Uzbeks build a bridge across the Shakhikhansai river near the town of Korasuv at the border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, May 14. (AFP Photo)

ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan, May 16--Unrest spread through eastern Uzbekistan after a crackdown by security forces left up to 500 dead in Andijan, with disturbances reaching three other towns--including one that reportedly left 200 dead, AP reported.
The clashes in the region bordering Kyrgyzstan were the worst since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
President Islam Karimov’s government has denied opening fire on demonstrators as witnesses have claimed, instead blaming Islamic extremists for the violence. The authoritarian government has restricted access for reporters in the affected areas.
But if the reports of more than 700 deaths since Friday hold true, and if Uzbek forces were behind the killing--as most reports indicate--it would be some of the worst state-inspired bloodshed since the massacre of protesters in China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, head of the local Appeal human rights advocacy group, said Monday that government troops had killed about 200 demonstrators on Saturday in Pakhtabad, about 20 miles northeast of Andijan. There was no independent confirmation of his claim.
That violence would have come a day after some 500 people reportedly were killed in Andijan--Uzbekistan’s fourth-largest city--when government troops put down a prison uprising by alleged Islamic militants and citizens protesting dire economic conditions.
Andijan remained tense on Monday after gunfire continued throughout the night. Residents said government troops were fighting militants in an outlying district, but the claim could not be confirmed.
Alexei Volosevich, an Andijan correspondent for the Fergana.ru Web site, said witnesses told him that militants fired at police from apartment buildings near the prison and that police eventually killed the assailants. There was no word about police casualties.
Meanwhile, hours of rioting in the Uzbek border town of Korasuv left police cars and government offices torched, but by the end of the day Korasuv’s residents counted a victory they said was worth the chaos: They could cross the bridge to Kyrgyzstan that their government dismantled two years ago.
Uzbek authorities tore up the floor of part of the footbridge in early 2003, purportedly to help block infectious diseases in Kyrgyz food products. But locals saw it as an attempt by the government to grind them down, denying them access to the better-developed economy and comparatively more open politics of Kyrgyzstan.

Mohammed Mahdi Akef

CAIRO, Egypt,
May 16--The leader of Egypt’s largest Islamic movement said Sunday that his group is not trying to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak with its street protests but may back a candidate to run against him in upcoming elections.
Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef, in an interview with The Associated Press, described Mubarak’s government as “corrupt and expired,“ although he said his movement has no intention of offering itself as a “ruling party“ for Egyptians.
But he said the powerful Brotherhood may find and back a candidate who shares its views to run in September’s multi-candidate presidential election. Religious-based parties, including the Brotherhood, are banned in Egypt.
“If we find somebody who is good for this election and has an honorable history, we will give him our votes,“ said Akef, whose movement seeks an Islamic government.
The Brotherhood commands a substantial following in Egypt and is among the best-organized movements in the conservative country. It alone among Mubarak’s opponents could prove a tough challenger.
On Saturday, Mubarak was quoted in an interview as saying that recent street protests by members of the Brotherhood and other opposition groups--where participants have demanded an end to Mubarak’s nearly 24-year-old regime-- undermine the economy by prompting investors to flee. Akef denied his group was undermining the economy.
“These demonstrations are aimed at promoting (political) reforms--that is our only objective and our religious duty,“ he said.
Akef stressed the Brotherhood, which renounced violence three decades ago, is not interested in overthrowing the government.
“We are not resorting to confrontation or violence. We call for love and peace,“ he said. “No group has been so enormously harmed by the regime like the Muslim Brotherhood; no one has sacrificed like we have. Nevertheless, we are only demanding reform.“
The Brotherhood, like Egypt’s secular reformists, opposes the way Mubarak has decided to move toward democratic elections. Akef said the group will urge Egyptians to boycott a May 25 referendum on a constitutional amendment that will make it possible for more than one candidate to contest the presidency.

Hugo Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela, May 16--Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that if he is assassinated, his government has a contingency plan to prevent his enemies from taking control of the world’s No. 5 oil exporter, Reuters reported.
“Some people might want to kill me, but they don’t dare...because if they did, they fear what would happen the next day,“ the Venezuelan leader said in a television broadcast.
Chavez, a nationalist who often accuses the US government and domestic opponents of plotting to topple or kill him, and who survived a coup in 2002, said his ministers, the armed forces and his supporters would know what to do if he were ever assassinated.
“We have a plan worked out in the event something happens to me. Those who are thinking about it should know this and that they won’t have a good time of it if this happens,“ he said during his weekly “Hello President“ TV and radio show.
Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, did not detail the plan. But he has said before that if he were killed, Venezuela would become ungovernable and its oil shipments to its biggest client, the United States, would be halted.
US officials dismiss his allegations of a US assassination plot as ridiculous. But they often criticize him as a left-wing trouble maker allied to Cuba’s communist president, Fidel Castro, a longtime foe of Washington.
Chavez, who won a referendum on his rule last August, said if his enemies did kill him, he did not think they could govern Venezuela. A recent opinion poll put his popularity level at 70.5 percent, a five-year high.
In a message to his supporters on Sunday, he said, “You can’t let anyone come and seize our country“.
Chavez has been spending Venezuela’s oil wealth to fund free health and education services for the poor and distribute subsidies and credits for workers’ cooperatives he says should be the basis for a new kind of socialism.

Thaksin Shinawatra

BANGKOK, Thailand, May 16--Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Monday rejected insinuations by military-ruled Myanmar that rebel saboteurs had trained in Thailand before setting off a series of bomb blasts in Yangon this month, Reuters reported.
Myanmar officials told reporters on Sunday that the people who set off the bombs which killed 19 people on May 7 had received training and weapons in a neighboring nation. They did not name the country but appeared to refer to Thailand.
Asked about the remarks, Thaksin told reporters: “We don’t support anyone to conduct any activities to hurt our neighbors.
“We don’t harbor terrorism,“ he said.
Myanmar shares borders with Bangladesh, Laos, Thailand, China and India.
In their first public comments on the probe into the bombings, Myanmar officials had said the bombers were trained by foreigners in rebel-controlled areas near the Thai border.
They also suggested that training had taken place inside Thailand.
“It is crystal clear that the terrorists... and the time bombs originated from training conducted with foreign experts at a place in a neighboring country by a world-famous organization of a certain superpower nation,“ Myanmar Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan told reporters.
Thaksin said that if Yangon had suspicions about Thailand’s involvement in the May 7 bombings, which killed 19 people, the government should use diplomatic channels to make inquiries.
“We are the government that speaks our mind and act our words. If any suspicion arises, please make diplomatic contacts to seek probes and culprits,“ he said.
Ties between Thailand and Myanmar, which share a 2,400-km long border, have improved in recent years since Thaksin abandoned previous governments’ practice of using ethnic armies in Myanmar as a buffer to fight Yangon.
The junta earlier blamed the bombings on Shan, Karen and Karenni rebels, all of which have their headquarters opposite the Thai border provinces of Tak and Mae Hong Son, working together with the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, a coalition of opposition MPs.

S. Korean Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo (r) shakes hands with N. Korean head of delegation Kim Man-gil at the senior inter-Korean talks in North Korean city of Kaesong, May 16. (Reuters Photo)

SEOUL, South Korea, May 16--South Korean officials told North Korea on Monday that its removal of spent nuclear fuel rods from a reactor--a process that could allow it to harvest more weapons-grade plutonium-- has aggravated tensions on the Korean Peninsula, AP reported.
The South also promised the North “a substantial proposal“ if it returns to six-party talks.
The first direct talks between the rival Koreas in 10 months came even as a top US security official promised unspecified action against North Korea if it carried out a nuclear test.
South Korea said it urged the North to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
A Japanese official on Sunday echoed comments from Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, that a North Korean nuclear test would provoke action.
“We’ve seen some evidence that says that they may be preparing for a nuclear test,“ Hadley said in an interview with CNN. “Obviously, that would be a serious step, and it would require us to consult very closely with our colleagues on the six-party talks for what kind of response we should make.“
He said a nuclear test “would be something where the North Koreans would be defying not only us, but our partners in the six-party talks, and action would...have to be taken.“
Shinzo Abe, secretary-general of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said Tokyo would take the issue to the United Nations.
“It is unthinkable not to impose any sanctions in case of a nuclear testing,“ Abe said.
Last week, North Korea ratcheted up the issue by claiming it had completed removing spent fuel rods from a reactor at its main nuclear complex and said it would strengthen its nuclear arsenal. That raised concerns about a possible nuclear test, spurring the public warnings by US and Japanese officials.
US officials then said spy satellites saw the digging of a tunnel and the construction of a reviewing stand at northeastern Kilju--possible indications of an upcoming test.
But South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon downplayed the prospects of a nuclear test.
“The reports that are coming out are artificial and groundless that have no specific evidence to back them up,“ Song said Monday in an interview with South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

MANILA, Philippines, May 16--Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo set up a 5 million peso ($92,600) “press freedom“ fund on Monday to help solve murders of journalists in the country, Reuters reported.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has labeled the Philippines as the most dangerous country in the world for media with 18 killings of reporters since January 2000. It was followed by war-torn Iraq, Colombia, Russia and Bangladesh.
Philip Agustin, the publisher-editor of a community newspaper in the northeastern Luzon region, was shot dead last week at his house making him the fifth Filipino journalist to be killed this year. At least four other journalists have survived attacks.
“The attacks against our journalists are frightening and must be stopped,“ Arroyo told reporters at the launching of the fund.
“These acts of wanton violence against the men and women who form the very foundation of a free press and open society are acts of violence against the nation itself.“ Arroyo said the fund would be used to buy information to apprehend killers of reporters, protect witnesses to ensure
prosecution of suspects, and provide financial aid for children of slain journalists.
“The fund is a step towards resolving the country’s press freedom crisis. It is not the solution,“ said Inday Espina-Varona, head of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.

WARSAW, Poland, May 16--Dozens of leaders from across Europe were set to begin Monday a “Summit of European Unity“ in the Polish capital to chart the future of the continent’s oldest political organization, the Council of Europe, AFP reported.
The leaders and high-ranking officials from around Europe began converging on Warsaw on Sunday for the two-day summit, for which stringent security measures have been put in place.
From early Sunday, the whir of helicopters could be heard over the capital, and police--10,000 of whom were deployed in Warsaw for the duration of the summit--were highly visible on the streets.
Among those who have confirmed they will attend are German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili, and the presidents of the three Baltic states.
On Sunday, thousands of mainly young people from European Union member states, but also many flag-waving Belarussians and Ukrainians, marched through central Warsaw in a parade heralding the Council’s summit.
“We, the nations of Europe, do not just watch history being made, we take part in making it,“ Council of Europe Secretary-General Terry Davis said to the marchers to signal the start of the colorful parade.
“We want democracy and human rights for all Europeans,“ said Davis.
Also present were Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Davis, as well as hundreds of youngsters, but Ukrainian leader Viktor Yushchenko skipped the event due to a fever.
Among issues that are expected to be debated at the summit are trafficking in human beings, terrorism, money laundering, organized crime, minorities’ rights and violence against children.
Conventions on human-trafficking, prevention of terrorism and the financing of terrorist acts are expected to be signed.
Through its low-key work which aims at fostering dialogue, the “Council of Europe can encourage better understanding between peoples,“ he said.
“The summit is about the Council of Europe’s orientation over the next few years, about establishing what to do now that expansion is almost finished,“ the Council’s Secretary-General Terry Davis said earlier this year.
Founded in 1949, the Council took in its 46th member, Monaco, in October last year. In addition to member states, five countries have observer status on the Council--Canada, Japan, Mexico, the United States and the Vatican--and former Soviet republic Belarus has applied to join.