NEw SARS-likE viRUS EMERGES iN MidEASt - Kuwait Times

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YANGON: Myanmar’s President Thein Sein is set to head to the United States yesterday for a landmark visit that coincides with a triumphal American tour by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Thein Sein will attend the United Nations General Assembly and is expected to outline plans for the future of his fast-changing nation during his first trip to the US since taking power last year and ushering in a period of rapid reform. “The trip will open a new chapter with the international community,” Zaw Htay, an official in the Presidential Office told AFP of a trip that marks the latest step in dramatically thawing relations with the US, which has started rolling back sanctions against the former pariah. “He is expected to explain the reform process of the country including what the government has done and what it is going to do,” said Zaw Htay, adding that Thein Sein was set to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as other senior US, European and UN officials. Thein Sein, a former junta general who last week freed dozens of political prisoners, will have to share the limelight with Suu Kyi, received with acclaim during her first trip to the US since she began her struggle for democracy more than two decades ago. The Nobel laureate has already been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the top honour bestowed by the legislature, and has met President Barack Obama at the White House since arriving in the country last week. But while US officials have taken pains to stress that Thein Sein deserves credit for Myanmar’s breathless pace of change after nearly half a century of junta rule, there are no official plans for him to meet Obama. The United States last week lifted sanctions on the Myanmar president and lower house parliament speaker Shwe Mann, removing them from the US Treasury’s list of “Specially INTERNATIONAL Myanmar president embarks on landmark US visit SEOUL: An Anti-Japan protester bleeds from his head as he is injured during a rally criticizing the Japanese government’s recent claim over the disputed islets called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, and demanding an official apology and compensation for South Korean wartime sex slaves from the Japanese government, in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. — AP China ex-police chief gets 15 years’ jail CHENGDU: Chinese ex-police chief Wang Lijun, who exposed a scandal that shocked the ruling Communist Party, was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for defection and other crimes. Wang, the right-hand man of top politician Bo Xilai, fled to the US consulate in Chengdu in February, sparking a crisis that saw Bo sacked and his wife found guilty of murder ahead of a generational transfer of power. His conviction and sentence are the latest move by the authorities to try to deal with the fall-out from the scandal ahead of the once-in-a-decade leadership transition at a Communist Party congress expected next month. The former police chief of the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing, where Bo was the top Party official, Wang was tried for defection, bribery, abuse of power and bending the law for selfish ends, admitting all the charges. Analysts told AFP that it remained unclear whether the authorities would put Bo-once a contender to join the elite Politburo Standing Committee and one of the country’s best-known politicians-on criminal trial. Bo is being investigated by the Party for “serious” violations of discipline and has not been seen for months. In a statement, the Intermediate People’s Court in the southwestern city of Chengdu found Wang guilty on each count, adding that the circumstances of the bending-the-law offence were “very serious”. But it said that he was shown leniency because he had reported the role of Bo’s wife Gu Kailai in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. He “actively helped with the re-investigation”, which “played an important role in the breaking of the case by police authorities”, it said. The court sentenced Wang to nine years for bribery, seven for bending the law, and two each for abuse of power and defection, but reduced the combined term to a total of 15 years, in accordance with Chinese law. Wang said he would not appeal, the court added. It was the final step in the downfall of a man once China’s best-known crime fighter, with thousands of people arrested after Bo brought him in to lead an his antimafia campaign in Chongqing-which was also criticised for human rights abuses. An ethnic Mongolian and martial arts expert, Wang’s steely, unsmiling gaze and thin glasses gave him the face of an incorruptible “supercop”, and his body carried 20 scars from bullet and other wounds. Wang, 52, had a taste for drama, on occasion firing a single shot into the air when confronting criminals, or staging high-profile arrests in front of the cameras. But relations between him and his patron turned sour early this year, months after Heywood, a close associate of Bo’s family, was found dead in a Chongqing hotel room. State media said that Wang initially agreed to help cover up the murder, but later confronted his boss about Gu’s role in the poisoning, and was slapped in the face. Days afterwards he fled to the consulate, where he sought asylum from US authorities, according to an extensive trial report by the official Xinhua news agency. But after 33 hours inside the building he left of his own accord and was taken to Beijing by security officials. He was not seen again in public until his trial last week, when Xinhua quoted him as saying: “I acknowledge and confess the guilt accused by the prosecuting body and show my repentance.” Gu was last month handed a suspended death sentence-usually commuted to life in prison-for Heywood’s killing. The Xinhua account of Wang’s trial did not identify Bo by name but suggested he knew his wife was suspected of Heywood’s murder but did nothing, leaving him open to possible prosecution and imprisonment for sheltering a criminal.—AFP CHENGDU: This frame grab taken from Chinese television CCTV yesterday shows former police chief Wang Lijun (C) listening to the court in Chengdu, in southwest China’s Sichuan province. Chinese ex-police chief Wang Lijun, who exposed a scandal that shocked the ruling Communist Party, was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for defection and other crimes. — AFP Designated Nationals”. The pair were put on the list in 2007, when Thein Sein was prime minister and Shwe Mann was joint chief of staff of the armed forces, as America raised pressure on the ruling junta. Pavin Chachavalpongpun, of the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, said the fact that Thein Sein had been allowed to enter the US “is already significant”. “You can see the flexibility of US policy towards Myanmar, and I think this is the road which will lead towards the total abolition of sanctions in the future,” he told AFP. He said Suu Kyi, who has undergone a transformation from political prisoner to politician in just two years, would have spoken to “praise” Thein Sein in her own meeting with the US president. Pavin added that the Myanmar leader would not have a choice but to go to America regardless of the reception “because there is a lot at stake”, particularly removing remaining sanctions. Sweeping TOKYO: Chinese ships plied the waters of a disputed island chain yesterday, Japan’s coastguard said, as a fleet of Taiwanese fishing boats set sail for the area, vowing to stake Taipei’s claim. The flotilla, set to arrive today, will further complicate an already precarious confrontation between Tokyo and Beijing, in which Japan’s prime minister has warned China’s behaviour could damage its own economy. The warning came after China dealt a diplomatic snub to Japan by postponing long-planned events marking the 40th anniversary of ties, as relations between Asia’s two biggest economies plumb depths not seen for decades. Japan’s coastguard said yesterday that two maritime surveillance ships had spent seven hours in sovereign waters off Uotsurijima, the largest island in the Japaneseadministered Senkaku chain, which China claims as the Diaoyus. Two fisheries patrol boats briefly entered the 12-nautical-mile territorial waters around the island chain, the coastguard said. The ships are not naval vessels; maritime surveillance comes under the State Oceanic Bureau, which is part of the Ministry of Land and Resources. Their roles include law enforcement in Chinese waters. Fisheries patrol boats are under the aegis of China’s Agriculture Ministry, and are responsible for policing fishing and marine resources. The coastguard said nine other vessels were in the area, some in contiguous waters, an area under international law that extends up to 12 nautical miles outside a territory. Osamu Fujimura, Japan’s top government spokesman and chief cabinet secretary, said Japan has “protested strongly” through diplomatic channels over the intrusion. Further roiling already turbulent waters was the expected arrival Tuesday of up to 78 fishing boats, which left Taiwan bound for the changes in Myanmar under the new quasi-civilian regime have seen Suu Kyi elected to parliament and included tentative ceasefires with several of the country’s major armed ethnic minority groups. The international community has responded by dismantling tough sanctions against the impoverished country and in July Washington gave the green light for US investment there. Suu Kyi has used the visit to back the removal of sanctions on Myanmar and underline the remarkable new direction the country has taken. “There has been change, not yet all the changes necessary to make sure we are going to be a genuinely democratic society, but there have been changes,” she said on Saturday in a speech at Queens College in New York. The agenda of Suu Kyi’s unprecedented US tour includes nearly 100 events across the country all but rules out a chance of her crossing paths with Thein Sein. The 67-year-old will head on September 25 to Fort Wayne, islands accompanied by Taiwanese coastguard. “Diaoyutai has been our traditional fishing ground for centuries. We pledge to use our lives to protect it, or we’d disgrace our ancestors,” Chen Chun-sheng, the head of Taiwan’s Suao Fishermen’s Association said on the weekend. It was not clear if they would attempt a repeat of the August landing by pro-Beijing activists that ramped up tensions between China and Japan. The situation deteriorated on September 11, when Tokyo announced it had completed a deal to buy three of the uninhabited rocks from their private owner. Commentators say the nationalisation was intended to prevent their purchase by the hawkish governor of Tokyo, who said he wanted to develop them. But Beijing reacted angrily and unleashed a firestorm of protest, which also saw sometimes violent rallies rocking several cities, with Japanese businesses suffering vandalism and arson at the hands of rioters. On Sunday, Chinese state media announced Beijing was “postponing” celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the normalisation of diplomatic ties. Celebrations have been held every decade and never before been shelved. The Japanese government yesterday described the cancellation as “regrettable”, with a spokesman saying the two sides should not let “an individual event affect ties”. The two countries have wrangled since the 1970s about the islands, which lie on important shipping lanes and are believed to harbour mineral resources. But the latest dust-up, which comes as China is in the process of a delicate leadership transition and as Japan’s political scene has become increasingly unstable, shows no signs of dying down. On Saturday around 800 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012 Thein Sein Indiana, to meet the sizable Burmese community that has resettled in the Midwestern city. Her other stops include Louisville, Kentucky as well as San Francisco and Los Angeles. — AFP China ships in Japan waters off isles MANILA: Muslim rebels waging a decades-long insurgency in the southern Philippines in which more than 150,000 people have died are aiming to sign a roadmap for peace this year, their chief negotiator said. The planned accord would outline steps to be taken to achieve a final peace pact between the the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government before President Benigno Aquino steps down in 2016. “We can see the light at the end of the tunnel and believe we are 85 percent sure it will be signed by the end of the year,” MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal told AFP on Sunday, referring to the roadmap both sides have been working on. He said a crucial moment would come during the next round of peace talks in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, which he expected would be held from October 2 to 5. “This meeting is really the peak time to hammer out some of the outstanding issues and come out with an agreement.” The government is also aiming to sign the roadmap this year, according to its chief negotiator, Marvic Leonen. “We are looking at this framework agreement as the over-arching architecture of the peace process,” Leonen said. “In this agreement, the entire roadmap of Flotilla, set to arrive today SENKAKU: Japan Coast Guard vessels, right, and rear, sail along with Chinese surveillance ship Haijian No. 66, left, near disputed islands called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea, yesterday. — AP the peace process can be discerned.” Both sides said there was a strong spirit of cooperation following months of intense negotiations, however they conceded many of the tough issues that derailed previous peace efforts had still not been agreed upon. “There (is) still some hard bargaining ahead,” Iqbal said. There are roughly four million Muslims in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, an area they see as their ancestral homeland dating back to Islamic sultanates established before Spanish Christians arrived in the 1500s. The MILF and other Muslim rebel groups have been fighting for independence or autonomy in Mindanao since the early 1970s. The rebellion has claimed more than 150,000 lives, most in the 1970s when all-out war raged, and left large parts of mineral-rich Mindanao in deep poverty. The MILF is the biggest and most important rebel group left, after the Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace pact with the government in 1996. Since opening peace talks with the government in 2003, the MILF has said it is willing to accept autonomy rather than independence. Leonen said the planned new roadmap would outline a new autonomous region in parts of Mindanao and spell out broad plans for a power- Japanese demonstrators waved national flags as they marched through downtown Tokyo, denouncing Beijing as a “brute state” and “fascist” in the first massrally in Japan since the dispute began. Tokyo said Monday it would send its top foreign affairs bureaucrat to China for a two-day visit, as Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda heads to New York amid hopes senior ministers might meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Noda warned China’s intemperance could damage its economy and its effects may be felt further afield. He said Japanese companies were now facing a form of economic harassment in China. “Recent delays in customs and visa issuance are of concern,” he said. “Damaging our ties over such things would be bad for not just the two countries’ economies, but for the global economy.” — AFP Philippine Muslim rebels aim for peace plan sharing deal there with the MILF. The MILF came close to a peace deal with the government, under the previous administration led by then-president Gloria Arroyo in 2008, that would have given them control over 700 townships and villages. But, amid furious protests from leading Christian politicians in the south, as well as the influential Catholic Church, the Supreme Court ruled that deal as unconstitutional. Two MILF commanders reacted to the court order by leading attacks on mainly Christian villages in Mindanao, with the unrest killing 400 people and displacing about 750,000 others. Leonen said the government had been consulting with officials in the south as well as congressional leaders in Manila to ensure their support for the planned new deal and avoid a repeat of 2008. “We should be able to tell the MILF we will defend it tooth and nail and we are prepared for the trajectory of the peace agreement,” Leonon said. Among the toughest issues still to be resolved are the extent of the MILF’s power in the autonomy and the exact terms of wealth sharing. Mindanao is home to vast untapped reserves of gold, copper and other minerals, as well being one of the country’s most important farming regions. — AFP

Obama ignores Israel ‘noise’ on Iran nukes Continued from Page 1 purposes, but the West fears it is for building nuclear weapons. Israel is seen as pushing a much more hardline approach that would include military action, while Washington instead prefers to let diplomacy and sanctions dissuade Iran from building the bomb. Obama, interviewed for Sunday’s edition of “60 Minutes” on broadcaster CBS, said he understands and agrees with Netanyahu’s insistence that Iran not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons as this would threaten both countries, the world in general, and kick off an arms race. But Obama added: “When it comes to our national security decisions - any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out - any noise that’s out there.” Tensions have been running high between the United States and Israeli leader, and they will not hold a face-toface meeting this week at the UN General Assembly in New York. The White House has cited scheduling problems. Obama’s contender for the presidency, Republican Mitt Romney, said this was no way to treat an ally. The decision not to meet with Netanyahu, he said, also in an interview with “60 Minutes”, “is a mistake and sends a message throughout the Middle East that somehow we distance ourselves from our friends and I think the exact opposite approach is what’s necessary.” Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul argued that Obama’s reference to Israel as “one of our closest allies in the region” was unacceptable. “This is just the latest evidence of his chronic disregard for the security of our closest ally in the Middle East,” she said. “Romney strongly believes that Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East and ...as president, Governor Romney will restore and protect the close alliance between our nation and the state of Israel.” Separately, a UN report published yesterday said Israel Continued from Page 1 spokesman said those accused of “terrorism-related” crimes were undergoing fair judicial process. “As for the gathering of a limited number of relatives of the detained people at a prison, they have been stopped according to legal procedures and will be dealt with if they are found in violation of the laws,” the spokesman said. Activists said police with shields and batons persuaded the protesters at the prison to go home, telling them their message had been heard and their demands would be looked into.“When we left the ‘Emergency Forces’ followed our cars. They chased us and stopped us to detain the men,” said Reema Al-Juraish, an activist whose husband, a nurse, is in the prison. “I saw them grab five and when I tried to intervene they pushed me and hit me with a baton.” She said up to 60 men were arrested and taken to an unknown location. “The kingdom is celebrating national day even as our husbands are being held without charges and without trial,” Juraish told AFP by telephone. She said her husband “has been detained for more than nine years without charge,” adding that she has not seen him in “eight months”. Another protester who asked not to be named said her brother was sentenced to three years in prison and “has served his sentence but remains in jail”. Her other brother, who was also detained by authorities, “died in custody due to lack of care”, she said, adding that both her brothers were arrested for their “religious beliefs”. Rights activists told AFP that most of the detainees in question were “political prisoners with radical religious beliefs”. More than 100 people, including women and children, had staged a two-day protest in the desert around Tarfiya prison in the Qassim province but were Free speech ‘red lines’ feed Muslim film... Continued from Page 1 Beyond the rage, bloodshed and death threats - churning now for two weeks is a quandary for American policymakers that will linger long after the latest mayhem fades: How to explain the US embrace of free expression to an Islamic world that increasingly sees only double standards? Although there are many nuances - including strict US laws when hate speech crossed the line into threats or intimidation - they are mostly lost in the current outrage that included a peaceful march in Nigeria yesterday and Iran threatening to boycott the 2013 Academy Awards after the country’s first Oscar-winning film this year. With each protest, many clerics and Islamist hardliners hammer home the narrow view that America is more concerned with political correctness or safeguarding children from sexual content than the religious sensibilities of Muslims. In Gaza, preacher Sheikh Hisham Akram said tolerance is the goal, but the “red line” is crossed with “anyone who insults our religion.” Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - now in New York for the UN’s annual General Assembly - denounced last week the “deception” of US laws protecting rights while allowing the clip from the film “Innocence of Muslims”. “In some extent, it’s not an issue of condemning America’s freedom of speech. It’s become an issue, in the eyes of many Muslims, over where the lines are and why they are not protecting the feelings of Muslims,” said John Voll, associate director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington. It also turns the $70,000 US ad initiative in Pakistan - one of the hotbeds of the protests - into a major challenge to gain any ground. Besides Obama, the spots include Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton repeating that US authorities had no connection to the video. It’s part of wider US strategies to use social media and other forums to reach out to moderates in the Islamic world - including what the State Department has described as a “virtual embassy” for Iranian web surfers. But the fallout from the film has so far drowned out appeals for calmer dialogue in places such as Pakistan, where at least 23 people have died in unrest linked to the film. “The fact that (the Obama administration) is trying to step up to the plate and trying to engage where the debate is really happening should be commended,” said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow in South Asian affairs at the Council on Foreign Relations. “But what credibility do they have to deliver this message? That’s a different story. ... It’s unlikely to make the sale on the Pakistani street.” At the UN, a separate effort is being spearheaded by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He said the film will be at the top of the agenda of a meeting of the 57- must do more to halt a string of serious violations of Palestinian human rights documented by a 2009 factfinding mission. There is a “need to more earnestly pursue accountability for the serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that were documented by the fact-finding mission,” Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-wha Kang told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Speaking on behalf of UN rights chief Navi Pillay, she presented a report on progress made in implementing recommendations in the UN Goldstone report, which detailed violations of international rights and humanitarian laws in connection with the 2008/09 Gaza conflict. “It has been nearly three years since this council endorsed the fact-finding mission’s recommendations. Yet, not one person has been indicted for any of the incidents documented,” she said. “Respecting human rights and international humanitarian law obligations means that perpetrators of violations are brought to justice.” Penalties must also correspond to the crimes, she said, decrying the case of an Israeli soldier sentenced last month to just 45 days in prison for killing two unarmed Palestinian women waving a white flag during the Gaza conflict. Israel’s Operation Cast Lead offensive in Gaza claimed the lives of some 1,400 Palestinians -more than half of them civilians - and 13 Israelis, including three civilians and 10 soldiers. Yesterday’s report by UN chief Ban Kimoon also highlighted border closures and restrictions on Gaza, and obstacles to movement in the West Bank, exacerbating a deep economic crisis in the Palestinian territories. It also spoke out against the detention of 4,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails, noting that 250 were also being held in so-called administrative detention, without trial. The report also criticised Palestinian armed groups for firing rockets at Israel, and Palestinian authorities for among other things arbitrary arrests. — Agencies Dozens held after Saudi jail protest surrounded by police. They said they had been kept without food or water for almost a full day. Police set up checkpoints on the two roads leading to the area and deployed patrols in the desert around it, they said. The kingdom, which has almost no elected bodies, avoided the kind of unrest that toppled leaders across the Arab world last year after it introduced generous social spending packages and issued a religious edict banning public demonstrations. King Abdullah has pushed through some economic and social reforms, including cautious moves to improve the position of women and religious minorities, but he has left the political system untouched. The world’s top oil exporter is an important ally of Western countries in battling Al-Qaeda, which carried out a campaign of attacks in the kingdom from 2003-06. Last year the Interior Ministry said it had put on trial 5,080 of nearly 5,700 people it had detained on security grounds. In April, a court in Riyadh sentenced rights campaigner Mohammed Al-Bajadi to four years in prison after he was accused of forming a human rights association, tarnishing Saudi Arabia’s reputation, questioning the independence of the judiciary, and owning illegal books, activists said. He had been held for a year without charges after voicing support for prisoners’ families. In a separate gathering yesterday, dozens of protesters rallied in front of the government-linked Saudi Human Rights Commission also calling for the release of jailed relatives. “There are some prisoners who have been tortured, some who have completed their sentences, others who have not been charged and even some who have been found innocent but are still imprisoned. We will stay here until we are heard,” said one protester who declined to be named. Saudi Arabia denies torturing prisoners. — Agencies member group on the sidelines of the General Assembly. Among the proposals is a call to impose an international law against promoting religious hatred. Such appeals could get widespread support, but are nearly certain to collide with Western free speech codes and be rendered difficult to enforce in the borderless world of the web. Already, many moderate Muslim scholars and leaders have urged the UN or other international bodies to step in to help define possible global standards on religious expression. Paul Bhatti, an adviser to the Pakistani prime minister, told a multi-faith crowd of Muslims, Christians and others outside the country’s parliament Sunday that international laws should be imposed to limit the most hateful fringes of Western free speech. But just a day earlier, a Pakistan government minister offered a $100,000 bounty for the death of the filmmaker. The two responses - one appealing for a higher law and the other taking justice into his own hands - frame another divide pried wider by the latest chaos: How much leeway can Muslim countries allow for expressions of anger against their faith? While many Muslims believe American protections for open expression were abused by the film, there are also moderate voices in the Islamic world questioning whether the defense of their religion is warped by death threats and violence that has left dozens dead, including the US ambassador to Libya. “This is the flip side to the criticism against American free speech,” Voll said. “This is another major learning opportunity inside Muslim societies to look at themselves and interactions with the world. We have been here before.” But the latest upheavals appear to resonate even deeper because of the widening reach of the web and social media, which also have played a central role in the Arab Spring uprisings that have opened new political space for hardline Islamists. “Sadly, the voices of reason and logic in this part of the world are few,” said Ebtehal Al-Khateeb, a Kuwait University professor and human rights activist. “Even those who strongly oppose the violence prefer not to speak.” Kuwait is a particularly instructive proving ground in the struggle to clarify an Islamic version of free speech. After Islamist-led opposition groups gained control of parliament in February, they tried to push through measures that included the death penalty for blasphemy against Islam. Kuwait’s Western-leaning rulers signaled they would reject the move and later suspended the parliament over election law technicalities. “The truth is that as amateurish movie production is, it still falls in the category of freedom of speech,” Khateeb said. “If you say that to people here, they will read your response as: ‘You accept this. You are a blasphemer.’ They still don’t understand that they don’t have to accept it. They can oppose it, but in a civil manner that is more constructive.” — AP NEWS Ahmadinejad blasts Israel Continued from Page 1 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hinted Israel could strike Iran’s nuclear sites and has criticized US President Barack Obama’s position that sanctions and diplomacy should be given more time to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran denies that it is seeking nuclear arms and says its atomic work is peaceful, aimed at generating electricity. “Fundamentally we do not take seriously the threats of the Zionists. ... We have all the defensive means at our disposal and we are ready to defend ourselves,” Ahmadinejad said. He is in New York to attend the UN General Assembly. His speech is scheduled for tomorrow. On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with Ahmadinejad and warned him of the dangers of incendiary rhetoric in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad did not heed the warning. Ahmadinejad alluded to his previous rejection of Israel’s right to exist. “Iran has been around for the last seven, 10 thousand years. They (the Israelis) have been occupying those territories for the last 60 to 70 years, with the support and force of the Westerners. They have no roots there in history,” he said, speaking to reporters through an interpreter. The modern state of Israel was founded in 1948. “We do believe that they have found themselves at a dead end and they are seeking new adventures in order to escape this dead end. Iran will not be damaged with foreign bombs,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to Israel. “We don’t even count them as any part of any equation for Iran. During a historical phase, they represent minimal disturbances that come into the picture and are then eliminated,” Ahmadinejad added. In 2005, Ahmadinejad called Israel a “tumor” and echoed the words of the former Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, by saying that Israel should be wiped off the map. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a brigadier general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was Continued from Page 1 The announcement comes ahead of next month’s annual haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Makkah which will attract nearly three million believers, although the WHO said it did not recommend any travel restrictions. Saudi officials said the pilgrimage next month could provide more opportunities for the virus to spread. They advised pilgrims to keep their hands clean and wear masks in crowded places. In Britain, the HPA, an organisation set up by the government to manage infectious diseases, meanwhile, stressed no-one else in Britain, including those who had come into contact with the man, were reporting symptoms. The HPA said the new virus was “different from any that have previously been identified in humans”. It said there were encouraging signs that it was not as infectious as SARS as there had been no evidence of illness in people who had been in contact with the Qatari or the Saudi, including in health workers. “Based on what we TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012 quoted on Sunday as saying that Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state was preparing to attack it. Ahmadinejad said the nuclear issue was one ultimately between the United States and Iran, and must be resolved with negotiations. He added, “The nuclear issue is not a problem. But the approach of the United States on Iran is important. We are ready for dialogue, for a fundamental resolution of the problems, but under conditions that are based on fairness and mutual respect.” “We are not expecting a 33-year-old problem between the United States and Iran to be resolved in a speedy fashion. But there is no other way besides dialogue,” Ahmadinejad said. US President Barack Obama will underscore his commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and address Muslim unrest related to an anti-Islamic video in his speech to General Assembly today, the White House said. Ahmadinejad also addressed a high-level meeting on the rule of law at the United Nations yesterday, saying states should not yield to international law as imposed “by bullying countries”. In the past, Ahmadinejad has used his UN speeches to defend Iran’s nuclear program and to attack Israel, the United States and Europe. He has questioned the Holocaust and cast doubt on whether 19 hijackers were really responsible for the Sept 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. Western envoys typically walk out of Ahmadinejad’s speeches in protest. Ahmadinejad said yesterday that Iran - under UN, U.S. and European Union sanctions over its nuclear program - is used to economic restrictions and is not severely affected by them. “The conditions in Iran are not as bad as they are portrayed by some,” Ahmadinejad said, adding that his country can survive without oil revenues. Ahmadinejad added that Iran’s economy is in much better shape than that of the EU, which he said was “on the verge of disintegration and collapse”. — Reuters New SARS-like virus emerges in Mideast know about other coronaviruses, many of these contacts will already have passed the period when they could have caught the virus from the infected person,” it said. John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases at the HPA, said: “Immediate steps have been taken to ensure that people who have been in contact with the UK case have not been infected, and there is no evidence to suggest they have.” Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London, urged caution, saying any evidence of human-to-human transmission causing severe disease “would be very worrying”. But fellow expert John Oxford, professor at the University of London, said he was “somewhat relaxed” because he believed the illness was more likely to behave “like a nasty infection rather than join the ‘exception’ group like SARS”. “This new virus does not to me appear to be in the same ‘big bang’ group,” he added. “I am very pleased that it does not!” SARS, which mainly affected Asia, was recognised at the end of Feb 2003. — Agencies

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