Monday International News

British-S African buried 
in Afghan capital 
Agence France-Presse . Kabul 

A British-South African aid worker gunned down in Afghanistan last week was buried in a cemetery in Kabul in a heavily guarded funeral attended by about 50 friends, family and colleagues.
  Gayle Williams, shot dead on Monday in a killing claimed by the insurgent Taliban movement, had asked to be buried in Afghanistan where she worked with disabled children, those close to her said.
  Friends and family — including her mother Patricia and sister Karen, who arrived from Britain and South Africa respectively — wept as her coffin was lowered into the ground.
  The funeral, in the city’s historic British cemetery, was attended by British diplomats and watched over by police and guards. Williams’ relatives were taken to meet the president, Hamid Karzai, at his palace afterwards.
  The Taliban said the 34-year-old aid worker was targeted because SERVE Afghanistan, the organisation she worked for, was ‘preaching Christianity’ — a charge rejected by the group.
  On Saturday a British man and a South African man were shot dead by their Afghan guard, who then turned the gun on himself.
  The motive for the killing is unclear but it has added to security concerns among expatriates based in the city, which has suffered a series of dramatic attacks this year. 
Sudan confident Chinese hostages 
will be released 
Agence France-Presse . Khartoum 

The Sudanese government on Sunday expressed optimism that nine Chinese oil workers kidnapped more than a week ago seemingly by Darfur rebels would soon be released, safe and well.
  ‘We are working to achieve the release. This will happen definitely, yes, I’m sure,’ foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadiq told reporters after talks with China’s visiting special envoy to Darfur, Liu Guijin.
  Three Chinese engineers and six other workers employed by the China National Petroleum Corporation in South Kordofan, a state which includes the disputed oil district of Abyei, were kidnapped on October 18.
  ‘They are fine,’ Sadiq added.
  He attributed a ‘delay’ in efforts to release the nine down to concerns over their safety.
  ‘We don’t want to engage in anything that might cause harm to the abducted. We are optimistic. We will achieve something,’ said Sadiq. The diplomat said he had no idea when the workers would be released but stressed ‘hopefully it will be very soon’.
  Sadiq said the authorities know where the Chinese are being held, but refused to give further information in order not to jeopardise the rescue.
  The Chinese were snatched in Heglig, near the line separating the former warring north and south, in the Muglad Basin where most of Sudan’s proven oil reserves are located. 
Obama, McCain fight over 
western states 
Agence France-Presse . Albuquerque, New Mexico 

Front-runner Barack Obama and a scrapping John McCain fought a pitched battle over western states Sunday as the Democratic nominee was to woo voters in Colorado and his Republican rival prepared to appear on national television.
  Obama played to vast crowds in New Mexico and Nevada Saturday before heading to Colorado, another key battleground state, where he was to campaign on Sunday.
  McCain, desperately needing to reverse Obama’s momentum, was to appear for an in-depth interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ programme.
  But he faced a new rash of painful headlines about his running mate Sarah Palin, amid signs finger pointing typical of losing campaigns was beginning to afflict his White House effort.
  Obama made a fresh bid to shackle senator McCain to president George W Bush’s unpopular economic legacy.
  ‘John McCain’s mad at George Bush, so opposed to George Bush’s policies, that he voted with him 90 per cent of the time for the past eight years,’ senator Obama said in a mass rally here.
  ‘That’s right, he decided to really stick it to George Bush 10 per cent of the time.’
  ‘John McCain attacking George Bush for his out-of-hand economic policy is like (vice president) Dick Cheney attacking George Bush for his go-it-alone foreign policy,’ he said, noting that Bush cast an advance ballot for the Republican nominee on Friday. ‘It’s like Robin getting mad at Batman.’
  The Obama rally in Albuquerque drew 35,000 people with an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gathered outside, according to the local fire marshall.
  Earlier, a comparable McCain event in Albuquerque drew only an estimated 1,000.
  In another blow to the Republican campaign, The Anchorage Daily News, the main newspaper in Alaska, the home state of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, endorsed Obama, saying he ‘truly promises fundamental change in Washington.’
  At three stops in Nevada and New Mexico, Obama, who is vying to become America’s first black president, thanked well-wishers at his three rallies for a stream of flowers sent to his 85-year-old grandmother Madelyn Dunham’s apartment in Honolulu, Hawaii.
  ‘I just want you to know it meant the world to her, it means the world to me,’ Obama said. ‘Thank you everybody for being so gracious.’
  McCain jumped on a report in the New York Times that Obama’s transition chief had already drafted an inaugural address for the Illinois senator, suggesting he was hubristic and took voters for granted.
  ‘Senator Obama’s inaugural address is already written,’ McCain told a crowd of around 2,000 people at Mesilla’s historic plaza. ‘I’m not making it up. A lot of voters are undecided but he’s decided for them.’
  ‘There’s still 10 days left — maybe he’ll have written the State of the Union address before this thing is finished. I may be old-fashioned about these things, but I prefer to let the voters weigh in.’
  The Obama camp responded that the report that transition chief John Podesta had penned an address, which has already been published in a book, were false.
  ‘While this charge is completely false and there is no draft of an inaugural address for senator Obama, the last thing we need is a candidate like John McCain who just plans on rereading George Bush’s,’ said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.