Soldiers kill 120 rebels despite Aceh cease-fire

LAMREH, Indonesia — Indonesian soldiers have killed at least 120 separatist rebels in tsunami-hit Aceh province despite a cease-fire agreed to after the Dec. 26 disaster, the army's chief of staff said yesterday.

Most of the more than 100,000 people who were killed in Indonesia died in Aceh, which is also the scene of a bloody, three-decade-long insurgency.

"In the past two weeks we were forced to kill at least 120 members of GAM [the Free Aceh Movement] and seize their weapons," Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu told the state Antara news agency during a visit to the provincial capital Banda Aceh.

Refugees on Aceh's tsunami-hit north coast said yesterday Indonesian troops had fired on a GAM rebel who visited them, underscoring potential security problems for the hundreds of foreign aid workers there.

Indonesian officials said this week the government hoped for reconciliation talks with GAM later this month, but a spokesman for the group's exiled leadership in Sweden said there were no contacts between the two sides.

Indonesia reports damage in billions

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Indonesian officials, tallying the damage from last month's tsunami, have concluded that the earthquake-generated wave did more than $2.9 billion worth of damage in Aceh and North Sumatra provinces and will cost Indonesia another $1.5 billion in lost economic activity over the next four years.

The toll includes more than 400 bridges damaged, 127,300 houses and apartments destroyed, 2,000 schools destroyed or damaged.

Rebuilding the damaged area will require years of effort and help, the government concluded in a 128-page preliminary assessment. In addition to the houses and apartments that were destroyed, another 151,600 were seriously damaged, according to the assessment. One-third of the housing units in the affected areas were destroyed or damaged. The housing losses total $1.4 billion, nearly half the total damage.

Singapore announces end to help in Aceh

MEULABOH, Indonesia — Singapore wound down its biggest-ever humanitarian effort yesterday, announcing plans to withdraw soldiers from Indonesia's Aceh province and other areas savaged by the tsunami.

"Our emergency relief work here is done," Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean said in a speech to Singaporean and Indonesian soldiers.

Singapore, sandwiched between Indonesia and Malaysia and a few hours away by plane from Thailand's tsunami-hit Phuket island, was spared in the Dec. 26 disaster, sheltered by the massive bulk of Indonesia's Sumatra island to its west.

Singapore's contributions raise the prospect of improved neighborly relations at a time when the city-state is vying with China for influence in Southeast Asia and strengthening military cooperation.

Residents, tourists fear eating fish

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Top hotels in several Asian capitals have stopped ordering sea bass and sole from waters off their tsunami-ravaged coastlines to ease diners' concerns about fish feasting on corpses.

Some have turned to suppliers in Australia, while others are buying fish from Indonesian islands that were untouched by disaster — dealing another blow to fishermen whose livelihoods were shattered by the giant waves.

Health officials say fears of fish are unwarranted and insist there is no evidence of a risk posed by eating fish from the Indian Ocean. But, in a region that suffered through bird flu and other recent food scares, several top eateries and their suppliers are unwilling to take chances.

"The fish myth is making the rounds all over the place," said Harsaran Pandey, a WHO spokeswoman. "The fears are not scientifically based."

There is no evidence fish in tsunami-hit areas are feeding off corpses or that it would cause a health risk if they were, Pandey said. Villagers across tsunami-hit coastlines in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and elsewhere have reported losing their appetite for fish — sparking nutritional concerns that their diets would lack sufficient protein, Pandey said.

Support pledged for tsunami network

KOBE, Japan — Wealthy nations pledged millions of dollars yesterday for a network to detect tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and alert vulnerable coastal communities to approaching killer waves.

The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has proposed a $30 million network of deep-sea buoys in the Indian Ocean and regional communications centers that would be operational by mid-2006.

This week's five-day U.N. disaster conference in Kobe has been dominated by competing visions for the alert network.

Salvano Briceno, director of the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, said the United Nations was taking the lead and would tailor the system to the needs of poor Asian and African countries.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker Jr. said yesterday that Washington could expand a Hawaii-based warning system for the Pacific Ocean that was established in 1965. That system — which relies on ocean sensors and satellite communication links in the quake-prone Pacific — now sends alerts to 26 nations. Eventually, U.S. officials say the Pacific system could expand to the Mediterranean, Caribbean and other areas.

Meanwhile, Japan said it would extend technological expertise to nations, and Germany proposed its own program of ocean-floor pressure gauges and a Global Positioning System.

Despite widespread backing for the project, critics said the conference risks losing sight of a bigger goal: getting nations to pledge to specific targets in reducing the number of people affected by cyclones, droughts, typhoons, floods and other natural disasters.

James Morris, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, urged delegates not to neglect other major crises.

"The chronic hunger and malnutrition that afflicts 300 million children worldwide does not create the dramatic media coverage of a tsunami, but it causes far greater suffering. We cannot afford to lose sight of that fact. This too is an emergency," Morris said.