UK to charge 2 journalists for The Sun newspaper

LONDON: British officials are charging two journalists for The Sun newspaper as part of an investigation into bribery of public officials.

The Crown Prosecution Service said Friday that The Sun's Jamie Pyatt and John Edwards will be charged along with Robert Neave, a former healthcare assistant at Broadmoor, Britain's hospital for the criminally insane with conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office.

Prosecutors allege that over nearly nine years, The Sun paid more than 30,000 pounds ($46,500) to public officials including Neave for information including about the health and activities of Broadmoor patients and details about a royal family member's work.

The charges are being brought as part of Operation Elveden, an investigation being run in conjunction with probes into phone hacking.

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New record as haze chokes Singapore

JAKARTA: Military planes water-bombed Indonesian forest fires that worsened on Friday and blanketed neighbouring Singapore in record levels of hazardous smog for a third straight day in one of Southeast Asia's worst air-pollution crises.

As Singaporeans donned face masks and pulled children from playgrounds and Malaysia closed schools in the south, the deliberately-lit fires grew bigger in some areas. Whipped up by winds, the blazes added to fears over health problems and diplomatic tension in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, three of Southeast Asia's biggest economies.

"The winds are picking up and the weather isn't very good at the moment, so the fires in some places are getting bigger," Gunawan, a firefighter who like many Indonesians go by one name, said by telephone. "We are working as hard as possible to control the fires ... but we're facing difficult conditions."

Indonesia's environment minister, Balthasar Kambuaya, said the government had identified five companies behind the fires, but refused to name them, according to The Jakarta Post newspaper.

Singapore's government has warned the haze could last weeks.

Illegal burning of forests and other land on Indonesia's Sumatra island typically take place in the June to September dry season to clear space for palm oil plantations. But this year's fires are unusually widespread and the hazy smog is the worst in Singapore's history.

"Since the fires are happening mostly on plantation lands, we believe there are plantation companies involved. The president has already put together a team to investigate who owns the plantations," said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency.

Indonesia has earmarked around 200 billion rupiah ($20 million) to handle the disaster. Seven military aircraft were deployed for water bombings and rain seeding.

"HAZARDOUS"

Hospitals in Dumai and Bengkalis in Indonesia's Riau province recorded increases in cases of asthma, lung, eye and skin problems, said health official Arifin Zainal. Free face masks were being distributed and authorities advised residents to stay indoors with their windows shut.

The Dumai airport remained closed for a third day.

In Singapore, the number of residents wearing face masks rose markedly as the pollution standards index (PSI) climbed to a new record of 401 at midday, a level which health authorities consider potentially life-threatening for the elderly. The PSI moderated later to an "unhealthy" 139.

"Basically, what a 'hazardous' PSI level means is that the pollution will cause damage to the lining of the breathing tube," said Dr Kenneth Chan, consultant respiratory physician at Singapore's Gleneagles Medical Centre. "If the lining of the breathing tube is damaged, it will make the patient more vulnerable to various infections."

In Malaysia, southern Johor state was the worst affected, with pollution readings remaining in the "hazardous" category.

COSTLY FIRE

The cost of the current haze for Singapore could be hundreds of millions of dollars, brokerage CLSA said in a report.

It said that in 2006, when the pollution index reached 150, it was estimated the haze cost $50 million and in 1997 it was $300 million. CLSA said the 1997 and 2006 figures seemed low when considering the direct and indirect cost of prolonged haze.

Playgrounds emptied as parents kept children inside. But workers in Singapore could still be seen toiling at some construction sites.

The Singapore government has so far only issued only broad guidelines about employers having to ensure the health and safety of workers.

"Even as our government rails against the corporate interests in Sumatra who are willing to sacrifice human health for profits, the Ministry of Manpower still isn't practicing what they preach by allowing construction companies in Singapore to make their workers slog through the smog," the Online Citizen, a socio-political website, said in a commentary.

In 1997, the Ministry of Manpower, then called the Ministry of Labour, said outdoor work should stop if the PSI topped 400.

Jetstar, the budget carrier of Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd, was advertising fares to unaffected destinations like Bangkok, Phuket, Bali and Shantou in China.

"Fantasising about greener pastures or fresh air by the beach? Turn your dream into reality by jetting off with this week's Friday Fare Frenzy!," JetStar said.

However, some companies have taken their advertisements a bit too far. McDonald's, the fast-food-chain, apologised for making a haze-related pun in one promotion - "Today's Peak Sauce Index is looking deliciously high".

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Greece coalition partner pulls out ministers

ATHENS, Greece: Greece's fragile coalition government was left reeling on Friday after a junior party decided to pull its two cabinet ministers from the cabinet following a dispute over state broadcaster ERT.

Democratic Left party officials said the ministers of justice and civil service reform would resign from the 17-member cabinet of ministers within the day. Two of the party's deputy ministers were also preparing to resign, the officials said.

It was not immediately clear whether the party would continue to support conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' coalition government in parliament.

A party statement said it would continue to pursue an "agenda of reform" - implying that it would extend limited support to the government.

Samaras' three-party coalition currently has 167 seats in the 300-member parliament, including the 14 lawmakers from the Democratic Left. The government would be left with a slim working majority of just three lawmakers if the Democratic Left withdrew its support.

Socialist coalition party Pasok says it will remain in Samaras government.

Civil Service Reform Minister Antonis Manitakis announced the news of the Democratic Left's cabinet withdrawal following a four-hour emergency meeting.

The crisis in Greece saw the country's borrowing costs spike on Friday, while shares on the Athens Stock Exchange were 3.2 percent lower.

The interest yield on the country's benchmark 10-year bond - an indicator of investor confidence in a country - spiked 0.80 percentage point Friday to 11.35 percent - the highest in 2013. Meanwhile, shares on the Athens Stock Exchange were down nearly 3 percent midday Friday.

Samaras' coalition parties failed to resolve the dispute over broadcaster ERT following three meetings this week after the high court ruled the decision to close it unlawful.

Greece has been relying on 240 billion euros ($316.8 billion) in bailout loans from the other euro countries and the International Monetary Fund for the past three years. The country has had to introduce harsh austerity measures demanded by rescue creditors, which have deepened the country's recession.

Samaras' ordered ERT's closure on June 11, shutting off its signal and firing nearly 2,700 employees as the country embarks on a second stage of painful cuts likely to focus on reducing the size of the public sector.

Debt inspectors have suspended a review of Greece's public finances amid the political crisis, while the IMF warned Thursday that loan payouts could be affected if that review does not restart soon.

If Greece falls further into political crisis, it could miss some of its agreed bailout targets, which could force the creditors to withhold paying out the next tranche of loans.

"I love Greece but I'm very much looking forward to a Eurogroup press conference where Greece is not going to be discussed and a summer where we don't have any Greek crisis," said the EU's top economic official, Olli Rehn said Thursday night at the closing of a meeting of euro finance ministers.

"I want to appeal to the sense of responsibility of political leaders in Greece," he added.

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Taliban offer to free US soldier

ISLAMABAD: The Afghan Taliban are ready to free a US soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay as a conciliatory gesture, a senior spokesman for the group said Thursday.

The offer follows this week's official opening of a Taliban political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar.

The only known American soldier held captive from the Afghan war is US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho. He disappeared from his base in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and is believed held in Pakistan.

In an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Doha office, Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail said on Thursday that Bergdahl "is, as far as I know, in good condition."

Suhail did not elaborate on Bergdahl's current whereabouts. Among the five prisoners the Taliban have consistently requested are Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former Taliban governor of Herat, and Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a former top Taliban military commander, both of whom have been held for more than a decade.

Bergdahl's parents earlier this month received a letter from their son who turned 27 on March 28 through the International Committee of the Red Cross. They did not release details of the letter but renewed their plea for his release. The soldier's captivity has been marked by only sporadic releases of videos and information about his whereabouts.

The prisoner exchange is the first item on the Taliban's agenda before even opening peace talks, saidn Suhail, who is a top Taliban figure and served as first secretary at the Afghan Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad before the Taliban government's ouster in 2001.

"First has to be the release of detainees," Suhail said when asked about Bergdahl. "Yes. It would be an exchange. Then step by step, we want to build bridges of confidence to go forward."

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry was expected in Doha ahead of Saturday's conference on the Syrian civil war.

While in Qatar, Kerry is also expected to meet with the Taliban but timing was unclear. On Wednesday in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. had "never confirmed" any specific meeting schedule with Taliban representatives in Doha.

Prospective peace talks are also still in question, especially after Afghan President Hamid Karzai became infuriated by the Taliban's move to cast their new office in Doha as a rival embassy.

The Taliban held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday in which they hoisted their flag and a banner with the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." Later, the Taliban replaced the sign to read simply: Political office of the Taliban.

At the ceremony, the Taliban welcomed dialogue with Washington but said their fighters would not stop fighting. Hours later, the group claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Bagram Air Base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed four American service members.

Karzai on Wednesday announced his government is out of the peace talks, apparently angered by the way Kabul had been sidelined in the US-Taliban bid for rapprochement.

The Afghan president also suspended negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security agreement that would cover American troops who will remain behind after the final withdrawal of Nato combat troops at the end of 2014.

Suhail said the Taliban are insistent that they want their first interlocutors to be the United States. "First we talk to the Americans about those issues concerning the Americans and us (because) for those issues implementation is only in the hands of the Americans," he said.

"We want foreign troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan," he added. "If there are troops in Afghanistan then there will be a continuation of the war."

Suhail indicated the Taliban could approve of American trainers and advisers for the Afghan troops, saying that "of course, there is cooperation between countries in other things. We need that cooperation."

He said that once the Taliban concluded talks with the United States, they would participate in all-inclusive Afghan talks.

Suhail ruled out exclusive talks with Karzai's High Peace Council, which has been a condition of the Afghan president who previously said he wanted talks in Doha to be restricted to his representatives and the Taliban. Instead, the Taliban would talk to all Afghan groups, Suhail said.

"After we finish the phase of talking to the Americans, then we would start the internal phase ... that would include all Afghans," he said. "Having all groups involved will guarantee peace and stability."

On Thursday, Karzai's government appeared to throw another spanner into the mix, demanding that Pakistan release imprisoned Afghan Taliban leaders.

"It is a good time to release these Taliban leaders jailed in Pakistan, and then the Afghan High Peace Council together with them will begin talks with the Taliban inside Afghanistan or in Qatar," a statement from the foreign ministry in Kabul said.

It wasn't clear, however, whether the Taliban in Pakistani custody would be willing to participate in peace talks as members of Karzai's council. Pakistan last year and earlier this year released dozens of Taliban prisoners, most of whom returned to the ranks of the Taliban.

The Afghan government has repeatedly sought the release of the Taliban's former No. 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, picked up by Pakistan in 2010 on a CIA tip.

Pakistan has so far refused, and two senior US officials told the AP that the US has asked Pakistan not to release Baradar or if he is released, to give them advance notice so they could monitor his movements. The two officials, both knowledgeable of the process, spoke earlier this year, on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

The reconciliation process with the Taliban has been a long and bumpy one that began nearly two years ago when the US opened secret talks that were later scuttled by Karzai when he learned of them.

It was then that the US and Taliban discussed prisoner exchanges and for a brief time it appeared that the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners would be released and sent to Doha to help further the peace process. But Karzai stepped in again and demanded they be returned to Afghanistan over Taliban objections.

Since then, the US has been trying to jumpstart peace talks and the Taliban have made small gestures including an offer to share power. The Taliban have also attended several international conferences and held meetings with representatives of about 30 countries.

If the Taliban hold talks with Kerry in the next few days, they will be the first US-Taliban talks in nearly 1 years.

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Landslides, floods claim 39 lives across Nepal

KATHMANDU: At least 39 people have been killed due to floods and landslides triggered by incessant rain over a period of five days in 10 districts across Nepal, the government said on Thrusday.

Thirty nine people were killed and 18 others have gone missing since Sunday, according to the home ministry.

Seven people were killed in Dailekh district, six each were killed in Kalikot and Doti, and five were killed in Baitadi, the ministry said.

Four people each died in Humla and Palpa whereas three people were killed in Achham district.

Two people died in Kanchanpur and one each were killed in Dolpa and Rupendahi districts.

Seven people have been injured and 194 houses damaged in the disaster across Nepal.

Fourteen of the country's 75 districts have been declared disaster-hit by the government following the floods, officials said.

Meanwhile, a high-level government team led by chairman of the Interim Election Government, Khil Raj Regmi today visited the flood-hit areas in western Nepal.

Regmi visited Darchula, Kanchanpur and Kailali districts, which were worst hit by the calamity, according to a Home Ministry official.

Home minister Madhav Ghimire and home secretary Navin Kumar Ghimire were also part of the team.

The government has announced Rs 35,000 as immediate relief to each of the displaced families in the western Nepal districts.

The government has also allocated Rs 50 crore for the reconstruction of infrastructure and relief works in the disaster-hit areas.

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Dubai sets sights on Quran-themed park

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Dubai has added a new item to its top ambitions such as building the world's largest Ferris wheel and bidding for an Angry Birds theme park - a site honoring the Quran.

The estimated $7.3 million project will include a garden with plants mentioned in the Islamic holy book and an air-conditioned tunnel depicting events from the Quran.

Dubai media quoted the city's director of projects, Mohammed Noor Mashroom, as saying Thursday the park should be ready in September 2014.

It's a departure from Dubai's emphasis on Western-style tourism, which draws millions of visitors from around the Muslim world but has its detractors.

This week, a Saudi cleric issued a religious edict saying it was a "sin" for Saudi women to visit Dubai, but later retracted the opinion after outcry.

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Saatchi admits assault on wife Nigella Lawson

LONDON: Prominent British art collector Charles Saatchi has admitted assault and accepted a police caution after published photos showed him grasping the throat of his wife, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.

In Tuesday's editions, The London Evening Standard newspaper quoted him as saying that he had approached police to discuss the incident after seeking legal advice.

"Although Nigella made no complaint I volunteered to go to Charing Cross (police) station and take a police caution after a discussion with my lawyer because I thought it was better than the alternative of this hanging over all of us for months," he told the newspaper, where he is also a columnist. He said the questioning took four hours.

Tabloid newspapers this week published photos of the incident, which happened June 9 in a posh London restaurant.

Saatchi, 70, earlier had characterized the incident as a "playful tiff" during an intense debate about the couple's children.

Lawson, 53, is a well-known TV presenter and chef whose cookbooks are best-sellers in Britain and the United States.

Under British law, a caution is a formal warning given to someone who admits the offense. It carries no penalty, but it can be used as evidence of bad character if a person is later prosecuted for a different crime.

Saatchi had told the Evening Standard newspaper Monday that the photos made the altercation look worse than it was.

Saatchi said "the pictures are horrific but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place."

"About a week ago, we were sitting outside a restaurant having an intense debate about the children, and I held Nigella's neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasize my point," he was quoted as saying. "There was no grip, it was a playful tiff."

Saatchi also told the paper the couple "had made up by the time we were home.

"The paparazzi were congregated outside our house after the story broke yesterday morning, so I told Nigella to take the kids off till the dust settled."

Lawson's spokesman, Mark Hutchinson, confirmed that she and her children had left the family home after the photos were published but declined to comment further.

Saatchi and Lawson married in 2003 and live in London with Lawson's son and daughter from her marriage to journalist John Diamond, who died of cancer in 2001, and Saatchi's daughter from a previous marriage.

Lawson gained fame with her 1998 best-seller "How To Eat" and subsequent "How to Be a Domestic Goddess" (2000) and is one of Britain's best-known cookbook writers, as well as the host of foodie TV shows including "Nigella Bites" and ABC's cooking program "The Taste."

A former journalist who attended Oxford University, she served as deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times and subsequently wrote for numerous other newspapers and magazines.

Lawson is also one of the few British food personalities to have had real success in the United States, both on television and with her cookbooks. She has often made the point that she is not a trained chef, but is simply showing people what they can do in their own kitchens.

She is known for her sensual style on television - both critics and admirers have called her shows "gastroporn."

Lawson is also known for her refreshing frankness. In January, she made news for insisting that her belly not be airbrushed out of promotional photos for her show, "The Taste," on ABC.

"That tum is the truth and is come by honestly, as my granny would have said," she wrote in a blog post.

Saatchi, co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi ad agency, owns one of London's biggest private art galleries. He was the main patron of the Young British Artists movement of the 1990s, which made household names of artists including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

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US lawsuit filed against News Corp on phone hacking

NEW YORK: News Corp's legal woes in the British phone hacking scandal have spread across the Atlantic, with a lawsuit filed in a US court alleging invasion of privacy of Angelina Jolie's stunt double.

A suit filed on June 13 by British national Eunice Huthart accused the firm's now defunct News of the World of intercepting her voice mail messages while she was working as a stunt double for the US actress.

The complaint filed in federal court seeks "maximum statutory actual damages" along with punitive damages against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, the News International and News Group Newspapers subsidiaries and other unidentified individuals.

It said Huthart, who is the godmother of Jolie's first biological child, lost numerous phone messages in 2004 and 2005, including from Jolie, while working on films including "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

Huthart's mobile phone number, account number and personal code appeared in the notes of Glenn Mulcaire, who was imprisoned in Britain for six months in 2007 for illegally intercepting phone messages at the request of News of the World.

The weekly was shut down in July 2011 after it emerged it had illegally accessed the mobile phone voice messages of hundreds of high-profile figures, including a missing teenager who was later found murdered.

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Turkey: Police crackdown on protesters

ANKARA: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday claimed victory over anti-government protesters after a heavy crackdown on the movement, as police raided homes and arrested dozens of demonstrators to stamp out nearly three weeks of unrest.

After a weekend of heavy clashes sparked by the eviction of protesters from Istanbul's Gezi Park, the focal point of the protests, demonstrators struggled to regroup and police have since fought only sporadic battles with smaller groups of demonstrators across the country.

Overnight, riot police in the capital Ankara, briefly fired tear gas and used water cannons on protesters who hurled back stones and hid behind makeshift barricades; but there were no other reports of confrontations.

In Istanbul, dozens of demonstrators switched to silent protests, standing still, in quiet defiance, in the main Taksim Square located next to Gezi Park.

As the protests appeared to lose their intensity, Erdogan said he had overcome the crisis, seen as the biggest challenge yet to his Islamic-rooted government's decade-long rule.

"Our democracy has been tested again and came out victoriously," the premier told members of his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) to roaring applause.

"The people and the AKP government have foiled the plot ... hatched by traitors and their foreign accomplices."

Confident that he has weathered the storm, he warned against any resurgence of the protests.

"From now on, there will be no question of showing any tolerance to people or organisations who engage in violent acts."

Erdogan has been widely criticised for his handling of the crisis, with the United States and other Western allies strongly condemning the use of excessive police force against protesters.

But the premier said the police had "successfully passed the test of democracy" with their response to the unrest and vowed to increase their powers.

His comments came as police carried out raids at homes across the country, detaining dozens of demonstrators.

In Istanbul, officers arrested around 90 members of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), a small leftist group that has been active in the demos, the Istanbul bar association said.

Local media said 30 people were also arrested in Ankara and another 13 in the northwestern city of Eskisehir.

Interior minister Muammer Guler spoke of 62 arrests in Istanbul and 23 in Ankara, and said they were linked to an ongoing anti-terrorist probe into the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) "which also took part in the Gezi Park protests".

More than 500 demonstrators had already been arrested on Sunday in clashes that raged after the Gezi Park eviction, the Istanbul and Ankara bar associations said.

Turkey's crisis began when a sit-in to save Gezi's 600 trees from being razed in a redevelopment project prompted a brutal police response on May 31.

The violence snowballed into countrywide demonstrations against what demonstrators say are Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian and conservative Islamic policies.

Gezi Park became the focal point of the protests, with thousands occupying the patch of green in a carnival-like atmosphere.

After defying Erdogan's repeated warning to clear out, he ordered police to storm the site on Saturday, sending campers scrambling to flee salvos of tear gas and jets of water and sparking hours-long running battles with police.

Gezi Park has been sealed-off since and guarded by police, who have also banned demonstrators from massing on the adjoining Taksim Square.

To get around the ban, a single man appeared on the square overnight, standing quietly still for more than five hours in a "standing man" protest that quickly went viral.

The choreographer, Erdem Gunduz, attracted dozens of copycats before they were dispersed by police. Around 10 demonstrators were also detained.

By Tuesday afternoon, dozens of mostly young demonstrators began their own silent vigil on the square, standing still in the afternoon sun not saying a word, as police looked on without intervening.

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Pak Taliban plan to attack on May 11 election

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Taliban plan to carry out suicide bombings during Saturday's election in a bid to undermine the poll, according to a letter from the leader of the militant group.

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, in a message to the group's spokesman, outlined plans for attacks, including suicide blasts, in all four of the country's provinces.

"We don't accept the system of infidels which is called democracy," Mehsud said in the letter, dated May 1, and obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

Since April, the al-Qaida-linked Pakistani Taliban have killed more than 100 people in attacks on candidates and rallies, particularly those of secular-leaning parties, in a bid to undermine elections they regard as un-Islamic.

The attacks have prevented candidates from the three main parties in the ruling coalition from holding big rallies. Instead, they have relied on door-to-door campaigning or small meetings in homes or on street corners.

However, the militants have not attacked the main opposition party led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which has courted support from groups accused of supporting militancy.

Sharif, who is seen as favourite to become the next prime minister, says Pakistan should reconsider its support for the US war on Islamist militancy and suggests he would be in favour of negotiations with the Taliban.

Nor have the Taliban attacked former cricketer Imran Khan's party, which advocates shooting down US drones and withdrawing the Pakistani military from insurgency-infested ethnic Pashtun areas along the Afghan border.

The letter from Mehsud is bound to raise fears of attacks during the historic vote.

Pakistan's military said on Thursday it would send tens of thousands of troops to polling stations and counting centres to prevent the Taliban from disrupting the election.

The polls, already Pakistan's most violent, marks the first time that a civilian government will complete a full term and hand over to another administration.

The Taliban are blamed for many of the suicide bombings across Pakistan, a nuclear-armed strategic ally.

Army spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa said 300,000 security officials, including 32,000 troops, had been deployed in Punjab, the most populous province.

"Definitely they have reports and obviously they have made a plan to counter that," newspapers quoted him as saying, referring to security agencies getting threats of violence from the Taliban.

Another 96,000 security forces would be deployed in the northwest of Pakistan, where the Taliban operate from strongholds.

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) has capitalised on widespread frustrations with the outgoing government led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

The military has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 66-year history, either through coups or from behind the scenes.

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