Dubai, March 27
Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said he was willing to transfer power “to the people” but feared a civil war in the absence of political dialogue, as key ally US voiced concern that his fall would pose “a real problem” for counter-terrorism efforts.

Saleh’s regime has been rocked by massive protests since January prompting several top military officials and tribal leaders to defect in open support of the protesters.

Cornered by relentless street protests, Saleh said he would not mind stepping down if allowed a dignified departure, but warned that Yemen was a “time-bomb” and could slide into civil war if transfer of power was done in a hurry.

As the President sought to dispel the notion that he was trying to hold on to power, reports from the country’s south said that Islamic militants there had seized control of a weapons factory and a town.

Reports said that suspected Al-Qaida militants had killed seven Yemeni soldiers in attacks on an army convoy and a government building today near Marib, east of the capital.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, voiced concern over the eventual possibility of Saleh’s departure, and its impact on the campaign against Al-Qaida.

“I think it is a real concern because the most active and at this point perhaps the most aggressive branch of Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, operates out of Yemen,” Gates said.

“So if that government collapses, or is replaced by one who is dramatically more weak, then I think we’d face some additional challenges out of Yemen, there’s no question about it. It’s a real problem,” he said.

A day after he put a brave face to insist that his regime was unshaken by the course of events of the past two months, Saleh said in an interview to Al Arabiya television that he was prepared to leave in “a few hours” but he had the responsibility to take the country to “safe shores”.

“I could leave power ... even in a few hours, on condition of maintaining dignity and prestige,” Saleh told Al Arabiya TV.

“I will transfer power to the people, who are the source and owner of power,” he said.

Saleh asked his opponents to learn from the example of Somalia, warning that Yemen was a “time bomb” and could slide into a civil war like situation if the current crisis was not handled properly.

“If we do not act, along with good-willed and friendly countries, to close the rift and start a political dialogue, there will be a devastating civil war that will disturb the whole region,” he said.

Though talks have been on to hammer out a deal for a peaceful transition of power, the opposition has said they believe the president is “maneuvering”.

The opposition says there is still a large gap between opposition demands and what the government is prepared to offer. — PTI

Damascus, March 27
More deadly violence erupted in Syria as snipers killed two persons and demonstrators torched an office of the ruling Baath party of President Bashar al-Assad. The violence came on day 12 of dissent in a country renowned for its iron grip on security.

Authorities however freed 260 political detainees in a bid to appease increasingly angry protesters, who have put Assad under unprecedented domestic pressure since he came to power in 2000.

Officials have confirmed 27 deaths in clashes between demonstrators and security forces, 20 of them protesters, in cities including Homs, Sanamen, Daraa and Latakia since the rallies began on March 15.

Activists have put the death toll at more than 126, with upwards of 100 killed on Wednesday alone in a bloody crackdown on protests in Daraa, the southern tribal town that has become the symbol of the protests.

In Latakia, a port city 350 kilometres northwest of Damascus, two people were killed by sniper fire and two more were wounded, a Syrian official told AFP.

In Tafas, south of the capital, angry residents torched a police station and local headquarters of the Baath party, which has ruled Syria for nearly half a century.

In nearby Daraa, at the Jordanian border, some 300 bare-chested young men climbed on the rubble of a statue of the late president Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, shouting anti-regime slogans, witnesses said.

Daraa demonstrators on Friday tore down the statue and burned the home of the governor, who was dismissed after demonstrations against him earlier this month.

The Assad government has announced a string of reforms to appease demonstrators, including the possibility of ending an emergency law in place since 1963.

But protesters have vowed to keep taking to the streets until their demands for more freedom are met. The authorities have accused “armed gangs” of pushing peaceful rallies into violence.

Rights groups yesterday said the political detainees were freed from the notorious Saydnaya prison, north of Damascus, in the biggest concession by the state yet.

“Syrian authorities have freed 260 detainees from Saydnaya prison, mainly Islamists but also including 14 Kurds, in a move that comes as part of the promises authorities made recently to boost freedom in Syria,” Abdul Karim Rihawi, head of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights told AFP.

Despite a call for massive protests yesterday, on Facebook group The Syrian Revolution 2011, which has emerged as the motor of the protest movement, the only rallies in Damascus were in support of Assad.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the US of trying to oust Syria’s leader to seize the country’s resources. “The attack on Syria has begun...” Chavez said at a political event. — AFP

London, March 27
In an attempt to refurbish its image, the Pakistan army has engaged an Oscar-winning stunt director to produce a swashbuckling series based on true stories of soldiers taking on Taliban militants in hostile mountain terrain.

According to The Sunday Times, the army has invested millions of rupees into the venture that aims to highlight the sacrifices of its soldiers in fighting extremism and terrorism in their country.

Stung by western criticism that it is not doing enough to tackle militants, the Pakistani army has hired Tom Delmar, stunt director of Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winning film ‘Braveheart’, to make the film aimed at transforming its image.

The action centres on a helicopter commando operation in the mountain valley of Peochar in May 2009 when the army took on the Taliban, which had taken over the Swat region.

Peochar was headquarters to Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban leader who was known as ‘Radio Mullah’ for his fiery FM broadcasts. His men had blocked all the roads in and built a network of tunnels inside the mountains big enough to take lorries.

To catch them by surprise a brigade of commandos was dropped by helicopter onto 9,000 ft peaks and they managed to clear the area in an operation that has won international admiration, including praise from General Sir David Richards, Britain's chief of the defence staff.

According to the report, filming is underway in Swat using real soldiers as well as actors.

Through such measures, the army hopes to counter suspicions that it continues to work with militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the warlord.

The report quoted Major-General Athar Abbas, Pakistan's military spokesman saying: “Our actions speak louder than words”.

He said: “There is no gap between our declarations and performance. It's time for others to have a reality check... The US military in Afghanistan is going in circles and when you're not making headway you look for scapegoats”.

He said the "aim of producing the film is twofold. Part image-building of the army - to bring the human face of the war to the public by showing them the sacrifice of soldiers and officers”.

The other objective is to highlight what happened to the people of Swat under Taliban rule, he said.

The 11-part series ‘Beyond the Call of Duty: Invincible Spirits, Immortal Souls’ is halfway through transmission.

It will resume after the Cricket World Cup. The programmes use real soldiers and are based on true stories chosen by Brigadier Azmat Ali, the executive producer, out of more than 100 he discovered from men who had served there. — PTI

Yangon, March 27
The party of Myamar's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, called on Sunday for talks with the country's military rulers to clear up “misunderstandings” before a new government takes office.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) reiterated its demand for talks with the military, known locally as the “Tatmadaw”, to seek the release of more than 2,100 political prisoners and a bigger role for democratic forces in the country's future.

“It is urged that dialogue be held urgently to eliminate the misunderstandings between the democratic forces and the Tatmadaw,” the NLD said in a statement.

“The authority should create fair political conditions by holding politically meaningful dialogue and releasing all political prisoners unconditionally.”

The call is likely to fall on deaf ears as the authoritarian junta prepares to make way for a civilian government it has hand-picked to maintain its half-century grip on power.

The regime has used everything in its power, from deadly force to contentious court rulings, to sideline the NLD and its supporters since its landslide election win in 1990, which the military ignored.

Suu Kyi was released from a seven-year detention in November last year and wants to start a process of national reconciliation involving the army, pro-democracy groups and ethnic militias that have fought the military for decades.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been given unprecedented freedom since her release but her calls for dialogue have been ignored.

The NLD has no political role because it boycotted last year’s long-awaited election, won overwhelmingly by a pro-military party, and was effectively banned by the authorities. — Reuters

Sendai, March 27
Japanese authorities have launched a massive search for hundreds of orphaned children in Iwate, one of the three northeastern prefectures that suffered maximum deaths in the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

The child welfare experts will initially work in groups of three and look for children without parents at evacuation shelters along with people in charge at the shelters.

If there are any children who have no place to go, the specialists are planning to entrust them to temporary care homes at child consultation centres or host parents.

But those temporary care homes and regular homes for children are running at full capacity in various parts of the country, Kyodo news agency reported.

The efforts of child welfare officials, however, may be hindered by the sheer scale of destruction that is still hampering local administrative services.

Search efforts moved into full swing yesterday in Iwate Prefecture, the report said.

Child welfare specialists have gathered from various parts of the country for this unusual mission under the initiative of the Japanese central government.

Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures - the other prefectures that were most severely damaged - are also preparing to accept those specialists and are expected to request their dispatches soon, the report said.

In Iwate, 17 specialists, including psychologists and child minders from nurseries, in Hokkaido, Aomori, Akita, Tokyo and Kanagawa have arrived. They met local counterparts and started their searches in the cities of Kamaishi, Ofunato and Rikuzentakata and the town of Otsuchi.

Akira Katsusawa, head of the Yokohama central child consultation centre, said: “It is a scale (of work) unimaginable but we hope to do as much as we possibly can”.

The Iwate prefectural government is considering asking the central government to build a boarding school if there are many children who have no one else to rely on.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said it had some information about children having lost their parents in the disaster areas that it had not been able to follow up on. — PTI

Tokyo/Fukushima, March 27
Workers were evacuated from the Fukushima nuclear plant today after radiation levels surged 10 million times higher than usual, dealing a major blow to efforts to avoid a meltdown of the reactors.

The radiation in the water is 10 million times higher than that seen usually in the No 2 reactor complex, according Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the operator of the plant, 250-km north-east of Tokyo.

“We are examining the cause of this, but no work is being done there because of the high level of radiation,” said TEPCO, which later retracted the radioactivity result as it was taking another sample to get accurate levels.

It said the data for iodine-134 announced earlier in the day was actually for another substance that has a longer half-life.

Emergency workers trying to cool the nuclear plant were temporarily evacuated. Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said the figure was “quite high”.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has also cautioned that the crisis could go on for months.

“This is a very serious accident by all standards," Yukiya Amano, the director-general IAEA, was quoted as saying by the New York Times. “And it is not yet over.” “More efforts should be done to put an end to the accident,” he said.

Adding to the concerns is the increasing level of radioactive iodine in the seawater near the plant, reaching 1,850.5 times the legal limit. On Friday, it was found to be 1,250.8 times the limit, the nuclear agency said.

The level of contamination is about 1,000 times that of the leaked water already found in the basements of the No 1 and 3 reactor turbine buildings, it said. — PTI