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The U.S. military has 24 navy ships, one Coast Guard vessel and about 15,000 military personnel involved in the relief effort in southern Asia. Those include 2,000 marines who are ferrying aid workers and transporting food to victims in Indonesia, the hardest-hit country, where more than 110,000 people died. Hundreds of troops from Australia, Singapore, Germany and other countries are also helping the relief effort, along with UN agencies and scores of non-government aid groups. Later Saturday, Wolfowitz flew to Indonesia's Aceh province, where a U.S. military helicopter took him on a tour of the tsunami-ravaged coastal areas. A huge earthquake and the tsunami it spawned killed more than 157,000 people across 11 countries, triggering an unprecedented global response. Wolfowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, said co-operation with Jakarta has been very good. "For any country it is sensitive to have foreign troops on your territory. It would be sensitive in the United States and I can tell you that it is extremely sensitive in Indonesia," he said. "What's remarkable is that it has caused no problems to date." In Aceh, the UN Development Program began paying thousands of tsunami survivors about $3 US a day to clear rubble and debris. "They are trying to hire local people to do this as part of stimulating the economy and getting some sort of livelihood back" for survivors, said a spokesman, William Bergman. The UN refugee organization, meanwhile, distributed 10,000 five-person tents to survivors in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, said spokesman Mans Nyberg. Another 10,000 tents were on their way. Eventually the UNHCR and Indonesian government want to house survivors in barracks-style shelters. Efforts to keep epidemics at bay intensified, with the United Nations speeding up its measles vaccination drive after 20 cases of the disease were reported across Aceh. Tetanus also has been detected in 67 people, said Medecins Sans Frontiers, or Doctors Without Borders, and because the disease has an incubation period of up to 60 days, that number is expected to jump soon. Tetanus has a high mortality rate of up to 25 per cent. Aid workers were spraying tents and walls with insecticide to prevent malaria in areas swamped by the killer waves. Others were learning how to use sharp lancets to draw blood for tests of the disease. In Sri Lanka, which suffered 31,000 deaths, second-most after Indonesia, a leader of the Tamil rebel movement said the government lost a chance to revive peace talks despite hopes that tsunami relief work would bring the two sides together. S.P. Thamilselvan, head of the political wing of the ethnic Tamil rebels who seek an independent state, said the Sinhalese-dominated government had given minimal assistance to rebel-held areas, instead channelling most international assistance to areas under its control.

"It has dashed hopes of reconciliation," Thamilselvan told The Associated Press in an interview at his headquarters in Killinochchi. Norway brokered a ceasefire in February 2002, but talks aimed at ending the 20-year conflict broke down more than a year ago. The government has denied charges it is preventing aid from reaching rebel areas in the north and east of the island country. UN and other international assistance, including dry rations, tarpaulins and generators, are reaching those areas, where years of war have shattered the infrastructure and stalled economic development.-J. Gaumez.

Iraq to restricts cars and traffic around polling places

Iraq's Prime Minister lyad Allawi meets with schoolchildren during a visit to the northern city of Tikrit, Saturday. Allawi acknowledged last week there were parts of Iraq that would be too unsafe for voting in a January 30 election, as guerrillas killed 20 people in attacks.

BAGHDAD- In an apparent bid to head off car bombings on election day, Iraqi authorities will restrict the use of automobiles throughout the country and will place security cordons around polling stations, a cabinet minister said Saturday. Provincial Affairs minister Waeil Abdel-Latif also pledged that the government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi would provide adequate security for voters on Jan. 30, but he acknowledged that the security situation in four of the country's 18 provinces was unstable. Iraqi security forces, he said, will shoulder the prime responsibility for security on election day. But the U.S.-led multinational force will provide support if asked, Abdel-Latif said. "The government is determined to make available facilities and security guarantees to ensure the success of the election," he said at a joint news conference with the head of Iraq's electoral commission, Abdul-Hussein Hendawi. Abdel-Latif gave no details on how cars would be restricted, but security sources have said authorities are considering banning the use of private vehicles Jan. 29-31. Vehicles used by security forces would carry special identity markings. The Jan. 30 vote will produce a 275-seat assembly that will elect a new president and two vice-presidents who, in turn, will name a prime minister who must be ratified by the assembly. One of the assembly's primary tasks would be to draft a permanent constitution. If adopted in a referendum due by Oct. 15, the document will be the basis for a second election in December.

Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in car bombings and suicide car bombings over the past year, conducted by insurgents and terrorists linked to al-Qaida who hope to prevent the election. Already, at least seven electoral workers have been killed by insurgents in recent weeks. An intensifying intimidation campaign has led to the resignation of scores of election workers.