UPDATE 3-Cricket-Cook's exit leaves England battling to save test

* Fulton scores second century

* England in trouble seeking record score (Updates at tea)

By Greg Stutchbury

AUCKLAND, March 25 (Reuters) - Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott guided England to 45 for one at tea on the fourth day of the series-deciding third test against New Zealand on Monday as the tourists lost an early wicket in their chase for an improbable 481 runs for victory.

England captain Cook was on 19, having been dropped on one, and Trott was on 24 at the break after paceman Tim Southee struck early to have opener Nick Compton caught behind the wicket for two.

New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum declared the hosts' second innings closed about 45 minutes after lunch on 241 for six, after Peter Fulton became the fourth New Zealand batsman to score a century in each innings of a test.

McCullum finished unbeaten on 67, his third half-century of the series, when he declared after BJ Watling was well caught in the deep for 18.

The declaration ensured England would need to break the world record for the highest successful run chase to win the match and the series after the first two games ended in rain-affected draws.

The highest fourth innings score to win a game was the 418 for seven that West Indies compiled against Australia in 2003.

Only one side has scored more than 300 to win a test at Eden Park.

England's chase began terribly when Compton was caught low by Watling, leaving the tourists 2-1, and could have been in dire straits had the wicketkeeper held a chance from Cook with the score on 10-1.

Cook and Trott, the two batsmen most able to bat five sessions to save the match, then consolidated and took the visitors through to tea.

FULTON INNINGS

The 34-year-old Fulton earlier steadied New Zealand after they wobbled with three wickets late on Sunday. He hit out against the left-arm spin of Monty Panesar, dispatching him with contemptuous ease.

Fulton moved from 46 to 60 in the morning session with two fours and a six in four balls, and after resuming after lunch with McCullum on 91, brought up his century with a glorious straight six into the northern stand off Stuart Broad.

Fulton was eventually caught on the boundary by Joe Root for 110, and following his 136 in the first innings, he joined Glenn Turner, Geoff Howarth and Andrew Jones as New Zealand batsmen to have scored a century in each innings of a test.

McCullum then attacked England's bowlers to the point that Cook positioned every fielder on the boundary.

Dean Brownlie was the only wicket to fall in the first session when he was brilliantly caught by Ian Bell for 28 in the deep during Panesar's first over.

(Editing by Ian Ransom)

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US, Karzai deal leaves most US commandos in Wardak

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's president on Wednesday relented in his demand for all U.S. special operations forces to withdraw from a strategic province east of the capital, agreeing to a compromise calling for the pull out of one team implicated in abuse allegations that the Americans have rejected.

The dispute underscores the fragile negotiations under way as Hamid Karzai seeks to redefine and expand control of his country as the United States and its allies prepare to end their combat missions by the end of 2014.

Wardak province is viewed as a gateway to Kabul and has been the focus of counterinsurgency efforts in recent years. But Karzai last month ordered all U.S. special operations forces out after local villagers accused Afghan troops working with the Americans there of torture, illegal detentions and other abuses.

The U.S.-led coalition denied the allegations. But NATO said Karzai and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the U.S. commander of all allied forces, had agreed Wednesday to remove a team of commandos and turn over security to government forces in Wardak's Nirkh district, the center of the allegations.

British Army Lt. Gen. Nick Carter, deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said it will be "business as usual" for U.S. special operations forces elsewhere in the restive province.

In an interview from Kabul with Pentagon reporters, Carter also described a somewhat vague timeline for the Nirkh transition, saying it will come "once the plan has been put together and there is confidence on all sides that it is possible" for the Afghans to take over security there.

Clarifying an earlier statement from NATO, Carter said the Afghan local police who work with U.S. special operation forces could stay on in some form, possibly paired with elite Afghan troops in place of the Americans — or they might be replaced by conventional Afghan forces, but that would be up to the Afghan security chiefs to determine.

The deal took more than three weeks for U.S. and Afghan security officials to craft and was reached more than a week after the expiration of the deadline for the U.S. pullout initially set by Karzai.

The compromise came after a string of anti-American rhetoric by the Afghan leader that appears aimed at gaining favor with the Afghan public as he nears the end of his second and final term.

Karzai has long complained the U.S. special operations forces and their Afghan partners have operated outside his control, but he must tread a delicate balance in demanding a faster pace of withdrawal and the continued need for foreign protection.

His demand that U.S. commandos withdraw from Wardak province, for example, raised fears that the move would leave the area and the neighboring capital of Kabul more vulnerable to al-Qaida and other insurgents who are active there.

The agreement will speed the handover of security in the troubled province, faster than U.S. officials and some members of Karzai's own government had recommended or planned.

Carter suggested that the shift in Nirkh will serve as a test for the broad NATO plans to shift security control of the country to the Afghans by later this summer and gradually withdraw U.S. and NATO combat forces by the end of 2014.

"This is a very interesting pilot, if you like, in terms of how transition will occur over the course of the next year or so," he said. "Wardak is probably one of most complicated provinces that we have had to deal with, and how this goes, I think, will be a good bellwether of how the overall transition process works."

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said Afghan forces were ready to fill the gap.

"The international forces are ready to withdraw the special forces from Nirkh district of Maidan Wardak province, and Afghan army units are going to replace them in the coming days," Azimi said at a news conference Wednesday in Kabul.

Speaking ahead of the announcement of the deal, Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said Afghan security forces would take control of the entire province eventually, so the gradual transfer "can be a testing period."

Faizi insisted earlier this week that an Afghan-American man working for the U.S. special operations forces was filmed abusing a suspect, on U.S. orders. The spokesman said the video was obtained during an Afghan defense ministry investigation, which was completed over the weekend.

Dunford rejected the abuse charge in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. He said a recently completed U.S. investigation found the interpreter in question was not working with U.S. forces at the time of the incident.

"We've investigated this three times, so I'm confident," Dunford said. "There were no U.S. forces in or around that incident, and the interpreter was not in our employ at the time of the incident."

The U.S. maintains dozens of small special operations posts across Afghanistan intended to help extend security and Afghan government influence to more remote, Taliban strongholds that are beyond the geographic range of the Afghan army or police. American commandos partner with small bands of Afghan Local Police or "ALP," a force roughly 20,000 strong that was created by the U.S., and later incorporated into the Afghan Interior Ministry. While the units work with Americans, they answer to the local district police chief, according to an Afghan security official who spoke on condition of anonymity as a condition of discussing the sometimes controversial program.

But Karzai's national security council has delayed an interior ministry request to recruit and train another 45,000 local police. Karzai believes the units are "outside his control," Faizi said, adding that some members have been caught preying on locals with impromptu checkpoints, or abusing the civilians under their care.

U.S. and Afghan officials point out the Afghan Interior Ministry handed over five local police accused of rape last year for prosecution last year. The men were given lengthy jail sentences. But the United Nations mission to Afghanistan says accountability among the units is uneven, varying from province to province.

With the Wardak disagreement resolved, U.S. and Afghan officials can now work on the delayed transfer of the Parwan Detention Center to the Afghans. Dunford told the AP that the two sides still had to come up with an acceptable way to allow the U.S. to check that the detainees they hand over are being treated humanely, as well as a way to cement Karzai's assurances that 30-40 detainees the U.S. considers dangerous will not be released.

"It's my expectation that Gen. Dunford is making good progress in terms of his discussions with the president on all of this, and that we will be working towards a resolution to the problem during the course of the next week or so," said deputy commander Carter.

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Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed.

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Dozier can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KimberlyDozier.

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Relief in South Africa as Mandela leaves hospital

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The building that houses South Africa's highest court, made partly with bricks from an apartheid-era prison, symbolizes what Nelson Mandela hoped his country would become, a haven of tolerance wiser for the nation's past anguish.

Its mosaics, slanting columns, and natural light are meant to welcome people to the Constitutional Court, guardian of a charter devoted to human rights and clean governance. Nearby, a former jail complex where Nelson Mandela was held echoes a time when whites often resorted to violence to impose their rule over the black majority.

It is a neat fusion of history and aspiration. In reality the country once dubbed the "Rainbow Nation" is drifting between poles, cursed by crime and poverty, blessed with talent and resources, a trail-blazer of reconciliation that elected Mandela as its first black president in 1994 elections but still can't find harmony.

The anti-apartheid leader and Nobel laureate returned to his Johannesburg home on Sunday after spending a night in a hospital for what presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said was a "successful" medical exam. Maharaj said Mandela was "well."

The 94-year-old, however, has grown increasingly frail over the years. In December, he spent three weeks in a hospital, where he was treated for a lung infection and had a procedure to remove gallstones.

The revered leader's brief hospitalization comes at a time when South Africa is struggling to live up to the promise that Mandela has come to symbolize.

"Although he's old, he's a real father to South Africa," said Thembeni Sebego, a resident of the Soweto township in Johannesburg. "We need him very, very, very much. But what can we do? If God calls him, it's time, because he's old now, he's old."

Though he withdrew from public life years ago, Mandela is seen by many compatriots as a hero, a symbol of hope, even a psychological refuge from the social ills and uneven leadership that prevail in South Africa.

The country of 50 million people has much warmth of character. But violence brews in its soul, partly fueled by one of the world's widest gulfs between rich and poor. All walks of life know what it is to be uneasy and alert to surroundings, even if the rates of some violent crimes have fallen.

"You can't walk around at night, there is the fear of rape everywhere," said Mashudu Mfomande, campaign coordinator for Amnesty International in South Africa. "Even in your own home, you don't think you are safe because we have cases of people coming into other people's houses, and have raped t hem. So as a woman in South Africa, it is not a good environment to be in."

A series of shocking events has intensified handwringing over the direction of society.

On Aug. 16, the shooting deaths of 34 striking miners by police at the Marikana platinum mine was a flashback for some who recalled state killings under apartheid. An official inquiry is underway.

On Feb. 2, a 17-year-old was gang-raped and mutilated before she died. On Feb. 14, Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee athlete who was an inspirational figure around the world, was arrested on charges that he murdered his girlfriend in Pretoria. On Feb. 26, a Mozambican taxi driver was dragged from a South African police vehicle and later died in a police cell.

Last week, President Jacob Zuma sought to counter the image of South Africa as a place in turmoil, saying police were making inroads.

"We also dare not portray our beautiful country as an inherently violent place to live in," he said. "South Africa is a stable, peaceful country. Like all countries, there are elements that conduct themselves in a shocking and unacceptable manner."

Some South African media thought Zuma was in denial. "Are you kidding, JZ?" scoffed a headline in The Citizen newspaper.

Mandela's legacy is secure even though he did not provide solutions to poverty and inequality during his five-year presidency. His sacrifice as a prisoner under apartheid for 27 years, and his generosity of spirit in the tense transition to democracy won international acclaim.

"He means a lot because he brought a lot of changes, a lot of changes here in South Africa and not only in South Africa, but the whole world," said Elvis Vusi, a Soweto resident. "So we need all the leaders, if they can just follow in his footsteps so that each and everybody must live in a peaceful country."

Despite insecurity, South Africa reported 7.5 million tourist arrivals between January and October last year, a 10.4 increase over the same period in 2011, with many coming from Europe. Despite labor strife and credit rating downgrades, resource-rich South Africa will host Brazil, Russia, India and China at the "BRICS" summit this month.

But what is to blame for the persistent problems of a country that has proven it can shine, notably in its triumphant staging of the World Cup soccer tournament in 2010?

One view is that apartheid, which enforced inequality along racial lines, had a role in undercutting the society after it. Endowed with equal rights under the law, many South Africans expected better services and opportunities.

According to Pitika Ntuli, a South African poet and sculptor, the thinking among many South Africans was: "'I used to be insulted, I'm no longer called those things. Now the other things will come.'"

For many, that didn't happen. Expectations faded, anger mounted.

Some commentators say South Africa's new leaders, including Mandela, should have pushed harder to restructure an economy dominated by whites; opponents of that view say it would have alienated industries and set the country on a downward path similar to that of Zimbabwe after independence.

The African National Congress, the liberation party that has dominated since the end of apartheid, has also struggled to deliver on promises. It is a frontrunner ahead of 2014 elections, but corruption scandals and other missteps have hurt democracy's evolution.

"What has occurred since 1994 is the steady development of a fusion between party and state, accompanied by a refusal fully to accept the legitimacy of opposition parties," David Welsh and Paul Hoffman wrote in a commentary on the website of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, a non-profit group.

On Sunday, the Nelson Mandela Center of Memory, which promotes the former president's ideas, tweeted something he once said: "I would venture to say that there is something inherently good in all human beings."

Mandela was also a realist and recognized the challenges that South Africa would face. The rest of his line goes:

"... deriving from, among other things, the attribute of social consciousness that we all possess. And, yes, there is also something inherently bad in all of us, flesh and blood as we are, with the attendant desire to perpetuate and pamper the self."

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AP Senior Producer Ed Brown contributed to this report.

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