The Taiwanese government has reacted frostily to the meeting between the island's opposition leader and the Chinese president Hu Jintao. It's expressed great disappointment at the warm welcome afforded to Kuomintang's party's LianZhan in Beijing almost 60 years after the party was driven from the mainland at the end of the civil war. Mr. Lian and Mr.Hu agreed to oppose Taiwanese independence and to reduce tension across the Taiwan Strait. But the government in Taipei said Beijing was not sincere about improving relations. Taiwan's top China policy maker Joseph Wu told the BBC the meeting will do little in effortto help ease tensions across the Taiwan Strait. "We are awfully disappointed of the result. So far I did not see any positive accomplishment by Mr. Lian and Mr. Hu's meeting in Beijing. What the KMT's trip to China does to Taiwan actually is further divide Taiwan.”

    In an apparently coordinated series of attacks on the Iraqi security forces a spate of ten bomb explosions and other attacks in and around Baghdad has killed at least 30 people and wounded more than 100 others. Three US soldiers were also killed in two attacks to the north and west of the capital. Jim Mirror reports.

    Residents of the capital began their day of rest to the sound of four suicide car bombs going off in rapid succession in one quarter of the city alone. That was just the beginning of a day in which there were no fewer than 7 suicide car bombings and many other bomber attacks as well as numerous other incidents both in Baghdad and other parts of the country. It was clearly a coordinated escalation presumably timed to mark the first day of the new Iraqi government announced by Prime Minister Ibraham Jafaari and approved by majority of the recently elected parliament. An American military statement described the upsurge as another desperate attempt by the terrorists to discredit the new government.

    The United States and Italian authorities have completed an inquiry into the shooting of an Italian intelligence agent by US soldiers in Iraq. But they failed to agree on the conclusion of their investigation. The agent Nicola Calipoli was killed by US troops as he was escorting to Baghdad airport an Italian hostage whose release he'd helped negotiate .

    The United States Space Agency NASA has again delayed the launch of the first space shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster two years ago. The flight was planned for mid-May but it's been delayed till July. Scientists of NASA say they need more time to install safety features on the shuttle's fuel tanks to make sure there is no repetition of the accident in 2003, which killed 7 astronauts. A NASA official, Michael G said they weren’t prepared to take risks with safety. "We are recovering from a major accident here, a huge national tragedy. Putting people into space is still not so routine that we can do it blithely. Every mission where we decide to launch people into space with the level of the technology we possess today is a big deal. We take it seriously.”

    Japan and India have promised to support each other's attempts to gain permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. The statement came after Japan's Prime Minister Junchiro Koizumi met his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in Delhi , from where SS reports.

    Japan is Asia's biggest economy and India is one of the biggest markets in the world. It is also among the world’s fastest growing economy. For Japan, India is a vast market. For Delhi, Tokyo can be the big investor it needs to fund its ambitious infrastructure projects. Japan's desire to strengthen relations with India is also being seen by some analysts a strategic diplomacy by Tokyo to check the growing influence of China. Both India and Japan also want a permanent seat in the UN Security Council and they have agreed to support each other's candidature.

    Iranian officials are in London for further talks on European Union demands that Iran abandon its nuclear program. Iran has threatened to resume its program of enriching Uranium, a process which can be used for generating power as well as weapons unless there is progress in the negotiations. Correspondents say that both sides are being cautious about progress at the London talks. The United Nations says more than 6000 people, the majority of them children, have been forced from their homes in Southwestern Colombia in the past fortnight in an upsurge of fighting between the army and left-wing guerillas. The UN children's fund UNICEF said a large indigenous community, the Nasas, have been the most affected. It said the displaced families with more than 3000 children were living in temporary shelters surrounded by land mines and unexploded ordnance.