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Brown unveiled his cabinet on Thursday amid reports Tony Blair, Britain’s ex-leader, has faced further police questioning over allegations of a “cash-for-honours” scandal.

David Miliband, who was named foreign secretary, is the youngest person to hold the post in 30 years and has been tipped as a future Labour Party leader.

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He was reported to be sceptical of Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq and is said to have disapproved of the former leader’s refusal to call for an immediate halt to last year’s war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.

Alistair Darling, one of the most experienced ministers in the government, was appointed as finance minister.

Darling, who takes over the role of finance minister from Brown, was close to Blair and served under him for all 10 years of his premiership.

But Robert Peston, Brown’s biographer, has described Darling as “one of Brown’s oldest and most loyal political friends”.

The Guardian, a British newspaper, called him “the ultimate grey man”.

He inherits an economy with a less rosy outlook than when Brown held the post, with interest rates on the rise amid growing inflation.

Reshuffle

Des Browne, who survived pressure to resign earlier this year after allowing British sailors who had been detained by Iran to sell their stories to the media, remains as defence minister.

Brown to the fore

Gordon Brown’s foreign policy

Profile: Gordon Brown

Blair’s Middle East mission

Blair’s legacy in the Middle East

Key dates: 10 years in power
The new cabinet also includes Jacqui Smith, one of the 101 women elected to parliament alongside Blair and later termed the “Blair babes”, as home secretary.

The first woman to hold the position, Smith replaces John Reid, the former home secretary.

Jack Straw, who had served under Blair as home secretary and then as foreign secretary but was later removed from office, returned under Brown’s new cabinet as justice secretary.

Mark Malloch Brown, a former deputy secretary-general of the UN, was appointed as minister for Africa, Asia and the UN.

“Cash-for-honours”

While Brown spent his first day as prime minister, Blair was again questioned by police investigating allegations of illegal party funding.

Police would not confirm whether the former prime minister had been interviewed.

Since March last year, detectives have been investigating whether political parties nominated people for peerages, which come with seats in the House of Lords, the UK parliament’s unelected upper house, in return for cash.

Blair has been questioned twice before as a witness, the first serving prime minister to be quizzed in a criminal investigation.

Prosecutors are considering whether charges should be brought against individuals involved in the probe, which cast a shadow over the final months of Blair’s premiership.

Detectives also investigated whether members of Blair’s inner circle concealed evidence from police.

Three people remain on police bail, two of them close aides of Blair, under suspicion of taking part in a cover-up.

All those questioned in the probe deny any wrongdoing.

The visit is his first since he became the China’s leader.

Tight security has been put in place for his stay, with the Chinese leader expected to face protests from pro-democracy activists and the Falun Gong spiritual group.

His itinerary includes banquets, a visit to a new panda exhibit, a variety show and Sunday’s handover ceremony.

Speaking to reporters after his arrival he praised the way the city had weathered an often troubled decade to celebrate the anniversary with its economy in strong form.

“I feel sincerely happy about the achievements of Hong Kong in the 10 years since returning to the motherland, and even more full of confidence in Hong Kong’s future”

Hu Jintao,
Chinese president
“I feel sincerely happy about the achievements of Hong Kong in the 10 years since returning to the motherland, and even more full of confidence in Hong Kong’s future,” Hu said.

Hong Kong’s economy was hammered by the Asian financial crisis that erupted a day after the handover on July 1, 1997.

It was pummelled again in 2003 when the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed nearly 300 people and virtually shut down the city’s vital tourist industry.

The past decade has seen the Hong Kong economy become increasingly reliant on the mainland.

Democracy protest

On Friday the two sides agreed to deepen a 2004 trade pact, known as the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) that has slashed tariffs and given Hong Kong companies freer access to mainland markets.

But critics note that problems like air pollution and the rich-poor gap have worsened.

Other are angry at what they say is Beijing’s heavy-handed management of political change in the territory, despite popular support for democracy.

Hu is likely to be followed during his visit by protests of pro-democracy activists and members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned on the mainland and branded an “evil cult” but remains legal in Hong Kong.

Falun Gong says the Hong Kong government has blocked more than 140 Taiwanese practitioners from entering the city in the days ahead of the handover anniversary.

Hong Kong’s immigration department has declined to comment specifically, but says it reserves the right to decide who can enter the city.

Seoul had suspended its regular rice aid after Pyongyang conducted missile tests last July followed by a nuclear test in October.

South Korea has linked aid resumption to progress on denuclearisation.

The unification ministry said on Saturday that a freight ship with 3,000 tons of rice was due to leave the southwestern port of Kunsan on Saturday for North Korea’s western port of Nampo near Pyongyang.

“This is the first tranche of 400,000 tons of rice aid.”

Distribution monitored

The rice shipment, worth $152 million, will be made over the next six months.

South Korean inspectors will monitor the distribution of rice at 20 sites in North Korea, the ministry said.

After a “fruitful” visit to North Korea, United Nations inspectors confirmed that the country intended to shut down its main Yongbyon nuclear reactor, although no time frame had yet been set.

Meanwhile, North and South Korean officials on Saturday continued talks on energy aid for the North under February’s nuclear disarmament deal.

Fuel talks

The talks at Kaesong, North Korea’s southernmost city near the inter-Korean border, focused on the shipment of heavy fuel oil to the North.

North Korea is to receive an initial aid of 50,000 tons of the fuel.

The shipment will take at least three weeks to start, according to the unification ministry.

The expiration of the Trade Promotion Authority [TPA], which lets Bush negotiate trade agreements that cannot be amended by Congress, could deal a major blow to the nearly collapsed Doha Round of World Trade Organization [WTO] talks.

The TPA, also known as “fast-track,” was extended for two years in 2005 and expires at midnight on Saturday.

“Our legislative priorities do not include the renewal of fast-track authority,” Nancy Pelosi, the House of Representatives Speaker, and other leading Democrats said on Friday in a statement.

The House Democrats said they had a plan to improve US trade policy, while at the same time addressing increased economic insecurity felt by American families.

Among the steps considered is the introduction soon of legislation to address the growing US trade imbalance with China and strengthen overall enforcement of US trade agreements and US trade laws.

“Before that debate can even begin, we must expand the benefits of globalization to all Americans, including taking the actions outlined above. We hope that the administration will join us in these efforts,” they said.

Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee that has jurisdiction over trade policy, said his panel would turn to the TPA “at an appropriate time in the future,” after it has been reshaped in “a more powerful job-creating tool for American workers and businesses.”

Meanwhile, the Bush administration made a last-ditch pitch to save the TPA.

“It’s regrettable that Congress is letting this authority expire this weekend,” said Tony Fratto, the Bush spokesman.

“It will be damaging to our economy and our national security if Congress abandons America’s leadership role in trade and the global marketplace,” he added.

May compromise

Condoleezza Rice called on Congress to
renew TPA “immediately” [EPA]
Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative, pointed to a May compromise reached between the Republican administration and Congress on several bilateral trade pacts negotiated under the TPA.

“I am hopeful this spirit of cooperation will guide our efforts to renew TPA,” she said in a statement.

Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, called on Congress to renew

TPA “immediately.”

“If Congress does not renew that authority, America will lose an important diplomatic tool that has proven essential to bringing foreign leaders to the negotiating table and advancing our nation’s broader foreign policy interests,” Rice said.

The White House appeal came as Congress headed into a week-long recess for the July 4 Independence Day holiday. The House of Representatives adjourned on Thursday and the Senate on Friday.

Agreements

Meanwhile, the Bush administration was planning to wrap up a week of bilateral free-trade agreements negotiated under TPA with the signing of a pact with South Korea on Saturday.

The United States sealed FTAs with Peru on Monday and Colombia and Panama on Thursday. However,House Speaker Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in the lower chamber said they would not support approval of the pacts with South Korea or Colombia at this time.

The US-South Korea deal lacks adequate market access for the United States, particularly in the automobile sector, she said.

“The agreement does not address in an effective manner the persistent problem of non-tariff barriers, particularly those blocking access of US manufactured products in South Korea’s market,” they said.

“That is particularly the case in the automotive sector where, last year, South Korea exported more than 700,000 cars into the US, while the United States exported fewer than 5,000.”

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement on Saturday: “We will only receive these forces with shells and rockets.”

In talks on Friday with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, Abbas had called for deployment of international forces into Gaza where Hamas routed his forces on June 15.

Early elections

Abbas had said that the deployment of foreign troops was necessary to provide security for early parliamentary and presidential elections that he plans to organise in the coming months.

Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, said
talks about elections at the present time will not solve the crisis facing Palestinians.

Hamad did however say that Hamas has no issues with holding elections if all Palestinian factions agree to it.

France backs Abbas

Meanwhile, France threw its unconditional support behind Abbas and said it hoped the crisis in Gaza would help reignite the stalled peace process.

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“At this time we are standing alongside the Palestinian Authority, the only representative of the Palestinian people,” Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said after talks with the visiting Abbas.

Kouchner did not say what role Hamas might play in any peace steps but Abbas appeared in no mood to talk to the Islamic movement.

“What happened in Gaza is a bloody and ferocious coup d’etat against Palestinian legitimacy,” Abbas told reporters following an earlier meeting on Friday with Sarkozy.

“What I heard from president Sarkozy is support for a political solution on the basis of international legitimacy, the Arab initiative, and [US] President [George] Bush’s vision,” he said.

France announced this week it was releasing $15 million in funds for the Palestinian Authority and Kouchner said he believed the Israelis were shortly set to transfer “at least” $300 million to Abbas’s new government.

Peter Clarke, Britain’s head of counter terrorism, said the second car found on Friday contained nails and canisters of petrol - the same materials found in the first one.

“These vehicles are clearly linked,” Clarke told reporters at a press conference.

He called the discovery “obviously troubling” and said that both had been set to explode in London’s entertainment district.

The second “bomb” was discovered in a Mercedes that had been parked illegally in London’s West End and towed to an impound lot near Hyde Park.

‘Fresh warning’

The first device was discovered when an ambulance crew treating a person at the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket called police explosives experts after noticing smoke issuing from a Mercedes outside the nightclub just before 02:00am (01:00 GMT).

Police later said that inside the car they found “quantities of petrol” and a “large number” of nails.

A large area near Piccadilly Circus, packed with tourists, theatres, restaurants and pubs, was sealed off after the car was found and office workers were unable to enter their buildings at the start of the work day.

Police plan to examine footage from closed-circuit television cameras in the area, hoping to track down those involved.

Speaking before the second device was found, Gordon Brown, UK’s new prime minister, said the alert was a fresh warning of the threat faced by London.

“The first duty of a government is the security of the people and as the police and security services have said on so many occasions we face a serious and continued security threat to our country,” he said.

Steve Park, a security analyst, told Al Jazeera that it was not clear if the bomb had been intended for the night club as there were other potential targets in the area, but he said the bomb had been intended to injure as many people as possible.

Park said: “The bomb was made for massive collateral damage … it’s at the very bad end of making bombs.”

‘International terrorism’

Jacqui Smith, UK’s new interior minister, called an emergency meeting of officials, saying the attempted attack was “international terrorism”.

“We are currently facing the most serious and sustained threat to our security from international terrorism,” she said.

“This reinforces the need for the public to remain vigilant to the threat we face at all times.”

Security around parliament was stepped up, with police body-searching drivers of vehicles entering the area.

Earlier in the year, a number of people were jailed for life for plotting to attack a number of targets in Britain, including a prominent London nightclub.

Last year in November, a man was jailed for 30 years for plotting to detonate limousines packed with explosives near landmarks in London and New York.

The overnight air strikes targeted Taliban militants who had moved into the village of Hyderabad, in Helmand province’s Gereshk district, following a clash with U.S.-led coalition troops, said Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Gereshk.

Following a victory in the last match of the Wimbledon Tennis qualifying round here, Aisamul Haq, in an exclusive interview with the Geo news, told that the prayers of his parents and the whole nation were behind his triumph, for which, he was grateful to all of them.

Aisamul Haq said that he would try to put in his best of the performance in the event, as this success has tremendously impacted strengthening his confidence and even if he has to face the world number one Roger Federer, he would be landing in the court with the determination to beat him.