Webb will accompany Yettaw to Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday on a military aircraft, his office said.

Webb also met for about 40 minutes Saturday with Suu Kyi, a witness said. It was not known what they discussed.

"It is my hope that we can take advantage of these gestures as a way to begin laying a foundation of goodwill and confidence-building in the future," Webb said in a statement.

Webb, a Virginia Democrat, is the first member of Congress to visit Myanmar in more than a decade. Though he is not in the country on behalf of the State Department, his trip may indicate a shift in America’s hard-line stance against the reclusive country.

Webb is chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Before meeting Suu Kyi on Saturday, Webb met with Myanmar’s top official, junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

Webb’s visit — part of a two-week, five-nation tour of Asia — comes just days after the conviction of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi.

She was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 months of house arrest stemming from a May incident in which Yettaw swam two miles uninvited to her home, violating the terms of her house arrest.

Yettaw had been sentenced to seven years of hard labor.

A Myanmar court initially sentenced Suu Kyi to three years in prison for violating her house arrest, but Than Shwe commuted it to the year and a half of house arrest.

Yettaw, a 53-year-old former military serviceman from Falcon, Missouri, stayed in Suu Kyi’s home for two days.

He testified in court that God had sent him to Myanmar to protect the opposition leader because he dreamed that a terrorist group would assassinate her. He was convicted of violating immigration laws, municipal laws and Suu Kyi’s house arrest terms.

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday expressed "serious concern" over Suu Kyi’s conviction and its political impact, and urged the government to "create the necessary conditions for a genuine dialogue" with the pro-democracy leader.

Also Thursday, the European Union adopted "a new set of targeted measures" against Myanmar in reaction to the verdict against Suu Kyi. Under the measures, members of the Myanmar judiciary responsible for Suu Kyi’s conviction will be added to a list of people and entities subject to a travel ban and assets freeze.

Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the past 20 years in one form of confinement or another — most recently under house arrest in a crumbling lakeside home. The country’s regime rarely allows her visitors, and foreigners are not allowed overnight stays in local households without government permission.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has said she doesn’t know Yettaw, did not know of his plans and denied any wrongdoing. She told the court she did not report the intrusion because she did not want Yettaw or anyone else to get in trouble.

Senator gains release of American jailed in Myanmar

In a keynote speech Friday night marking the third anniversary of that war’s end, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah outlined his strategy for Lebanon to deter Israel from launching another offensive. Responding to Israeli threats to flatten southern Lebanese villages and infrastructure, he vowed to attack Tel Aviv if Israel targeted Beirut or its southern suburbs, where Hezbollah’s headquarters are.

“We are now capable of attacking any city or village throughout Israel,” he said, dismissing recent Israeli threats against Hezbollah as psychological warfare. “When Israelis talk a lot, it means that they will do nothing. However, when they are silent like a snake we have to be cautious.” Nasrallah’s comments, delivered via a live video feed to a crowd of flag-waving supporters and invited politicians, were the latest in a month-long barrage of threats from both sides of the Lebanon-Israel border.

The saber-rattling, touched off in mid-July by explosions near an alleged Hezbollah weapons cache here in the hills of south Lebanon, seems driven more by a fear that the other side will take action, than a desire to launch a fresh round of fighting, say analysts and United Nations peacekeepers here.

“Contrary to the talk, the situation on the ground in our area of operations is generally quiet,” says Milos Strugar, senior advisor to the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, which patrols the southern Lebanon border district. “In our contacts with all the parties, they reiterate to us their interest in upholding the cessation of hostilities.”

Israel, Hezbollah threaten war – again

The exercise was aimed at testing the air force’s ability to counter rocket and missile attacks from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and archfoe Iran, as well as the infiltration of jets overland, the official told AFP.

This is the first time the Israeli army has simulated strikes from the Islamic republic, located more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) away, he said.

The drill, however, did not simulate a strike on Iran, the official said, amid foreign media reports that Israel had recently performed massive air exercises to simulate strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

On Wednesday, Iran said it had successfully test-fired a new medium-range surface to surface missile capable of reaching Israel, a move which raised concern in the United States.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that the exercise "was successful and important. What we saw strengthens our security that there is someone we can trust."

Heavy air force jet and helicopter activity was noticeable across the country during the drill, among the biggest the air force has ever carried out.

An Israeli army spokesman said the exercise was "routine and part of the army’s annual training plan and is intended to prepare the Israeli air force to successfully face any possible threat."

Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear armed power, suspects the Islamic republic of using its nuclear programme to develop atomic weapons, a charge that Tehran has long denied.

The Jewish state considers Tehran to be its arch-enemy because of repeated calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions topped his agenda and that the Jewish state reserves its right to self-defence against Iran.

Israel wraps up drill to combat Iran strike

Harper raised the issue in talks with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek Wednesday in Prague on the sidelines of an EU-Canada meeting, Prague radio reported.

Harper said the Czech Republic violated conditions under which Canada has issued free entry visas since 2007, Topolanek told reporters in Prague.

If there is no improvement in cutting down the number of asylum seekers, Canada would have to react, Topolanek quoted Harper as saying. He did not detail threatened Canadian action.

More than 650 Czech nationals, many of them gypsies, applied for asylum in Canada between January and March, the report said.

Canada PM warns of Czech asylum seekers

A third Thai soldier died in hospital following Friday’s clashes, which rattled relations between the neighbours just days before a regional summit that was supposed to focus on the global economic slowdown.

Military officials from both sides met over lunch in disputed territory near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple on Sunday, while Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was set to meet Thai officials later in the capital Phnom Penh.

"We held the meeting in order to make the situation return to normal and to make sure there’s no more gunfire. We have agreed to stay on our sides of the border," Cambodian Major General Srey Doek said after the talks.

His Thai counterpart, Major General Kanok Netrak Thavesanak, said that in future both sides would "communicate to solve problems. Sometimes there are misunderstandings."

Troops could be seen chatting and some even stowed away their weapons but they said they remained ready to fight after their clash, the biggest burst of violence over the territory since four people died there in October.

However journalists were barred from entering the so-called Eagle Area, which has seen the most violence, because the Cambodian military said it remained too tense.

Decades of tensions over ownership of the site started to boil over after Cambodia successfully applied for United Nations world heritage status for the ruins in July.

Kanok, the Thai officer, said an official from his country would meet later with Hun Sen.

"A Thai official is going to meet with the Cambodian prime minister today and they will talk about the clashes that happened two days earlier," Cambodian cabinet spokesman Phay Siphan told AFP.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva meanwhile said that the issue would come up when he meets his Cambodian counterpart at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its regional partners in Thailand next week.

"This will be raised in next week’s meeting to find a solution to the problem," Abhisit said in his weekly television broadcast, adding that the two countries would "resume the talking process as soon as possible."

Pre-arranged talks on the border situation, the latest in a series that have been held over the past six months, are also set to go ahead as planned on Monday and Tuesday in Phnom Penh.

The Thai and Cambodian leaders both sought to play down the latest crisis on Saturday, saying that it was the result of a misunderstanding and that the two countries were not at war.

"It’s like next-door neighbours — when their chickens fight, the owners get into a dispute too," Hun Sen said.

But while tensions had noticeably eased at the border on Sunday, Cambodian soldiers said they would fight to the death to protect the ancient temple perched on a forested cliff overlooking green swathes of countryside.

"We are not afraid of Thai soldiers. Everything happened because Thai soldiers want to take our temple and land," said Cambodian soldier Chum Chuon.

Friday’s violence damaged a government office and destroyed a local market.

Hundreds of Cambodians who lost their homes in the fighting were evacuated to a school 20 kilometres (12 miles) away and were being provided new plots of land further from disputed territory.

In 1962 an international court awarded the ruins to Cambodia, but the most accessible entrance is in Thailand and the two countries still dispute ownership of the surrounding land.

The border in the area is poorly defined, partly because it is heavily mined after decades of conflict in Cambodia.

Cambodia, Thailand in talks after border clashes

The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August.

A revised role for Karzai has emerged from the White House review of Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by Barack Obama when he became president. It isto be unveiled at a special conference on Afghanistan at The Hague on March 31.

As well as watering down Karzai’s personal authority by installing a senior official at the president’s side capable of playing a more efficient executive role, the US and Europeans are seeking to channel resources to the provinces rather than to central government in Kabul.

A diplomat with knowledge of the review said: “Karzai is not delivering. If we are going to support his government, it has to be run properly to ensure the levels of corruption decrease, not increase. The levels of corruption are frightening.”

Another diplomat said alternatives to Karzai had been explored and discarded: “No one could be sure that someone else would not turn out to be 10 times worse. It is not a great position.”

The idea of a more dependable figure working alongside Karzai is one of the proposals to emerge from the White House review, completed last week. Obama, locked away at the presidental retreat Camp David, was due to make a final decision this weekend.

Obama is expected to focus in public on overall strategy rather than the details, and, given its sensitivity, to skate over ­Karzai’s new role. The main recommendation is for the Afghanistan objectives to be scaled back, and for Obama to sell the war to the US public as one to ensure the country cannot again be a base for al-Qaida and the Taliban, rather than the more ambitious aim of the Bush administration of trying to create a European-style democracy in Central Asia.

Other recommendations include: increasing the number of Afghan troops from 65,000 to 230,000 as well as expanding the 80,000-strong police force; ­sending more US and European civilians to build up Afghanistan’s infrastructure; and increased aid to Pakistan as part of a policy of trying to persuade it to tackle al-Qaida and Taliban elements.

The proposal for an alternative chief executive, which originated with the US, is backed by Europeans. “There needs to be a deconcentration of power,” said one senior European official. “We need someone next to Karzai, a sort of chief executive, who can get things done, who will be reliable for us and accountable to the Afghan people.”

Money and power will flow less to the ministries in Kabul and far more to the officials who run Afghanistan outside the capital – the 34 provincial governors and 396 district governors. “The point on which we insist is that the time is now for a new division of responsibilities, between central power and local power,” the senior European official said.

No names have emerged for the new role but the US holds in high regard the reformist interior minister appointed in October, Mohammed Hanif Atmar.

The risk for the US is that the imposition of a technocrat alongside Karzai would be viewed as colonialism, even though that figure would be an Afghan. Karzai declared his intention last week to resist a dilution of his power. Last week he accused an unnamed foreign government of trying to weaken central government in Kabul.

“That is not their job,” the Afghan president said. “Afghanistan will never be a puppet state.”

The UK government has since 2007 advocated dropping plans to turn Afghanistan into a model, European-style state.

Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who will implement the new policy, said it would represent a “vastly restructured effort”. At the weekend in Brussels, he was scathing about the Bush administration’s conduct of the counter-insurgency. “The failures in the civilian side … are so enormous we can at least hope that if we get our act together … we can do a lot better,” he said.

US will appoint Afghan ‘prime minister’ to bypass Hamid Karzai

The warning came after a second attack on Wednesday hit a delegation investigating an attack on Sunday.

In Seoul, about 100 activists protested against the attacks.

On Wednesday a man walked between two cars in the Korean convoy as it was driving back to the airport in Sanaa and detonated an explosives belt.

A foreign ministry official in Seoul said the vehicles were carrying government officials and bereaved family members from their hotel in the capital to the airport.

He said no-one in the convoy was hurt although some of the car windows were shattered.

Four Korean tourists and their local guide were killed in Sunday’s attack in the city of Shibam in Hadramut – a Unesco world heritage site.

Al-Qaeda blamed

The Yemeni authorities have said al-Qaeda were behind Sunday’s suicide bombing and that 12 suspects were arrested according to Associated Press news agency reports.

Yemeni security officials quoted by the AFP news agency said they found a piece of the bomber’s identity card. It showed his address and the fact he was a 20-year-old student, they said.

There are conflicting reports about the perpetrators of Sunday’s attack in Shibam.

A local teenager went up to a group of 16 Korean tourists and posed for pictures with them as the sun set over the historic high-rise desert city. Moments later, a bomb he was carrying blew up.

Reports initially said the attacker was linked to al-Qaeda elements in Yemen, but a later report on the official news agency said he had been “tricked into wearing an explosives vest”.

The official news agency reported on Thursday the suicide bomber wrote to his mother telling her that he go on the right path and asked her to pray to Allah for him not to be jailed.

South Koreans urged to flee Yemen

“Our national security advisers are already looking into other options,” Lorelei Fajardo, deputy presidential spokesperson, said in a briefing.

“If we really need to ask the help of our allies and the other countries in the ASEAN, then we might be forced to do so,” she said.

The Philippines has a standing mutual defense treaty with the United States, which is also in the thick of a dispute with Beijing over the deployment of a US naval surveillance patrol near China’s waters.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which the Philippines belongs, is committed to the creation of a “zone of peace, freedom and neutrality.”

“We have to be prepared for any consequences,” Fajardo said.

“We cannot just depend on the United Nations as much as that should be the first line of defense—diplomacy,” she said. “But, of course, we have to protect our sovereignty as much as China is doing now.”

Over the weekend, the state-owned Beijing News said that a converted naval patrol vessel had been dispatched to what it claimed was its exclusive maritime zone covering the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands.

This followed the signing of the Philippine Baselines Law and the intrusion of the surveillance patrol USNS Impeccable.

The Pentagon has announced that the US Navy had dispatched the guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon to the area after five Chinese ships allegedly harassed the Impeccable.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the new Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Liu Jianchao, told him Monday that the Chinese deployment had nothing to do with the baselines law.

“They have to assert their right over the zone in the same manner that (if) somebody entered our economic zone we will equally assert our right to our zone,” Enrile said, adding that there is no need to lose sleep over the incident.

‘Not a welcome development’

Asked for comment during a visit to the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City Monday, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said: “Right now, it is too early to say, but the sending of a warship to the area is certainly not a welcome development.”

Vice Adm. Ferdinand Golez, Philippine Navy chief, added: “This should not cause us any alarm. Let’s relax.”

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde on Sunday said the government was looking up to the United Nations to resolve the dispute.

Remonde Monday said the Philippines was adhering to the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which outlined steps to resolve conflicts in the area. China is a signatory to this agreement.

Asked if Manila would remind Beijing on the matter, Fajardo said: “The Department of Foreign Affairs will be working on that … Diplomacy is still the key. It is the first defense of any civilized nation.”

Fajardo said China’s decision to dispatch a patrol boat in the disputed area was a “normal reaction” to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s signing of the Philippine Baselines Law.

The measure treats only as part of a “regime of islands” the disputed Kalayaan Group and Scarborough Shoal. Still, China said the law was “illegal.”

‘We cannot overreact’

“We are confident that this can be resolved in the United Nations,” Fajardo said. “We cannot overreact because we don’t want to create tension.”

She said the matter would be tackled soon by the national security group of the Cabinet.

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez said he was concerned about an “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation between the navies of the United States and China.

Golez pointed out that the South China Sea has long been a flashpoint between the world’s major powers.

He said that during last year’s election in the United States, there was a warning that President Barack Obama would be tested early in his term.

“I pray that the diplomats are hard at work now burning the wires,” Golez said.

Palawan Rep. Abraham Mitra said that these state-of-the-art military hardware should be met with state-of-the-art diplomacy.

‘Coalition of the willing’

“When bullied we keep our composure and let the aggressor be shamed by the international condemnation that such a behavior will trigger. We should be able to create a coalition of the willing which will reproach China’s expansionist design,” Mitra said.
Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco, chair of the House foreign affairs committee, said National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales was being too “jumpy, paranoid” in calling for an emergency meeting of the Cabinet cluster on the Chinese move.

“This matter will be settled in a friendly way,” Cuenco said, adding that China was not about to attack the country.

“The Chinese would think twice because the Americans would retaliate. I don’t think China will attack… They’ll be attacking a country with which the United States has a mutual defense treaty,” he said.

The Western Command in Puerto Princesa is not making any move to counter the Chinese presence in the Spratlys, said Col. Amerigo Fabrigar, WesCom spokesperson.

RP to seek help of allies on Spratlys case

Representatives of several Tibetan groups in exile say tensions remain high in Tibet. The groups say China has responded to the 50th anniversary of the occupation of the country with a military crackdown that has increased the climate of fear and intimidation faced by the Tibetan people.

President of the Geneva-based Tibetan U.N. Advocacy group, Ngawang Choepel, likens Tibet to a huge detention center.

“As the Dalai Lama said, it is like a death sentence has been passed upon the Tibetan people. Given these alarming developments and given the history of over 50 years of human rights violations by the Chinese authorities in Tibet, what we are asking today is for a high-level U.N. engagement with the Chinese authorities to stop these brutal crackdowns against the Tibetan people,” said Choepel.

At the current session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, a number of leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have presented reports on the deplorable human rights situation in Tibet.

Choepal says he is pleased by the amount of evidence presented in these reports of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearances. But, he adds, he is disappointed by the reports presented by several U.N. rights groups.

“For example, the report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has not highlighted the massive arbitrary detentions which took place in Tibet … Now concerning the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, again my own NGO submitted cases. But, this year, very, very little attention has been paid. And, we must not forget the case of the Panchan Lama of Tibet. His disappearance remains an outstanding case before the Working Group,” said Choepel.

Twelve years ago, the 11th Panchan Lama, then six years old, disappeared after the Dalai Lama nominated him to this position. He and his family have not been seen since. The Chinese authorities say they are well and do not want to be disturbed.

The Tibetan groups are asking the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay to lead a high-level inquiry into the situation of Tibetans. But, the prospects are not promising. They say requests to meet with the High Commissioner have gone unanswered.

Tibetan Groups Urgently Appeal for UN Intervention

Other British prime ministers had gone to America to talk about war; he was talking about the economy and “future stability”.

Mr Brown will hope to find a key ally in the drive to pull the world out of recession and pointed that America is also now having to use taxpayers’ money to halt the collapse of the country’s banks.

He said: “He is doing similar things to what we are doing in Britain.”

Mr Brown and Mr Obama need to show a united front and convince other nations ahead of the vital G20 meeting in London that only coordinated action can save the world economy.

Mr Brown told TalkSport radio: “We have to work more closely together. If America and Britain did similar things for the economy then the effects would be magnified.

“Past British prime ministers have gone to Washington to talk about wars. I’m going to talk about the stability for the future.”

The Prime Minister will hold talks at the White House with the President today. On Tuesday he will address a joint session of Congress – the Senate and the House of Representatives.

His wife Sarah will hold a separate meeting with Michelle Obama, the First Lady.

Mr Brown will be the first European leader to meet the new President.

He said: “To meet him as a person, you cannot but be impressed by his demeanour, his determination, not just his fluency, but his sympathy for the causes he represents.

“I think the impression he has given of America to the world is transformative, because he is a black man who has won the presidency, who is living in the White House that was built by slaves.

“People’s view of America is changing as a result of that. I want to talk about the renewal of our relationship for new times.”

Mr Brown will present Mr Obama with a pen-holder carved from the timbers of HMS Gannet, which was launched in 1878. Downing Street said timbers from the Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute, were used to make the desk in the Oval Office.

When he moved into the White House Mr Obama returned the bronze bust of Winston Churchill loaned by Tony Blair to George Bush. The new President replaced it in the Oval Office by a bust of Abraham Lincoln.

The Prime Minister will also present his host with a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill.

Mr Brown added: “What I want to talk about is the renewal of our relationship for new times. This is clearly a different world from 50 years ago and what we have to do is work more closely together.

“If America and Britain did the same or similar things to deal with the economy then the effect of that will be magnified by all of us doing it together and that’s really where we want to get to.

“It’s a world downturn, it’s not American or British or European, so if you have a global problem then you need global solutions and working with America and the rest of Europe we can do this.”

Gordon Brown asks Barack Obama to ‘renew’ the Special Relationship