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PETRA, Jordan: Jordan's King Abdullah II warned on Wednesday that failure to create an independent Palestinian state this year would be a "serious mistake," calling for a stable Middle East. "It would be a serious mistake to miss the opportunities we have this year to establish, finally, a sovereign, independent and viable Palestinian state along with a secure and recognized Israel," the king said at the opening of a conference of 29 Nobel laureates whose main focus is the global food crisis and other development issues. "The Middle East must move out of this threat zone. The single most important step is peace."
-- AFP
CHICAGO: Rising waters burst through an overtaxed levee on the Mississippi River Tuesday, sending gushing torrents into an Illinois town as the sodden US midwest reeled from days of epic flooding. The levee break left Highway 34 at Gulfport, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River under water, prompting officials to close a bridge to the neighboring town of Burlington and creating havoc for commuters. The Illinois National Guard troops were working alongside hundreds of inmates from the state's prisons to shore up levees.
-- AFP
HARARE: Zimbabwe has lifted a ban on charities operating food and AIDS programs and expelled a UN rights official ahead of next week's run-off presidential election, state media said Wednesday. With violence mounting before the June 27 vote, South African President Thabo Mbeki was due here later Wednesday to meet veteran leader Robert Mugabe, who is facing the toughest challenge to his nearly three-decade rule. Mbeki serves as mediator between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition.
-- AFP
ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan: Afghan and Canadian NATO troops launched a major "clean-up" operation to drive out Taliban holed up near Kandahar Wednesday, leaving 23 rebels and two soldiers dead, officials said. Sporadic clashes broke out and helicopters swooped low overhead as Canadian armored vehicles pushed into the southern district of Arghandab, considered by the militants as a major prize in their increasingly bloody insurgency. Bomb killed four British soldiers separately on Tuesday while on patrol in neighboring Helmand province, Britain's defense ministry said.
-- AFP
JAKARTA: Nearly five thousand Muslims staged a rally in front of the State Palace here on Wednesday, demanding President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to disband sect Ahmadiyah in Indonesia. After controversial pressures on the existence of the sect in the country, the government issued a decree of prohibiting the Ahmadi movement from performing its activity, but did not freeze or disbanded it. The opposition against the sect is due to its deviance from true Islamic teaching.
-- Xinhua
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia on Wednesday broke ground for what will be the country's highest skyscraper-a 52-story tower slated to become the "landmark" of the low-rise capital Phnom Penh. The $1-billion International Finance Complex is being backed by South Korea's GS E&C company and is expected to be completed in 2012. Cambodia's leaders hailed the project as a symbol of the country's galloping economy, which has averaged 11 percent growth over the past three years.
-- AFP
TOKYO: Japanese bureaucrats, under criticism for dubious use of public funds, were Wednesday stripped of another privilege-air miles. The government said it would no longer let bureaucrats keep the air miles they accumulate on official trips, and would instead talk to airlines about using the miles for future official travel. If we can use mileage points to cover official trips, that will save our tax money," chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said.
-- AFP
GAZA: Islamic Hamas movement on Wednesday said it abides by the ceasefire which will start Thursday morning with Israel as long as the Jewish state committed to it. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the ceasefire "was a lull on the ground involving the halting of rocket attacks out from Gaza in return for Israeli stopping attacks against the Palestinians, adding that the lull will be "temporary and doesn't mean the termination of resistance."
-- Xinhua
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