Delegates voted 148-2 to approve the pact. America and Israel opposed it and four nations abstained.

The American ambassador, Louise Oliver, told the meeting the text was “too open to misinterpretation and too prone to abuse for us to support.”

The dispute left America isolated just two years after it rejoined the U.N. cultural agency following a 19-year absence over wide-ranging disagreements with UNESCO.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

RUMSFELD SPARS WITH CHINESE MILITARY OFFICERS BEIJING – In a rare face-to-face encounter with an American defense secretary, a small group of Chinese officers held a spirited and sometimes pointed debate yesterday with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld over the two countries’ clashing views about the size and meaning of China’s military buildup.

Stressing a theme that he repeated throughout his three-day visit to Beijing, Mr. Rumsfeld told students and faculty at the Academy of Military Science that America and other countries are concerned not so much that China is expanding its military but that it has been vague about why.

“China of course is expanding its missile forces and enabling those forces to reach many areas of the world well beyond the Pacific region,” Mr. Rumsfeld said in opening remarks before engaging in a give-and-take session with several officers, including the head of the military academy.

“Those advances in China’s strategic strike capability raise questions, particularly when there’s an imperfect understanding of such developments on the part of others,” Mr. Rumsfeld added.A day earlier he visited the headquarters of China’s strategic missile forces – the first such visit by a foreigner.

– Associated Press