No review in sentence or execution of Saddam - PM

BAGHDAD, Dec 29 (Reuters): Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki said today in his first comments since a court upheld a death sentence on Saddam Hussein that there will be no review or delay in executing the former president, an aide said.

The aide was confirming a newsflash on Iraqiya state television.

A senior Justice Ministry official told Reuters Saddam would not be executed until January 26 at the earliest, 30 days after the rejection of his appeal this week.

U S forces release Iranian diplomats in Iraq-IRNA TEHRAN, Dec 29 (Reuters): Two Iranian diplomats detained in Iraq last week by U S forces have been released, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported today.

U S officials had said the diplomats were seized in raids directed at Iranians suspected of planning attacks on Iraqi security forces.

Iran's foreign ministry said on Monday that the diplomats had been invited by the Iraqi government.

IRNA reported that the two Iranian diplomats were handed to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad today morning.

"The American forces admitted, despite their initial denial, they had detained Iranian diplomats and pressure from the Iraqi government for their release fortunately bore result," IRNA quoted Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, Iran's ambassador to Baghdad, as saying.

The U S State Department said last week that "a small number" of Iranian diplomats were among those initially detained in the raids, but that they were turned over to Iraqi authorities and released.

A US official had said that the arrest validated US assertions about "Iranian meddling" in Iraq.

US officials have long accused Iran of interfering in Iraq's affairs.

Iran denies this, saying Iraq's security is in line with Iran's interests.

Fencing, mining of Pakistan and Afghanistan border next month ISLAMABAD, Dec 29 (UNI): Pakistan will start mining and fencing parts of its border with Afghanistan next month after addressing all reservations of the United Nations.

Dawn newspaper quoted Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao as saying that the Geneva Convention prohibited the laying of landmines, but it was not prohibited if an area was "marked properly".

"We will not violate UN resolutions and mark the area where landmines will be planted.

We will educate tribal people on both sides of the border about the presence of landmines", Sherpao said.

The UN has criticised Pakistan's plans to erect fence and lay landmines along some portions of its border to stop militants from crossing into Afghanistan.

The world body has expressed fears that such a step would add to civilian casualties.

Pakistan had unveiled the plan for selective fencing and mining of its borders in the west last Tuesday as part of its efforts to curb cross border infiltrations by the Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives and to prevent militants from using its soil against Afghanistan.

The Pakistan army will select areas for fencing and mining.

Afghanistan has already rejected Pakistan's plan and instead called for "serious efforts to tackle terrorists".

However, Sherpao said, "We are doing our best to stop the cross-border movement of terrorists as we have deployed 80,000 troops, established over 800 check-posts and now fencing and land mining are being put in place." "This is the best we can do, but the Afghan government is still indulging in a blame game instead of appreciating Pakistan's efforts to stop infiltration of terrorists into Afghanistan." the minister added.

Afghanistan had rejected Pakistan's previous offers to fence the border, saying it would divide the tribal population.

However, Sherpao brushed aside this apprehension.

"Pakistan will create exit and entry points in the fence to ensure the cross-border movement of tribal people.

An exit point has been created in Chaman, Balochistan and three more points have been identified," he said.

Sherpao said the process of establishing exit and entry points would be completed next month.

Ethiopian, Somali troops occupy former US embassy MOGADISHU, Dec 29 (Reuters): Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies took over the former US embassy in Mogadishu today, expanding their control of key locations in the capital a day after Islamist rivals fled, witnesses said.

"Ethiopian troops and government soldiers have settled in the compound of the former U.S.

I can see more than 30 Russian-made military trucks," said Abdi Hassan, one of hundreds of local residents gathered outside the former US mission.

The embassy compound, in a western neighbourhood of the coastal city, was abandoned more than a decade ago after US forces made a humiliating retreat from Somalia following an ill-fated mission depicted in the film "Black Hawk Down".

Government forces took effective control of Mogadishu on Thursday after a 10-day offensive with its Ethiopian allies to reclaim much of the territory seized by the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) since June.

The flight of the Islamists was a dramatic turn-around in the Horn of Africa nation after they had spread across the south imposing strict sharia rule and confining the interim government to its base in the provincial city of Baidoa until less than two weeks ago.

Russian plane returns to Moscow after hijack attempt MOSCOW, Dec 29 (UNI): Aeroflot passenger jet A-321 Airbus which in an hijack attempt by a drunkard was diverted from its course yesterday, returned here today, Russian news agencies reported.

The plane was flying from Moscow to Geneva with 168 passengers onboard when it had to make an unscheduled landing at Prague's Ruzyne international airport after the pilot announced an emergency due to an apparent attempt to hijack the plane.

The crew said the allegedly drunk 32-year-old hijacker, identified later as Yevgeny Dogayev, tried to break into the cockpit claiming that he had an explosive device with him and demanded that the crew change the plane's course and land in Egypt.

Aeroflot's air security service told RIA Novosti news agency that the suspected hijacker had been subdued in a fight with stewards and passengers and was handed over to police at the Prague airport, where the passengers spent about nine hours before the plane was authorised to leave for its original destination, Geneva.

The hijacker and his eight family members accompanying him on the trip, including three children, were removed from the plane.

Aeroflot officials said Yevgeny was presumably drunk and would undergo medical tests.

Bangladesh ex-ruler appeals against election ban DHAKA, Dec 29 (Reuters): Former army ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad today appealed against the Bangladesh Election Commission's decision to ban him from contesting next month's parliamentary elections.

His lawyers submitted petitions to the commission, requesting it reverse its decision to reject his nominations due to legal troubles he faces over corruption charges, and instead declare him a valid candidate for the January 22 election.

"We hope the commission will consider the appeal in a truly democratic spirit and find a legal way to allow him to contest the poll," said Ruhul Amin Hawlader, secretary-general of Gen Ershad's Jatiya Party.

Around 50 people were injured yesterday when angry Ershad supporters battled with police in northern Bangladesh.

Ershad is allied with former prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, the main opposition party for the past five years to Begum Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh National Party (BNP).

Both he and Hasina were expected to address a news conference later today to give a formal reaction to what they said was the "election authority's conspiracy" to keep the former dictator from standing in the polls.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Gen Ershad to give himself up and upheld a two-year jail term for squandering state funds while he was in power in a deal to buy patrol boats from Japan.

But the former army ruler and his allies saw a plot to keep him out of the election race, calling the verdict "remote-controlled" and a punishment for his refusal to join forces with Khaleda.

Ershad, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1982, was ousted in a people's revolt led jointly by Khaleda and Hasina.

The two women, who have alternated as prime minister of the impoverished south Asian country for the past 15 years, fell out after Gen Ershad's overthrow and have been bitter foes ever since.

Both are key contenders for power in the upcoming election.

Khaleda ended her five-year term as prime minister late in October and handed power to an interim government, headed by President Iajuddin Ahmed.

Four men in London court over Rwandan genocide LONDON, Dec 29 (Reuters): Four men will today appear in a central London court on extradition warrants from Rwanda where they are wanted on charges of taking part in the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 minority Tutsis were slaughtered.

Police said the men, all in their 40s and 50s, were arrested at their homes in coordinated raids in various parts of the country and were being held in a central London police station.

Vincent Bajinya, Charles Munyaneza, Celestin Ugirashebuja and Emmanuel Nteziryayo all face the same charges that between Jan 1, 1994 and Dec 12, 1994 they murdered, plotted to murder and aided the murder of Tutsis intending to eradicate them all.

They are to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court to confirm their names and hear the charges at the start of the extradition process.

The massacre took place in the Spring of 1994 as gangs of machete-wielding Hutus roamed the country slaughtering not only ethnic Tutsis but also moderate members of their own race while the outside world simply stood by.

Rwanda began holding trials 10 years ago in connection with the genocide.

Earlier this month a United Nations court trying leaders of the genocide sentenced a former Catholic priest to 15 years in jail for ordering bulldozers to flatten a church in which 2,000 Tutsis were taking refuge.

Father Athanese Seromba had denied the charges.

He was the 27th person to be convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The process took on a new twist last month when a French anti-terrorism judge called for Rwandan President Paul Kagame to stand trial for the shooting down of a plane carrying then President Juvenal Habyarimana that triggered the genocide.

Kigali has ridiculed the accusations, cut diplomatic ties and accused France of trying to cover what it says is its own guilt over the massacre.

North Korea "grave threat" after nuclear test-Seoul SEOUL, Dec 29 (Reuters): South Korea today termed North Korea a grave threat, a further sign of the deepening chill in relations between the two since Pyongyang's nuclear test nearly three months ago.

A defence white paper used some of the harshest language to describe its communist neighbour since the South tried to set aside decades of outright hostility towards the North with the diplomacy of what Seoul dubbed its "sunshine policy." "Considering the seriousness of the North's nuclear test and its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) threat, this edition of the white paper specified the North as a grave threat," the defence ministry said in a statement.

Two years ago, the term it used was "direct military threat".

A copy of the paper, published every two years, was not immediately available.

The ministry said the test along with the development of other weapons of mass destruction, a standing army of more than 1.2 million and the forward deployment of conventional weapons made the threat from the communist state more serious.

North Korea has probably extracted more than 50 kg of plutonium since 1994, with more than 30 kg obtained during the past three years when it was negotiating with regional powers to end its nuclear programme, a ministry official said.

The two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China failed in their latest round of talks last week to make any progress in suspending the North's nuclear programmes in exchange for aid and better ties with Washington and Tokyo.

Estimates of the North's nuclear arsenal have ranged from one or two weapons to 10 or more.

Its plutonium stockpile is believed to be enough to make 13 bombs, according to some estimates.