YANGON, Myanmar - A powerful cyclone killed more than 350 people and destroyed thousands of homes, state-run media said Sunday. Some dissident groups worried that the military junta running Myanmar would be reluctant to ask for international help.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit at a delicate time for the junta, less than a week ahead of a crucial referendum on a new constitution. Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and squashing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box.

Some in Yangon complained the 400,000-strong military was doing little to help victims after Saturday’s storm.

“Where are all those uniformed people who are always ready to beat civilians?” said a trishaw driver who refused to be identified for fear of retribution. “They should come out in full force and help clean up the areas and restore electricity.”

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for human rights abuses and suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.

Last September, at least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.

The Forum for Democracy in Burma and other dissident groups outside of Myanmar urged the military junta Sunday to allow aid groups to operate freely in the wake of the cyclone — something it has been reluctant to do in the past.

It would be difficult for other countries to help unless they received a request from Myanmar’s military rulers.

“International expertise in dealing with natural disasters is urgently required. The military regime is ill-prepared to deal with the aftermath of the cyclone,” said Naing Aung, secretary general of the Thailand-based forum.

The storm’s 120 mph winds blew the roofs off hospitals and cut electricity to the country’s largest city.

Shari Villarosa, the top American diplomat in Yangon, said the storm’s whipping winds and torrential downpour had caused “major devastation throughout the city.”

“The Burmese are saying they have never seen anything like this, ever,” Villarosa told The Associated Press. “Trees are down. Electricity lines are down. Our Burmese staff have lost their roofs.”

At least 351 people were killed, including 162 who lived on Haing Gyi island off the country’s southwest coast, military-run Myaddy television station reported. Many of the others died in the low-lying Irrawaddy delta.

“The Irrawaddy delta was hit extremely hard not only because of the wind and rain but because of the storm surge,” said Chris Kaye, the U.N.’s acting humanitarian coordinator in Yangon. “The villages there have reportedly been completely flattened.”

State television reported that in the Irrawaddy’s Labutta township, 75 percent of the buildings had collapsed.

The U.N. planned to send teams Monday to assess the damage, Kaye said. Initial assessment efforts have been hampered by roads clogged with debris and downed phone lines, he said.

“At the moment, we have such poor opportunity for communications that I can’t really tell you very much,” Kaye said.

Yangon residents also said Sunday that the price of gasoline had jumped from $2.50 to $10 a gallon on the black market and everything from eggs to construction supplies had tripled.

The state-owned newspaper New Light of Myanmar, meanwhile, reported that the international airport in Yangon remained shut but state-run television said it could be opened by Monday. Domestic flights have been diverted to the airport in Mandalay.

The cyclone came only days before a May 10 referendum on the country’s military-backed draft constitution. Authorities have not yet said whether they would postpone the vote.

A military-managed national convention was held intermittently for 14 years to lay down guidelines for the country’s new constitution.

The new constitution is supposed to be followed in 2010 by a general election. Both votes are elements of a “roadmap to democracy” drawn up by the junta.

Critics say the draft constitution is designed to cement military power and have urged citizens to vote no.

[Source: Yahoo News]

(Identifies Israeli as a settler)

JERUSALEM, March 31 (Reuters) - An Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian whom the army said tried to attack Jewish settlers at a bus stop in the occupied West Bank on Monday.

The Israeli army said the armed civilian shot the man after he attempted to stab settlers near the Jewish settlement of Eli, north of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

The incident came hours after Israel removed a West Bank checkpoint under a pledge to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to ease restrictions on Palestinian travel in the occupied territory. (Writing by Avida Landau, Editing by Richard Williams)

By RYAN LENZ, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed at least 13 Iraqi soldiers and wounded dozens more people in Iraq’s north on Sunday. Meanwhile, the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad came under fire from either mortars or rockets, and a round that fell short injured two bystanders.
 
The Easter Sunday attacks underscored the fragility of Iraq’s security, despite a decline in violence over the past year. They also came as the U.S. military death toll in Iraq nears 4,000.

Iraqi security forces opened fire on the bomber as he drove toward the military base in the northwestern city of Mosul but were unable to foil the attack because the truck’s windshield had been made bullet-proof.

The attacker blasted through an armored vehicle to reach the courtyard of the military headquarters, according to an Iraqi army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.

Police said at least 13 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 42 people wounded — 30 soldiers and 12 civilians — in the attack. Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has been described by the U.S. as the last urban stronghold of the Sunni-led al-Qaida in Iraq.

Shiite extremists were suspected to be behind the barrages against the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters.

About 10 detonations were heard starting shortly before 6 a.m in the sprawling area in central Baghdad. Several other mortars or rockets slammed into the area about four hours later.

The U.S. public address system in the Green Zone warned people to “duck and cover” and to stay away from windows following both attacks.

No casualties were reported inside the Green Zone, a frequent target of rocket and mortar attacks that is located on the west bank of the Tigris River. But one round fell short and exploded in a major traffic circle on the east side of the river, injuring two people nearby, police said.

There were no claims of responsibility for the barrages, but it appeared the rounds were fired from areas of eastern Baghdad where the biggest Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, operates.

A cease-fire called by al-Sadr, along with an increase in U.S. troop levels and a move by American-backed Sunni fighters to turn against their former al-Qaida in Iraq allies, have been credited with sharply reducing violence in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

But there are fears that the cease-fire may unravel after a series of clashes between U.S.-Iraqi forces and Shiite militiamen in Baghdad, Kut and other areas south of the capital.

Last month, the U.S. military blamed what it calls Iranian-backed Shiite militias for a series of deadly rocket attacks in Baghdad. Those included one that struck Camp Victory, the main U.S. military headquarters, and an Iraqi housing complex on the capital’s southwestern outskirts on Feb. 18, killing at least five people and wounding 16, including two U.S. soldiers.

The military said the extremists were among factions that have broken with al-Sadr and refused to follow his cease-fire order. Iran denies allegations that it is stoking the violence. Al-Sadr recently extended the cease-fire through mid-August.

In other violence Sunday, a blast killed eight, including two women and two children, in southeastern Baghdad, police said. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known.

On Saturday, U.S. officials said three American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing that also killed two Iraqi civilians northwest of Baghdad. The latest deaths brought to 3,996 the number of U.S. service members and Pentagon civilians who have died since the war began on March 20, 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A suicide bomber late Saturday also drove a truck laden with explosives into the home of the mayor in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Three security guards were killed and four others injured, police said.

____

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin, Bushra Juhi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

John Nichols
The Nation — What is the proper word for the claim by Hillary Clinton and the more factually disinclined supporters of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination — made in speeches, briefings and interviews (including one by this reporter with the candidate) — that she has always been a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement?
Now that we know from the 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released this week that former First Lady was an ardent advocate for NAFTA; now that we know she held at least five meetings to strategize about how to win congressional approval of the deal; now that we know she was in the thick of the manuevering to block the efforts of labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups to get a better agreement. Now that we know all of this, how should we assess the claim that Hillary’s heart has always beaten to a fair-trade rhythm?

Now that we know from official records of her time as First Lady that Clinton was the featured speaker at a closed-door session where 120 women opinion leaders were hectored to pressure their congressional representatives to approve NAFTA; now that we know from ABC News reporting on the session that “her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA” and that “there was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time;” now that we have these details confirmed, what should we make of Clinton’s campaign claim that she was never comfortable with the militant free-trade agenda that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of union jobs, that has idled entire industries, that has saddled this country with record trade deficits, undermined the security of working families in the US and abroad, and has forced Mexican farmers off their land into an economic refugee status that ultimately forces them to cross the Rio Grande River in search of work?

As she campaigns now, Clinton says, “I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning.”

But the White House records confirm that this is not true.

Her statement is, to be precise, a lie.

When it comes to the essential test of the trade debate, Clinton has been identified as a liar — a put-in-boldface-type “L-I-A-R” liar.

Those of us who covered the 1993 NAFTA debate have frequently expressed doubts about the former First Lady’s recent statements. We never heard anything at the time about her dissenting from the Clinton Administration line on trade policy. And we knew that she had defended NAFTA in the years following its enactment. But fairness required that we at least entertain that notion–promoted by the lamentable David Gergen, himself a champion of free-trade policies while working in the Clinton White House–that Hillary Clinton had been a behind-the-scenes critic. We had to at least consider the possibility that, at the very least, Clinton had been worried that advancing NAFTA would trip up her advocacy for health care reform, that she had made her concerns known and that she had absented herself from pro-NAFTA lobbying.

This was certainly the impression that Clinton and her supporters sought to create as she campaigned in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana–states where worried workers want to know exactly where the candidates have stood and currently stand with regard to trade issues.

But that impression was a deliberate deception.

And we must all now recognize that when Hillary Clinton speaks about trade policy, she begins with a lie so blatant–that she’s been “a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning”–that everything else she says must be viewed as suspect.

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber attacked a group of Shiite worshippers near a mosque in Karbala on Monday, killing at least 32 people and wounding 51, officials said.
 
The worshippers were gathered about half a mile from the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest sites for Shiites.

Karim Khazim, the city’s chief health official, said the 32 killed included seven Iranians.

Police said the attacker was a woman but provided no other immediate details. Karbala is located about 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Also Monday, two U.S. soldiers were killed when their Humvee hit a roadside bomb. The soldiers were clearing a road in northern Baghdad when they were killed, the military announced. At least 3,990 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Elsewhere in the capital, Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain vowed in meetings with Iraq’s prime minister that the U.S. would maintain a long-term military presence in Iraq until al-Qaida is defeated there.

Explosions went off near the heavily fortified Green Zone shortly after Cheney arrived. Helicopter gunships circled central Baghdad, but no details were immediately available on the cause of the explosions.

The presumptive Republican candidate for president, who has linked his political future to military success in Iraq, met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shortly before the Iraqi leader began separate talks with Cheney.

Al-Maliki said he and the vice president discussed ongoing negotiations over a long-term security agreement between the two countries that would replace the U.N. mandate for foreign troops set to expire at the end of the year.

“This visit is very important. It is about the nature of the relations between the two countries, the future of those relations and the agreement in this respect,” the prime minister told reporters. “We also discussed the security in Iraq, the development of the economy and reconstruction and terrorism.”

McCain stressed that it was important to maintain the U.S. commitment in Iraq, where a U.S.-Iraq military operation is under way to clear al-Qaida in Iraq from its last urban stronghold of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

“We recognize that al-Qaida is on the run, but they are not defeated,” McCain said after meeting al-Maliki. “Al-Qaida continues to pose a great threat to the security and very existence of Iraq as a democracy. So we know there’s still a lot more of work to be done.”

McCain, who arrived in Iraq on Sunday, told reporters that he also discussed with the Shiite leader the need for progress on political reforms, including laws on holding provincial elections and the equitable distribution of Iraq’s oil riches.

At a news conference with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, Cheney said that given the nearly 4,000 U.S. troop deaths and billions of dollars spent on the war, it is very important that “we not quit before the job is done.”

Cheney credited reductions in violence to President Bush’s decision to deploy an additional 30,000 troops to the war zone. He said one of Bush’s considerations in whether to draw back more than the 30,000 before he leaves office will be whether the U.S. can continue on a track toward political reconciliation and stability in Iraq.

“It would be a mistake now to be so eager to draw down the force that we risk putting the outcome in jeopardy,” said Cheney, on an unannounced visit to Iraq. “And I don’t think we’ll do that.”

Violence has dropped throughout the capital with the U.S. troop buildup as well as a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and a cease-fire by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.

The U.S. military has said attacks have fallen by about 60 percent since last February.

McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was accompanied by Sens. Joe Lieberman, an independent, and Republican Lindsey Graham, two top supporters of his presidential ambitions. The weeklong trip will take McCain to Israel, Britain and France.

Police said they found the bodies of three members of a U.S.-allied group fighting al-Qaida in Udaim, 70 miles north of Baghdad. Members of the mostly Sunni groups have been increasingly targeted by suspected al-Qaida members seeking to derail the recent security gains.

A bomb in a parked car in Baghdad’s central Karradah neighborhood killed three civilian bystanders and wounded nine, police said, while a separate roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad killed one and wounded three others.