A view of the West Bank barrier built by Israel in Occupied Palestine. (AFP Photo)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 28--Jordan said on Monday that the West Bank barrier built by Israel will interfere with establishing a stable Palestinian state and have a spillover effect that will threaten neighboring countries, Reuters said.
In a speech to the United Nations, Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher said the barrier will interfere with the establishment of a viable independent Palestinian state and harm all aspects of Palestinian political, social and economic life.
"This set of circumstances is bound to have spill-over implications into neighboring countries, especially Jordan. The separation wall threatens the national security" of the kingdom, he said.
The World Court ruled in a July 9 "advisory opinion" that the barrier, which is still under construction, was illegal because it cut deep into West Bank land to shield settlements built by Israel on territory it seized in the 1967 Middle East War.
The court, formally known as the International Court of Justice and based in The Hague, is the top UN legal body.
The UN General Assembly subsequently passed a resolution demanding Israel obey the ruling and tear down the barrier.
Israel says it needs a 600-km (375-mile) barrier of fence and wall to keep out suicide bombers. Palestinians call it a grab for land they want as a state.
In the speech, Muasher called for a revived peace process to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the US "road map" that demands specific steps from both sides.

KABUL, Afghanistan,
Sept. 28--Gun-wielding militia commanders seeking to intimidate voters pose a far greater threat to Afghanistan's first presidential election than Taliban-led militants, AFP quoted a report by Human Rights Watch as saying Tuesday.
Hours after US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad proclaimed Afghanistan had "broken the back" of warlords and was making progress in disarming regional militias, the New York-based rights watchdog released a report detailing voter intimidation by militia commanders before the October 9 poll.
"In most parts of the country Afghans told Human Rights Watch that they are primarily afraid of the local factional leaders and military commanders--not the Taliban insurgency," said the rights group report, entitled 'The Rule of the Gun.'
It found that local militia commanders who came to power after the late 2001 ousting of the hardline Taliban rulers have brutally reinforced their rule.
Regional militias have used "force, threats and corruption to stifle legitimate political activity and dominate the election process", it said.
A nationwide UN-backed disarmament program had largely failed because local commanders in many regions were still able to access their former arsenals, said John Sifton, the report's author.
"In Zabul and Kunar, the Taliban are still a real threat but countrywide many Afghans think of warlords as the primary obstacle to democracy and human rights," he told AFP.
Since the 18,200 US-led troops and 8,000 NATO-led peacekeepers are inadequate for guarding 25,000 polling sites, most of the security on voting day will be provided by police with links with local commanders.
"Because of the inadequate provision of international forces, current security plans for the presidential election include the use of deputized warlord or factional forces to guard polling stations--the very people Afghans say they're most afraid of," the report said.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 28--Asian countries challenged world leaders Monday to redraw their battle plans in the war on terror by training their sights on religious intolerance, poverty and social injustice, AFP reported.
Taking center stage at the annual UN debate, Asian leaders also stressed the importance of restoring the United Nations' legitimacy as a global arbiter following the divisions over the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, current chair of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, warned that the war on terror was being tainted by anti-Muslim bigotry.
"There is an urgent need to stop tarnishing the Muslim world by unfair stereotypes," Abdullah said. "Most damaging of all is the increasing tendency to attribute linkages between international terrorism and Islam."
Condemning the "prejudices and bigotry" triggered by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Abdullah said Islam was all too often being associated with violence.
"We need to clear the confusion of linking the problems faced by some Muslim countries with Islam the religion," he said.
Abdullah's remarks echoed those last week of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally in the war on terror, who warned the UN General Assembly of an "iron curtain" falling between the Islamic world and the West, with Muslims feeling unjustly treated in international disputes.
Indonesia and the Philippines, both struggling with domestic separatist insurgencies, reaffirmed their commitment to fighting terrorism but argued for a greater focus on the social and economic triggers of violent unrest.
"Our faith remains firm that the war on terror can be won," said Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirjuda.
"But the global coalition to defeat terrorism ... must address the root causes of terrorism: the grievances and the poignant sense of injustice that drive human beings to such depths of despair, they would carry out the most heinous acts of mass murder and destruction," he said.
Wirjuda also staked Indonesia's claim as the world's most populous Muslim nation to a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council.

MAJDAL ANJAR, Lebanon,
Sept. 28--After overnight riots, hundreds of Lebanese staged a protest in this border town Tuesday over the death in custody of a suspected Al-Qaeda leader arrested over bomb plots against Western embassies, AFP reported.
Protestors called for the resignation of Interior Minister Elias Murr and for a legal and medical probe into the death of Lebanese Ismail Mohammed Al-Khatib by a doctor appointed by his family.
Khatib, described by Lebanese authorities as the top operative in Lebanon of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, was among 10 people detained last week over alleged plans to blow up the Italian embassy in Beirut.
He died on Monday after suffering what the Lebanese security services said was a "massive heart attack."
When news of his death reached his hometown of Majdal Anjar in the eastern Bekaa valley, protestors took to the streets, hurling stones and bottles at Lebanese border checkpoints.
Early Tuesday, residents and clergymen gathered in and around the Bilal bin Rabah mosque in central Majdal Anjar, a sleepy Sunni Muslim conservative town extending to the Masnaa border point leading into neighboring Syria.
The protestors, many carrying sticks and knives, shouted slogans against "the United States and its allies in Lebanon" who arrested Khatib.
"Abu Ghraib prison has moved to Lebanon," said one banner, referring to the notorious US-controlled prison near Baghdad where cases of sexual and physical abuse emerged last year.
"Lebanon's Fallujah refuses humiliation," said another, referring to the Sunni bastion east of Baghdad where insurgents have been waging a fierce battle against US-led forces.
Sheikh Khalil Al-Mayss, the mufti of the Bekaa valley who has cast doubt on the state version of the link of those arrested with the Al-Qaeda network, said the protestors were awaiting the arrival of Khatib's body at the mosque.

PARIS, Sept. 28--Fifty-six percent of French people would oppose Turkey's entry to the European Union if a referendum were held on the issue today, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
But the survey by the IPSOS research group showed 63 percent of respondents could foresee Turkey joining the Union at some stage in the future if it made "the required political and economic efforts".
The poll, published by Le Figaro newspaper, confirmed French people remain hostile to mainly Muslim Turkey joining the EU but will give some hope to Ankara that public opinion could change by the time its accession becomes a possibility. Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have proposed holding a referendum on Turkey's accession. They say Ankara could not join for at least 15 years and the referendum should be held when long accession talks end.
The European Commission is widely expected to recommend in a report on Oct. 6 that the EU open entry talks with Turkey. No final decision will be made until bloc leaders meet in December and the accession talks would be expected to last for years.
The IPSOS poll of 932 people, carried out on Sept. 24 and 24, showed 36 percent of people favored Turkey's entry and 56 percent opposed. Eight percent did not respond.
Sixty-three percent said they could imagine Turkey in the Union if it made the necessary changes and 30 percent said it should never be part of the EU for cultural and historic reasons. Seven percent abstained.
Of those who opposed entry now, 40 percent said the main reason was the risk of Turkish immigrants flooding the job market in rich EU member states.
Twenty-six percent said the main reason was that much of Turkey is in Asia and twenty-five percent cited the fact that the majority of Turks are Muslims.

GONAIVES, Haiti, Sept. 28--Devastating floods unleashed by Tropical Storm Jeanne are feared to have killed more than 2,000 people in the northern Haitian city of Gonaives, the city's mayor said Monday, as searchers keep discovering more bodies 10 days after the storm struck, AFP reported.
Thousands more remain homeless after torrential rains and floodwaters ripped through this coastal city, 170 kilometers north of Port-au-Prince.
The government, international aid groups and UN peacekeepers are trying to bring disaster relief, but gangs of men wielding metal bars have attacked food convoys arriving in Gonaives.
"We don't have an exact toll yet, but our calculations surpass the estimates given by the civil protection authorities," Gonaives mayor Calixte Valentin told local radio.
Civil protection authorities put the official death at least 1,514, with 952 remaining missing.
Gonaives has a population of between 200,000 and 250,000 people.
The city was wrecked by the storm. Hundreds of inhabitants have set up temporary homes in Gonaives' central cathedral, while health officials fear outbreaks of diarrhea and typhoid fever.
Valentin said another 50 corpses were recovered in the Dolan neighborhood where they had been buried in a mass grave.
"In total, 10 common graves have been dug for bodies that we have found in recent hours among the rubble of destroyed homes, under mounds of mud and along the shoreline where bodies have been washed up by the sea," the mayor said.
Valentin criticized what he said was a lack of security and order in the distribution of much needed food and aid.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Sept. 28--Kyrgyz security forces have foiled an attempt to sell 60 containers of plutonium-239, which is used for making nuclear weapons, AFP quoted a national security committee spokeswoman as saying Tuesday.
It remained unclear how much plutonium was contained in the containers, but an official said its grade was high enough to make a so-called "dirty bomb" that disburses high doses of radiation over large areas.
One man was detained during the seizure of the plutonium last week and another suspect escaped, the spokeswoman said.
"Plutonium-239 is not used in Kyrgyzstan--the security service is trying to establish how this material got into the hands of the detained person," the spokeswoman told AFP. Fears about the security of chemical and nuclear sites in Kyrgyzstan have risen in recent years with the discovery of a number of such attempts to sell radioactive materials on the black market.
Although it is not thought to have produced nuclear weapons, this former Soviet republic was a major uranium producer until it became an independent republic following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.