Rescuers fan out across Gulf Coast after Ike slams Texas

GALVESTON - The largest search and rescue operation in Texas history kicked into gear on Saturday hours after Ike slammed into the US Gulf Coast as a category two hurricane, packing a devastating ocean surge, knocking out power to millions and flooding coastal areas.

Some deaths as well as massive damage and flooding were reported across a 800-kilometre swathe of the Gulf Coast after more than 2.2 million people fled inland, according to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

The centre of Ike made landfall at 0710 GMT on Galveston Island, where the sea rose up in fury and flooded vast areas of the island, and whipsawed the country's fourth largest city Houston prompting thousands of 911 emergency calls across the hurricane impact zone.

As Ike weakened to a tropical storm midday on Saturday, it continued to ravage eastern Texas with heavy rains and winds of 95 kilometres per hour and was forecast to churn northward into Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

"Our principal focus at this moment is search and rescue," Chertoff told a press briefing as he announced that more than 50 National Guard helicopters and two Coast Guard HU-25 Falcon jets had been dispatched to the hurricane zone.

He said there were "some initial reports of a few deaths," and warned that "we may have other losses in the hours to come."

President George W. Bush declared his home state of Texas a disaster area, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

Some 179 rescues in Louisiana had already been performed on Saturday, Chertoff said, while local Houston radio reported more than 100 rescues so far in the Houston area alone.

The storm knocked out power to nearly 2.4 million homes in and around Houston, including throughout the entire barrier island of Galveston, and another 220,000 customers in Louisiana, the US Department of Energy reported.

Officials said more than 100,000 residents of low-lying areas - including 20,000 in Galveston alone - decided to ride out the storm despite warnings from the national weather service that a wall of water up to 6.0 metres high could spell "certain death."

Yet early reports from Galveston and Houston suggest the storm surge, while devastating, was not as high as earlier forecast, although damage was expected to be severe.

In Galveston, resident Diane Thiel, 62, took refuge with about 1,000 other people in a hotel, and said Ike appeared more dangerous than hurricanes Carla and Alicia that struck in 1961 and 1983.

"I have never seen a hurricane like this. The amount of destruction is going to be beyond belief," Thiel said.

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced Texas and federal agencies launched the state's largest-ever search and rescue operations just hours after Ike barrelled ashore, laying waste to scores of coastal communities as well as Houston.

But he cautiously expressed optimism that his state was spared the worst.

"Fortunately, the worst-case scenario that was projected in some areas did not occur, particularly in the Houston ship channel," Texas Governor Rick Perry told a press conference.

"But there is plenty of damage out there."

Houston port is one of the world's largest, and computer models had forecast that much of it could have been submerged by the storm surge.

Live television images along large area of the Texas coast, including Galveston and nearby Clear Lake, showed boats tossed about a marina like toys, electricity poles and oak trees snapped or uprooted, siding shorn off buildings and homes, and floodwaters covering entire neighbourhoods.

Strong winds and rain raked Houston, home to a major US port and key refineries. The windows of several skyscrapers were blown out in the city, where Mayor Bill White urged people to stay off the streets and called on residents to use bottled water as a power outage lowered pressure at a key pumping station.

Bush, who was keeping close tabs on conditions in his home state of Texas as well as hard-hit Louisiana, announced a suspension of restrictions on some imported gasoline in response to Ike, which disrupted operations at Gulf Coast oil refineries and prompted gas price-gouging in several US states as high as 50 percent above normal rates.

Oil and gas production in the Gulf was largely shut off, though the US Department of Energy said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there.

At least 13 refineries were shuttered, representing a combined capacity of 3.7 million barrels of crude oil per day, a fifth of US refinery capacity.

88 killed in airplane crash in Russia's Urals

MOSCOW - A Boeing-737 jet crashed near Russia's city of Perm in the central Ural mountains killing all 83 passengers and five crew on board, Russian news agencies reported Sunday quoting emergency ministry officials.

"According to the latest information, the airplane fell into a ravine near the city limits. There were 82 passengers plus a baby and five crew on board, and by preliminary information, they are all dead," investigator Vladimir Markin told the RIA Novosti news agency.

"The Trans-Siberian Railway was damaged due to the accident," Markin said.

"The airplane caught fire and exploded, and in circumstances like that there is no hope that anyone could have survived," Interfax quoted emergency ministry officials as saying.

"The airplane took off from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport at 0112 Sunday (2112 Saturday GMT), but as it was landing, at the height of 1,800 meters we lost contact with it," the ministry's spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said earlier as quoted by Interfax.

A total of seven children, including a baby, were on board, the spokesman for Russia's leading Aeroflot airline company, which owned the jet, said.

No foreign nationals were on board the airplane, Aeroflot added.Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu reported the accident to Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin press service said.

A rescue team was reported flying out of Moscow to assist local rescuers, and an investigative group headed by Transport Minister Igor Levitin is due to fly out to the site shortly.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.

Last year, the 33 Russian aviation accidents that left 318 dead -- a sixfold increase over 2005 -- raised serious concerns about Russia's civil aviation, with experts pointing at major faults in the professional training of crews as well as Russia's aging fleet of passenger jets.

An air safety commission announced in January that the average age of the country's international airliners was 18, and its regional jets 30 years.

Human error to blame for California train crash

LOS ANGELES - An engineer's mistake caused a deadly head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train near Los Angeles, killing at least 24 people with toll expected to rise, officials said Saturday.

The crash happened late Friday when a Metrolink passenger train with 222 people aboard apparently failed to stop at a signal near Chatsworth, 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles, and smashed into a freight train.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger described the wreck as "one of the worst train accidents in modern history in California," and officials said more people were still trapped beneath the twisted metal of a double-decker train car.

"We are deeply sorry and we are totally at a loss," said a Metrolink spokeswoman, Denise Tyrell.

"At this moment we must acknowledge that it was a Metrolink engineer that made the error that caused yesterday's accident."

A Los Angeles sheriff's spokesman told CNN that the rescue operation officially ended late Saturday, with the focus now on the recovery effort.

"They worked thoroughly and meticulously to check every single person and every single corner they could possibly find. It was long and it was focused. Now, it has ended and officially being turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board," Steve Whitmore said.

The federal officials take control of the investigation once rescue efforts conclude.

At least 135 people were injured in the crash between the Ventura County Line passenger train 111 and a Union Pacific freight train Friday.

Each train was believed to be travelling at the time of the head-on collision at about 37 miles (60 kilometers) per hour.

The impact collapsed the first passenger car into its locomotive.

At least seven cars from the freight train derailed, although most remained standing in accordion fashion across the tracks.

The interior of the train was "bloody, a mess. Just a disaster. It was horrible," passenger Austin Walbridge told a local television news reporter.

The Metrolink train's usual routine is reportedly to wait until the Union Pacific freight train clears the track.

"There are more bodies in the wreckage, but this point there is no way to tell how many," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told reporters.

Captain Ed Winters of the coroner's office said more bodies were visible in the wreckage of a double-decker passenger car.

"We have several (bodies) that are visible (in the lower car) at this time but I don't want to cause some hurt for families that don't know and are still waiting," for notification, Winters said.

The extent of the devastation and the high number of critically injured passengers taxed the area's emergency response capabilities, Los Angeles City Fire captain Steve Ruda said.

"We treated 135 patients yesterday, about 40 of those were critical patients, which is a very high number," Ruda said earlier.

Critical patients were flown to area trauma centers. "We utilized every trauma center in the county," he said.

The crash was the deadliest since the Metrolink crash of January 2005, when 11 people died and dozens were injured when a Metrolink train slammed into a Jeep Cherokee parked on train track, derailed and hit a freight train.

Death toll rises to 23 in train crash near LA

LOS ANGELES - The death toll from a head-on collision of a passenger train and a freight train near Los Angeles stood at 23 and could rise, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Saturday.

"The latest count is 23 people died in this accident and 135 have been injured," many critically, the governor told reporters.

Schwarzenegger said that the crash, which he called "one of the worst train accidents in modern history in California," appeared to have been caused by human error.

The Ventura County Line passenger train with 222 passengers aboard smashed into a Union Pacific freight train on Friday, near the town of Chatsworth, some 50 kilometres northwest of Los Angeles.

"Metrolink has talked about there was some human failure there because we never know exactly, whether it was mechanical failure or computer failure or something is wrong with the tracks. They say it was human failure," Schwarzenegger said.

The extent of the devastation and the high number of critically injured passengers taxed the area's emergency response capabilities, Los Angeles City Fire captain Steve Ruda said.

"We treated 135 patients yesterday, about 40 of those were critical patients, which is a very high number," Ruda said earlier.

Critical patients were flown to area trauma centres. "We utilised every trauma centre in the county," he said.

"They're continuing to work in an extrication effort, although we believe the likelihood of anybody being alive in the wreckage at this point is very remote," Ruda added.

Each train was believed to be travelling at the time of the head-on collision at about 60 kilometres per hour. The impact collapsed the first passenger car into its locomotive.

"There's no way to describe this train accident other than a tragedy," Schwarzenegger said earlier, adding that the state will provide emergency response assistance.

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrell said heavy equipment had been brought in to raise the locomotive that derailed and fell onto its side.

At least seven cars from the freight train derailed, although most remained standing in accordion fashion across the tracks.

The interior of the train was "bloody, a mess. Just a disaster. It was horrible," passenger Austin Walbridge told a local television news reporter.

The Metrolink train's usual routine is reportedly to wait until the Union Pacific freight train clears the track.

The crash was the deadliest since the Metrolink crash of January 2005, when 11 people died and dozens were injured when a Metrolink train slammed into a Jeep Cherokee parked on train track, derailed and hit a freight train.

Russian troops start withdrawal from Georgia

POTI, Georgia - Russian troops on Saturday left two camps near Georgia's port of Poti, starting a withdrawal pledged by Moscow in a European Union-brokered accord on ending the conflict in the ex-Soviet state.

A convoy of trucks and armoured transport vehicles left the observation post of Nabada at 7:45am (0345 GMT), taking troops from a camp that had been set up near a Black Sea beach to control maritime traffic from the strategic port.

Fifteen minutes later, Russian forces left another post at the entrance to Poti, continuing a pullback from some of the deepest positions in Georgia where they dug in after routing Georgia's small US-trained army last month.

"We shall leave soon. To Abkhazia and Russia," a Russian soldier told AFP ahead of the withdrawal, adding that the convoy was being coordinated with Russian posts near Senaki, a nearby town with a major Georgian air base.

Abkhazia is one of two rebel regions of Georgia at the heart of last month's conflict, which is estimated to have killed hundreds of people on both sides and left tens of thousands more displaced in temporary camps.

The conflict also led to a deep chill in Russian-western relations, stoking fears of a renewed Cold War.

The pullback from the posts near Poti and Senaki was promised in a September 8 agreement between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, the current EU chief.

Medvedev agreed to pull Russian forces out from the posts by Monday as part of a wider withdrawal to be completed by mid-October, and he also agreed to the deployment of at least 200 EU observers in Georgia by October 1.

But Russia later insisted it would keep 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the other breakaway region, prompting anger in Georgia and charges from the United States that Moscow was in breach of the ceasefire.

On Friday, Medvedev defended Russia's stance by likening a Georgian military assault on South Ossetia that sparked the conflict to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"Almost immediately after these events it occurred to me that for Russia, August 8, 2008 was almost like September 11, 2001 in the United States," Medvedev told Western foreign policy experts in Moscow.

Russia responded to the August 8 attack by pouring troops and armour into its southern neighbour, saying it had to defend the thousands of South Ossetians who had been granted Russian citizenship.

In Tbilisi on Friday, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili faced his most significant political challenge since the conflict as a former ally openly questioned his leadership and said she would set up her own party.

Nino Burjanadze, a former speaker of parliament, called for an independent investigation to ask "tough questions" about Saakashvili's handling of the events leading up to Georgia's conflict with Russia.

"There is a time for tough questions. Of course what happened was a Russian provocation, but we need to know whether it was possible to not yield to this provocation," Burjanadze said at a news conference.

Georgia and the West have sharply criticised Russia's decision last month to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, a move Tbilisi described as part of a plan to effectively annex the two regions.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday ruled out any discussion of Moscow's recognition of independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia - or on their status - at international talks set for October 15 in Geneva.

He also announced he planned to visit Abkhazia on Sunday and South Ossetia on Monday.

Hurricane Ike pounds Texas coast as thousands refuse to leave

GALVESTON, Texas - A gigantic hurricane roared onto the Texas Gulf coast early Saturday, driving a huge ocean surge over coastal areas where tens of thousands of people remained holed up in defiance of evacuation orders.

Ike, a powerful category two hurricane with winds raging at 175 kilometres per hour, was headed for a direct hit on Houston, the fourth largest US city and a major oil hub 70 kilometres inland from Galveston.

More than a million people fled inland in the hours before the Texas-size storm was due to make landfall between 0700 and 0800 GMT Saturday.

But officials said more than 100,000 residents of low-lying neighbourhoods decided to ride out the storm despite warnings from the national weather service that a wall of water up to 7.5 metres high could mean "certain death" to those who stayed behind.

Gargantuan waves smashed over a five meter seawall built to protect this island city as the centre of Ike was about 35 kilometres southeast of Galveston , moving at about 20 kilometres an hour, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center reported.

Ike was pushing ashore waves measuring as high as a two-story house, swamping Galveston while blistering winds raked Houston, home to a major US port and key refineries.

As Ike bore down on Texas, companies abandoned 13 refineries representing a combined capacity of 3.7 million barrels of crude oil per day - a fifth of US refinery capacity.

In Galveston, the power went out across the island just before 0100 GMT Saturday, plunging the storm-stricken city into darkness.

Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew starting Friday and ending Monday morning. Chocolate-colored seawater flooded the streets as the storm surge intensified throughout the day, spoiling the city's potable water system.

Two blazes broke out in the afternoon. Flames shot out of an unattended Galveston home near the oceanfront, while thick smoke from a ship repair warehouse darkened the sky over the city.

Firefighters, restricted by the high water, had to let the structures burn.

All neighbourhoods and possibly entire coastal communities along Galveston Bay, which reaches 40 kilometres inland from its namesake barrier island to the heart of Houston, "will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide," the National Hurricane Center said.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described Ike's arrival as "potentially catastrophic."

"This is a monster storm in terms of the flooding potential," added Chertoff. The storm surge "is going to inundate large parts of the Texas coast."

Texas Governor Rick Perry described Ike on CNN as "a monster of a storm."

Referring to the holdouts that refused to flee the coastal area, he said on Fox News: "Individuals who think they are tougher, stronger than Mother Nature - God be with them."

Perry said some 1.2 million people had evacuated coastal Texas ahead of the storm.

Houston, whose metropolitan area population tops five million people, is just a few miles from the bay, and destruction there and along the coast in the hurricane zone is expected to be massive.

Jack Colley, from the Texas Department of Emergency Management, said officials estimated the storm's economic impact would be "somewhere in between the US$80-billion and US$100-billion range."

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison also warned of the storm's economic consequences.

"The economic impact is going to be huge. People are much more concerned about this one than I have seen in a long, long time," she said on Fox News.

Oil and gas production in the Gulf was largely shut off, though the US Department of Energy said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there.

President George W. Bush, a former Texas governor, said he was "deeply concerned" about the threat the storm posed to the region.

Galveston has faced calamity before. The deadliest hurricane in US history, the "Great Storm" of 1900, killed at least 8,000 people when it smashed into Galveston and Houston.

Ike has left more than 100 dead across the Caribbean and sparked hurricane and tropical storm warnings from Louisiana to Mexico.

Separately, US Coast Guard rescuers called off an attempt to rescue 22 sailors stranded aboard a Cyprus-flagged freighter that lost power in the Gulf of Mexico as it tried to steam out of Ike's way, but added they would seek to remain in radio contact with the crew.

Morales slaps state of emergency on Bolivian region

LA PAZ - Bolivia's President Evo Morales on Friday ordered emergency measures in one of five states where unrest against his rule has flared into violence, as the crisis engulfing his nation pulled in other Latin American countries and even the United States.

Morales issued the decree that put soldiers and police in charge of the northeastern state of Pando after youths in the territory ransacked government offices Friday, and following the deaths there of eight pro-government demonstrators on Thursday.

Defense Minister Walker San Miguel announced the order, saying bars would close early, the carrying of firearms or explosives was prohibited, and demonstrations were outlawed without police permission.

He added that several Peruvians were suspected to be among those who opened fire on some of the eight victims from Thursday.

Bolivian television reported that troops had taken control of the airport of Cojiba, in Pando.

The decree heightened tensions in Bolivia, which has been wracked by four days of violent clashes between pro- and anti-government militants.

A challenge by rebel governors in five of Bolivia's nine states - Pando, Beni, Tarija, Chuquisaca and Santa Cruz - to Morales's bid to impose a socialist constitution and to redefine land ownership in the country is fuelling the confrontations.

The country has effectively become polarised between the western Andean half where the indigenous majority - from which Morales himself hails - mostly live, and the more prosperous eastern lowlands, where an elite of European and mixed descent is pushing for autonomy and greater control over lucrative gas fields there.

The stakes have risen even higher by Morales's decision to expel the US ambassador, a move which triggered "solidarity" moves by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who did the same to the US envoy in his country, and Honduran President Manuel Zelaya who refused to accept the credentials of the new US ambassador.

Chavez had also threatened to intervene militarily in Bolivia if his ally Morales was toppled or killed. That triggered indignant protests in parts of Bolivia on Friday where the Venezuelan flag was burned, and a rejection of Venezuelan interference by the Bolivian armed forces.

The United States retaliated by ordering Bolivia's and Venezuela's ambassadors out of the country.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the decisions by Morales and Chavez "reflects the weakness and desperation of these leaders as they face internal challenges."

Morales's claim that the US ambassador was encouraging division in Bolivia by supporting opposition groups, and Chavez's allegation the US envoy in his country was implicated in an alleged coup plot against him by Venezuelan military officers, were "false, and the leaders of those countries know it," McCormack said.

Chavez's hosting of two Russian TU-160 strategic bombers in his country this week - something the Venezuelan leader called a "warning" to the United States - was especially unsettling to Washington, given the increasingly US-Russian antagonism triggered by Russia's recent military actions in the former Soviet state of Georgia.

McCormack declined to draw any link between the bombers' deployment and the presence of US warships off Georgian waters neighbouring Russia.

Officials urge residents to flee as hurricane roars to Texas

GALVESTON, Texas - Officials begged thousands of diehard residents of the Texas coast to flee "certain death" as Hurricane Ike on Friday raged towards Houston, the fourth largest US city and a major oil hub.

Huge waves were smashing over the sea wall in Galveston as the center of the storm at 2100 GMT was some 220 kilometers (135 miles) offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Ike was packing winds of near 165 kilometers (105 miles) per hour, with higher gusts.

Texas Governor Rick Perry described Ike as "a monster of a storm," and urged the holdouts still in the coastal area -- including some 14,500 believed to be on the barrier island of Galveston -- to leave.

"Get out of harm's way and live another day," Perry said on Fox News. "Individuals who think they are tougher, stronger than Mother Nature -- God be with them."

Perry compared the massive storm surge Ike will generate -- high enough to engulf a two-story home -- to a tsunami. "A tsunami is what you're looking at," he said.

"This is a monster storm in terms of the flooding potential," added Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, also interviewed on CNN. The storm surge "is going to inundate large parts of the Texas coast," he said.

Perry said some 1.2 million people had already evacuated coastal Texas ahead of the storm.

Houston, the fourth largest US city with a metropolitan area population topping five million people, is just a few miles from the bay and is also forecast to be hammered hard.

Ike was expected to plow onto land late Friday or early Saturday, with a direct hit on Galveston and Houston, the Miami-based National Hurricane centre said.

"Ike is a Category Two hurricane on the (five-scale) Saffir-Simpson scale, but could reach the coast as a Category Three major hurricane," the centre warned.

The storm "remains a very large hurricane," with hurricane-force winds extending up to 195 kilometres (120 miles) from the centre, and strong tropical force storm winds extending up to 445 kilometres (275 miles) from the centre.

Hundreds of thousands fled low-lying areas on Galveston island and the coastal Houston metropolitan area, after the Hurricane Centre issued apocalyptic warnings of "certain death" if residents stayed behind.

"It's not just a regular rain and wind hurricane," warned Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, interviewed on Fox.

"The economic impact is going to be huge. People are much more concerned about this one than I have seen in a long long time."

Despite the dire warnings, some 14,500 of Galveston island's 58,000 residents have not evacuated, Mary Jo Naschke, who works in Galveston City's mayor's office, told AFP.

"All neighborhoods and possibly entire coastal communities will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide," the centre said, referring to land along Galveston Bay, which reaches 25 miles (40 kilometres) inland from its namesake barrier island to the heart of Houston.

"Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family, one- or two-story homes will face certain death."

Chocolate-coloured seawater began to flood the streets of Galveston Friday as the storm surge intensified.

"If you're in one of these surge zones, you need to be leaving right now," Frank Michel of the Houston mayor's office said. For those refusing to leave, he urged people living on higher ground to board up their windows and stock up on supplies, as Ike's strong winds could cause power cuts lasting several days.

Around 5.6 million people live in the Houston metropolitan region, which stretches down to the Texas coast.

Oil and gas production in the Gulf was largely shut off, though the US Department of Energy said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there.

President George W. Bush, a former Texas governor, said he was "deeply concerned" about the threat the storm posed to the region.

The deadliest hurricane in US history, the "Great Storm" of 1900, killed at least 8,000 people when it smashed into Galveston and Houston.

Ike has left more than 100 dead across the Caribbean and sparked hurricane and tropical storm warnings from Louisiana to Mexico.

In New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers closed the gates at 17th Street canal as the surge from Ike pushed water past the critical five-feet (1.60 meters) mark.

The water will be pumped into a nearby lake to keep the canal water at a safe level.

Meanwhile US Coast Guard rescuers headed into the Gulf of Mexico to try to reach 22 people stranded aboard a Cyprus-flagged freighter that lost power as it tried to steam out of Ike's way.

Venezuela expels US ambassador, threatens to halt oil trade

CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the US envoy to Caracas late Thursday and threatened to halt crude exports to the United States on a day he highlighted the recent arrival of two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers.

Chavez on Thursday ordered US ambassador Patrick Duddy to leave the country within 72 hours, in a move he described as an act of solidarity with Venezuela's ally Bolivia, which also expelled its US envoy.

"Starting at this moment the Yankee ambassador in Caracas has 72 hours to leave Venezuela," Chavez said at a public event in the port city of Puerto Cabello, 120 kilometres west of Caracas.

He said it was "in solidarity" with the leftist government of President Evo Morales in Bolivia, which on Wednesday ordered the US ambassador to La Paz to leave. Washington late Thursday expelled Bolivia's ambassador to the United States.

Chavez then threatened to halt the supply of oil to the United States, its main client, if Washington attacks his government.

"If there is any aggression towards Venezuela" from Washington, "there would be no oil for the people of the United States," said Chavez, who used coarse expletives to disparage the US government.

Chavez also announced Thursday that his government had uncovered a coup plot hatched by active and retired military officers, which he said had tacit US approval.

A military prosecutor said two officers -- retired general Wilfredo Barroso and retired major Elimides Labarca Soto - will be tried for incitement to rebellion, a charge punishable by five to 10 years in prison.

At least eight other officers were detained in connection with the plot and were being interrogated, the prosecutor said.

Venezuelan public television aired a recorded conversation allegedly between three high-ranking retired military officers discussing plans to storm the presidential palace in Caracas, target Chavez, and blow up the presidential airplane.

"We have already detained several people," Chavez said.

"Look, pitiyanquis, don't even think of launching a coup or some madness such as this. I warn you, I am not the Hugo Chavez of 2002," he said, referring to a failed coup attempt against him in April of that year, when he was briefly ousted for two days before mass protests saw him freed and return to power.

Chavez, a former paratroop officer, headed a failed coup attempt himself in 1992. He was elected president in 1999.

"I have no doubt at all that the United States is behind plans to bomb this palace," Chavez said, warning that "difficult times" lied ahead for Venezuela.

The anti-US leader frequently alleges assassination and coup plots against him, usually pointing the finger at the United States.

Chavez said those behind the latest plot were part of the country's "desperate political opposition" and "the American empire" led by US President George W. Bush.

Earlier in the day Chavez said the presence of two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers in Venezuela is a "warning" to the US "empire," as he announced another coup plot against him had been foiled and suspects arrested.

"It's a warning. Russia is with us... we are strategic allies," said Chavez. "It is a message to the empire. Venezuela is no longer poor and alone."

Chavez had announced Wednesday that two Russian bombers were in Venezuela for "training flights" and that he would be piloting one of the aircraft himself.

"I hope that stings, 'pitiyanquis'," he said, using a derogatory term for Venezuelan opponents who have perceived US sympathies.

"What's more, I'm going to take the controls of one of these monsters," boasted the president, a former paratrooper and left-wing politician who has avowed antagonism towards the United States.

The United States said it would monitor the deployment of the two Russian bombers, which it described as "Cold War era assets," to Venezuela.

The moves came amid soaring tensions between Russia and the United States, including over the presence of US naval vessels sent close to Russian shores to deliver aid to Georgia.

Russia said Monday it was dispatching a nuclear cruiser and other warships and planes to the Caribbean for the joint exercises with Venezuela - the first such manoeuvres in the US vicinity since the Cold War.

White House rivals bury hatchet at Ground Zero

NEW YORK - White House rivals John McCain and Barack Obama made a dramatic show of unity on Thursday with a visit to Ground Zero on the emotional seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Suspending their increasingly bitter presidential contest, McCain and Obama shook hands, then dropped roses in the memorial pool at the still unreconstructed site of the former World Trade Centre in Manhattan.

The two candidates met with firemen, police and others involved in the terrifying aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in which Al-Qaeda-hijacked airliners hit and demolished the Twin Towers.

Later they were to extend their declared truce by participating in a civic forum in New York.

The day opened with a simple, but moving annual ceremony in which the names of almost 3,000 victims from the 9/11 attacks are read out at Ground Zero.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the crashing of hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania marked the day the United States "broke."

Choking on tears, victims' relatives read out names while a string quartet, classical guitar and flute played mournfully in the background.

At nightfall two shafts of blue light were to shoot upward from Ground Zero, recalling the lost skyscrapers.

The patriotic upwelling brought rare unity just as splits deepen in the country ahead of the November 4 election.

Yet politics were never far below the surface.

Democrat Obama said 9/11 was when "Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims."

He added: "Let us renew that spirit of service and that sense of common purpose."

But Obama then pointedly referred to Republican President George W. Bush's failure to make good on a promise soon after 9/11 to apprehend Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

"Let us remember that the terrorists responsible for 9/11 are still at large, and must be brought to justice," said Obama, who McCain has attacked as having insufficient foreign policy and national security experience.

Obama also took the opportunity to garner the support of popular former president Bill Clinton at his Harlem offices.

Indicating that he had finally overcome bitterness at Obama's defeat of his wife Hillary for the Democratic nomination, Clinton responded warmly, saying: "I predict that Senator Obama will win and win handily."

McCain, meanwhile, visited the crash site of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and praised passengers who assaulted their hijackers, crashing the aircraft before it could hit any target.

There is speculation that the Al-Qaeda terrorists had been hoping to fly into the Capitol, seat of the US Congress in Washington.

The tribute clearly was meant to underline the Republican candidate's own history of service as a Vietnam war pilot and prisoner of war, one of his strongest selling points with voters.

"I have witnessed great courage and sacrifice for America's sake," McCain said, "but none greater than the sacrifice of those good people who grasped the gravity of the moment, understood the threat, and decided to fight back at the cost of their lives."

He declared himself "in awe" of the mid-skies uprising.

At Ground Zero, survivors, who wore white ribbons pinned to their chests, often broke off to add brief tributes as they read the names of dead relatives.

One fought to control himself as he condemned the "cowardly men" who killed his loved one.

A woman managed a smile as she called to her deceased husband Chuck, saying: "Until we meet again may God hold you in the palm of his hands."

There were also emotional scenes at the Pentagon, where thousands joined Bush and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to dedicate the first September 11 memorial.

A Marine Corps bugler played taps from the roof where firefighters had unfurled a US flag while the building burned after the attack.

Bureaucratic wrangling has continuously delayed plans to build a replacement for the World Trade Centre, a failure that symbolises popular frustration with the inability to catch Osama bin Laden and extricate troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The first steel beams for a planned Freedom Tower at the site went in only this week.

But while Obama has steadily attacked the Republicans' handling of security issues, pocketbook concerns, especially the state of the housing market, are the top election issue.

New York University politics professor Steven Brams expected only the briefest lull in the race.

Fresh violence in Bolivia stokes civil war fears

LA PAZ - Deadly clashes in Bolivia Thursday stoked fears of further widespread unrest and possibly even civil war, amid a furore over the expulsion of the US ambassador to the country.

At least eight people were killed and a dozen people wounded in violent clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in the north-eastern town of Cobija, officials said.

It was the third day of street violence in parts of the country.

The United States, meanwhile, responded with fury to President Evo Morales's ordering the departure of the US ambassador by ordering Bolivia's envoy to Washington to also leave.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez immediately announced he was sending the US ambassador to his country packing in a show of solidarity with Morales.

The conflagration in Bolivia was a worsening of a months-long political standoff between Morales, who has been pushing through socialist reforms since becoming president in 2006, and conservative governors in the east opposed to his reforms.

Morales, the first indigenous president of majority-indigenous Bolivia, has sought to distribute resources more equally in the poorest country in South America.

The conflict has racial overtones as relatively prosperous regions of the eastern lowlands, where more people are of European descent and mixed-race, are keen to hold on to local resources they see as being pulled away by the impoverished indigenous highlands.

Morales's spokesman, Ivan Canelas, said Wednesday the conditions opened the way to "a sort of civil war."

In Santa Cruz and Tarija, two hotspots for violence this week, with government offices ransacked, the situation was relatively calm, although precarious.

Wednesday, the central market area in Tarija saw right-wing youth groups linked to opposition governors defying Morales clashing with indigenous groups. Around 100 people were hurt.

In Santa Cruz, police overnight dispersed similar fights over control of the city's coach (bus) terminal.

In southeast Bolivia, a gas pipeline was blown up Wednesday in what the head of the state energy company YPSL, Santos Ramirez, called a "terrorist attack" by anti-government protesters.

Authorities at the private Franco-Brazilian Transierra company said supply to Brazil had been seriously affected.

On a visit to Brasilia, Bolivia's Finance Minister Luis Alberto Arce said Bolivia was facing a "civilian coup attempt" referring to the protests targeting gas exports. Natural gas is Bolivia's main saleable natural resource.

The Brazilian presidential advisor on international affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, responded by saying Brazil "will not tolerate" any moves to oust Morales.

Brazil "will not recognise any government taking the place, or trying to take the place, of the legitimate, constitutional government of Bolivia," he said.

Morales's domestic troubles were shadowed by the diplomatic row between Bolivia and the United States, with whom Morales has long had an antagonistic relationship.

The US State Department angrily dismissed Morales accusation that US ambassador Philip Goldberg was encouraging a break-up of Bolivia through support of opposition groups.

"President Morales's action is a grave error that has seriously damaged the bilateral relationship," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters, reading a statement.

The row was playing out against a wider challenge to US influence in Latin America that is, in part, linked to Russia's ties to leftwing nations in the region.

Wednesday, Chavez confirmed that two Russian strategic bombers had landed in his country. On Thursday he described them as "a warning" to the United States.

The United States also has been miffed by Nicaragua's recent decision to recognise two rebel Georgian provinces.

A visit by the US secretary of commerce to that Central American country was cancelled because "circumstances have changed," US ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan said Tuesday.

Fierce fire in Channel tunnel, six hurt

CALAIS, France - Firefighters struggled Friday to put out a blaze on a freight shuttle in the Channel Tunnel that injured six people and forced the closure of the undersea link, officials said.

Rescuers evacuated dozens of truck drivers from the tunnel after an explosion and fire on the shuttle Thursday.

Six people suffered smoke inhalation after the blaze took hold on a truck being transported from Britain to France, officials said. Earlier reports of a further eight people slightly injured were incorrect, they added.

"The fire is under control but it is still burning. Working conditions are very difficult due to the heat" which had reached 1,000 degrees Celsius, a spokesman for the local prefecture said at 5:30 am (0330 GMT).

Two hours later two wagons were still on fire, nearly 15 hours after the blaze broke out.

"Two shuttle wagons are still on fire which is hard to put out," the spokesman said.

"Firefighters made some progress but they're working in difficult conditions because of the flames and the heat which is still around 1,000 degrees. It slows them down."

About 40 French and 20 British firefighters are involved in the operation.

Eurotunnel, which operates the tunnel, and Eurostar, which runs high-speed passenger rail services, said the tunnel suffered serious damage and would not reopen on Friday.

It took about three hours to bring 32 people - mostly truckers who moved from the burning train into a parallel service tunnel - to safety.

Thousands of people were stranded in London, Paris and Brussels, and huge traffic tailbacks built up on either side of the Channel after the tunnel was closed.

Eurostar said on its website that it "does not expect to operate a service" Friday, with a question mark placed over Saturday and Sunday schedules too.

It is the third major fire in the tunnel since it was opened in May 1994.

The train was about five kilometres from the Calais exit on the French side of the 50.5-kilometre tunnel when it caught fire, according to Francois Malhanche, director of the regional prefect's office.

"The fire appears to be accidental. It started in a truck brake system that overheated and spread to a tyre and then to two other trucks," Malhanche said.

One of the other trucks on the shuttle was carrying phenol acid, but this did not catch fire, officials said.

Helicopters and ambulances were waiting at the French entrance to take the injured to hospital.

French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie went immediately to the site in northern France.

"Two of the drivers said they heard an explosion and this was followed by flames," she told reporters. "They tried to get out and could do so because of the structure of the tunnel which allows a rapid evacuation."

"It is probable that the damage is major, as the firemen told me that the heat from the fire probably reached 1,000 degrees Celsius," she added.

The multi-billion-dollar tunnel carries Eurostar high-speed trains between London, Paris and Brussels, as well as freight and passenger shuttles between Folkestone in England and Calais.

There are two tunnels for passenger trains and shuttles and a service tunnel for maintenance and safety operations.

In the first serious incident on November 18, 1996, a fire broke out on a late-night shuttle train carrying trucks. Eight people were injured and the service was disrupted for several months.

On August 21, 2006, the tunnel was closed for several hours after a truck engine caught fire, sending smoke through the tunnel.

Long traffic tailbacks rapidly formed on the British end after the latest closure.

Kent Fire and Rescue service, on the British side, said it sent seven fire engines to help French counterparts at the scene. A spokeswoman called it a "serious incident."

Kent police implemented "Operation Stack," which allows trucks to park along the main M20 motorway running down to the tunnel terminal from London.

The SNCF French state rail firm said four high-speed express trains had to return to Paris or London because of the tunnel closure.

Thousands of passengers were left stranded at the Gare du Nord rail station in Paris and the new St Pancras station in London.

There was a rush for any remaining plane seats between London and Paris and for available hotel rooms.

Zimbabwe rivals clinch long-awaited power-sharing deal

HARARE - Zimbabwe's political rivals reached a power-sharing deal on Thursday in a bid to end a bitter crisis after marathon negotiations that centred on how much power President Robert Mugabe would cede.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has long served as mediator in the talks, announced the agreement in Harare, where he had been since earlier in the week to try to overcome a deadlock in the negotiations.

"An agreement has been reached on all items on the agenda... all of them endorsed the document tonight, signed it," Mbeki told reporters.

Details of the deal were not released and Mbeki said the agreement would only be made public after a formal signing ceremony scheduled for next Monday.

The South African president said the rivals will also on Monday "file a report concerning the constitutional composition of the inclusive government that has been agreed."

The parties "will spend the next days constituting this inclusive government."

Mugabe and his long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai had tussled in the negotiations over how to share power, with the opposition leader warning he would prefer no deal at all over a bad agreement.

Tsvangirai said recently he would not accept any accord that did not grant him sufficient power.

Control of Zimbabwe's security forces was believed to have been one of the major stumbling blocks.

The 84-year-old Mugabe, a liberation hero in the war that led to Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, and who has ruled since that time, has drawn strong support from the country's security chiefs.

Tsvangirai was the first to signal a deal as he emerged from a meeting with Mugabe.

"We've got a deal," the leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party told journalists after the tortuous negotiations.

Mugabe won a controversial June presidential run-off unopposed after Tsvangirai withdrew despite finishing ahead of the president in the March first round, citing state-sponsored violence against his supporters.

The announcement of the deal was a dramatic turn from Mugabe's pessimism earlier in the day, when he reported a logjam and accused Tsvangirai once again of being a Western stooge.

"They want to govern... we say never," he told Zimbabwe television news after a meeting with tribal chiefs in the second city of Bulawayo.

"It is humiliating to be negotiating with a party sponsored by countries pushing for regime change," Mugabe added, reiterating claims that Tsvangirai is a puppet of the West, especially of former colonial ruler Britain and the United States.

While the political crisis has dragged on, Zimbabwe's economy has continued its freefall with the world's highest inflation rate - 11.2 million percent in June, according to official figures.

Twelve hours of negotiations chaired by Mbeki on Wednesday brought the sides closer to a power-sharing deal, with Mugabe at that point saying a deal would "hopefully" be signed Thursday.

Tsvangirai had said earlier that "very little is left" to be agreed, but gave no details of the sticking points.

South Africa's Business Day daily reported that Mugabe was refusing to sign a deal which would clip his powers.

The paper quoted sources as saying the veteran leader was refusing to sign a proposal that would entail him equally sharing executive powers with Tsvangirai.

The daily said some of the issues to be thrashed out Thursday included how many ministers each party will have and how long a transitional government would rule.

Meanwhile, former UN chief Kofi Annan slammed the African Union for not endorsing the opposition victory in March elections.

He told a conference in Berlin he was "disappointed in the African Union. The African Union should have endorsed the results and said to Mugabe: you are not a legally-elected president."

Once hailed as Africa's breadbasket, Zimbabwe's economy has virtually collapsed over the past decade with inflation out of control and chronic shortages of foreign currency and food including the staples cornmeal, sugar and cooking oil.

Thousands flee Houston as hurricane Ike nears US coast

HOUSTON, Texas - Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Houston, Texas, the fourth largest US city, as officials warned that those who stay behind in some coastal areas "face certain death" from Hurricane Ike's wrath.

"All neighbourhoods and possibly entire coastal communities will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide," the NHC said of land along Galveston Bay late Thursday ahead of the storm's expected landfall late Friday or early Saturday.

"Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one- or two-story homes will face certain death," it said, as it forecast a storm surge as high as 6.5 metres.

Galveston Bay stretches 40 kilometres inland towards Houston, whose suburbs reach the bay's coast.

Texas governor Rick Perry also issued an urgent and ominous warning.

"My message to Texans in the projected impact area is this - finish your preparations because Ike is dangerous and he's on his way," Perry said.

Authorities in Harris County, the jurisdiction encompassing Houston, said evacuations of the city's most flood-prone areas - home to about a quarter million residents - began at 1700 GMT.

Forecasters said Ike, which left more than 100 dead across the Caribbean, likely would barrel ashore packing winds in excess of 190 kilometres per hour.

An updated track showed the storm making virtually a direct hit on the port city of Galveston and then Houston, a city of 2.2 million people, and with a metropolitan area topping 5.6 million.

Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst told CNN Thursday that a mass mobilisation was well underway.

"We have been moving supplies and moving buses now for four days," he said. "We have moved C-130s (transport planes) and ambulances. We have 1,350 buses we have moved into the area."

Officials said the evacuations began with the elderly, infirm and other residents with special needs. Houston officials planned to re-route highway traffic and said fuelling stations would be placed on major roads to facilitate the exodus.

The NHC made its dire warning about Galveston Bay after it had become clear that some residents in Galveston resisted the order to clear out, despite warnings that the entire island on which the city is located could be inundated.

"Unless it's really bad, we don't want to go anywhere," said resident Leslie LeGrande.

Alicia Cahill, a public information officer for Galveston, expressed worry that some people were staying on the island.

"There's more people here than I would have thought," she said.

Historical data listed by the NHC justifies Cahill's concern. The Center lists the "Great Storm" of 1900, which slammed Galveston, as the deadliest hurricane in US history, killing at least 8,000 people.

South of Galveston in Freeport, evacuations had cleared out most of the coastal town, with fewer than 20 per cent of residents remaining Thursday, although some still planned to ride out Ike's wrath, a local TV station reported.

At 0300 GMT Friday the National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm had maximum sustained winds of around 160 kilometres per hour, making it a Category Two storm on the five-level Simpson-Saffir scale.

The center said Ike was located about 545 kilometres southeast of Galveston and was moving west-northwest at 19 kilometres per hour.

"Ike is forecast to become a major hurricane prior to reaching the coastline," the Center said, adding that "weather will deteriorate along the coastline long before the centre reaches the coast."

Tropical storm-force winds were already being felt late Thursday east of Texas in Louisiana, a state keeping a wary eye on Ike just two weeks after the city of New Orleans and the Louisiana coast was hammered by Hurricane Gustav.

Oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico was largely shut off, though the US Department of Energy said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there.

"Current projections show it missing most of the gulf's oil and gas installations and hitting the Texas coastline sometime late tomorrow (Friday)," the department said in a statement.

"Some 95.9 per cent of the Gulf of Mexico's 1.3 million barrels per day of oil production and 73.1 per cent of its 7.4 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production has been turned off," it said.

The bulk of US oil refineries are in the gulf, and Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell had evacuated personnel from its offshore installations as of Wednesday.

Russian planes in Venezuela a warning to US

CARACAS - The presence of two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers in Venezuela is a "warning" to the US "empire," President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday, as Washington said it was monitoring the deployment.

"It's a warning. Russia is with us ... we are strategic allies. It is a message to the empire. Venezuela is no longer poor and alone," Chavez said during a public event on Thursday.

The Venezuelan president had announced on Wednesday that two Russian bombers were in Venezuela for "training flights" and that he would be piloting one of the aircraft himself.

"I hope that stings, 'pitiyanquis'," he said, using a derogatory term for Venezuelan opponents who have perceived US sympathies.

"What's more, I'm going to take the controls of one of these monsters," boasted the president, a former paratrooper and left-wing politician who has avowed antagonism towards the United States.

The United States said it would monitor the deployment of the two Russian bombers, which it described as "Cold War era assets," to Venezuela.

"It is something that we will watch very closely, as we have with the movements of other military assets for the stated purpose of this joint exercise," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

"These are Cold War era assets and I will leave it to the Russians to describe their capabilities and how they might be equipped," he added.

The moves came amid soaring tensions between Russia and the United States, including over the presence of US naval vessels sent close to Russian shores to deliver aid to Georgia.

Chavez also said plans for joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises in the region in November were currently being worked out, and said his closeness to the Kremlin would result in a cooperation that would "strengthen the country."

His announcement confirmed an Interfax report in Russia citing the Russian defence ministry saying the bombers would be in Venezuela for training flights over "neutral waters."

Russia said on Monday it was dispatching a nuclear cruiser and other warships and planes to the Caribbean for the joint exercises with Venezuela - the first such manoeuvres in the US vicinity since the Cold War.

A spokesman for the Russian navy said Monday that the November manoeuvres would take place under an agreement sealed when the leaders of the two countries met in Moscow in July.

Among the Russian ships to take part in the exercises would be the heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Peter the Great, a vessel with massive firepower whose cruise missiles can deliver nuclear or conventional warheads.

Foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said on Monday that the exercises were "not in any way connected to the current situation in the Caucasus," and were "not aimed at any third country."

Analysts said the Russian navy presence in Venezuela was more symbolic than military, though it did nothing assuage fears that Cold War-type tensions were building.

Thomas Gomart of the Paris-based French Institute of International Relations noted that, up to now, Russia had contented itself with selling arms, notably fighter-bombers, to Caracas.

But the announcement of the Caribbean manoeuvres seemed to be both an overt challenge to US power and a gesture of support to Chavez's radical policies, he said.

The Tupolev Tu-160 bombers are huge supersonic combat aircraft similar to the US B1 bombers, capable of flying long missions with a heavy payload and of carrying nuclear or conventional bombs and/or cruise and guided missiles.

According to a specialist military website, Globalsecurity.org, there are 14 of the bombers in the Russian air force, after a 2003 crash destroyed one of them.

US Campaign Sharpens As McCain Takes Poll Lead

KANSAS CITY, Missouri - The US presidential election moved into high gear Monday as two new opinion polls showed Republican John McCain taking the lead over Democratic rival Barack Obama.

McCain, a decorated war hero who based much of his early campaign on the strength of his experience, wrestled last week for Obama's mantle of change with the help of his surprise vice presidential pick Sarah Palin.

A USA Today/Gallup survey showed McCain ahead of Obama 50 per cent to 46 per cent among registered voters , a turnaround from a previous poll taken by the newspaper just before last week's Republican National Convention.

That poll had McCain trailing Obama by seven percentage points.

A new Gallup daily tracking poll found McCain had moved into a 48 to 45 per cent lead ahead of the November 4 election -- his best performance since May.

Experts attributed the McCain rebound to his party's convention and the surprise naming of Alaska governor Palin.

"He's in a far better position than his people imagined he would be in at this point," political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia was quoted by USA Today as saying.

McCain and Palin vowed to use their history of fighting corruption to shake up Washington at a series of campaign stops after the Republican National Convention.

"In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change," Palin told cheering crowds in Wisconsin.

"We're going to win this election and let me offer a little advance warning to the old big spending, do-nothing me-first country second Washington crowd: change is coming. Change is coming," McCain said the next day in Colorado.

Obama ridiculed McCain's promise of change and hammered the Arizona senator on the limping US economy, saying the Republican represented no change from Bush.

"John McCain, who is a good man and has a compelling biography, has embraced and adopted the George Bush economic platform," Obama said on ABC television.

The Illinois senator argued that voters would realize that the election was a choice between a new direction and discredited Republican policies.

"If they like what they've had over the last eight years, then they'll go with McCain. And if they don't like it, hopefully they'll go with me," he said.

Obama's running mate Senator Joseph Biden called McCain's commitment to change "malarkey."

"Tell me one single thing they're going to do on the economy, foreign policy, taxes, that is going to be change," Biden said on NBC.

The Democrats have had a hard time targeting Palin, who is popular among conservatives and has garnered public sympathy in the wake of the media's response to news that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant and planned to keep the baby.

Senator Hillary Clinton, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary and was incredibly popular among white women, has refused to criticize Palin even though the McCain campaign has actively targeted her disgruntled supporters.

Clinton, who has kept a low profile since she dramatically ceded to Obama at the Democratic National Convention in August, is expected to attack McCain at three events in Florida Monday.

McCain has been sharp in his criticism of Obama, warning Sunday that his rival did not have good "judgment" or a record of challenging his own party's dogma.

"He never took on his party on a single major issue, I have taken them on a lot," McCain said on CBS.

"I think I can make a strong case that whatever the issue, he doesn't have the judgment."

Neither headliners held rallies Sunday although McCain and Palin introduced themselves to voters at a Mexican restaurant in New Mexico and a barbecue joint in Missouri and Biden spoke at a Montana high school.

The Republican candidates had a rally planned in Missouri and a fundraising dinner in Obama's hometown of Chicago on Monday. Obama had two rallies planned in Michigan on Monday and another in Virginia on Tuesday. Biden was due to be in Wisconsin and Iowa on Monday.

Human Rights Watch Warns Of Backlash To Rising Afghan Deaths

KABUL - Civilian deaths from international air strikes in Afghanistan nearly tripled between 2006 and 2007 with new deadly strikes fuelling a public backlash, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

Insurgents were also guilty of causing civilian deaths by using ordinary people as "human shields" against troops, including by deploying into villages, the New York-based rights group said in a report.

But the international forces, and the US military in particular, needed to "end the mistakes that are killing so many civilians," Asia director Brad Adams warned in a statement accompanying the report.

"Mistakes by the US and NATO have dramatically decreased public support for the Afghan government and the presence of international forces providing security to Afghans," he said.

"Civilian deaths from air strikes act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban and risk fatally undermining the international effort to provide basic security to the people of Afghanistan."

The report comes less than a fortnight after Afghan government and UN investigation teams said US-led coalition air strikes killed more than 90 villagers, most of them children, on August 22 in the western village of Azizabad.

The coalition rejects the figure saying only five to seven died along with 30-35 Taliban.

If the toll of 90 is confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest such incidents since the United States led troops into Afghanistan seven years ago to remove the Taliban from government and round up extremist militants.

Human Rights Watch said that in 2006 at least 699 Afghan civilians were killed in militant attacks, including suicide bombings, and at least 230 in international military action, around half in air strikes.

In 2007, at least 950 died in attacks by insurgent forces, including the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and at least 321 in air strikes.

"Thus, civilian deaths from US and NATO air strikes nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007," it said.

In the first seven months of this year 2008, at least 367 civilians had been killed in insurgent attacks and at least 119 in air strikes, it said, adding its data was based on conservative estimates.

The air strikes that accounted for almost all the civilian dead were unplanned and called in to help troops under attack, Human Rights Watch said.

"Rapid response air strikes have meant higher civilian casualties, while every bomb dropped in populated areas amplifies the chance of a mistake," Adams said.

Besides civilian casualties, strikes also caused people to flee their homes and villages in fear of future bombardments, resulting in another problem of displacement, Human Rights Watch said.

The watchdog accused US officials in particular of a "poor response" when civilian deaths did occur, saying the US military often immediately denied responsibility or placed all blame on the Taliban.

Its investigations had been "unilateral, ponderous, and lacking in transparency" and undercut relations with local populations and the Afghan government, the group said.

Compensation payouts to survivors or relatives of victims had not been timely or adequate, it said, calling for the international forces to improve their method of assessing damages.

"While Taliban shielding is a factor in some civilian deaths, the US shouldn't use this as an excuse when it could have taken better precautions. It is, after all, its bombs that are doing the killing," Adams said.

Death Toll From Egypt Rockslide Rises To 47

CAIRO - At least 47 people were killed in a massive rockslide which flattened homes in a Cairo shantytown, a security official said on Monday, with yet more bodies pulled from the rubble two days after the tragedy.

Many more bodies are feared entombed in the debris after giant boulders crushed dozens of homes in the shantytown of Manshiyet Nasser on Saturday, burying whole families.

"Casualties have now reached 47 dead and 57 injured," the official told AFP, asking not to be named.

Egypt's mufti Sheikh Ali Gomaa - the leader of the nation's Sunni Muslim faithful - said all who died were "martyrs," the independent Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper reported.

Television reports suggested that as many as 500 people could be missing as rescuers continued in a desperate race to find survivors of the tragedy, which struck as most people were sleeping, it being the first week of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Rescue efforts are proceeding slowly as authorities break the giant rocks into pieces small enough to be hauled out of the area.

The army and emergency services are also trying to create narrow passageways between the massive rocks to allow them access to the remains below, wary of setting off new rockslides.

Most of the brick-built dwellings in the district have two floors and were put up without adhering to planning regulations and without construction permits.

The army tried to get residents to move into an improvised camp made up of 60 tents in a nearby public park, although some survivors refused to go, insisting instead on being given proper new homes.

Survivor Abdallah Salem, 60, whose home was unscathed by the landslide, said he feared further rocks tumbling down.

"We're afraid to sleep in our homes for fear that our fate might be the same as that of our neighbours," Salem told the independent Al-Badil newspaper.

The arid Moqattam hill is broken up by chalky rock slopes, and a number of unofficial housing areas are huddled at its base, along the length of a main road into the city.

Several rockslides have occurred in the area previously, the most deadly of which killed 70 people in the adjacent Zabaleen area in 1993.

"The government knew that people could die and, in spite of that, it didn't take any action," resident Waheed Rabie told the state-owned Egyptian Gazette newspaper.

Residents on Sunday threw rocks at security forces, denouncing what they said was a slow official reaction to the catastrophe.

Egypt has a poor track record of building safety often blamed on the flouting of construction regulations, particularly involving adding extra floors without permission.

In December, 35 people died when a 12-storey apartment block in the northern city of Alexandria collapsed as restoration work was under way on the first floor.

Kuwaiti PM to Make First Iraq Visit Since Gulf War

KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait's premier has accepted an invitation to visit Iraq, in what would be a first since the forces of dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the Gulf emirate 18 years ago.

Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh delivered the invitation to Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah on Sunday during a visit to discuss debt and war reparations, according to an official statement on Monday.

"The premier accepted the invitation and its date will be determined soon through diplomatic channels," said the statement, quoted by the state-run KUNA news agency.

It said the emirate was awaiting the return to Baghdad of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani who is convalescing in the United States following heart surgery last month.

Sheikh Mohammad said that during the visit, Kuwait's newly appointed ambassador, former army chief Ali al-Momen, would present his credentials - becoming the first ambassador to Baghdad since the 1990 invasion.

The two neighbours have yet to settle a number of issues related to debt and war compensation estimated at tens of billions of dollars.

Kuwait has claimed damages from Iraq for the invasion and the seven-month occupation by Saddam's forces, which were expelled in 1991 by a US-led coalition.

Iraq is required to pay five per cent of its oil revenue into a fund created by the UN Security Council to pay compensation for war damage linked to the Kuwait occupation.

Iraq in April called on Gulf states to waive compensation and debt. The United Arab Emirates last month waived US$7 billion that Baghdad owed and other states have promised to do the same.

Figures released at the time showed the UN compensation fund has received claims worth US$354 billion, but had approved payments of just over US$52 billion, including around US$45 billion for Kuwait.

The fund had paid out more than US$21 billion, including around US$11 billion for Kuwait.

Saddam was toppled after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and executed for crimes against humanity in December 2006.

Mbeki Arrives In Harare For Power-Sharing Talks

HARARE - South African President Thabo Mbeki arrived in the Zimbabwean capital Harare on Monday in the latest bid to revive stalled power-sharing talks between the country's political rivals.

Mbeki, who was met on arrival by President Robert Mugabe, is expected to be in Harare for "at least two days," according to a South African diplomat.

He was to hold talks with Mugabe, opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the leader of a small MDC offshoot, Arthur Mutambara, in an effort to end a deadlock which has delayed the formation of a new government in the impoverished country.

Talks deadlocked last month when the MDC, the biggest party in parliament following elections in March, balked at a proposal which would see President Robert Mugabe retain control of the country's security ministries.

Mbeki was appointed by the Southern African Development Community in July to mediate in the dispute.

It was unclear Monday whether Mbeki would meet the party leaders together or separately.

While the opposition was upbeat about the Mbeki visit, the ruling ZANU-PF and government officials declined to comment.

"We welcome President Mbeki's visit. We expect him as mediator to play the simple but important role of deflating the current impasse in the negotiations," said MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa.

"He should persuade ZANU-PF to abandon their meaningless hardline stance. The bottom line is people of Zimbabwe are suffering and they need a 'pain-stop' to come out of these talks," he said.

Mutambara's splinter group also said it was hopeful.

"If this meeting with Mbeki takes place, it will be a good opportunity for the leaders of this country to chart a new path for a new Zimbabwe. We are excited and hopeful," spokesman Edwin Mushoriwa told AFP.

"Zimbabwean people are anxious to see an end to this crisis which has dragged on for too long. We cannot continue to keep the people in suspense," he said.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, the chief negotiator for ZANU-PF, would make no comment about the resumption of talks.

Mbeki's trip comes after Mugabe threatened last week to form a cabinet if Tsvangirai delayed signing a document to pave the way for a power-sharing deal.

Tsvangirai called on Sunday for fresh elections, supervised by international observers, if there was no breakthrough in the talks.

But he insisted he would only sign a deal that gives him "sufficient" power.

"We would rather have no deal than a bad deal," he said.

Speaking earlier at the same rally, Tsvangirai's deputy Tendai Biti said the talks had stalled over powers invested in the president by the current constitution.

"The president created in this constitution is a monarch, an imperial president," said Biti, the MDC's secretary-general.

"That's the sticking point," he said. "It's the issue of the powers of the president as enshrined in this constitution that is making these talks not to move forward."

The talks began after both sides signed a memorandum of understanding on July 21 in Harare.

Mugabe won a June 27 presidential run-off poll after the first-round winner Tsvangirai withdrew from the vote in protest at widespread election violence.

Three Found Guilty Over Transatlantic Jet Bombing

LONDON - Three members of an Islamist cell accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic aircraft with liquid explosives in 2006 were found guilty by a court in London on Monday.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali, described as the leader of the eight-man group, was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court of conspiring to murder hundreds of people, as were two others, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain.

The trial considered charges that the men planned to smuggle the explosives in soft drink bottles on board aircraft flying from London's main Heathrow airport to North America.

The home-made devices would then have been set off in flight, causing carnage in the skies, prosecutors alleged during the three-and-a-half-month trial.

The men's arrest in August 2006 prompted new restrictions on carrying liquids on board aircraft from Britain, which had been on high alert since July 2005 suicide bombings which killed 52 people in London.

The travel security restrictions have since been eased.

During the trial, three of the defendants pleaded guilty to plotting explosions. Seven admitted conspiracy to commit public nuisance by distributing Al-Qaeda videos threatening suicide bomb attacks in Britain.

On Monday the jury failed to reach verdicts on four defendants: Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan, Waheed Zaman and Umar Islam. An eighth man, Mohammed Gulzar, was found not guilty on all counts.

The trial started in April, and the 12-person jury retired to consider their verdicts at the end of July. Sentencing will be handed down at a later date.

Prosecutors alleged that the men plotted suicide attacks on at least seven flights from Britain to North America in a simultaneous attack of "truly global impact".

All eight defendants faced two charges of conspiracy to murder, with one charge specifying that the attacks would involve detonating improvised bombs on board commercial airliners between January 1 and August 11, 2006.

The men targeted seven flights from London's Heathrow airport - to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal, the jury had heard.

They aimed to use hydrogen peroxide liquid explosives injected into plastic soft drinks bottles to cause "a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale", prosecutor Peter Wright told the trial.

They were "not long off" putting their plan into action and had talked of up to 18 different suicide bombers targeting seven or even more flights, operated by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada, he said.

Summing up the case in July, a prosecutor said the eight accused wanted to achieve "immortality" and be "lionised" by other Islamic extremists for a deadly attack which would "shock the world".

Russia Commits To Georgia Pull-Back

BARVIKHA, Russia - President Dmitry Medvedev pledged Monday to withdraw all Russian troops from Georgia apart from Abkhazia and South Ossetia whose independence he maintained was "irrevocable".

Medvedev said he had made the commitment after receiving assurances from a visiting European Union delegation led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Georgia would not resort to force again in its rebel regions.

Under the deal brokered by Sarkozy, Medvedev agreed to the deployment of at least 200 European Union observers in Georgia by October 1 to monitor the pull-out.

"Russia received a guarantee from the European Union and from France as representative of the European Union on non-use of force by the Georgian side," Medvedev said.

There will be a "complete withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces" from zones adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia 10 days after the deployment of the EU observers, he added.

Sarkozy, the current EU president, said negotiations on a new EU-Russia partnership agreement -- put on hold over the crisis -- could resume "as early as October" if Moscow fulfilled the agreed measures.

Later in Tbilisi after talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, he said there would also be "consequences" for Russia if it did not comply but insisted that great strides had been made since the conflict.

"Frankly, there is no comparison with the situation in the first half of the month of August. I remind you that when we took this issue up the whole world was convinced that Russian military forces were moving on the capital of Georgia. Today, we are negotiating their withdrawal," he said.

Saakashvili insisted that any solution to the conflict must respect his country's territorial integrity and announced a summit in Tbilisi on the crisis in October. He did not elaborate on who would be invited to the summit.

"We must continue to implement the European solution to reach a definitive solution respecting Georgia's territorial integrity and the principle of justice for our country and for our region," he said.

Washington stuck to a firm line, however, with US President George W Bush taking a long-awaited decision to freeze a landmark civilian nuclear agreement with Russia in protest at Moscow's military moves in Georgia.

"The president intends to notify Congress that he has today rescinded his prior determination regarding the US-Russia agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation," a statement said.

An official at the Russian foreign ministry reacted with ambivalence to the move, saying simply that such as step was "regrettable" and "out of keeping with bilateral relations."

The new Russian timetable for a pull-out followed EU assurances that Georgia will live up to its ceasefire commitments with Sarkozy handing Medvedev a letter from Saakashvili promising not to use force again.

The Russian leader was unequivocal about the status of the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia which Saakashvili says must remain part of Georgia but which Moscow has recognised as independent states.

"We made a choice for ourselves," Medvedev said. "This choice is final and irrevocable," he added while announcing that international talks would be held on the two regions on October 15 in Geneva.

Russia's foreign ministry said it planned to exchange documents Tuesday with Abkhazia and South Ossetia to set up diplomatic relations.

Russian tanks and troops surged into Georgia on August 8 to rebuff a Georgian offensive to retake South Ossetia.

Moscow argued that the action was to protect thousands of people to whom it had granted Russian citizenship since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Hundreds of people on both sides are estimated to have been killed in the conflict, which wrought extensive destruction on the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. Tens of thousands fled their homes.

The conflict sent relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Georgia, whose army was routed by the Russians after its ill-fated assault to regain control of South Ossetia, says Russia has almost 1,500 soldiers still in Georgia proper which it regards as an occupying force.

In another development Monday, Georgia accused Russia before the UN's International Court of Justice in The Hague of conducting a long-running campaign of "ethnic cleansing" in Georgian territory.

Russia has not responded publicly to the Georgian application, but alleges that Georgia committed "genocide" with its assault on Tskhinvali.

Bush Feezes Nuclear Pact With Russia Over Georgia Tension
 
WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush on Monday froze a much vaunted US-Russian civilian nuclear pact in protest at Moscow's military moves in Georgia.

The first casualty in recently touted cooperation among the former Cold War foes, the US-Russian deal to establish joint ventures and share peaceful nuclear technology has been pulled from consideration for now.

In formally notifying the Congress of his decision, Bush wrote that the Russian government had taken actions that are "incompatible with peaceful relations with its sovereign and democratic neighbour Georgia."

Russian troops poured into Georgia last month to repel an attack by the Georgian army aimed at retaking South Ossetia. They have remained deep inside Georgian territory in what Moscow calls "security zones."

Both Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was the first to announce the decision, said the pact could be resubmitted to Congress if circumstances change, but gave no specicics.

"We make this decision with regret," Rice said in a statement read by her spokesman Sean McCormack. "Unfortunately, given the current environment, the time is not right for this agreement."

On a visit to Moscow in March, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates hailed what they called growing areas of cooperation with Russia, including in the nuclear area, despite tension over US actions in former Soviet territory.

Now, Russian moves in Georgia are seen by analysts as a response to the US drive to bring the pro-US government in Tbilisi into NATO and to build a US missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland, former Soviet satellites.

Russia reacted with ambivalence to the decision by US President George W. Bush to postpone a US-Russia civilian nuclear pact, Interfax reported on Monday citing a foreign affairs ministry official.

"Such a step is regrettable" and is "out of keeping with bilateral relations," the official, said by the news agency to have requested anonymity, was quoted as saying.

However, "Russia does not need civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States more than (Washington)," the source added.

During a press briefing in Washington, McCormack said the US embassy in Moscow notified the Russian government of the impending decision last week.

McCormack said Bush decided to freeze the nuclear deal because of "deep concerns over Russian behaviour," though he did not deny its actions in Georgia played a role.

The agreement aimed to allow US and Russian companies to form joint ventures in the nuclear sector and gives the go-ahead for exchanges of nuclear technology between the two countries, according to officials on both sides.

Under the deal, Russia would also be able to reprocess spent nuclear fuel originating in the United States, which accounts for most of the world market, in a move that has raised fears of Russia being turned into a nuclear dump.

When the deal was signed in May, McCormack said the deal would prove a boost to the US nuclear industry and would strengthen US-Russian efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear technology to shadowy militant groups.

The State Department is playing down the possible impact on non-proliferation efforts from the deal's postponement.

"The US non-proliferation goals contained in the proposed agreement remain valid: to provide a sound basis for US-Russian civilian nuclear cooperation; create commercial opportunities; and enhance cooperation with Russia on important global non-proliferation issues," Rice's statement said.

McCain Offers Voters a "Team Of Mavericks"

CHICAGO - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain accused rival Barack Obama of being a free-spending Democrat on Monday and told voters they should send a "team of mavericks" to the White House.

Riding a boost in the polls which give him a newfound edge over Obama, McCain told voters that he, and not his Democratic rivals, were the real agents of change who would shake up a free-spending Washington.

"We're going to work for you and we're going to drain the swamp in Washington, DC," McCain told a rally in Lee's Summit, Missouri.

"We'll take them on and we'll defeat 'em because America knows it's time for change and it's time for the right change."

Senator McCain praised running mate Sarah Palin's history of fighting corruption in her own party and "pork-barrel" spending while governor of Alaska, and touted his own reputation of bucking the party line.

As they fight to the November 4 election, McCain is wrestling for Obama's mantle of change amid a troubled economy and deep electoral dissatisfaction with the government.

The tactic appears to be working. McCain pulled ahead of Obama in two polls released Monday and closed the gap to a tie in another, all just in the wake of the Republican party's nominating convention, which closed Thursday.

The USA Today/Gallup survey showed McCain ahead by 50 to 46 percent among registered voters, a turnaround from one week ago when, just after the Democratic National Convention, Obama had a seven-point lead.

One factor in the shift was McCain's surprise choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

Twenty-nine percent of respondents said the choice of Palin had made them more likely to vote for McCain, while 21 percent said they were now less likely to back the Republicans.

Polls by CNN and Rasmussen had McCain essentially tied with Obama, after McCain trailed by as much as nine points last week.

"He's in a far better position than his people imagined he would be in at this point," political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia told USA Today

In a campaign increasingly focused on wasteful spending of tax money, McCain accused Senator Obama of massive use of "earmarks" - additions to federal legislation which direct spending to a politician's pet projects, often called "pork-barrel" spending.

"Senator Obama asked for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark spending - 932 million dollars, almost a million dollars for every day he was in the United States Senate," McCain told the Missouri rally.

"I will veto every pork barrel earmark spending bill that comes across my desk. We will stop it, my friends, because it breeds corruption and we can no longer stand for that," said McCain.

On the campaign trail in Flint, Michigan Monday, Obama questioned the "maverick" credentials of the McCain-Palin team, pointing out that as a mayor and then governor in Alaska Palin aggressively sought earmarks from Congress.

"And when John McCain with a straight face says 'I'm going to change things,' at the same time as he says he's agreed with (President) George Bush 90 percent of the time, you know it's pretty hard to believe."

Obama said that Palin, as Alaska's governor, had supported a hugely expensive bridge project funded by a congressional earmark before it sparked an outcry as an example of wasteful "pork-barrel" spending.

"You can't just make stuff up, you can't just reinvent yourself," he said.

"The American people aren't stupid. What they're looking for is someone who's been consistently calling for change" on Iraq, tax cuts, making college costs affordable, on healthcare and ethics reform.

"That's change you can believe in, that's why I'm running for president," Obama said to loud applause.

Sarkozy In Georgia Peace Mission

MOSCOW - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will ramp up the international pressure on Russia to withdraw more troops from Georgia as he visits Moscow and Tbilisi on Monday to shore up a fragile peace deal.

France holds the rotating presidency of the European Union and it was Sarkozy who brokered the August 12 accord that officially brought an end to Russia and Georgia's five-day war over South Ossetia.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has come under fire for not honouring the terms of the truce, in particular from the United States, which is not as reliant as some European nations on Russian oil and gas supplies.

Moscow argues that its remaining presence in Georgia - thought to be a few thousand troops - is in line with an agreement that foresaw "additional security measures" by Russia in the conflict zone.

Georgia, whose army was routed by the Russians in a five-day conflict after launching an ill-fated campaign to regain control of the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia, views the leftover troops as an occupying force.

Sarkozy will meet Medvedev at his residence near Moscow at 1000 GMT, accompanied by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

The three will later travel to Tbilisi for afternoon talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili with whom Russia has refused direct talks since the conflict.

French officials say they will press for: the deployment of an EU observer mission in Georgia; a timetable for Russia's withdrawal; and international talks on the future of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia.

An emergency EU summit on September 1 gave an order for EU negotiators to seek full application of the ceasefire accord and EU foreign ministers meeting in France last week confirmed plans for an EU observer mission to Georgia.

Russia says it will only pull its troops out of areas surrounding the rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia once international controls, including observers and police, are in place to prevent another Georgian attack.

It also wants Georgia to sign a non-aggression pact and insists that Georgian troops have not yet returned to their own bases, one of the six terms of the ceasefire agreement.

Western countries have said Russia is breach of the accord, urging Moscow to pull out immediately, and have strongly condemned Medvedev's move on August 26 to unilaterally recognise the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"I am hopeful that the French president's visit to Moscow... will clarify the six-point plan," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday.

"We, as the European Union, want to continue contacts (with Moscow).... At the same time it's not possible that a six-point plan that we have developed together is not respected," she said.

The conflict has plunged relations between Russia and the West to a tense post-Cold War low, with an angry war of words developing between Russia and the United States following US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to the region.

Cheney has accused Russia of using "brutality" and trying to redraw the map of Georgia. Russia has alleged US involvement in Georgia's attack on South Ossetia and accused Washington of re-arming Georgia since the conflict.

Russian troops surged into Georgia on August 8 with Moscow arguing that they were protecting tens of thousands of residents there who have been granted Russian citizenship since the 1991 collapse of the USSR.

Hundreds of people on both sides are estimated to have been killed in the conflict, which wrought extensive destruction on the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. Tens of thousands have also been forced to flee their homes.

Haiti's Storm Toll Climbs To 600; Cuba Evacuates 800,000

HAVANA - Hurricane Ike slammed into Cuba on Sunday, the second major storm to hit the island in a little over a week, making landfall in the eastern province of Holguin as a major Category Three hurricane, weather officials said.

Just hours before, hundreds of thousands of panicked Cubans fled the fury of the advancing storm, the latest of several major storms to sow misery and destruction through the flood-stricken Caribbean in recent weeks.

The head of the island's meteorological service, Jose Rubiera, told television here that the outer wall of the eye of the hurricane made landfall at the eastern Cuban town of Punta Lucrecia.

Lashing the Atlantic with torrential rain and howling winds, Ike has already killed dozens in Haiti, deepening the impoverished country's humanitarian disaster.

Packing 120-mile (195-kilometer) per hour winds, Ike is the second powerful storm in just eight days to strike Cuba, following the devastation of Hurricane Gustav.

"In all of Cuba's history, we have never had two hurricanes this close together," lamented Rubeira.

More than 800,000 Cubans were evacuated ahead of the Ike's arrival, including more than 9,000 foreign visitors who were moved out of the tourist mecca of Varadero, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of Havana.

Officials in Haiti continued aid operations in the flood-stricken town of Gonaives, devastated by flooding from Tropical Storm Hanna.

Forty-seven people perished in the Haitian village of Cabaret, near Port-au-Prince, in flooding caused by Ike, officials said on Sunday.

"Many homes were destroyed in Cabaret, and we have seen some bodies of children in the water," a journalist for UN radio who spent the night on the roof of his house told AFP.

Ike, late Saturday, ploughed across the low-lying Turks and Caicos as a powerful Category Four storm, causing some injuries and extensive damage on the British territory and tourist haven, before weakening somewhat to a Category Three.

The hurricane also raked the southeastern Bahamian island of Great Inagua, toppling trees, blowing off roofs, causing an island-wide power failure and forcing many of its one thousand residents to seek refuge in shelters.

But the greatest concern was Haiti, where a humanitarian crisis deepened after four storms in three weeks left at least 600 people dead and hundreds of thousands in desperate need of food, clean water and shelter.

Hundreds of bodies were found in flood-prone Gonaives, a town of 350,000 in northwestern Haiti, after a five-meter (16-foot) wall of water and mud engulfed much of the town.

UN peacekeepers on Saturday evacuated several thousand residents from Gonaives, a local official said, but thousands more are still awaiting relief.

Some 650,000 Haitians have been affected by the flooding, including 300,000 children, and the task of delivering crucial aid has been complicated by dismal transport conditions, according to UNICEF. Officials said 200,000 people have been without food and clean water, many for four days.

"What has happened here is unimaginable," member of parliament Pierre-Gerome Valcine told AFP from Cabaret, 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of the capital Port-Au-Prince.

Massive flooding over the past week in the poorest country in the Americas has triggered a humanitarian crisis that was worsening by the day – and prompted prayers from Pope Benedict XVI.

"I want to remember the dear population of Haiti, greatly distressed in recent days by passing hurricanes," Benedict told pilgrims on the Italian island of Sardinia.

Continuing stormy weather hampered relief efforts Sunday, when heavy rains led to the collapse of a key bridge which severed the only viable land route to Gonaives.

The bridge gave way overnight at the town of Mirebalais in central Haiti, forcing three trucks loaded with emergency supplies and bound for Saint-Marc, where thousands of desperate flood refugees from Gonaives were crowding into shelters, to turn back, according to a World Food Programme official.

Many bridges in other areas of Haiti have also collapsed, homes have been washed away and crops ravaged.

Ike was expected to eventually careen past Florida into the Gulf of Mexico and sweep toward Louisiana and the storm-battered city of New Orleans as early as Tuesday.