RAMALLAH/GAZA: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently visiting Cairo, and the leaders of Gaza-ruling Islamic Hamas movement announced on Thursday that they rebuff the resumption of direct peace negotiations with Israel. Abbas insisted that the Palestinian leadership will only accept to resume the direct talks if the Jewish state declares a progress in the U.S.-sponsored four-month proximity talks and freezes settlement activities in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem. Hamas movement''s leaders, in the meanwhile, insisted that Abbas and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) should completely severe any peace talks with Israel, whether it is direct or indirect. Instead, Hamas wants the Palestinians to adopt "the armed resistance" against Israel. Senior Palestinian officials announced on Thursday that Abbas would inform the Arab League Committee for Mideast peace that he would reject direct talks with Israel until his demands are met. Wasel Abu Yousef, the Palestine Liberation Organization''s (PLO) member, told "Voice of Palestine" Radio that the Palestinians " still stick to halting Jewish settlement and making progress in the proximity talks." The AL Committee convenes in Cairo on Thursday to decide on moving from the U.S.-sponsored four-month proximity talks to the face-to-face talks. Abbas attends the meeting held at the AL headquarters in Cairo. U.S. and Israel are exerting pressure on the Arabs and the Palestinians to move from the proximity talks to the direct talks, while the Palestinians insist that no direct talks before Israel freezes settlement activities in Jerusalem. "President Abbas will inform the Arab League Committee that there are no convincing justifications to move to direct negotiations amid no progress achieved in the proximity talks," said Abu Yousef.

BANGKOK: A grenade exploded early Friday on a street in central Bangkok, leaving one person seriously hurt in the latest violence in the Thai capital, still recovering from deadly protests, officials said. The grenade was put in a plastic rubbish bag and dropped in Rangnam road near a duty-free shopping centre, police said. The injured person was a Thai man in his 30s who was searching for scrap. "It was a hand grenade... The pin was removed and a rubber band wrapped around it," Police Major General Vichai Sangparpai told local television. The unnamed victim was seriously hurt and still in hospital, according to Bangkok''s Erawan emergency centre. "His condition is serious as he sustained wounds all over his body," an Erawan official said. The blast came less than a week after a small bomb exploded at a Bangkok bus stop, killing one person and injuring 10 in an attack that rekindled tensions in the capital two months after the end of bloody street protests. No one has claimed responsibity for either blast.

WASHINGTON: The Taliban has accused US General David Petraeus of killing more civilians and drawing more attacks on US and NATO troops since he took command in Afghanistan, the SITE monitoring group said Thursday. Petraeus'' "only accomplishment" since he took over US and NATO troop command three weeks ago, "is civilian casualties (mass murder), which has to be considered his new war strategy and tactics," the Afghan Taliban said on its website, as quoted by SITE. It claimed that "90 non-combatant defenseless civilians have been martyred in the US invaders'' blind bombardments" across Afghanistan over the past two weeks, adding that such actions only "create growing resentment" by Afghans against foreign troops. US forces have increased attacks with unmanned drone aircraft in Afghanistan since US President Barack Obama came to office a year and a half ago. The Taliban also said attacks "of every type on US invading forces... have reached record levels since General Petraeus took charge."

PENTAGON: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says he has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, to assist in the probe into the leak and publication of classified military documents. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen spoke about the issue at a press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday, several days after the Internet website WikiLeaks posted tens of thousands of documents about the war in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Gates told reporters that problems highlighted in the leaked documents about the war in Afghanistan have been publicly known for some time. But he did not downplay the possible damage caused by the release of what he called "a mountain of raw data and individual impressions" that is "devoid of context or analysis." "The battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world," said Robert Gates. Gates said intelligence sources and methods as well as military tactics will become known as a result of the leak. Gates underscored that he believes the United States has a moral obligation to help Afghans whose security might have been jeopardized by the breach. "That is one of the worst aspects of this, as far as I''m concerned," he said. "Will people trust us? Will people whose lives are on the line trust us to keep their identities secret? Will other governments trust us to keep their documents and their intelligence secret?" Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said he is appalled and outraged that the documents were leaked and published on the WikiLeaks website. He lashed out at WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange and anyone who provided that website with the classified information.

WASHINGTON: US and "senior" Israeli officials were to meet Thursday to discuss the crisis over Iran''s suspect nuclear program and economic sanctions meant to curb it, a senior US diplomat told lawmakers. Robert Einhorn, the US State Department''s special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee the United States was "in close touch with the Israelis." "As a matter of fact, this afternoon we have a meeting with the senior Israeli team to talk about Iran and to talk about sanctions," Einhorn said, without specifying the identify of the Israeli officials. "And they are an important source of information. We cooperate on intelligence matters with lots of friendly countries around the world, but Israeli intelligence is particularly good," he added. Asked about the meeting, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley replied: "It appears this is a WH (White House) meeting." White House officials did not immediately return requests for comment.

WASHINGTON: A majority of Pakistanis view the United States as an enemy, oppose the US-led war in Afghanistan and are less concerned about the Taliban and Al-Qaeda than a year ago, a Pew Research poll said Thursday. Despite billions of dollars in economic and military aid received from Washington, the United States'' image in Pakistan was the lowest among the 22 nations included in the 2010 Pew Global Attitudes Survey of 2,000 Pakistanis taken between April 13-28. Fifty-nine percent of the respondents described the United States an enemy, with 17 percent having a favorable view and only 11 percent considering it a partner, the poll said. Only eight percent trusted US President Barack Obama to do the right thing in world affairs, the lowest rating of the 22-nation survey, and only 20 percent had a favorable view of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardary, down from 64 percent two years ago. Most Pakistanis also oppose US involvement in neighboring Afghanistan, with 65 percent saying US and NATO troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible, and relatively few believe the Taliban and Al-Qaeda pose a serious threat to their country. Only 25 percent thought it would be bad for Pakistan if the Taliban were to again take over Afghanistan, while 18 percent thought it would be a good thing and 57 percent said it did not matter or had no opinion. The respondents were less concerned about either group getting the upper hand in Pakistan: the Taliban was rated as a serious threat by 54 percent, against 73 percent last year, and Al-Qaeda''s threat perception fell to 38 percent, from 61 percent. Nevertheless, Pew noted, both groups still had an overall negative image in Pakistan with the Taliban getting a 65 percent unfavorable rating and Al-Qaeda 53 percent. When asked which was the bigger threat, Taliban, Al-Qaeda or India, 53 percent chose neighboring India over 23 percent for the Taliban and only three percent for Al-Qaeda. Despite Washington''s poor rating, most Pakistanis (64 percent) believe it is important to improve relations with their powerful ally, up from 53 percent last year, Pew Research said. And about their own country, 84 percent of the Pakistanis surveyed by Pew were dissatisfied with the state of their nation; only 14 percent were satisfied.

NEW DELHI: India''s prime minister said on Thursday he was hopeful of restoring talks "sooner or later" to improve ties with Pakistan after their last meeting ended in acrimony. The two countries'' prime ministers, interior ministers and foreign secretaries -- the top diplomats -- have all met this year to try to revive a peace process broken off by India after Mumbai incidents. But the latest meeting, between Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna, on July 15, ended with only an agreement to keep talking. "I sincerely hope that ... we will sooner or later be able to restore the dialogue to give it a proper sense of purpose," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told reporters. Singh refused to be drawn into a debate on whether the meeting between Qureshi and Krishna had failed after they openly sparred at a joint news conference following the talks, underscoring the deep mistrust between the nuclear-armed rivals. "I can say we are too close to the events to pass a firm judgement on the outcome of the recent discussions between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan," he said. "I think there was agreement on a large number of issues having a bearing on our relationship. "I think the way the press conference was handled at the end of the visit by the foreign minister of Pakistan could have been avoided because it detracts from a large element of agreement reached between the foreign ministers of the two countries." "We believe Pakistan should be as serious in paying attention to terror on the western borders of Pakistan as on the eastern borders of our side," Singh said.

DHAKA: Bangladesh''s Supreme Court has reinstated a ban on Islamic political parties in the latest blow to religious hardliners in the impoverished South Asian country, a minister said Thursday. In a detailed, 184-page verdict released late Wednesday, the Supreme Court scrapped the bulk of the 1979 fifth amendment, including provisions that had allowed religious political parties to flourish and legalised military rule. "Secularism will again be the cornerstone of our constitution," law minister Shafiq Ahmed said on Thursday. After independence in 1971, Bangladesh''s first constitution made secularism a key pillar. Following a 1975 coup, the army-led government amended the constitution''s guiding principle to "faith in Allah" in 1979. Religious parties, which were banned in the original 1971 constitution but legalised by the 1979 amendments, are now banned again as the "faith in Allah" provision has been thrown out, said Ahmed. "Islamic parties cannot use religion in politics any more," he said. In 1988, a second military-led government made Islam the state religion in the Muslim-majority nation and incorporated the Holy Quranic verse into the constitution. Neither of those changes are affected by the court verdict. "But following the scrapping of the fifth amendment, these later amendments can now be challenged in court," Ahmed said. In the verdict, which was issued in January but became trapped in an appeals process until Wednesday, the Supreme Court also declared the 1975-1990 military rule illegal, and recommended punishing military dictators, Ahmed said. "This means that, in theory, any Bangladeshi citizen could initiate a lawsuit against a former military dictator," he said, adding that the repeal of the amendment would also limit the possibility of a future military coup. "It is a landmark verdict," Supreme Court lawyer Shahdeen Malik, who is also dean of law at the private BRAC university said, adding that lawmakers would now have to clarify how the verdict would be applied by law. Since the Awami League''s landslide election win over the Islamist-allied Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in 2008, the government has cracked down on Islamic groups and parties. BNP founding father, Ziaur Rahman, put the 1979 amendments in place during his 1975-1981 rule. The party, now led by his widow, Khaleda Zia, appealed the Supreme Court''s first ruling on the amendments in January. "We are now studying this verdict," BNP spokesman, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, who is also secretary general of the party, said. The government outlawed one Islamic party in October last year, accusing it of destabilising the country. Four other Islamist organisations, including the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh, were earlier banned after they carried out a series of nationwide bombings that left 28 people dead in 2005. This week, four leaders of the country''s largest Islamic party, BNP-allied Jamaat-e-Islami, were arrested by the country''s fledgling war crimes court, set up to try those responsible for atrocities during the 1971 independence war.

KINSHASA: A boat capsized on a river in western Democratic Republic of Congo killing at least 140 people, the provincial governor''s office said Thursday. The boat overturned on the Kasai river, a tributary of the Congo river, on Wednesday. "I can confirm the accident. We''re currently in a crisis meeting," said a source in the Bandundu province governor''s office who asked not to be named. The source said there were 140 dead. The boat was carrying passengers and goods from Mushie, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Bandundu, the chief town in the province. River transport is widely used throughout DR Congo, which has numerous waterways, including the 4,700 kilometres (2,915 miles) Congo river. Disasters are frequent, mostly because boats are overloaded.

KINSHASA: At least 140 people drowned when a boat carrying passengers and merchandise capsized on a lake in the west of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the provincial governor''s office said Thursday.