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GAZA CITY, (AFP) - - Pre-dawn clashes erupted in Gaza on Sunday, leaving three militants wounded according to the Palestinans, as Israel said it was keeping all border crossings with impoverished territory sealed.

“Following mortar and rocket fire, the border crossings we had expected to open will remain closed,” defence ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said.

He said the restriction covers all goods and people except the sick, who would be allowed to travel to and from the Hamas-run territory.

A small Palestinian militant group, the Popular Resistance Comittees, said three of its fighters were wounded in the early hours after an Israeli incursion into central Gaza.

The group said the incusion east of the Maghazi refugee camp prompted an exchange of fire and Israeli shelling of its fighters.

Medical sources confirmed that they were treating three wounded Palestinians. There was no immediate word from the Israeli military on the incident.

An Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and the Hamas movement which rules the Gaza Strip went into force on June 19, but since November 4 there has been a spate of cross-border attacks.

Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned on Saturday that a major incursion into Gaza was becoming more likely after militant mortar fire wounded seven soldiers at a nearby base on Friday.

The attack was claimed by the Popular Resistance Committees. Three of its fighters were also wounded during an Israeli incursion into Gaza on Friday.

Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, who is also a deputy prime minister, called for tough measures against the Islamists of Hamas but no reoccupation of the territory where 1.5 million people live.

“I have always opposed occupation of the Gaza Strip. What we need to do is to strike the leadership (of Hamas), strike the infrastructure and halt all deliveries of fuel and other goods,” Mofaz told public radio.

Israel has allowed food into the Gaza Strip on only three days since the flare-up of violence on November 4 prompted it to tighten its blockade of the aid-dependent territory.

Israeli officials were also mulling what action to take against a Libyan cargo ship laden with almost 3,000 tonnes of goods that was headed to the Gaza Strip after weighing anchor on Wednesday.

It is the first time that a foreign government has attempted to break the Israeli blockade, although pro-Palestinian activists have since August made three trips from Cyprus without being intercepted by the Israeli navy.

“A ship like that is capable of carrying weapons no less than what was on the Karine A weapons boat that was seized,” a security official told the Maariv newspaper in reference to a ship intercepted by the navy in 2002 and found to be transporting 50 tons of weaponry to Gaza.

“From our perspective, it is a hostile ship that left from an enemy country and we will treat it accordingly,” added the official, whom the paper did not identify.

The official said it had been a mistake to let in the boats carrying pro-Palestinian activists.

“We should have stopped those ships,” he said. “The humane behaviour displayed by the foreign ministry is liable to end up sending terrorists or weaponry into Gaza by means of assistance ships of these kinds.”

Defence Minister Ehud Barak was to consult with the foreign ministry before deciding what action to take, the Maariv newspaper said.
source YAHOO

MUMBAI (AFP) - - India’s interior minister resigned Sunday as anger grew over intelligence failures leading up to the attacks on Mumbai and investigators focused on a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil said he took “moral responsibility” for the assault by heavily-armed militants which left nearly 200 people dead and transformed parts of Mumbai into a war zone for three days.

With tensions escalating in South Asia, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari urged India not to “over-react” after Indian and US officials suggested the gunmen could have been members of Lashkar-e-Taiba .

Lashkar, which is fighting Indian control of the disputed Kashmir region, was behind a deadly 2001 assault on the Indian parliament that pushed New Delhi and Islamabad to the brink of war.

Indian media reported that the only surviving militant had identified all the Mumbai attackers as Pakistanis who had been trained by Lashkar.

Ajmal Amir Kamal, 21, who was caught on a CCTV camera wearing a T-shirt with a “Versace” logo, was being interrogated in a safe house in Mumbai, reports said.

US counter-terrorism officials told AFP that evidence was emerging that Lashkar could have been behind the attacks, while Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said “elements in Pakistan ” were responsible.

One militant holding hostages in a Jewish cultural centre in Mumbai had suggested that the treatment of Muslims in Indian Kashmir was a prime motivation behind the attack.

“Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?” the militant, speaking in Urdu, told a television station by telephone. He was later shot dead by commandos.

Pakistan, which has fought two wars with India over Kashmir, moved quickly to deny any links with the attacks .

Zardari warned that the militants were “looking for reaction” and said India suspected the militants could be based in Pakistan. He pledged prompt action against anyone responsible.

Lashkar, which operated openly in Pakistan until being outlawed after the September 11, 2001 attacks, has denied responsibility.

Around a dozen militants launched their assault on Wednesday evening when they split into groups and struck targets across Mumbai, including the main railway station and a hospital.

Security forces regained control of the city 60 hours later when they killed the last three gunmen holed up with hostages inside the Taj Mahal hotel.

On Friday elite troops had stormed the Jewish centre and killed two gunmen — but found eight dead Israeli hostages.

Another luxury hotel that was attacked, the Oberoi/Trident, was cleared of militants later in the day, with scores of trapped guests rescued and dozens of bodies found.

The latest toll was 195 people dead and nearly 300 injured.

About 30 foreigners were killed including five Americans, two French, two Australians and two Canadians.

Some militants entered Mumbai by boat, while others had arrived a month ago to stockpile arms and explosives and infiltrate the targets.

They had enough ammunition to kill 5,000 people and never issued any demands for the hostages’ release, officials said Sunday.

Survivors gave terrifying accounts of the carnage .

British actor Joey Jeetun was caught up in the violence when the Leopold cafe , a restaurant popular with expatriates, was attacked.

The 31-year-old, who played a suicide bomber in a British television documentary, said terrorists assumed he was dead because he was covered in other people’s blood.

He was then detained as a possible suspect and held for 13 hours in a police cell.

Phillippe Meyer, who had been on a business trip to Mumbai, said he was stuck in one of the hotels targeted by militants.

“We found ourselves shut away in our rooms for a very long time, about 40 hours. The information was very confusing,” said Meyer, 53, as he returned to France.

Television footage of the inside of the Taj hotel showed half-eaten meals left on tables as diners fled for their lives.

Witnesses said the attackers had specifically rounded up people with US and British passports.

The United States, Israel and Britain were among countries that offered expert assistance to help with the investigation.
SOURCE YAHOO

BAGHDAD - Iraqi and Iranian troops on Sunday exchanged the remains of soldiers killed during an eight-year war between the two countries. It was the first such handover since the two signed an agreement in October to work together in tracing thousands still missing after the war.

The remains of 200 Iraqis and 41 Iranians were returned to their native countries during a ceremony at a border checkpoint near the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversaw the handover, said only 23 of the Iraqi and 10 of the Iranian remains have been identified.

More than 1 million people from both sides were killed or went missing during the 1980-1988 war.

The two countries have exchanged remains and prisoners of war before. But Sunday’s handover was the first since Iran and Iraq signed a direct agreement in mid-October to tackle the problem together. Previously, they each dealt separately with the Red Cross.

“The return of the bodies is important for the families of the dead and an essential element in the process of dealing with the past,” said Jamila Hammami, an ICRC delegate in charge of the missing persons file for Iraq. He was present for the handover.

Hammami said many of the families never lost hope.

Jawad Kadhum Hamadi, a 38-year old photographer from Basra, joined two others at the ceremony hoping to find the names of missing family members on the list of those remains identified as part of the exchange.

Hamadi’s brother, Ahmed, has been missing since 1984 during fierce battles in eastern Basra with the Iranian forces.

“I didn’t find his name in the lists,” Hamadi said. “But yet, the hope inside me has not been killed.”

Hamadi said he did not tell his parents, who are ill, about the exchange because he thought it would only upset them further.

“Even if I got his body, I would bury him without telling them,” Hamadi said.

Relations between Iraq and Iran have dramatically improved after Saddam Hussein’s 2003 ouster, which led to the empowerment of Iraq’s majority Shiites after decades of oppression at the hands of the Sunni Arab minority, to which the late Saddam belonged.

A large segment of Iraq’s ruling Shiite elite lived in exile for years in Shiite, Persian Iran before returning home after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Many of them continue to maintain ties with Iran, which the U.S. accuses of arming and supporting Shiite militants in Iraq.

Tehran denies this and says that, like Washington, it too wants to see a peaceful Iraq.

(This version CORRECTS numbers of identified remains.)
SOURCE YAHOO

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Thai official says more than 450 Thai Muslims stranded at Bangkok’s besieged airport for four days have been bused to a military base to board a plane for the hajj pilgrimage.

Sen. Anusart Suwanmongkol says buses transported the pilgrims from Suvarnabhumi airport to the U-Tapao naval base on Sunday. From there, they are to fly on an Iran Air flight arranged by the Iranian Embassy to Saudi Arabia.

The pilgrims arrived in Bangkok from Thailand’s Muslim-majority southern provinces on Tuesday, hours before anti-government protesters took over Suvarnabhumi, forcing the country’s main gateway to shut down.

Thai Muslim leaders warned that a failure to assist the pilgrims could damage relations between predominantly Buddhist Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
SOURCE YAHOO

BANGKOK, Thailand - Attackers set off explosions at anti-government protest sites Sunday, wounding 51 people and raising fears of widening confrontations in Thailand’s worst political crisis in decades, which has strangled its economy and shut down its main airports.

Thousands of government supporters gathered, meanwhile, in the heart of Bangkok for a rally denouncing the protesters, further inflaming tensions.

The rally was designed to show support for Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who has appeared helpless in ending the crisis that has stranded up to 100,000 travelers, brought the key tourism industry to a virtual standstill and affected plane schedules worldwide.

Somchai has been forced to run the government out of the northern city of Chiang Mai because of fears for his safety in the capital.

Sunday’s explosions hit Somchai’s Bangkok office compound, which protesters seized in August and have held ever since, an anti-government television station, and a road near the main entrance to Bangkok’s domestic airport, which the protesters are also occupying. At least 51 people were injured, including four seriously, officials said.

No one claimed responsibility, but Suriyasai Katasiya, a spokesman for the protest group, blamed the government.

The protesters, who call themselves the People’s Alliance for Democracy, overran Suvarnabhumi airport, the country’s main international gateway, last Tuesday. They seized the domestic airport a day later, severing the capital from all commercial air traffic and virtually paralyzing the government.

The alliance says it will not give up until Somchai resigns, accusing him of being a puppet of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the alliance’s original target. Thaksin, who is Somchai’s brother-in-law, was deposed in a 2006 military coup and has fled the country to escape corruption charges.

Thousands of government supporters wearing red shirts, headbands and bandanas joined Sunday’s rally against the protest alliance. Some danced and clapped to music blaring from loudspeakers.

“This is a movement against anarchical force and the people behind it,” said government spokesman Nattawut Sai-Kua, who was to address the crowd.

“They want anarchy so that the army is forced to intervene and stage a coup,” he told The Associated Press.

Somchai has appeared at a loss on how to end the crisis and has done little except to issue appeals and make offers of negotiations that have been rebuffed by the protesters.

Police have had their hands tied because of Somchai’s reluctance to use force, and the military has refused to get involved, creating the worst political deadlock in the country’s recent history and taking a severe toll on its economy and reputation.

Suvarnabhumi airport director Serirat Prasutanont said officials are trying to negotiate with protesters to let various airlines retrieve 88 planes that have remained parked since Tuesday.

“We are begging them to let the empty planes take off” but without success, he said.

Some airlines were using an airport at the U-Tapao naval base, about 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Bangkok. But authorities there were overwhelmed with hundreds of screaming and shoving passengers cramming into the small facility, trying to get their bags scanned through a single X-ray machine.

“It was terrible! There was pushing and shouting and we couldn’t get in the front door,” said Veena Banerjee of India, trying for the second day to get on a plane.

The Federation of Thai Industries has estimated the takeover of the airports is costing the country $57 million to $85 million a day. Some of its members have suggested they might not pay taxes to protest the standoff.

“The situation has gone from bad to worse, signaling that it (the government) is incompetent at ensuring peace and order,” the Thai Chamber of Commerce said in a statement Saturday.

Some Thais are looking to the judiciary for a way out of the crisis. The Constitutional Court is expected to rule soon on whether three parties in the governing coalition including Somchai’s People’s Power Party committed electoral fraud.

If found guilty, the parties would be dissolved immediately, and executive members including Somchai would be barred from politics for five years.

Others are counting on the monarchy to end the standoff. Revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has repeatedly brought calm in times of turbulence during his 62-year reign, will give his annual birthday-eve speech on Dec. 4.

“No one else can fix this. The country is so divided. The only uniting figure we have is the king. If he tells both sides to step back, they will,” said 36-year-old coffee shop owner Natta Siritanond.
source YAHOO

MINSK (AFP) - - Lenin’s statue still stands proud in central Minsk, the KGB is still the KGB and authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko shows no sign of bringing his 14-year rule to an end any time soon.

But Belarus these days is trying to push friendlier relations with the West and overturn its image as “the last remaining true dictatorship in the heart of Europe,” a label once used by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

To this end, Belarus has recruited British public relations guru Lord Timothy Bell, famous for transforming the image of British ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher with advice on everything from policy to hair-styling.

“You’ll be happy to work in our country with our people, with today’s Belarussian authorities,” Lukashenko told Bell at a meeting in Minsk this year before agreeing a contract with his firm Bell Pottinger.

“Today the world is developing in such a way that it’s impossible to imagine this or that country without your line of business.”

An image makeover is quite a challenge for a former Soviet republic whose economy is still predominantly under state control and where opposition protests are regularly crushed with overwhelming force by riot police.

But the government now has a new English-language website for prospective investors, Western journalists are being jetted to Belarus and even Intourist, the notorious Soviet tourism agency, is getting a spruce-up.

“Of course it’s difficult to change Belarus’ image,” said Maria Filipovich, director of Belintourist, in an office dominated by a portrait of Lukashenko and located among some of the drab Soviet apartment blocks of central Minsk.

“People make up their minds without even coming here,” she told AFP.

“Over the last three years, the government has been spending a lot on advertising the country abroad. The republic is planning to set up information centres in Paris and Berlin, as well as Lithuania and Poland,” she said.

Belarus spent one million dollars (773,000 euros) on tourism advertising this year and is set to spend twice as much next year. “We’re fighting to be among the countries that tourists want to visit,” Filipovich said.

“The Stalinist buildings on Independence Prospect are unique!” she added.

Like many parts of Belarus, Minsk was largely destroyed in World War II and rebuilt as a Soviet city with broad avenues and huge squares. The city is kept as pristine as it was in Soviet times with few advertisements in the streets.

For tourists unimpressed by the imposing Soviet architecture, Belarus also has ancient forests and picturesque castles. The agro-tourism sector, where guests can stay in traditional farmhouses, is also being developed.

People like Andrei Klimov, a former political prisoner who was released this year as part of a Lukashenko amnesty to improve relations with the European Union, however, are highly critical of Belarus’s PR efforts.

“It’s an effort to whitewash the last dictatorship in Europe… It’s a commercial project involving Bell and the illusions of Lukashenko,” said Klimov, referring to the president’s contract with London-based Bell Pottinger.

Lukashenko came to power in 1994 and has imposed authoritarian rule in Belarus, keeping close ties with Russia. Human rights organises regularly report on multiple abuses carried out by security forces in the country.

Unlike neighbouring Russia, the internal intelligence service makes no secret of its communist origins, still calling itself by the familiar Soviet name KGB.

Contacted by AFP, Bell Pottinger declined to comment on working in Belarus.

Yaroslav Romanchuk, an economist from the Mises Research Centre in Minsk who took part in an investment forum organised by the government in London earlier this month, was also unimpressed by Belarus’s efforts to sell itself abroad.

“You can’t sell bad goods by just changing the wrapper. They’re trying to change the Soviet wrapper but it’s not going to work… Foreign businessmen are condescending and pitying on Belarus’s attempts to change its image,” he said.

Speaking about PR on Belarus’s business climate, he said: “There have to be changes in legislation, changes in personnel, changes in the decision-making process. There’s a limit to what you can change with declarations alone.”
source YAHOO

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, (AFP) - - The space shuttle Endeavour has been cleared for reentry to Earth Sunday, but uncertain weather conditions in Florida may force it to land in California, NASA officials said.

“Endeavour looks to me and to the experts in fact to be as clean or even cleaner than any vehicule we have flown,” Mission Management Team chairman LeRoy Cain told a press conference Saturday.

Just after the Endeavour undocked Friday from the International Space Station (ISS), a final inspection of its nose cap and wing leading edge panels was conducted by camera and laser device.

Cain said that after completing the damage assessment, his team had cleared Endeavour’s thermal shield for a safe entry and landing.

Flight director Brian Lunney at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, said the flight control system “checked out, no anomalies … That system is ready to support entry.”

Endeavour is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at Cape Canaveral, Florida on Sunday but a cold front with possible thunderstorms and high crosswinds could divert the landing to Edwards Air Force Base, in California’s Mojave Desert.

The Edwards landing would be a backup option for as early as Sunday, Lunney said.

He said Endeavour had two landing attempts at KFC on Sunday, at 1819 GMT and 1954 GMT, with a third window at Edwards at 2125 GMT.

“We will be willing to go land on Sunday at Edwards if we look at the forecast and determine Monday is not worth waiting for in terms of going to KSC,” he added.

The weather forecast for Monday at Cape Canaveral was not looking good.

The shuttle must be back on earth by Tuesday since its oxygen supply and battery power will be running low by then.

If Endeavour returns as scheduled on Sunday, it will have spent 16 days in orbit, 12 of which docked at the ISS.

During their mission Endeavour astronauts took four space walks to successfully repair a jammed joint of one of three rotating solar panels that harvest energy for the orbiting ISS.

They also delivered two new sleeping quarters, two ovens and a refrigerator that double the living space on the ISS to allow its crew to increase from three to six.

The Endeavour mission is the last by a US space shuttle in 2008. The next shuttle flight is scheduled for February, with another mission to continue building the space station.

The ISS should be finished in 2010, also the target date for the retirement of the US fleet of three space shuttles.
SOURCE YAHOO

PARIS (AFP) - - As World AIDS Day is marked on Monday, the fight against the disease remains stymied by the of adequate treatment in poor countries and setbacks in finding an effective vaccine, experts say.

To be sure, there have been plenty of advances over the past two decades. While 33 million people have the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) virus that causes AIDS, more are enjoying healthier, longer lives thanks to powerful new medications.

Organisers of World AIDS Day — built around the themes of leadership, self-responsibility and activism — are calling on governments to follow through on promises of universal treatment, prevention, care and support.

“We have effective treatments. We have no other choice than to offer them to all those who need them,” said Jean-Francois Delfraissy, head of the French National Research Agency on AIDS and viral hepatitis (ANRS).

But affordable and effective treatment remains a rarity in Africa, home to the majority of HIV-positive people, making prospects of universal access to medication remote in the near future.

In poorer countries, the choice may eventually be between treating millions of HIV-positive patients, or offering more expensive treatment to some 500,000 people who are resistant to mainstream therapies, Delfraissy said.

Even in wealthier nations like France, where 5,200 new HIV-positive cases were registered last year, thousands of others remain unaware they are infected.

“Don’t let AIDS pick up speed!” urges the French association AIDES, which plans to install a huge counter on the Paris opera house showing the lag between new infections and treatment.

On Friday, the United Nations urged countries to focus on the roots of the epidemic and draw on a panoply of tried-and-tested tools to help HIV from spreading among people most at risk.

“There is no single magic bullet for HIV prevention,” said outgoing UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot.

Hopes for such a magic bullet were shattered last year, when scientists were forced to abandon two advanced clinical trials of an AIDS vaccine by pharmaceutical company Merck, after they appeared to actually heighten the risk of infection.

But AIDS research was given a boost in October when the 2008 Nobel Medicine Prize was bestowed to a pair of scientists who discovered HIV.

Researchers have also discovered new molecules and have launched tests on new triple treatments that have proved effective for patients no longer responding to other therapies.

Meanwhile, research on finding an effective AIDS shot continues. US scientists recently discovered a gene that may pave the way for a vaccine.

Delfraissy, of ANRS, also predicts a revival in basic research to find molecules capable of attacking the virus at a stage where it has not yet been detected.

Scientists are also interested in the cases of some HIV-positive people who never develop full-blown AIDS.

“We have an impressive arsenal,” said Father Pierre-Marie Girard, who heads the infectious disease unit for the Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris.

One mark of success, he said, is those with HIV today talk of living and aging well with the virus — with hopes of enjoying the same lifespan as those without.
source YAHOO

NEW DELHI (AFP) - - Outrage in India over the Mumbai attacks risks sparking a dangerous escalation in tensions with Pakistan, analysts say, even as Islamabad cautions against any knee-jerk reaction.

Having accused “elements in Pakistan” of involvement in the ruthless attacks that left 195 dead in India’s financial capital, the government here is now under extreme public pressure to exact some form of visible retribution.

The two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals are past masters of the art of military and diplomatic brinkmanship, but the stakes are heightened by looming general elections in India in which national security will be a key issue.

In a televised address to the nation on Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed that the perpetrators and organisers of the Mumbai assault would be made to pay “a heavy price.”

On Saturday, Singh called a meeting of India’s army, navy and air force chiefs.

But while India would like to lean heavily on Islamabad to ensure it delivers on repeated promises to prevent Pakistani territory being used for anti-India activities, analysts say the government’s options are limited.

Former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra said New Delhi would be constrained by a lack of proof that Islamabad had any direct role in the attacks.

“There is little to suggest that the gunmen were sponsored by the Pakistani government,” Mishra said.

The scale and style of the assaults — involving multiple targets and hostage-taking — bore “the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda attacks in the Middle East and North Africa,” Mishra said.

“These are new elements that differentiate the Mumbai attacks from the parliament attack.”

In 2001, gunmen from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group attacked the Indian parliament, resulting in the complete rupture of diplomatic ties and pushing the rivals to the brink of war.

Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal all but ruled out the possibility of India resorting to any cross-border military response.

“The Indian leadership would have to weigh very carefully the consequences of using the military option in the wider context of peace and stability in the region,” Sibal said.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari appealed for calm on Saturday and argued that any increase in Indo-Pakistan tensions would be a victory for the extremists.

“Whoever is responsible for the brutal and crude act against the Indian people and India are looking for reaction,” Zardari said in an interview with Indian CNN-IBN television.

“We have to rise above them and make sure ourselves, yourself and world community guard against over-reaction,” he said.

Kalim Bahadur, a retired professor of international relations, said India might find it difficult to take a hard line with Pakistan, given that Zardari’s government was still finding its feet and itself battling Islamic militants.

“The Pakistani president’s grip on power is not strong. We have seen that Zardari says things, then he is contradicted or he has to clarify what he has said.

“The situation seems to be that the democratic government has no control over extremist elements,” Bahadur said.

Independent security analyst K. Subrahmanyam suggested that a primary motive for the Mumbai attacks could well have been a desire to “wreck the peace process” launched by India and Pakistan in January 2004.

Given the targeting of foreigners by the Mumbai attackers, Subrahmanyam said New Delhi had an opportunity to rally international pressure on Islamabad to cut support to Islamist groups.

Another analyst, C.Uday Bhaskar, urged Singh and his government to keep the engagement with Pakistan on track while carefully monitoring Islamabad’s actions in the coming weeks.

“Snapping links is not a desirable option,” he said.
source YAHOO

MUMBAI (AFP) - - “Good afternoon. Taj Mahal Palace and Tower. How can I help you?” Just hours after a deadly siege ended, staff at Mumbai’s landmark hotel were back at work, giving the impression of business as usual.

Defiance is a common trait in India’s financial capital. Mumbaikars may have been temporarily cowed by the wave of coordinated attacks in the city that left nearly 200 dead, but nothing can stop them working — and making money.

Just as the hotel sought to get up and running again, albeit with the phones to reception diverted to another location, nearby businesses reopened. Locals, too, flocked to the iconic red-domed hotel, hoping it would bounce back soon.

“The Taj is an institution in itself. It may belong to Ratan Tata but it belongs to the people of Mumbai and the people of India,” the director of tourism for the government of Maharashtra state, Kiran Kurundkar, told AFP.

“The Taj is a symbol of Mumbai’s cosmopolitan culture. It’s a melting pot, just like the city. It will definitely rise again.”

Built in 1903, the Taj Mahal was the vision of a Parsi industrialist called Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. He commissioned the building after being refused entry to the Apollo Hotel, which had a strict Europeans-only policy.

It quickly developed into the city’s best hotel, seeing off the Apollo, which later closed, and became the place to stay and be seen for everyone from visiting monarchs and heads of state to rock stars and millionaire business people.

Among the dignitaries who have stayed are Queen Elizabeth II, former Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser and the legendary Beatle John Lennon.

As emergency service workers in gloves and facemasks began the grim task of sifting through the charred building for bodies Saturday, hundreds of locals were curious about what had happened to the city’s most famous building.

“It is a treasure of our nation and a pride of Bombay,” said shopkeeper Ahmed Yusuf Kazi, 53, among those surveying the damage from the British colonial era Gateway of India monument opposite.

“I feel bad. (Ratan) Tata said he will fix it. That should be done. We hope that it should be just the same as it was before.”

Aradhana Singh gazed at the curtains fluttering in the light sea breeze through the smashed windows in the oldest section of the hotel, and the blackened interiors of its luxury ground floor shops and top end restaurants.

Many of the hotel’s 565 sumptuous rooms, which cost between 365 and 425 dollars a night, were gutted by the fierce fires during the bloody, three-night battle between the military and the extremists .

“I wanted to see how it is,” she said, casting an eye towards a black VIP car peppered with bullet holes. “When people come to Bombay they come to see the Taj. If they haven’t been to the Taj Mahal they have at least seen it.

“I don’t think it’s something that people will forget for a long time when people see the Taj.”

Brigitte Fernandes, an Indian-origin French national who lives in the city, described the Taj as “our landmark.” “You just associate Bombay with the Taj. It’s been there for ages,” she added.

“It’s related to finance, to money, to the rich and the famous. It’s so grand. Millionaires and tycoons… they are all there.

“The French national day is always held in the Taj. It was the grandest ball in Mumbai,” she reminisced. “People used to fight to get tickets. It was by invitation only.”

But she marvelled at how well the grand old building had held up under the relentless barrage from army grenade attacks and automatic weapons.

“It still doesn’t look like such a big battle has taken place inside. It still looks intact,” she added.

Lakshmi Rajukare, however, knows that the Taj, whatever people say, is not strictly for everyone.

“I can’t go in. We don’t have entry because we are poor,” she said.

Still, she wants the hotel to get back up and running as soon as possible.

For the past 30 years, the 45-year-old has slept in a park next to the Gateway of India and tried to sell toys and small gifts to the wealthy guests who emerged from its cordon bleu restaurants or fresh from the pool or spa.

“Those who come from outside they would give 50 or 100 rupees (1-2 dollars). Some would pay school fees. Now nobody is staying at the Taj we won’t be able to make any money,” she told AFP.

source YAHOO