World Affairs | Politicles Articles | Current affairs: 2013

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Palestinians killed in Israeli arrest raids

The Israeli army has shot dead two Palestinian men in separate raids in a town and a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, sources on both sides said.

One of the victims, a member of the Palestinian security forces, was killed during an overnight arrest raid early on Thursday in the northern town of Qalqilya.

"During an ambush organised to arrest an armed man... who had fired on Israeli soldiers several times in recent weeks, the man opened fire on soldiers, who fired back," the Israeli army said.

Sunil James, a Merchant Navy Captain who was in jail in Togo, western Africa, for the last five months was released today, the ministry for external affairs said. He is expected to be in India latest by tomorrow.

Another sailor who had been imprisoned along with Captain James, Vijayan, has been released too. Mr Akbaruddin said the two men were released after India's High Commissioner in Ghana K Jeeva Sagar met Togo's President Faure Gnassingbe.

Militants dressed in army uniforms attacked the house of an anti-Al Qaeda militiaman in Iraq on Thursday, killing him, his wife and their three children, security officials said.

The attack took place in the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, the officials said.

Violence in Iraq has surged this year to levels not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has issued a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to Turkish energy firm Karkey Karadeniz ElektrikUretim A.S. (Karkey) to sail one of its power-vessels to Dubai for maintenance purposes.

Karkey was one of 12 rental power companies that were awarded contracts in 2009. However, the Supreme Court cancelled all contracts in March 2012 after learning about lack of transparency and the companies’ failure to produce power in the required quantity despite having received money in advance.

RIYADH: A Saudi court has jailed a man for 15 years after convicting him of recruiting 14 nationals to join Al Qaeda's affiliate in neighbouring Yemen, Al-Hayat newspaper reported Thursday.

A Riyadh court specialising in security cases convicted the unnamed Saudi national of recruiting the militants online after he held meetings in Yemen with Al Qaeda leaders, the daily said.

The defendant helped the recruits reach Yemen and issued fake Yemeni identity cards for seven of them, it said.

MIRAMSHAH: At least 23 suspected militants were killed late on Wednesday during a clash with security forces in the country's troubled northwest, officials said.

According to a security official who requested anonymity, the suspected militants tried to ambush a convoy of security forces which was returning back from Khajuri checkpost area in Mirali Tehsil of North Waziristan tribal region.

The convoy had gone in the area to rescue soldiers who were injured in a suicide bomb attack yesterday.

SHARJAH: Pakistan's interim cricket chief Najam Sethi on Wednesday reiterated his stance to revive ties with arch-rivals India, saying his team was ready to go across the border.

India stalled all bilateral ties with Pakistan in the wake of the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, which New Deli blamed on militants based in Pakistan.

Tokyo's governor, one of the main faces of the mega-city's successful bid to host the 2020 Olympics, resigned Thursday after admitting he was naive for accepting an undeclared $500,000 from a hospital tycoon.

Naoki Inose, who was elected head of one of the world's biggest conurbations a year ago, had faced weeks of intense pressure over suspicions that the money amounted to a bribe in an attempt to influence policy.

A former imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah was stopped from traveling to Britain as he boarded his plane in Riyadh bound for London on Wednesday.

Sheikh Adel Al-Kalbani had performed the noon and afternoon prayers together just before the boarding announcement at King Khaled International Airport’s departure terminal.

“I was stopped at the door of the plane and told that the authorities received a message from the British Embassy saying that I was not allowed to enter Britain,” Al-Kalbani told Arab News.

SC orders production of 14 missing persons in court tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Friday expressed its dissatisfaction over a report submitted by the Federal Minister for Defence Khawaja Asif before it which listed details of missing persons and ordered the production of 14 of the 35 missing persons in court tomorrow and the remaining on Dec 9, DawnNews reported.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, resumed the hearing over the missing persons case.

Two gunmen kidnap schoolgirl in Assam

JORHAT: Two unidentified gunmen kidnapped 11 schoolchildren of Nazira Kendra Vidayalaya by hijacking the school van in which they were returning home at Simaluguri in Sivsagar district near the Assam-Nagaland border on Wednesday afternoon.

However, the van driver's presence of mind and courage helped in saving 10 of the students from the clutches of the abductors. The miscreants forced the driver to drive towards Nagaland, but the latter immobilized the vehicle by driving it into a drain in the Chantak tea estate, some distance from the kidnapping spot. The kidnappers then left behind 10 of the children there, and took away one — a girl — towards Nagaland.

SANAA: A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed car into the Yemeni defence ministry complex on Thursday, followed by an armed assault in which 52 people died, including seven foreign medical staff, officials said.

The brazen daylight attack on the sprawling facility followed a spate of hit-and-run strikes on military personnel and officials, as the country struggles to complete a thorny political transition.

"This terrorist act has killed 52 people," Yemen's supreme security committee said.

Cutting across party lines, members of the Odisha Assembly today condemned Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his reported statement that Kashmir is a flash point which "can trigger a fourth war" with India.

The MLAs, belonging to the ruling BJD and Congress, favoured a censure motion against the Pakistan Prime Minister for his "dreams" of a "fourth war" against India.

JOHANNESBURG: It was not the nip in the air but the murderous blade of South African batsmen and the hostility of their pacers that sent a chill down the spine as the hosts first slaughtered India's toothless attack to post a formidable tally of 358/4 and then bowled India out for 217 in the first ODI to win by a massive 141-run margin. This result might just be the prelude to a torrid December.

Chasing a massive target under lights, the Indian top-order was clueless against pace and bounce extracted by South African pace quintet of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Ryan McLaren, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Wayne Parnell.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan fast bowler Bilawal Bhatti has been waylaid in Dubai since Tuesday after landing in the United Arab Emirates with an expired visa.

The Pakistan Cricket Board says in a statement it has made arrangements for Bhatti to stay at a hotel inside Dubai airport and has applied for a new visa. The board is hopeful the issue will be resolved within 24 hours and Bhatti can continue his journey home.

PESHAWAR: Militants killed one policeman and wounded another in an attack on a checkpost in northwestern Pakistan, officials said on Thursday.

The attack took place on the outskirts of Bannu town, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which has seen several terrorist attacks in the past — many of them targeting security officials.

KIRKUK: Iraqi police stormed a mall in a northern city that gunmen used to launch an attack on a nearby police station, killing three militants and ending an hours-long standoff that trapped some storekeepers inside, authorities said Thursday.

Militants held off police from their rooftop position on six-story Jawahir mall in Kirkuk overnight, throwing down grenades and firing on officers and civilians who tried to flee the fighting.

Washington: The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has arrested 16 persons for providing material to anti-government websites that are reportedly seeking to topple the country's Islamic ruling system, state media reports.

The official IRNA news agency quoted a local prosecutor in southeast Iran, Ahmad Ghorbani, as saying that all 16 activists are facing charges of cooperating with Western and anti-Iran news networks, Fox News reports.

At least 20 soldiers were killed and dozens of others injured when suicide car bombings rocked the Yemeni defense ministry in the capital Sanna on Thursday morning, officials told Xinhua.

An official of the defense ministry said anonymously that the explosions were caused by suicide car bombings that damaged part of the wall of the ministry in downtown Yemen, adding that first car bomb hit the western gate of the ministry and the second one broke into the gate and exploded inside the ministry complex.

IMPHAL: Eleven militants have been arrested during combing operations in Manipur, police said on Wednesday.Five militants, including two women, were arrested by 24th Assam Rifles battalion personnel at Khudengtabi area in Chandel district after they had crossed the Indo-Myanmar border and were proceeding to Imphal on Tuesday, they said.

England were left to rue missed chances as Australia shaded the opening day in Adelaide. Having won the toss, Australia found progress through two solid partnerships but England created enough chances to get on top - only to drop three catches.Three wickets frittered away in an extended afternoon session undermined Australia's workmanlike intent to build on their victory in the first Test at the Gabba by posting an unassailable first-innings score on a placid Adelaide surface. Instead, as Shane Watson and Chris Rogers fell in successive overs, then Steve Smith succumbed to the last ball before tea, England reached the break in an optimistic frame of mind they could barely have imagined.

DHAKA: Bangladesh's former military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad threatened to kill himself Thursday after security forces besieged his home following his decision to boycott next month's elections.

“I have loaded four pistols and I've told the government that if they play any tricks with me, I will kill myself,” Ershad told a local television crew during an interview inside his home in the early hours.

“I will die before the RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) or the police can lay a finger on me,” he said, before making a trigger-pulling gesture towards his head.

Four Turkish nationals sentenced to death in Iran and Saudi Arabia

Four Turkish nationals have been sentenced to death in Iran and Saudi Arabia among more than 6,000 Turkish citizens that have been either arrested and-or convicted in foreign countries as of October 2013, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has stated.

NEW DELHI: Rajesh and Nupur Talwar have been awarded life sentence for killing their daughter Aarushi and servant Hemraj.

A special CBI court on Tuesday sentenced the dentist couple, a day after it convicted them of killing Aarushi and Hemraj.

Earlier, during the arguments for sentencing, the CBI sought death penalty for the Talwars, calling the case 'rarest of rare'.

QUETTA: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Quetta Tuesday rejected former military ruler General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s request for exemption from attendance in a case pertaining to the murder of Baloch nationalist leader Akbar Khan Bugti, DawnNews reported.

During the hearing of the case in Quetta's ATC-1, former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao was produced before the court.

Meanwhile, the court rejected Musharraf’s application seeking exemption from attending court proceedings and ordered him to appear at its upcoming hearing.

BAGHDAD: A spate of Iraq attacks, including twin bombings at a market and the assassination of a former MP, killed at least 46 people, officials said Tuesday.

Monday's attacks struck in Baghdad and predominantly Sunni Arab areas north of the capital that have borne the brunt of the worsening unrest, with nearly 6,000 people killed so far this year.

DHAKA: Bangladeshi opposition supporters detonated scores of homemade bombs and removed railway tracks to disrupt train services on Tuesday as a planned nation-wide-protest against upcoming elections turned violent, witnesses and police said.

One man died and dozens were wounded across the country in clashes between supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and police, witnesses said.

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court exempted former president Asif Ali Zardari from appearing in the hearing on Tuesday over corruption cases against him and adjourned the next hearing until December 9, DawnNews reported.

The bench hearing the case, comprising of Justice Mohammad Bashir, also instructed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) again to provide Zardari's counsel with copies of the references filed against him.

Turkey could increase its oil imports from Iran to 130,000-140,000 barrels per day (bpd), from around 105,000 bpd in a gradual manner, if Western sanctions against Iran ease, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said during a live interview on CNBC-e television yesterday.

“We have already reduced our imports to around 105,000 [bpd] due to the sanctions. Once these sanctions are no longer in effect, I believe the amount we buy will hike,” he said, adding that Turkey couldn’t ignore Iran, which had one of the world’s three largest oil reserves, and was Turkey’s second biggest oil supplier after Russia.

CAIRO : In what can be described as a first official reaction to reports about Islam ban in Angola, officials at the Southwest African nation’s Washington embassy have denied the reports as erroneous, asserting their country’s respect for all faiths..

“The Republic of Angola … it’s a country that does not interfere in religion,” an official at the Angolan Embassy in Washington, DC, who did not want to be identified discussing the sensitive matter, told International Business Times via telephone Monday, November 25.

Rocket ‘fired from Iran’ kills girl in border town

QUETTA: A girl was killed and six people were injured when a rocket fired by Iranian border forces hit three houses in Tump town of Kech district on Monday.

Balochistan Home Secretary Asadur Rehman Gilani confirmed the incident and told Dawn that the rocket fired from across the border had hit the houses in the town near Pak-Iran border.

Sources said the three houses were destroyed by the attack.

An official of Kech administration said that one of the houses belonged to Mullah Omer, believed to be a commander of an Iran-based religious outfit, Jaish-ul-Adl.

A Saudi court has sentenced one man to death and another 19 to jail for the deadly storming of the U.S. consulate in the Red Sea city of Jeddah in 2004, one of a series of al Qaeda attacks last decade.

Another 19 people were convicted on Monday of plotting to hijack a Western airliner, scouting a Westerners' residence and planning to attack a royal family member. They were given jail terms ranging from 12 months to 25 years, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.

PARIS: France’s foreign minister said Monday the European Union would likely lift some sanctions on Iran in December, as part of a hard-won deal that curbs Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Laurent Fabius also said Israel – which blasted Sunday’s agreement as a “historic mistake” – was not likely to launch any preventative strikes on arch-foe Iran, “because no one would understand” such a move “at this stage.”

Cairo: Egypt’s president passed a law on Sunday making it illegal to hold demonstrations without the approval of the police and banning protests in places of worship, a move rights groups condemned as a blow to political freedom.

As the law was being announced by state media, thousands of anti-government protesters were on streets in Cairo and other cities, as they have been regularly in the nearly three years since a popular uprising ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has requested the Inspector General Police (IGP) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to nominate the US and CIA in the Hangu drone strike FIR.

PTI’s Central Legal Secretary, Barrister Suleman Afridi submitted the written request to IGP Khyber Pakhutunkhwa which cited the statement of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, a news story regarding the US drone strike in the Washington Post and decisions of the Peshawar High Court.

Nupur and Rajesh Talwar were found guilty today of murdering their teen daughter Aarushi and their domestic help Hemraj at their home in May 2008. They were arrested and taken to Dasna jail in Ghaziabad; they will be sentenced tomorrow.Lawyers present in court said the couple broke down after the judge found them guilty of murder. "We are deeply disappointed , hurt and anguished for being convicted for a crime that we have not committed. We refuse to feel disappointed and will continue to fight for justice," they said in a written statement.Their lawyers said they will appeal against today's verdict in a higher court.

LAHORE: The fact-finding committee constituted to probe the Rawalpindi incident on Monday presented its report to Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif which held the police responsible for the tragedy, DawnNews reported.

Following the Ashura violence in Rawalpinidi, the chief minister had constituted a three-member fact finding committee to probe the incident, which completed its report on the matter.

Two sailors were confirmed dead and 24 were missing after two ships sank in separate accidents off the coast of China's Shandong province, authorities said Monday.

According to the Shandong Maritime Safety Administration, a cargo ship 'XINGLONGZHOU65', registered in east China's Zhejiang province, sank off Yantai city around 9 p.m. Sunday, leaving 12 sailors missing, reports Xinhua.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People Party (PPP) on Monday submitted an adjournment motion in the Upper House of Parliament against the US-led drone strike conducted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Hangu district last week which had killed at least five persons, DawnNews reported.

Senior PPP leader Raza Rabbani submitted the motion in the Senate secretariat.

The debutants Anwar Ali and Bilawal Bhatti had been selected primarily to bowl Pakistan to victory. They did that with five wickets between them, headlined by Bhatti's superb use of the yorker at the death. They were not expected to bat Pakistan to a win, but they did that too, with a 74-run partnership for the eighth wicket that breathed life into an innings that was gasping for air.

ISLAMABAD: Maulana Hafiz Mohammad Tahir Ashrafi, chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council and a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), has come up with a 14-point code of conduct to be observed by religious organisations to end sectarian violence in the country.

The Maulana forwarded the code to the CII secretariat on Sunday with a request that a special meeting of the council be called to discuss it.

India welcomes Iran nuclear deal

India on Sunday welcomed the accord reached between Iran and the six world powers on Tehran's nuclear programme that seeks to curb Iran's nuclear development programme in exchange for lifting some sanctions.

The deal – between Iran and the US, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany (P5 plus 1) – was arrived at early on Sunday after more than four days of negotiations.

"As the agreement between Iran and the P5 plus 1 has been agreed to just a few hours ago, we are in the process of obtaining details from our key interlocutors," said Syed Akbaruddin, spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs.

Club—wielding activists from Imran Khan’s political party forcibly searched trucks for NATO supplies in northwest Pakistan on Sunday in protest at deadly US drone strikes.

Around 100 workers from the former cricket star's Pakistan Tehreek—e—Insaaf (PTI) party set up checkpoints in the northwestern city of Peshawar on a main road leading to Afghanistan.

Turkey has welcomed the deal reached between P5+1 countries and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program and reiterated its endorsement of the process, recalling its earlier efforts for a diplomatic solution to the question.

Chasing 289 on an outfield that looked like it was wet because of persistent rain and not dew, West Indies had it all to lose, and some of their batsmen tried their best to do so. Ultimately, the cool head of deposed ODI captain Darren Sammy prevailed to level the series 1-1. Kieran Powell and the brothers Bravo threw their wickets away, and Lendl Simmons tried to do so unsuccessfully, but Sammy timed the final assault well to carry a stumbling West Indies to their first win of the tour.

Mandsaur: Attacking Congress for "doing nothing for poor", BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday said the ruling party, over generations never wanted to educate people and eliminate
poverty as it was afraid of being stripped of power.

Car bomb attack kills 10 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai

ISMAILIA, Egypt: Ten Egyptian soldiers were killed and 35 wounded in a car bomb attack near the North Sinai city of El-Arish on Wednesday, a security official said.

The attack was one of the deadliest in the Sinai Peninsula, which is near Israel and the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip, since al Qaeda-inspired militants began stepping up assaults following the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.

The soldiers were traveling in a convoy on the road to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

MOGADISHU: Islamist militants rammed a car bomb into a police compound north of Somalia's capital on Tuesday and opened fire on officers, leaving at least 28 people dead, officials and witnesses said.

Al Shabaab - the al Qaeda-linked group that claimed responsibility for a deadly raid on a shopping mall in neighbouring Kenya in September - said it carried out the morning assault.

Gunfire rang out at the police station in Baladweyne, near the border with Ethiopia, into the early afternoon as locals rushed for cover.

At least one person was killed when Egyptian riot police stormed Cairo's Tahrir Square late Tuesday to disperse stone-throwing protesters, a health ministry official said.

Police backed by armoured vehicles fired tear gas and shots after clashes in the square to scatter protesters who had gathered to mark the anniversary of deadly 2011 demonstrations.

MIRAMSHAH: At least two security personnel were killed and four others injured Wednesday morning during a suicide attack on a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost on Bannu-Mir Ali Road in North Waziristan tribal agency, DawnNews reported.

Security officials confirmed the casualties.

A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the Shawa checkpost situated on the Bannu-Mir Ali Road. Subsequently, four security personnel sustained injuries.

ISLAMABAD: The names of three judges including a female judge have been approved by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for the special court that will conduct trial of former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, DawnNews reported.

The names of the judges, along with their profile, were sent to Law Secretary Barrister Zafarullah Khan by the SC registrar with a suggestion to select any three of them as members of the special court.

About the head of the special court, the government was suggested to select the most senior one in the list.

Amritsar: Ten members of a family, among them seven women and children, were killed this morning when the car they were travelling in fell into a canal in Ajnala sector of Amritsar district, police said.

Four children, including two girls, three women and three men lost their lives in the mishap which took place near Ramdas village.

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