Presumed death toll climbs past 280,000 one month on from Asian tsunami
JAKARTA (AFP) - The death toll from the Indian ocean tsunami continued its sickening rise with more than 280,000 people now presumed dead as bodies continued to be recovered one month after the catastrophe.
In Indonesia, whose Aceh province lost entire stretches of heavily-populated coastline when waves crashed ashore in 11 Indian Ocean countries, health officials listed 228,429 as dead or missing.
Chadijah, an official with the health ministry's center for prevention of health problems, said that while the missing were not officially presumed dead, there was now little hope of their survival.
With an intense relief effort still underway in Indonesia despite the departure of some foreign military, it was hoped new progress in securing a peace with rebels in the region could remove a security obstacle to aid deliveries.
An official source confirmed Tuesday that Indonesia's security minister Widodo Adi Sucipto was to lead a high-profile team to Finland this week for the talks with Aceh separatists, an official source said.
Finland had indicated earlier this week that it was laying the groundwork for talks between the Indonesian government and guerrillas who have been fighting a decades-long war for independence.
But the source said the talks had still to be fully confirmed and was unable to say when the officials would leave or how long they would be in Finland.
Both the rebels and government have pledged their commitment to peace, but resistance was expected from Indonesia's military and guerrillas on the ground with neither side keen to surrender through diplomacy what they had fought for.
Darwis Djeunieb, a commander with the rebel Free Aceh Movement, said the government's failure to follow up its offer for dialogue showed its insincerity.
"It is nonsense, nonsense from Indonesia because they continue to say they will talk but there is no contact with our leaders in Sweden," he said, adding that his men would continue to abide by a unilateral ceasefire.
Indonesian military leaders in Aceh, who say their men would only open fire on rebels interfering with relief work or in self-defence, say the talks are a political matter unlikely to loosen their grip on the region.
Efforts towards peace also continued in Sri Lanka, where the last in a group of Norwegian envoys ended a mission after apparently procuring some concessions from the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.
In another development, Indonesia's economics minister Aburizal Bakrie said in an interview Tuesday that his country may reject an offer from the Paris Club of creditor nations of a freeze in debt repayments.
Bakrie said a total of 1.7 billion dollars pledged by its regular donors to rebuild tsunami-hit areas of the country may give it the luxury of turning down the Paris Club offer.
"We do not need a debt moratorium any more," Bakrie was quoted as saying by the Bisnis Indonesia daily.
However Bakrie's deputy Mahendra Siregar said that Indonesia, which owes about 47.8 billion dollars to Paris Club creditors, was still considering the offer. Indonesia is due to pay off 3.15 billion dollars in principal and 1.36 billion dollars in interest in 2005 alone.
"What is true is that we are still discussing ... the Paris Club decision to find out more details such as how much of our debt will be subject to a moratorium. That's how far we are at this stage," Siregar told AFP
Thailand, which slightly raised its confirmed death toll to 5,384, was preparing for an international meeting that will attempt to take concrete steps to prevent a repeat of the disaster by installing a warning system.
Envoys from 43 countries and 13 organisations have been invited to attend the two-day conference, which wraps up with a ministerial-level meeting on Saturday and follows last week's UN gathering on disaster prevention in Japan.
JAKARTA (AFP) - The death toll from the Indian ocean tsunami continued its sickening rise with more than 280,000 people now presumed dead as bodies continued to be recovered one month after the catastrophe.
In Indonesia, whose Aceh province lost entire stretches of heavily-populated coastline when waves crashed ashore in 11 Indian Ocean countries, health officials listed 228,429 as dead or missing.
Chadijah, an official with the health ministry's center for prevention of health problems, said that while the missing were not officially presumed dead, there was now little hope of their survival.
With an intense relief effort still underway in Indonesia despite the departure of some foreign military, it was hoped new progress in securing a peace with rebels in the region could remove a security obstacle to aid deliveries.
An official source confirmed Tuesday that Indonesia's security minister Widodo Adi Sucipto was to lead a high-profile team to Finland this week for the talks with Aceh separatists, an official source said.
Finland had indicated earlier this week that it was laying the groundwork for talks between the Indonesian government and guerrillas who have been fighting a decades-long war for independence.
But the source said the talks had still to be fully confirmed and was unable to say when the officials would leave or how long they would be in Finland.
Both the rebels and government have pledged their commitment to peace, but resistance was expected from Indonesia's military and guerrillas on the ground with neither side keen to surrender through diplomacy what they had fought for.
Darwis Djeunieb, a commander with the rebel Free Aceh Movement, said the government's failure to follow up its offer for dialogue showed its insincerity.
"It is nonsense, nonsense from Indonesia because they continue to say they will talk but there is no contact with our leaders in Sweden," he said, adding that his men would continue to abide by a unilateral ceasefire.
Indonesian military leaders in Aceh, who say their men would only open fire on rebels interfering with relief work or in self-defence, say the talks are a political matter unlikely to loosen their grip on the region.
Efforts towards peace also continued in Sri Lanka, where the last in a group of Norwegian envoys ended a mission after apparently procuring some concessions from the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.
In another development, Indonesia's economics minister Aburizal Bakrie said in an interview Tuesday that his country may reject an offer from the Paris Club of creditor nations of a freeze in debt repayments.
Bakrie said a total of 1.7 billion dollars pledged by its regular donors to rebuild tsunami-hit areas of the country may give it the luxury of turning down the Paris Club offer.
"We do not need a debt moratorium any more," Bakrie was quoted as saying by the Bisnis Indonesia daily.
However Bakrie's deputy Mahendra Siregar said that Indonesia, which owes about 47.8 billion dollars to Paris Club creditors, was still considering the offer. Indonesia is due to pay off 3.15 billion dollars in principal and 1.36 billion dollars in interest in 2005 alone.
"What is true is that we are still discussing ... the Paris Club decision to find out more details such as how much of our debt will be subject to a moratorium. That's how far we are at this stage," Siregar told AFP
Thailand, which slightly raised its confirmed death toll to 5,384, was preparing for an international meeting that will attempt to take concrete steps to prevent a repeat of the disaster by installing a warning system.
Envoys from 43 countries and 13 organisations have been invited to attend the two-day conference, which wraps up with a ministerial-level meeting on Saturday and follows last week's UN gathering on disaster prevention in Japan.
