PHNOM PENH—Cambodia may not repatriate a group of asylum-seekers if they are to face capital punishment or torture back in China, a Cambodian spokesman said.
Khieu Kanharith, government spokesman and minister of information, said in an interview that the fate of the 22 ethnic Uyghurs hinges on whether and how the Chinese government intends to punish them in connction with deadly ethnic riots in July.
“There are several issues [to consider],” Khieu Kanharith said.
“For a criminal issue we would send them back. But for a political issue we would consider differently,” he said. “For a criminal issue, if it is serious to the point that they would have to be executed, we might not send them back because we don’t have capital punishment [in Cambodia],” he said.
The minister said that no decision had been made because the Cambodian government has yet to be contacted by the Chinese Embassy.
Smuggled into Cambodia
Twenty-two Uyghurs—a predominantly Muslim minority concentrated in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)—have sought protection from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, according to Uyghur sources in Asia, who asked not be to named.
The Uyghurs are currently in the care of international Catholic organization the Jesuit Refugee Service, which declined to comment on the status of the group.
They fear being returned to China, which has close ties with Cambodia, Uyghur sources said.
This group, which includes two young children, was smuggled across the border from Vietnam into Cambodia, they said.
Only four members of the asylum-seekers agreed to be named.
They are Mutellip Mamut, who was born on July 10, 1980, Islam Urayim, born July 16, 1980, Hazirti ali Umar, born June 7, 1990, and Aikebaierjiang Tuniyazi, born Feb. 13, 1982.
Seeking asylum
The UNHCR has no offices in Vietnam, so anyone seeking asylum as a refugee must find a way into Cambodia, where it does operate.
UNHCR and Cambodian officials in Phnom Penh declined to comment on the case, although it has been learned that the UNHCR has met with the Uyghurs several times in small groups.
Repeated calls to the U.S. Embassy during working hours went unanswered.
According to a statement by the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer and the organization’s general secretary Dolkun Isa are to meet officials at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva to discuss the Uyghur case in Cambodia.
Beijing accuses Kadeer of fomenting the July 5 violence in the XUAR capital, Urumqi, which was sparked after a peaceful protest about the deaths of Uyghur migrants in a factory in southern China turned into clashes with police.
Kadeer has accused the authorities of firing on unarmed protesters in Urumqi, sparking days of retaliatory rioting, burning, and mob violence from both Uyghur and Han Chinese ethnic groups in the city.
Uyghur detentions
Clashes first erupted between Han Chinese and ethnic Uyghurs on July 5, and at least 200 people were killed, by the government’s tally.
According to Uyghur sources in Asia, China has tightened its southeastern border after several groups of Uyghurs managed to bribe their way into Vietnam and then Cambodia to avoid possible detention for allegedly taking part in July 5 ethnic riots.
The sources said Chinese authorities have detained 31 Uyghurs since Sept. 15 in the southern cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou and in the central city of Kunming, either for trying to flee the country or for allegedly aiding others in fleeing China.
A Chinese court sentenced three Uyghurs to death Friday for their alleged involvement during the rioting, bringing the number of death sentences in connection with the incident to 17.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said it has documented the disappearances of 43 men and boys in the Xinjiang region, but that the actual number of disappearances is likely far higher.
Police have meanwhile detained more than 700 people in connection with the unrest, according to earlier state news reports.
Uyghurs, a distinct and mostly Muslim ethnic group, have long complained of religious, political, and cultural oppression by Chinese authorities, and tensions have simmered in the Xinjiang region for years.
Original reporting by Chea Sotheacheat, Vuthy Huot and Chung Ravuth for RFA’s Khmer service. Khmer service director: Sos Kem. Translated by Sos Kem. Additional reporting by RFA's Uyghur service. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
SRP President Sam Rainsy leads a protest against rising food prices along a street in Phnom Penh on April 6, 2008. (Photo by: AFP)After a tumultuous year, the Sam Rainsy Party finds itself at a crossroads, but observers are divided on its future prospects in a shifting political climate.
STRIPPED of his parliamentary immunity for the second time this year,
opposition leader Sam Rainsy has, once again, found himself at the centre of the debate over Cambodia’s democratic reform. But the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and the actions that led to it – the uprooting of several wooden border markers in a rice field at the Vietnamese border – have raised questions of another kind, about the relevance of Sam Rainsy and his eponymous party in a shifting political landscape.
Though the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) remains the Kingdom’s biggest proponent of Western-style democracy, some observers fear that the party, and its president, have reached the outer limits of their influence and have turned away from the grassroots campaigning that marked the SRP’s heyday in favour of politically charged but somewhat hollow political gestures.
This has been a tumultuous year for the SRP. Sam Rainsy and SRP lawmakers Mu Sochua and Ho Vann have each lost parliamentary immunity at one point or another in tense legal tussles with senior government officials.
Despite the international media coverage of its recent theatrics, and attention in the chambers of the US congress and the European parliament in Brussels, it is unclear whether the opposition’s strategies have maximised its chances of leveraging demographic changes into long-term political gains.
Some observers say the party has declined since its peak in the mid-2000s, a trend illustrated by its failure to capture the tens of thousands of Funcinpec voters who withdrew their support from the party after the royalist split in 2006.
“All those votes should have gone to the SRP, and they didn’t,” said Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights. He said the SRP’s lack of a concrete policy platform causes its political spats with the government to become quickly personalised and drags the party into unwinnable battles with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). “There’s no proper analysis or real policy,” he added. “If you’re going to oppose something, are you in a position to offer anything that’s different?”
"If it was a one-man show, the show would have stopped a long time ago, given all the problems we've been facing."Another observer, who declined to be named, said that despite having won the SRP international attention, the recent strategy of waging legal battles with government officials had “steered the party way off message”.
“They talk about party leaders being persecuted on the basis of esoteric rights that many Cambodian people have very little ownership of. They’ve adapted to appeal to outside constituencies rather than Cambodian voters,” he said, describing the loss of the Funcinpec vote as a “huge missed opportunity”.
Sorpong Peou, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo, said that as the country’s main opposition leader, Sam Rainsy must maintain a degree of assertiveness, but that appeals to distant international organisations have achieved little for the party.
“At the end of the day, the opposition is at the mercy of the CPP, which is willing to allow a degree of opposition in order to legitimise its domination and uses this type of legitimacy to gain international support,” she said. “In this sense, the opposition’s appeals have little real impact on domestic politics.”
The ‘donors’ darling’
Sam Rainsy returned to Cambodia from France in 1992, he was a rising star in the royalist political firmament. A founding member of then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s Funcinpec party in 1981, Rainsy had advanced through the ranks to become an elected parliamentarian during Funcinpec’s stunning win in the UN-backed elections of May 1993 and was appointed minister of finance in the CPP-Funcinpec coalition government in July.
But his ascent was short lived, and the fall that followed set the tone for a political career marked by bitter clashes with the government.
In October 1994 – just over a year after his appointment – Sam Rainsy was dismissed from his post in a major cabinet reshuffle, following his clear criticism of the corruption and nepotism that plagued the coalition. The following May, he was dumped from the party altogether and lost his National Assembly seat a month later.
At the time of its founding in 1995, the Khmer Nation Party (KNP) – the SRP’s predecessor – was a new feature on the Cambodian political landscape. Unlike the CPP – which secured its support through a patronage system established in the 1980s – and Funcinpec, which traded heavily on the prestige of the monarchy, Sam Rainsy’s new party put liberal democratic principles front and centre. At the time, Sam Rainsy said his expulsion from Funcinpec would give him the opportunity “to mobilise millions of people” sharing the same ideals.
In spite of the SRP’s idealistic bent, however, the party’s constituency remains overwhelmingly urban: In 2008, it won six of its 26 seats in Phnom Penh and five in Kampong Cham, as well as three each in heavily populated Kandal and Prey Veng provinces, both close to the capital. In 12 of Cambodia’s 24 provinces and municipalities – among them the most remote and least populated – the party did not score a single seat.
Caroline Hughes, an associate professor of governance studies at Murdoch University in Perth, said the SRP was not to blame for its difficulties in rural areas, in large part because of political intimidation by the CPP and the presence of its well-oiled machinery of patronage. Sam Rainsy – a “donors’ darling” in the early 1990s – has gradually become a more “marginal” figure as a result of waning international support, a rift with the Cambodian union movement and a concerted campaign of violence and intimidation that reached its apotheosis in a bloody grenade attack on a KNP protest in March 1997, she said. “Sam Rainsy did attempt to organise his supporters around a whole range of more concrete issues, but he was consistently blocked,” she said. “He organised a demonstration against corruption, and a grenade was thrown at it. He organised strikes in pursuit of a minimum-wage raise and was criticised by international organisations who said he shouldn’t interfere with unions.”
She added: “I don’t think we can blame the SRP for the weakness of the Cambodian political opposition when the government has worked consistently to reduce the political space for any kind of organised activism on any issue.”
A one-man show?
Others, however, said the party’s apparent difficulties stem from the erosion of its own internal democratic processes under the constant threat of defections and government intimidation.
The SRP organisation, Ou Virak said, is “like a scared child – the more things happen to them, the more they start to pull back. They refrain from meeting people and they refrain from opening up because of bad experiences”.
“There are some good people in the party that I know that cannot move up in the ranks,” he said. “There are some very good people who were left out.”
Ken Virak was a member of the SRP’s Steering Committee who left to form his own party – the People’s Power Party – in 2007, after becoming disillusioned with the SRP’s internal workings. He said the party had given up its role as a democratic opposition party “step by step”, and that the Steering Committee – nominally in charge of party decision-making – no longer had any real power.
“There is no democracy inside the party. Most of the decisions are made only by a minority of members who are powerful in the party and associated with Sam Rainsy,” he said.
Political decisions, originally made by a two-thirds majority vote of the Steering Committee, were watered down to a simple 50-percent-plus-one majority system and then to a system where the party president can in effect make every decision himself.
“I found that before every election, members of the party always broke away because of the political decision-making and partisanship,” he said.
Ou Virak said major decisions are now made by the party’s eight-member Permanent Committee, over which Sam Rainsy has final veto power.
Ken Virak still has faith in the opposition – refusing to run his new party in any elections in order not to cannibalise opposition votes – but said that all opposition groups, including the Human Rights Party and NRP, must unite if they want to have any chance at eating into the CPP’s majority in the 2013 polls.
Anti-communist roots
Born in Phnom Penh in 1949, Sam Rainsy grew up at a time of change and regeneration. His father, Sam Sary, was a key member of Sihanouk’s Sangkum Reastr Niyum government, but fell victim to the Prince’s security police after he was implicated in the so-called Bangkok Plot, an attempt to topple the government with the support of Thailand’s right-wing Marshal Sarit Thanarat. Sam Sary disappeared in 1962 and was presumed killed, possibly by the government. Shortly afterwards, Sam Rainsy’s mother, In Em, took the remaining family members to live in France, where he remained for the next three decades.
In a recent interview with the Post, Sam Rainsy described his father’s death as a “traumatising” experience, but said that Sam Sary’s political views permeated the family and set the trajectory of his own political development.
Certain pivotal events in Europe – notably, the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 – were daily topics of conversation in the Sam household and went some way to forming the ideals that would grow into the SRP’s own brand of nationalism.
“When it came to Southeast Asia, my father was in favour of a strict neutrality – that Cambodia should not move closer to the communist world,” he said. “This has marked my background and my conviction that communism is oppressive – that freedom is essential and that we have to fight for [it],”
Sam Rainsy said that despite having been founded largely on his initiative in 1995, the KNP – renamed the SRP in 1998 because of legal disputes over the KNP name – had grown into an “organisation of its own”, linking Cambodia with Khmer communities abroad. He also downplayed his role as the party’s figurehead, referring to it as an “anachronistic” notion.
“If it was a one-man show, the show would have stopped a long time ago, given all the problems that we’ve been facing,” he said.
Speeding forward
Sam Rainsy said the SRP was the only party in Cambodia that holds organised elections from the grassroots, a system that is “just the opposite” of the CPP’s centrally controlled networks.
“They appoint their cadres – their apparatchiks – at the grassroots, but we are the only party that has organised elections,” he said.
Kimsour Phirith, a member of the SRP’s Permanent Committee, acknowledged that “internal disputes and misunderstandings”, as well as “competition at the leadership level”, had hurt the party at recent elections, but said the party is well aware of the problem and has worked to resolve it.
Similarly, the “loss” of the former Funcinpec vote was largely “due to intimidation and vote-buying in non-transparent elections”, Sam Rainsy said – a claim the opposition has made consistently since the July 2008 poll. “All of the over 13,000 powerful village chiefs are appointed by the ruling CPP, which is a heavily oppressive factor in a rural country like Cambodia. In the face of such pressure, virtually all Funcinpec leaders have sold out to the CPP,” he said.
When asked how the party might hope to erode the CPP’s entrenched network of patronage and make headway in rural areas, Sam Rainsy said current and future demographic changes were swinging the SRP’s way, a factor reflected in the party’s recent formation of a youth congress.
“In a typical family, you have the grandfather, who votes for Funcinpec; you have the father, who votes for the CPP; and you have the children, who when they reach voting age will vote for the SRP,” he said. “It will take less time than one might imagine now, because of the progress of technology, information, communication and education. History is accelerating.”
Sam Rainsy said that unlike CPP support – “bought” with party patronage benefits – each SRP ballot was a “politically conscious vote”, bringing with it a host of risks.
“The progressive concept of social justice is eroding the leniency towards the regressive patronage system. The younger generations will be the spearhead for this democratic trend moving Cambodia out of the Middle Ages,” he said.
Koul Panha, executive director of election monitor Comfrel, said Sam Rainsy retains a lot of political capital for taking such a principled stance against corruption in the 1990s and maintaining it consistently over the years since, but that fresh challenges are on the horizon.
“I think he still has that credibility. He resigned from a key position in government and showed he is that kind of politician,” he said. “The problem is how to communicate that credibility to the people.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VONG SOKHENG AND SAM RITH
--------
The growth of a movement
June 1992
Sam Rainsy returns to Cambodia from Europe, becoming a member of the interim Supreme National Council.
May 23, 1993
Sam Rainsy is elected as a Funcinpec lawmaker for Siem Reap in UN-backed polls that see a stunning royalist victory.
July 1993
Sam Rainsy is appointed minister for economics and finance in the CPP-Funcinpec coalition government.
October 20, 1994
Sam Rainsy is expelled from the cabinet following a major reshuffle.
May 13, 1995
Sam Rainsy is expelled from both Funcinpec and the National Assembly, and forms the Khmer Nation Party (KNP) later in the year.
March 30, 1997
Assassins throw grenades into a KNP rally outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh, killing more than 16 and injuring scores of others. FBI investigators allege government involvement in the attack.
July 26, 1998
The KNP – now renamed the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) – performs well in the national elections, gaining 15 seats and winning 14.3 percent of the vote.
July 27, 2003
The SRP wins 24 National Assembly seats, or 21.9 percent of the vote, in national elections.
February 3, 2005
Sam Rainsy goes into self-exile after being accused of defamation and losing his parliamentary immunity at the hands of the National Assembly, along with fellow SRP lawmakers Chea Poch and Cheam Channy. Cheam Channy is arrested in February and tried in August 2005 for creating an illegal armed force. He is sentenced to seven years in prison, but is granted a royal pardon in February 2006.
December 22, 2005
Phnom Penh Municipal Court tries Sam Rainsy in absentia for defamation and sentences him to 18 months in prison and orders him to pay US$14,000 in fines and compensation.
February 5, 2006
Sam Rainsy receives a royal pardon at Prime Minister Hun Sen’s request, and returns to the country on February 10.
July 27, 2008
The SRP again wins 21.9 percent of the popular vote, but increases its share of National Assembly seats to 26.
February 26, 2009
The National Assembly votes to suspend Sam Rainsy’s immunity to force him to pay a fine levied against him by the National Election Committee. His immunity is restored on March 10.
June 22, 2009
The National Assembly votes to suspend the immunity of SRP lawmaker Mu Sochua after she filed a lawsuit accusing Prime Minister Hun Sen of defamation. Lawmaker Ho Vann is also stripped of his immunity for allegedly belittling the educational credentials of senior military officers.
November 16, 2009
Parliament again lifts Rainsy’s immunity, following an incident in which he uprooted wooden markers at the border with Vietnam.
Siwarak Chothipong, 31, an employee at the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, was arrested on charges of supplying details of Thaksin's flight schedule to his country's embassy when the tycoon visited Phnom Penh last month.
In a letter read in court, Siwarak, who did not appear for the bail hearing, said the "bail request is no longer necessary" because his trial had been scheduled for Tuesday.
Judge Ke Sakhan of Phnom Penh Municipal court granted the request.
Siwarak's arrest deepened a diplomatic crisis over Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser and its refusal to extradite the ousted premier to Bangkok.
Cambodia expelled the first secretary of Thailand's embassy in Phnom Penh after alleging that Siwarak had passed information to the diplomat. Thailand reciprocated hours later.
Both countries earlier also withdrew their respective ambassadors in the dispute over Thaksin's appointment.
All Thai air traffic control staff were suspended from the Thai-owned civil aviation company that oversees Cambodian air space, after a Cambodian government official was appointed temporary caretaker of the firm.
Thaksin was toppled in a coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption, but has stirred up protests in his homeland.
Angered by his presence in Cambodia, Thailand put all talks and cooperation programmes on hold and tore up an oil and gas exploration deal signed during Thaksin's time in power.
Tensions were already high following a series of deadly military clashes over disputed territory near an 11th century temple on the two countries' border.
 Mr Kim's Sunshine Policy led to improved relations with North Korea |
North Korea has sent condolences for the death of the former South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, the North's official news agency has said.
Pyongyang also said it would like to send a delegation to pay respects at Mr Kim's funeral in Seoul.
Relations between the countries have been poor since President Lee Myung-bak took office in the South last year.
But the North has said it wants to ease border restrictions and re-open a joint industrial park near the border.
North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, carried the brief message from the North's leader, Kim Jong-il.
"I express my deep condolences to Mrs Ri Hui Ho and other bereaved family members," he said.
"Though he passed away to our regret, the feats he performed to achieve national reconciliation and realize the desire for reunification will remain long with the nation."
A long-time aide to the former president also said Kim Jong-il had sent condolences and had announced he wanted to send envoys to the funeral.
"The delegation will carry a wreath sent by Chairman Kim Jong-Il," the aide, Park Jie-won, told reporters.
Seoul's unification ministry, which handles cross-border relations, said it had not received word of the delegation from Pyongyang. But President Lee Myung-bak's office said it would not object to the visit.
No date has been set for Mr Kim's funeral.
History maker
Kim Dae-jung made the first visit by a South Korean leader to the North in 2000, as part of his "Sunshine Policy" of reconciliation to try to reunite the divided peninsula.
The friendly overtures from the North follow a visit to Pyongyang earlier this month by former US President Bill Clinton.
He held talks with the reclusive Kim Jong-il and secured the release of two American reporters jailed for entering North Korea without permission.
Mr Kim, who died on Tuesday, was being treated for pneumonia.
The former leader had spent his life pursuing democracy and reunification with the North.
He survived several attempts on his life and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.
Kim Dae-jung's date of birth is unclear. According to his presidential website he was born on 6 January 1924, but it is reported that he later changed this to 3 December 1925 to avoid conscription during the Japanese colonial period.
Mr Kim was branded a dangerous radical during South Korea's decades of military rule.
He served as president from 1998 to 2003.
He described the biggest achievement of his presidency as the landmark summit with Kim Jong-il in 2000. It paved the way for reconciliation and earned him a Nobel prize later that year.
Advertisement
Police surrounded the bank before overpowering the gunmen
Fresh violence has erupted in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on the eve of the country's presidential election.
Explosions and gunfire were heard as troops battled and killed three attackers who raided a bank close to the presidential compound.
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the election and said they were behind the raid, but this could not be confirmed.
The government has asked the media not to report violence on election day to avoid deterring people from voting.
But the move has been heavily criticised, and journalists said they would ignore it.
"It is a democratic day, a very important day for our independence, [and] this type of ban does not sit well with democratic principles," Rahimullah Samander, president of the Afghanistan Independent Journalists' Association, told AFP news agency.
Aid can make a huge difference in Afghanistan - but it has to be well-spent
Oxfam statement
Targeting Afghans, not 'the enemy'
Herat fears post-election instability
Q&A: Afghan election
Afghan views on election security
On Tuesday more than 20 people were killed in attacks across the country, including a suicide blast in Kabul.
Meanwhile local officials in the central Ghazni province said that international forces had mistakenly killed four Afghan police overnight near the town of the same name.
The governor of Ghazni, Mohammad Osman Osmani, said other police were wounded in the attack, which was aimed at insurgents in the area who had been carrying out rocket attacks on the town.
In the northern Kunduz province, local officials told the BBC that two police had been killed and eight taken by the Taliban, although some of the eight may have already been working for the insurgents.
'Wasteful'
In Wednesday's attack, armed police forced their way into a central Kabul branch of the Pashtany bank after it was stormed by at least three gunmen.
They were then seen dragging at least three bodies out, and appeared to be in control of the building.
Soldiers guard ballot boxes in Kabul (18 August 2009)
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections on Thursday
The Afghan Interior Ministry said the raid had been carried out by "terrorists", although it had earlier described them as "robbers" or "thieves".
The presidential election on Thursday will be the second since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.
Hamid Karzai is tipped to be re-elected president in Thursday's polls, although correspondents say he could face a run-off against one of his strongest challengers, ex-Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Several dozen candidates are in the race.
The Taliban says it will use violence to disrupt the poll, prompting the Afghan government to call for a media blackout on any attacks from 0600 to 2000 on polling day.
"All domestic and international media agencies are requested to refrain from broadcasting any incident of violence during the election process from 6am to 8pm on 20 August," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Siamak Herawi, a spokesman for President Karzai, said the blackout would prevent the media from having a "negative impact".
"If something happens, this will prevent them from exaggerating it, so that people will not be frightened to come out and vote."
But journalists and activists said Afghans had a right to know about the security threats they faced.
Mr Samander, of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association, told Reuters news agency: "We condemn such moves to deprive people from accessing news."
Afghan journalists report on a militant attack in Kabul on 27 April 2008
Afghanistan's media has flourished in the last eight years
The New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch, called the government's position an "unreasonable violation of press freedoms".
Aid agency Oxfam also delivered a clear warning on the eve of polling, saying that the elections must be accompanied by major reforms in governance and aid if Afghanistan is to prosper.
Oxfam said that, despite massive investment, one-third of Afghans still faced hunger and poverty.
The organisation said that billions of dollars of aid have been channelled into Afghanistan by foreign governments since 2001, but these have been "woefully insufficient" to deal with the legacy of three decades of conflict.
Too few Afghans were benefitting from the money and much of it had been "ineffective, unco-ordinated or wasteful", Oxfam said.
The group said the election of a new government had to be accompanied by major reforms. "Aid can make a huge difference in Afghanistan - but it has to be well-spent," it said.
Truck bombs and a barrage of mortars have killed at least 75 people and hurt at least 310 in central Baghdad in the deadliest series of attacks in months.
One vehicle exploded outside the foreign ministry near the perimeter of the heavily guarded government Green Zone, reportedly leaving a huge crater.
Another blast went off close to the finance ministry building.
While Baghdad is often hit by attacks, it is unusual for them to penetrate such well-fortified areas of the city.
Everybody on the street was going crazy. Nobody knew what was going on
Mustapha Muhie
Since Iraqi forces took over responsibility for security in the city in late June, most attacks have targeted poor Shia neighbourhoods, says the BBC's Natalia Antelava in Baghdad.
The level of violence in Iraq has fallen since the peaks of 2006 and 2007, but bomb attacks remain commonplace.
'Terrified'
Hospital and security officials say 75 people were killed and 310 injured in Wednesday morning's apparently co-ordinated attacks.
Two huge bombs - believed to have been hidden in trucks - went off, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky.
Map
In pictures: Baghdad attacks
The biggest blast was near the foreign ministry, just outside the Green Zone. It was powerful enough to break windows at the parliament building inside the Zone which houses government and diplomatic buildings, reports said.
It left a crater 3m (10 feet) deep and 10m in diameter, and left behind the smouldering wreckage of cars outside, reports said.
"The windows of the foreign ministry shattered, slaughtering the people inside," Asia, a ministry employee, told Reuters news agency.
"I could see ministry workers, journalists and security guards among the dead," she said.
Minutes earlier, another blast close to the finance ministry in another hitherto relatively safe area of the city is reported to have affected a raised highway nearby.
At least four other explosions went off in other parts of Baghdad, including the Bayaa district of southern Baghdad.
Several mortars fell inside the Green Zone itself.
"Everybody on the street was going crazy," Mustapha Muhie, who works near the Green Zone as an administrator, told the BBC.
"Nobody knew what was going on. Everybody was just trying to get to their cars, just trying to get home - and that's what I did. There was so much traffic in the streets, and the checkpoints. They were searching every car, stopping everybody and asking stuff. A road that takes me 10 minutes to get home today took me an hour.
"My whole family was really upset, they were terrified. And everybody is scared that things will get worse, just like before."
An Iraqi army spokesman said two al-Qaeda members had been arrested in a Baghdad district in connection with the attacks.
Clear targets
The wave of explosions occurred just as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was about to arrive at a nearby hotel to hold a news conference, which was cancelled.
ANALYSIS
Natalia Antelava
Natalia Antelava
BBC News, Baghdad
These are unusual attacks - in the last few weeks, we have seen explosions in Baghdad, but these attacks occurred in some of the supposedly safest neighbourhoods of the city.
For many people, these attacks confirm their worst fears over the withdrawal of US troops from cities across Iraq at the end of June and handing over of the security situation to Iraqi forces. A lot of people before the withdrawal were saying they were very fearful that attacks would rise.
The government said they were in full control - but attacks like these, in what should be a very safe, very well-protected area of Baghdad will certainly shed some very serious doubts on these assurances.
There have been no official accusations about who is behind the attacks, or claims of responsibility.
But in the past, the government has blamed al-Qaeda linked Sunni insurgents - and they might again be blamed for these attacks, given that government buildings were the clear target, our correspondent says.
The violence comes exactly six years after one of the first major attacks in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
On 19 August 2003, the UN headquarters in Baghdad was hit by a suicide truck bomb, killing 22 people in what was the most deadly attack up until that point since the US-led invasion earlier that year.
The date was chosen for the UN's inaugural World Humanitarian Day.
The UN hopes the event will focus attention on aid workers and increase support for their role.
In the past six years, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the violence that followed.
| |
Ban Ki-moon is not a man known for taking risks. Yet his decision to visit Burma and meet its secretive military rulers - at a time when the rest of the world is outraged by their decision to put opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on trial - is quite a gamble.
 Mr Ban has been criticised for his unassertive style of diplomacy |
The visit was requested by the Burmese government.
The generals are rarely graced by the presence of figures of Mr Ban's international stature in their bunker-like capital Nay Pyi Taw.
If the secretary-general gets nothing in return, he will be assailed by his detractors for being naive, for allowing the status of his high office to be used by a pariah regime.
Critics have already argued that a UN secretary-general's visit should be a prize, to be awarded after significant concessions have been made, not before.
But if Mr Ban's visit can revive a dialogue between the military and the opposition that has been dead for six years, he can chalk up the greatest achievements at the UN to date.
So what are his prospects?
Previous UN envoys have generally had little success in Burma.
 |  Burma's rulers are prepared to sit in splendid isolation if they feel threatened by international pressure   |
The one exception was Razali Ismail, a distinguished Malaysian diplomat, who was appointed UN Special Envoy to Burma in April 2000.
He helped broker talks between the government and Aung San Suu Kyi that resulted in her release from house arrest in May 2002.
But after she was detained again a year later, Mr Razali was repeatedly denied entry to the country, and he resigned in frustration at the end of 2005.
His successor, Ibrahim Gambari, has led eight missions to Burma, but has little to show for them.
He arrived there right after the army's violent suppression of mass anti-government protests in September 2007, and thought he had been given assurances by Senior General Than Shwe that the military would be lenient with the protesters.
Since then, in a seemingly calculated snub to international opinion, military-dominated courts have imposed harsh sentences on hundreds of political prisoners.
Election risk
Ban Ki-moon's position as secretary-general may make it easier for him to deal with the notoriously reclusive and stubborn military ruler.
It may be that his oft-criticised unassertive diplomatic style strikes a chord with Than Shwe.
Mr Ban certainly seems to feel he has a rapport with him, a big claim to make after just one meeting over a year ago - but a claim nonetheless that few other international figures can rival.
|  |
What we do know is that Burma's rulers are prepared to sit in splendid isolation if they feel threatened by international pressure - the networks of tunnels being constructed underneath the new capital, with North Korean help, are testimony to that.
But they do care about their legitimacy and respectability in the world.
Why else take the risk of holding elections next year, albeit elections which will leave the military in a dominant position?
Mr Ban must seduce them with offers of respect away from the comfort zone of their bunkers.
The few people who have any contact with top Burmese officials say they have been genuinely caught off-guard by the storm of international protest over Aung San Suu Kyi.
That the trial has been repeatedly delayed suggests they have concerns - dissident trials are usually rushed through with little due-process - so there is some willingness to acknowledge world reaction.
Dialogue test
Measuring the success of Mr Ban's mission will be difficult.
He may win the release of a number of political prisoners. Some will dismiss this as a mere token, but such concessions do matter.
Mr Ban has a list of those of greatest concern to the UN; some are being held in very harsh conditions. Dozens of political prisoners have died in custody over the years.
 Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party was brutally suppressed by the army |
He almost certainly will not obtain Ms Suu Kyi's release. The real test will be what happens over the next few months - whether a real dialogue can be restarted with the opposition.
Another test will be whether next year's election can be made more inclusive.
At the moment the main opposition party, Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, says it will only consider taking part if the military government meets a series of demands including the release of political prisoners and changes to the military-drafted constitution.
As it stands, the election result is likely to be dismissed by many countries around the world as too unrepresentative and too tightly controlled by the military to be recognised officially.
Yet Than Shwe clings to the hope that the election will give his rule international legitimacy.
The election will, though, make meaningful changes to the arbitrary way Burma is ruled by a small cabal of military men.
If it can be improved, if the military can be persuaded to allow the opposition a greater role - these are very big ifs - it could offer the country a way out of its current dire predicament.
This is a prize Ban Ki-moon clearly thinks is worth pursuing.
 Mr Webb, who has links with Barack Obama, is on a tour of the region |
US Senator Jim Webb has arrived in Burma on a visit during which he is to meet military ruler Than Shwe.
He would be the most senior US official to meet Than Shwe, the Democratic senator's office said in a statement.
He visits days after pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest for 18 more months.
Adding to international condemnation, the UN Security Council has expressed its "serious concern" and the EU extended sanctions against Burma.
Mr Webb, who is close to US President Barack Obama, is due to meet Than Shwe on Saturday, a Burmese official said.
He is not expected to meet Ms Suu Kyi or American John Yettaw, whose uninvited visit to her home led to the trial which ended on Tuesday.
Four senior members of Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) have been invited to Burma's administrative capital, Nay Pyi Taw, "to meet with an important person", party spokesman Nyan Win said, adding that it was unclear if that person was Than Shwe or Jim Webb.
'Watered-down' statement
Ms Suu Kyi was put on trial in May after Mr Yettaw swam to her lakeside home, evading guards. She was charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest by sheltering Mr Yettaw and after many delays, was sentenced on Tuesday to three years in prison.
Although the sentence was commuted to 18 months house arrest by Than Shwe, it ensures the opposition leader cannot take in planned elections next year.
Ms Suu Kyi, 64, has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest.
|  |
A UN Security Council statement on Thursday expressed "serious concern" at the sentence and urged the release of all political prisoners.
Correspondents said the statement was watered down from an original US draft, which "condemned" the verdict and demanded that Burma's military junta free Ms Suu Kyi.
The main reason for the weaker language was China - a powerful permanent member of the council, with close ties to Burma's rulers, says the BBC's Tom Lane at the UN.
Together with Russia it has blocked strongly-worded condemnations in the past, our correspondent adds.
The US, Britain and France were among countries to condemn the verdict, but Burma's neighbour China said the world should respect Burma's laws.
| FROM BBC WORLD SERVICE |
The EU said judges involved in Ms Suu Kyi's sentencing would now join military and government figures in having their overseas assets frozen and travel to the EU banned.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is the current chairman of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) told the BBC that imposing sanctions could lead to problems and that it was important to take a balanced approach to dealing with Burma.
President Obama said earlier this year that the US was reviewing its policy towards Burma.
Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said increased US engagement with Burma, including investment, might be possible if Ms Suu Kyi were freed. But she also warned that there were concerns over the transfer of nuclear technology from North Korea to Burma.
Mr Webb chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs. He has called for more "constructive" US engagement with Burma but said in July that the trial of Ms Suu Kyi would make this difficult.
| i |
|  I want to be a teacher and help others like myself realise their dreams Shashi Arya |
A dream has come true for 135 young people living in slums across the Indian capital, Delhi.
All have just started classes after successfully getting admission into Delhi University.
Coming from poor families, none of them ever imagined they would go to college. But it has happened with the help of a local non-governmental organisation.
They have helped them in everything from filling out forms, buying books and paying their tuition fees.
Myriad problems
Eighteen-year-old Shashi Arya is a bubbly girl, who loves to tell her story.
|  We knew we had to build their confidence and tell them that they are no less than anyone else Asha founder Kiran Martin |
Her family lives in one room in a slum in south Delhi. The lanes leading to her home are narrow and crowded.
Families live cheek by jowl and they face myriad problems including a lack of water and electricity.
There is also the fear of losing their home as the Delhi government is determined to demolish all slums within the city before the Commonwealth Games are held here next year.
Despite all this Shashi is one of the young women who has got into university this year, helped by the organisation Asha. This is something she never believed could happen.
"Of course I had dreams of going to college," Shashi says, "but because my family is so poor, all I could think of was getting a job to help them.
"I want to be a teacher and help others like myself realise their dreams."
When her father refused to pay for her to study anymore, Shashi did it herself by tutoring other children and making money.
She has just begun a BA programme at Maitreyi College with financial help from Asha.
Neglected
Another grateful beneficiary of the scheme is 19-year-old Mahesh Sharma, from a family of six, who is doing his BA in geography.
 Opportunities are few and far between in Delhi's slums |
Studying was a big problem for him with so many family members living in one room.
Such obstacles are numerous for students from poorer backgrounds, says Asha founder Kiran Martin.
"We have college preparation workshops, because we knew that there's going to be a problem of integration," she said.
"Since these children have always lived on the margins of society, they've in fact never in their lives mixed and mingled with children that are much wealthier than them.
"So what basically we did was try and prepare them because we knew we had to build their confidence and tell them that they are no less than anyone else - and at the end of the day the great equaliser will be how well they do in their exams."
Most of these students are the first in their families to go to college. Of the 135 students, more than 40% are women, who are usually the most neglected when it comes to education in poorer fa  Nehwal also became the first Indian to win a Super series tournament |
Shuttler Saina Nehwal has become the first Indian woman to enter the quarter-finals of the World Badminton Championship being played in India.
Nehwal beat 10th seed Petya Nedelcheva of Bulgaria 18-21, 21-18, 21-10 in a match which lasted 57 minutes.
She recently won the Indonesian Open badminton title and became the first Indian to win a Super series tourney.
Nehwal, now ranked eighth in the world, was the first Indian woman to reach the singles quarter-finals at the Olympics.
In a thrilling match in front of a home crowd in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, Nehwal lost the opening game against Nedelcheva, but bounced back.
The sixth seed Indian will now take on the second seed Chinese Lin Wang in the quarter finals.
The 19-year-old shuttler hails from the northern state of Haryana.
Nehwal is also the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championship
| |
| | |
The UN Security Council has expressed serious concern at the imposition of a new period of house arrest on Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. A statement from the council, which came after two days of debate, also called for the release of all political prisoners in Burma. A court in Rangoon found Ms Suu Kyi guilty two days ago of breaking the terms of her previous house arrest. Earlier the European Union extended its sanctions on Burma. The EU said judges involved in Ms Suu Kyi's sentencing would now join military and government figures in having their overseas assets frozen and travel to the EU banned. Ms Suu Kyi was found guilty because she allowed an American man, John Yettaw, to stay at her lakeside home after he swam there uninvited in May. She was sentenced to three years in prison but the term was commuted to 18 months house arrest, ensuring the opposition leader cannot take in planned elections next year. Governments around the world condemned the conviction. UN statement Correspondents said Thursday's UN statement was watered down from an original US draft, which "condemned" the verdict and demanded that Burma's military junta free Ms Suu Kyi. The main reason for the weaker language was China - a powerful permanent member of the council, with close ties to Burma's rulers, says the BBC's Tom Lane at the UN. Together with Russia it has blocked strongly-worded condemnations in the past, our correspondent adds. The statement, read out by the council's current president, British Ambassador John Sawers, said: "The members of the Security Council express serious concern at the conviction and sentencing of... Aung San Suu Kyi and its political impact." Thai PM on relations with Burma He said council members "reiterate the importance of the release of all political prisoners". Ms Suu Kyi, 64, has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. The US, Britain and France were among those to quickly condemn Tuesday's verdict, but Burma's neighbour China said the world should respect Burma's laws. Meanwhile, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who is the current chairman of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) told the BBC that imposing sanctions could lead to problems and that it was important to take a balanced approach to dealing with Burma. The latest European sanctions widen restrictions imposed on military and government members after a violent crackdown on protests in 2007. A decade earlier, in 1996, the EU banned the sale or transfer of arms and weapons expertise to the country. It also suspended all bilateral aid other than humanitarian assistance | |
More troops are being drafted in to help the rescue effort
More than 390 people are believed to have been buried alive in the Taiwanese village worst affected by a massive mudslide caused by a typhoon.
It is the first time the government has released a firm estimate of the number of people they believe might have been killed in Hsiaolin village.
Thousands of people are still stranded by the worst mudslides and floods.
Last weekend's typhoon caused Taiwan's worst flooding for 50 years, resulting in 117 confirmed deaths so far.
|  |
The floods have washed out roads, swept away bridges and sent low-rise buildings crashing into rivers, leaving many mountain villages accessible only by air.
Hundreds of survivors have been airlifted from Hsiaolin village, which was hit by a massive mudslide that covered all but two houses, and thousands more from other settlements in central and southern Taiwan.
But Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou has said he expects the number killed to climb to more than 500 people.
Hundreds had been feared dead, but the government had not previously given an estimated overall death toll.
Help on way?
Taiwan's government says it has received offers of help from the international community, including the European Union and the US.
But it has stressed the need for very specific technical assistance - namely giant cargo helicopters that can carry large earth diggers and other machinery into remote mountain areas to help re-open roads.
The government has also requested prefabricated buildings to help house those left homeless by the flooding and supplies of disinfectant, to try to prevent the spread of disease.
| TYPHOON MORAKOT  Deluged Taiwan with at least two metres (80in) of rain over the weekend Caused the country's worst flooding in 50 years Some 117 people confirmed dead, another 500 believed killed More than 14,000 people airlifted out of affected areas |
Visiting the area earlier this week, President Ma assured anxious relatives that no effort would be spared to find their loved ones, as anger began to rise over the government response.
The families of those stranded and of the hundreds feared dead have urged the government to speed up rescue efforts.
Many have been waiting for days at the rescue operation centre in Qishan for news of relatives missing since the typhoon struck over the weekend.
Critics say the authorities were too slow to realise the magnitude of the disaster. Some of those stranded say they have received no help for days and are short of food and water.
More than 14,000 people have been evacuated by air from the worst-affected areas. Others have been carried to safety over ravines where bridges have collapsed by soldiers using cables and makeshift ziplines.
Military helicopters have been dropping provisions for those still stranded, but poor weather has hampered their work. Soldiers have also been trying to reach remote settlements on foot.
The flooding has destroyed 34 bridges and severed 253 sections of road in Taiwan, Reuters news agency quotes the transportation ministry as saying, with repairs likely to take up to three years in the worst-affected areas.
Officials in the island's south-eastern Taitung county estimated that nearly 3,700 people remained cut off as of Friday morning, the AFP news agency reports, while in central Chiayi county some 9,000 were thought to be stranded.
Some 2,000 people are still to be evacuated in Kaohsiung county, the area worst hit and where the rescue operations in Hsaiolin and other villages have been focused, AFP quotes a county magistrate as saying.
Many of the affected villages are inhabited by aborigines, who farm the mountainous terrain.
Typhoon Morakot, which lashed Taiwan with at least 200cm (80in) of rain last weekend, has caused at least $910m (£550m) in damages to agriculture and infrastructure, Reuters reports.
Reconstruction is expected to cost some $3.65bn (£2.2bn).
 President Obama: ''We are closer to achieving health insurance reform than we have ever been'' US President Barack Obama has accused some opponents of his healthcare reform proposals of trying to "scare the heck" out of people. Anti-reform campaigners had created "bogeymen out there that just aren't real", he said at a town-hall style meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Passing a healthcare reform bill is Mr Obama's top domestic priority for 2009. But in recent weeks, opponents of reform have been making serious accusations about his proposals. The former Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, said last week that the president wanted to set up "death panels" of government officials with the power to determine whether disabled or elderly Americans are "worthy of healthcare". In fact, under proposals drawn up by the US House of Representatives, the government would pay for elderly Americans to receive voluntary consultations with doctors to discuss their end-of-life care. "The rumour that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on Grandma because we've decided that its too expensive to let her live anymore," said Mr Obama. "Somehow, it has gotten spun into this idea of death panels. I am not in favour of that, I want to clear the air here." Meetings disrupted Some 47 million Americans currently do not have health insurance, and rising healthcare costs are a major contributing factor to America's spiralling budget deficit. But there is disagreement about how to go about reforming the system.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have reportedly reached a deal on a bill that would mandate all Americans to take out health insurance, with subsidies for the less well-off paid for by a tax on families earning over $350,000 a year. The House bill would also offer Americans who do not get coverage through their employer the chance to join a publicly-run scheme. But in the Senate negotiations have stalled, with moderate senators expressing opposition to both the tax and the public plan proposed by the House. Both chambers need to agree on a bill before it can become law. HAVE YOUR SAY People are afraid to go to the hospital in an emergency, because they do not want to saddle their families with debilitating debt Louise Wilson, Grand Rapids, MI Mr Obama had called on the Senate and the House to agree their own versions of a bill before the August recess, but lawmakers missed the deadline. During the recess, a number of healthcare "town-hall" meetings hosted by Democratic politicians have been targeted by conservative opponents of reform. The opposition has sometimes been quite vocal, with anti-reform campaigners chanting slogans and shouting down supporters of reform. Proponents of reform say the protests are being organised by well-funded lobby groups, while opponents say they are a genuine expression of anger at Mr Obama's proposals. At the New Hampshire meeting, which did not feature any angry scenes, the president called on his opponents to temper their behaviour. "I do hope that we will talk with each other and not over each other," he said. Polls suggest that a majority of Americans support many of the administration's healthcare proposals. | ||
Children killed 'over mafia fear' | |
A mother has confessed to drowning her two children in a bathtub to "protect them from mafia threats," French prosecutors have said. The woman, 39, phoned her husband and police and confessed to killing her three-year-old son and two-year-old daughter in their well-furnished home. Police found the bodies in the family's Nice apartment, in the south of France. The woman was due to have a psychiatric examination. She is reported to have attempted suicide after the drowning. The family had been in the apartment for three months, Nice-Matin reported. Prosecutor Olivier Caracotch said she confessed to drowning the toddlers to "protect them from threats by the mafia," AFP quoted him as saying. The husband, also 39, was taken to a police station after there was an altercation between him and police officers at the apartment. He was later released. | |
Police hunting the suspected mastermind of Indonesia's hotel bombings, Noordin Mohamed Top, have said a man shot dead in a weekend raid was not him.
DNA tests identified the man as one of Noordin's accomplices in the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta on 17 July, police said.
Earlier reports had suggested the dead man was Malaysian-born Noordin.
His is one of Asia's most wanted men, and has been blamed for a string of attacks including the 2002 Bali blasts.
The BBC's Rebecca Henschke, in Jakarta, says police are trying to play down their disappointment, but the news that Noordin was not killed will be a major blow for them.
They have been hunting him for seven years.
'Explosive smuggler'
Police named the dead man as Ibrohim and said he had worked as a florist at both of the hotels that were attacked by suicide bombers.
Nine people were killed in the attacks.
"Ibrohim was a planner who was always present in the meetings with Noordin Top," police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a news conference.
This year's July bombings were an ugly reminder of past attacks
Police released new security camera footage showing Ibrohim escorting the alleged Marriott bomber around the hotel on 8 July, and later bringing bomb-making material into the hotel's staff-only loading bay.
Mr Soekarna added that the militants were planning an attack on the house of President Susilo Bambang Yudohyono, and claimed Ibrohim was going to be a suicide bomber in that operation.
On Saturday police mounted a siege of a farmhouse in Temanggung, central Java, after a tip-off suggested Noordin was hiding out there.
Initial reports suggested Noordin had been killed after an hours-long shoot-out.
But analysts had doubted the claims, and police chiefs are now not certain whether Noordin was ever at the farmhouse.
He is believed to have formed a violent offshoot from the al-Qaeda-linked militant network Jemaah Islamiah.
As well as the 2002 Bali bombings, Noordin is thought to have been behind attacks on the Jakarta Marriott in 2003, the Australian embassy in 2004, and also on a series of restaurants in Bali in 2005 in which more than 20 died.
Russia is to spend almost $500m (£300m) next year reinforcing its military bases in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, the prime minister says.
Vladimir Putin's announcement came as he arrived in Abkhazia for talks.
He said Russia was committed to defending and financing the small strip of land in Georgia's north-west corner.
Moscow officially recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the war a year ago between Russia and Georgia.
Apart from Russia only Nicaragua recognised the regions' independence in the conflict's aftermath; both areas are still widely held to remain part of Georgia.
Russian citizenship
While in Abkhazia, Mr Putin is expected to meet local leaders for talks on economic co-operation and other issues, the AFP news agency reports.
ABOUT ABKHAZIA
Declared independence from Georgia in 1999, but Tbilisi continues to regard it as a breakaway region
Only Moscow and Nicaragua recognise Abkhazia's declared independence from Georgia
Population approximately 250,000 in 2003
Major languages: Russian, Georgian, Abkhaz
Q&A: Conflict in Georgia
He began his visit by laying a wreath at a war memorial to remember servicemen who died in the 1992-1993 war between Abkhaz separatists and the Georgian government.
Speaking ahead of the trip, Mr Putin said Russia would deploy more forces in Abkhazia and build a "modern border-guard system" to guarantee the security of the two breakaway regions.
"All this will cost about 15-16bn rubles [$463m; £280m]," he said.
Moscow is rapidly establishing facts on the ground in Abkhazia following last year's war, says the BBC's Richard Galpin in the region's main city, Sukhumi.
The bulk of the money will be spent on military bases and strengthening the border between Abkhazia and Georgia, says our correspondent.
The Abkhaz government wants Moscow to build a big navy base south of Sukhumi, which could ultimately provide an alternative home for the Russian Black Sea fleet currently based in Ukraine, a senior Abkhaz official told the BBC.
Russia currently has about 1,000 troops in Abkhazia and about 800 in South Ossetia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said recently, adding that about 1,500 would be deployed in each territory by the end of this year.
Russian troops have been in Georgia's breakaway regions since the conflict
Mr Putin also said Moscow was already helping finance the region's overall budget and was paying people's pensions.
A large proportion of Abkhazia's population has already been given Russian citizenship.
The build-up of Russia's military presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is regarded by Georgia as a clear violation of its sovereignty.
Last year's five-day conflict erupted on 7 August as Georgia tried to retake control of South Ossetia.
Russia quickly repelled the assault and pushed its forces deeper inside Georgia, before pulling back.
 Pakistan is critical of the US drone attacks |
At least 10 suspected militants have been killed in a strike by a US drone in north-west Pakistan, local intelligence officials say.
The attack targeted an insurgents' camp in South Waziristan near the Afghan border, the officials said.
The area is the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, whose death in an earlier strike has not yet been confirmed.
There have been dozens of such drone strikes in the past year.
Hundreds of militants and civilians have been killed.
Most of the strikes have taken place in the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan.
'Training camp'
The missiles on Tuesday targeted a training camp near the village of Ladda, in the heart of the Mehsud tribe's territory, officials said.
A resident Hamdullah Mehsud was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying that three missiles were fired into the house of a villager used as a training camp by the militants.
In addition to those killed, five people had been wounded, he said.
In a similar attack last week, the house of the father-in-law of Baitullah Mehsud was hit in Makeen.
Mr Mehsud's wife was killed in the bombing. The Pakistani government's claim that the Taliban leader also died in the attack has not been confirmed yet.
Pakistan has been publicly critical of drone attacks. The government says that they fuel support for the militants.
The US military does not routinely confirm drone attacks but the armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are believed to be the only forces capable of deploying drones in the region.
In March, US President Barack Obama said his government would consult Pakistan on drone attacks.
He desperately wants to keep his most influential opponent away from the Burmese public, yet he fears the uproar that will ensue if he keeps her locked up.
Than Shwe and his ruling generals have already procrastinated over Aung San Suu Kyi's latest trial. Most court hearings in Burma last a few days at most, but this one has been going on for more than two months.
Now they've stalled again, postponing the verdict until 11 August.
Unlike the other 2,000 political prisoners - whom the Burmese military seem to keep in jail without much thought for public opinion - it is evident that Burma's officials do not know what to do with this demure 64-year-old woman.
Revered and respected
Aung San Suu Kyi is not an ordinary prisoner. As the daughter of Burma's independence hero General Aung San, she was always going to command people's respect.
But as the rightful winner of the country's last democratic elections in 1990 - which the military refused to recognise - she gained credibility in her own right.
 John Yettaw's nocturnal swim gave the junta the pretext they wanted |
By imprisoning her for so long, the junta has unwittingly given her even more symbolic significance in the eyes of Burmese people.
"An aura has built up around her," said Maung Zarni, a research fellow at the London School of Economics. "The public view her as the conscience of Burmese society."
It is especially important for the military generals that Aung San Suu Kyi is out of the way ahead of the next elections, which they plan to hold in early 2010.
The polls are widely seen as an attempt to legitimise the regime by increasing its democratic credentials.
But in order for this to work to its favour, the generals need to make sure their allies win.
In the 1990 elections, the military miscalculated in a big way - they were trounced by Ms Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy. This time they don't want to take any chances.
When an eccentric American swam to Ms Suu Kyi's lakeside house in his homemade flippers in May, he gave the generals the excuse they were looking for.
By accusing her of breaking the terms of her house arrest because she let her uninvited well-wisher stay the night, they finally had a reason to extend her detention and keep her safely locked away throughout the election process.
Risky strategy
But even if the junta find some tenuous legal reason to jail Ms Suu Kyi, or extend the terms of her house arrest, they know they will stoke intense public outrage.
| The public view her as the conscience of Burmese society. Maung Zarni, Research fellow on Burma, London School of Economics |
Keeping behind bars a woman who is not only a Nobel Peace Prize laureate but also the world's most famous political detainee is a high-risk strategy.
Burmese people will be angry and upset if she is found guilty, but according to Mung Pi, who runs a blog site for Burmese exiles, the government knows there is not much that people inside the country can actually do to change things.
"A guilty verdict probably won't lead to large street protests, because people are still suffering from 2007," he said.
In September 2007 large-scale demonstrations led by monks - the most revered sector of society - were brutally quashed by the military, and the opposition movement is still said to be recovering. The generals know that, right now, their opponents do not have the strength to fight back.
 Than Shwe did not let Ban Ki-Moon meet Ms Suu Kyi on his trip to Burma |
"The opposition movement has the moral backing of the people, but it's whoever controls the streets, not the moral high ground, who matters," said Maung Zarni.
Coping with the indignation of the international community, though, is a different matter.
On the surface, it seems that the Burmese generals are completely intransigent when it comes to the demands of the rest of the world.
They have ignored recent incentives from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and refused to let UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon meet Aung San Suu Kyi on a recent visit.
They also remain resolutely unswayed by the constant pleas from celebrities and protest marches.
But there are times when the junta does listen to the outside world.
It belatedly reacted to criticism of its handling of the devastating cyclone last year, letting in foreign aid after initially saying it could manage alone.
And if the military really was oblivious to international reaction, it would surely not have bothered to plan elections - no matter how flawed those elections might be.
Chinese influence
The lengthy delays in Aung San Suu Kyi's trial are another indication that the recalcitrant generals can sometimes be swayed by foreign influence.
"The regime wants to take its time because of the mounting pressure it's under," a diplomat in Rangoon told reporters.
| The regime wants to take its time because of the mounting pressure it's under Western diplomat in Rangoon |
It is still doubtful the military will take much notice of the West, though. The long years of EU and US sanctions mean that Burma has been thrown into the arms of China and Russia, as well as neighbouring Asian nations.
"When push comes to shove, they can afford to just ignore... what the West thinks. They're backed by China," said Justin Wintel, the author of a book on Aung San Suu Kyi.
And as long as they can rely on China and Russia to veto any major action by the UN Security Council, and their neighbours at the Asean regional forum to do little more than voice occasional disapproval, the generals probably feel there will be no serious ramifications to keeping Aung San Suu Kyi behind bars.
Which is ultimately why most analysts believe that Ms Suu Kyi will be found guilty; the negatives of having her free outweigh the positives.
But even if he does send her to jail, Than Shwe already knows that she is likely to remain his most potent opponent.
She may be out of sight, but someone as iconic as Aung San Suu Kyi will never be out of Burmese minds.