BRAZZAVILLE, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 19--Concerned about growing tension in the tinderbox eastern forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, central African defense ministers set up a new military command for the region and called for respect for national frontiers, AFP reported.
The move followed suspected incursions by Rwandan troops into the eastern Congo in search of the Hutu rebel fighters that have been accused of staging incursions into Rwanda.
An official said this week that the UN mission in the DR Congo was certain that there had been incursions, but was unable to confirm these had been by Rwandan soldiers.
The defense ministers from eight countries of the Economic Community of Central African States, meeting for the first time, did not specifically mention Rwanda, but called on all countries to respect international agreements on security, stability, peace and democracy in the Great Lakes region.
They urged regional government chiefs to take reciprocal measures to ensure respect for existing frontiers inherited from the colonial era, while giving no indication of what these measures should be.
The ministers announced plans to create a general staff for security in the region, with a chief of staff and five deputies responsible for operations, training, logistics, finance and communications.
The meeting here brought together ministers from Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
Rwanda and its violence-torn southern neighbor Burundi were not represented.

DUBAI, UAE, Dec. 19--An Internet statement purportedly from the Saudi wing of Al-Qaeda has urged guerrillas to attack oil facilities in the world's biggest crude exporter, Reuters reported.
"We call on all the mujahideen in the Arabian Peninsula to unify their ranks... and target the oil supplies that do not serve the Islamic nation but the enemies of this nation," said the statement from the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, which was dated Dec. 18.
Its authenticity could not be immediately verified.
The statement comes after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in an audio tape posted on the Internet on Thursday, urged fighters loyal to his network to strike Persian Gulf and Iraqi oil facilities, saying it was the most powerful weapon against the United States.
There was no immediate response from state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco to the statement, but the firm said on Saturday it remained "on alert at all times" to secure the world's biggest oilfields.
The company said oilfields and refineries were guarded by "multiple levels of armed Saudi Aramco security personnel working in close coordination with Saudi government security forces".
The Al-Qaeda statement also urged militants to strike at "all foreign targets, until the Arabian Peninsula is free of these infidels and the tyrants".
Saudi Arabia is battling a 19-month wave of violence by supporters of bin Laden's Al-Qaeda movement. Gunmen have killed foreigners in the Red Sea petrochemical hub of Yanbu and the oil city of Al-Khobar but there have been no reports of direct attacks on oil facilities.
Global oil prices shot up five percent on Friday, partly due to the bin Laden threat.

Tony Blair

LONDON, Dec. 19--A solid majority of British people believe Prime Minister Tony Blair has been damaged over his support for David Blunkett, who was forced to quit as home secretary last week, according to a new poll, AFP reported.
However, voters said Blunkett should return to the cabinet if Blair's Labour party wins the next general election and the home secretary's departure has not hurt Labour's poll ratings, the YouGov survey found.
Blunkett resigned Wednesday over allegations he misused his position to obtain a visa for the nanny of his former lover Kimberly Quinn, a married woman who is the US-born publisher of the Spectator magazine.
Some 68 percent of those surveyed said Blair, who insisted Blunkett would be cleared, has been damaged, according to the YouGov poll conducted for the Sunday Times newspaper.
In addition, while 32 percent said Blair is a good prime minister, 38 percent disagree. Chancellor Gordon Brown, the finance minister, comes out best with 52 percent saying he has done a good job and just 16 percent disagreeing.
YouGov, which polled a weighted sample of 1,981 voters online between December 16-18, found widespread support for both Blunkett's job performance and his paternity battle with Quinn over her two-year-old son.
Some 61 percent said Blunkett was right to resign after Sir Alan Budd's inquiry found a visa for Quinn's nanny had been fast-tracked and his account of events was inaccurate.
Some 21 percent said Blunkett should return to the cabinet straight after the election, expected in May. A second poll for the Independent on Sunday found support for the parties largely unchanged.
Labour lead the Conservatives by 39 percent to 34 percent with the Liberal Democrats on 19 percent, according to Communicate Research, which interviewed 1,004 people between December 14-16.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec. 19--Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has denied that Thai Muslim insurgents are being trained in Malaysia and chided the Thai premier for making such "sensational" claims, AFP quoted a report as saying Sunday.
"Malaysia is not a base to be used by any group to make plans against any country. We will not allow our country to be used as a base," Abdullah was quoted as saying in Dubai by the Sunday Star newspaper.
Abdullah said he was disappointed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra did not use diplomatic channels to air his claims.
"I was shocked to read about it. If Thaksin had such information and we don't know about it, he should have passed it over to us officially through proper diplomatic channels," Abdullah said.
The Thai premier on Friday said some of the militants waging an insurgency in southern Thailand where violence has claimed more than 560 lives this year had been trained in Malaysia.
"If you ask me where they have been trained, absolutely one group of them has been trained in Malaysia, but we believe it was done without the knowledge or support of the Malaysian government," Thaksin told reporters.
"They were trained in the jungle of Kelantan state in Islamic schools there," he said.
Abdullah said when Thaksin went to the press with his claims, it became "sensational news" that would benefit no one. "We have not severed ties. I feel it is important to use diplomatic channels," Abdullah added.
On Saturday a senior Malaysian minister described Thaksin's statement as "wild allegations".
Thaksin has described the violence as part of a "homegrown" separatist movement, though he has also expressed concern that some Muslim activists seek shelter in Malaysia.
Kelantan is the only Malaysian state ruled by the opposition Islamic Party and shares a border with the southern provinces of mainly Buddhist Thailand.

Rebels from the Sudan Liberation Movement wait at their base in an undisclosed location in North Darfur, Sudan, Dec. 17. (AFP Photo)

ABUJA, Ivory Coast, Dec. 19--Sudanese troops launched air strikes against a Darfur village, contrary to reports Khartoum was withdrawing its forces from the region to meet an African Union ceasefire deadline, Reuters quoted an AU spokesman as saying on Sunday.
The AU force commander in Darfur, Nigerian General Festus Okonkwo, told mediators government forces attacked the south Darfur village of Labado on Saturday, Assane Ba said.
"Things have changed, the latest report from General Okonkwo is that the Sudan government has not complied. He said government helicopters attacked Labado and burned the place yesterday," Ba told Reuters.
Okonkwo had earlier said that the Sudanese government was complying with the deadline which expired on Saturday.
The Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups said on Saturday that there was no evidence Sudan was withdrawing its troops in the region, where conflict has displaced 1.6 million people and killed tens of thousands since it first broke out in February 2003.
Ba said the AU was still trying to persuade the feuding parties to stop ceasefire violations and allow a restart of the peace talks which were suspended a week ago.
Rebels left the talks to protest a renewed government offensive on their positions.
The AU gave the two sides a 24-hour deadline on Friday to end fighting in the vast arid region after a massive military build-up in Darfur over the last two weeks, saying it would report any further violations to the UN Security Council.
The 53-member body said huge quantities of arms had poured into Darfur and that the government was poised for a major military offensive. The United States, Britain and the United Nations weighed in with warnings to Khartoum and the rebels.

BEIJING, Dec. 19--China issued a new set of regulations on religious affairs Sunday which state media said would better protect religious freedoms in the communist country, AFP reported.
The preamble of the new rules published in the communist party mouthpiece People's Daily states that citizens' religious freedoms are protected and that no one should be discriminated against for their religious beliefs.
"No organization or individual may force citizens to believe or not to believe in religions. They are not allowed to discriminate against citizens who are believers or non-believers," said one of the clauses.
Xinhua news agency said the rules were "regarded as a significant step forward in the protection of Chinese citizens' religious freedom."
"The new provisions are designed to deal with new situations and issues that have emerged in recent years with China's rapid socio-economic development," it said.
The regulations cover a wide range of issues including those relating to the activities and publications of religious groups and the legal responsibilities of government departments when dealing with such groups.
The new "Religious Affairs Provisions" supercede a set of regulations on the management of sites for religious activities issued in 1994, Xinhua said.
Another set of rules on foreign nationals' religious activities in China remains in force, it said.
The new regulations do not appear much changed from those they replace but some new rules may indicate a "slight improvement" in China's handling of religious bodies, Anthony Lam, a Hong Kong-based Catholic academic, said.
He noted a rule which specifies that government agents who abuse their powers when handling religious groups would face prosecution or discipline. Another rule stipulates that people who "force citizens into believing or not believing," or try to disturb lawful religious activities would face punishment.

SYDNEY, Australia, Dec. 19--An Australian politician has begun a hunger strike in support of illegal immigrants refusing food at South Australia's outback Baxter immigration detention center, AFP reported.
Senator Andrew Bartlett, former parliamentary leader of the left-leaning Australian Democrats party, said he was protesting about the conditions for asylum seekers at the facility, near Port Augusta.
Up to 27 mostly Iranian detainees, some with their lips stitched together, have been on a hunger strike that started two weeks ago, according to refugee advocates. Three of the group have ended their strike after spending more than a week on a rooftop of the center.
"I'd also like to encourage the detainees to retain some hope," Bartlett told ABC radio. "I don't encourage detainees to go on hunger strikes.
"I've always encouraged them in the past not to do that, to pursue other means and I continue to encourage them not to do that, but to indicate to them that we'll continue to support them."
Bartlett criticized the government over its treatment of a family of failed asylum seekers now believed to be facing deportation after exhausting the appeal process in their efforts to convince the authorities they were genuine Afghan refugees.
Seven members of the Bakhtiari family--mother and six children-- whom the government believes to be Pakistani and not Afghan, were given no time to pack belongings when immigration officers removed them from a suburban Adelaide house where they were living to a facility in South Australia's north.
The father is already a detainee in the Baxter detention center.
"The government and the department act close to Christmas, act in the night, act on the weekends and attempt to try and get away with what they're doing with less scrutiny," Bartlett said. "Part of my job is to highlight what they're doing and ensure there is scrutiny of incredibly callous and inhumane acts."
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone would not say whether the move was a step towards deportation, instead saying the family had been asked to voluntarily leave the country and she hoped they would do that.

KHOST, Afghanistan, Dec. 19--Two Taliban commanders were arrested along with two militants late Saturday in southeast Afghanistan by security forces who also seized a weapons cache, a local official told AFP Sunday.
"Two Taliban commanders were arrested at around 10:00 pm along with two other Taliban who were just ordinary soldiers," said Asadullah Wafa, governor of Paktia province.
Mullah Noor Mohammed and Mullah Mullai Goloom had been in charge of planning attacks in the Paktia as well as the other southeastern provinces of Paktika, Khost and Logar, Wafa said.
Security forces also seized seven missiles, remote-controlled bombs, explosive equipment, a satellite phone and some documents and maps during the raid in Khalilan village in Sayid Karam district of Paktia province, he added.
It was impossible to confirm from independent sources exactly what role the arrested men had within the Taliban.
Loyalists from the ousted Islamic regime have been waging a three-year-long insurgency in south and southeast Afghanistan attacking government officials, US and Afghan troops as well as civilians and aid workers.
Mullah Naqeebullah Khan was a commander in charge of planning unrest in and around the main southern city of Kandahar, and had been fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar's personal security chief, Afghan officials said.