World

Xinhua, April 29: A Knife-Wielding man allegedly attacked 28 children at a kindergarten in eastern China today in the third such attack in a month, police say.

The latest attack occurred in the city of Taixing in Jiangsu province, according to the Xinhua news agency.

According to Xinhua, 28 children and three adults were injured in the attack. Most of the injured children were just four years old with five of them reportedly now critically ill in hospital.

London, April 29: Designer Donatella Versace is auctioning an internship at her New York office.

The highest bidder will not only work from the Versace office, but also get to visit a Donatella Versace and Christopher Kane show in Milan, at which the intern will get the opportunity to meet with Donatella, as well as receive a signed perfume bottle and T-shirt, web media reported.

Thimphu, April 29: Vowing to plant ’10 million trees over the next five years’ to build a ‘green and happy South Asia’ and boost trade cooperation, the 16th SAARC summit concluded Thursday in this scenic capital city of an environment-conscious Bhutan.

Heads of states and governemnts of eight member-states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) also pledged to concentrate on the uplift of poverty stricken people in the region that is home to 1.5 billion humans – a fourth of the world population.

London/Islamabad, April 29: Pakistan Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who was thought to have been killed in a US drone attack early this year, is alive and “basically OK”, claimed a senior ISI official.

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency official told The Guardian: “He (Mehsud) is alive… “He had some wounds but he is basically OK.”

Mehsud was believed to have died in a drone strike in South Waziristan in January. Though a Pakistani minister had then said that the Taliban chief had been killed, his death was not confirmed by either US or Pakistani intelligence.

Washington, April 29: Pakistan has moved 100,000 troops from its borders with India, thinning the lines, to bolster its campaign against Taliban and other militants on its restive border with Afghanistan, the Pentagon said today.

The mass shifting of troops is an acknowledgement of the fact that terrorism and internal insurgency were posing more threat to Pakistan now, the Pentagon said in a report to the US Congress.

Washington, April 29: Pakistan has moved 100,000 troops from its borders with India, thinning the lines, to bolster its campaign against Taliban and other militants on its restive border with Afghanistan, the Pentagon said today.

The mass shifting of troops is an acknowledgement of the fact that terrorism and internal insurgency were posing more threat to Pakistan now, the Pentagon said in a report to the US Congress.

United Nations, April 29: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to attend the conference, which opens on Monday and runs until May 28. He will be facing off with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who heads the U.S. delegation at the meeting at U.N. headquarters.

Diplomats expect Ahmadinejad to take a defiant stand against the United States and its Western allies, accusing them of trying to deprive developing states of nuclear technology while turning a blind eye toward Israel’s nuclear capability.

Manila, April 29: The son of late Philippine democracy heroine Corazon Aquino appears headed for a landslide victory in next month’s presidential election, a survey said Thursday.

Thirty-nine percent of the respondents said they would vote for Benigno Aquino, two percentage points higher than the previous survey in early April, independent pollster Pulse Asia Inc. said.

“With almost four in 10 Filipino registered voters supporting his presidential bid, Senator Aquino remains the leading presidential contender in the May 2010 elections,” Pulse Asia said.

Washington, April 29: The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai commands support or sympathy in only a quarter of 121 Afghan areas considered “key” by the US military, a Pentagon report has said.

“The overall assessment indicates that the population sympathizes with or supports the Afghan government in 24 percent (29 of 121) of all Key Terrain and Area of Interest districts,” the quarterly report to Congress said Wednesday.

“The establishment of effective governance is a critical enabler for improving development and security.”

Dhaka, April 29: Bangladeshi police have arrested four people after one man was killed and four injured by a hand-made bomb thrown at spectators watching a music concert, police said Thursday.

The device was thrown late Wednesday into a 300-strong crowd at a concert in Benapole on the country’s western border to celebrate Bengali New Year, which falls in April, local police chief Aslam Khan told AFP.

“One young man aged around 25 years died in the blast. At least four others were injured but not seriously,” he said.

London, April 29: A United States military court has held hearings to determine whether Guantanamo prison guards tortured a teenage Canadian suspect into confession.

A teenage Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr was captured in July 2002 after being accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan. He, eventually, admitted to the alleged offense.

Khadr’s lawyers insist that his confessions to interrogators were the illegal outcome of torture tactics practiced by US interrogators, Reuters reported.

Tehran, April 29: A senior Iranian lawmaker says the United States is held in contempt for its status as the only country to have used nuclear weapons in the past.

Chairman of Iran’s parliamentary (Majlis) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Wednesday that Washington should apologize for its failure to abide by its obligations under international law and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Washington, April 29: With the US using drones prolifically in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, several eminent experts have advised lawmakers against treating these nations as “combat zones” and asked them to respect the sovereign rights of states while using the unmanned weapons.

The experts said that drones, though a key tool for America’s success in its war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are strictly battlefield weapons.

Washington, April 29: The Obama administration has said that it wants North Korea to return to six-party talks.

Refusing to draw conclusion on the sinking of a ship allegedly by North Korea till investigations continue, the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, PJ Crowley, on Wednesday said: “We want to see North Korea come back to the six-party process.”

Rio de Janeiro, April 29: A Roman Catholic priest in Brazil is facing charges that he abused eight boys in cases dating back to 1995, prosecutors have said, adding to a growing list of allegations against clergy in Latin America.

Father Jose Afonso, 74, is accused of abusing altar boys between the ages of 12 and 16, Sao Paulo state prosecutors said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.

Washington, April 29: Alleging that Iran is evading its international responsibilities, the Obama administration has accused Tehran of indulging in “rope-a-dope diplomacy”.

“While Iran is travelling around the world doing what I would call, to use a boxing term, rope-a-dope diplomacy, trying to evade responsibility, we are in New York committed to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), strengthening the global regime, and we want to see countries play a constructive role,” Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs PJ Crowley said.

Washington, April 29: A flight carrying 45 passengers from Houston to Washington was diverted on Wednesday after a message threatening a terror attack was found in the plane’s washroom, officials said.

“A threatening message was written on a lavatory mirror on board Continental Airlines flight 3006 from Houston Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to Washington Dulles Airport (IAD),” the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said in a statement.

London, April 29: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown goes into his final pre-election debate on Thursday trying to rescue his Labour Party from defeat while fending off a gaffe in which he called one of his traditional voters “bigoted”.

Brown, whose critics paint him as socially unskilled and bullying, was caught on tape on Wednesday complaining about a woman in her 60s who had challenged his 13-year-old Labour government’s approach to immigration
.

New York, April 29: Former US first lady Laura Bush writes in her forthcoming autobiography that she and her husband George W Bush may have been poisoned when they became ill at a summit in Germany in 2007, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Writing in her book ‘Spoken from the Heart’, due to be released in May, Laura Bush says that the US Secret Service probed whether the presidential delegation may have been poisoned at the G8 summit.

George W Bush spent part of the summit bedridden.

Pyeongtaek, April 29: South Korea honoured 46 sailors on Thursday with a tearful military funeral a month after a blast sank their warship, and officials vowed retaliation for those responsible as speculation mounted that North Korea may have torpedoed the vessel.

Beijing, April 29: A knife-wielding man wounded 28 children and three adults on Thursday at a kindergarten in eastern Jiangsu province, the second such violent assault at a Chinese school in two days.

Five of the students were in critical condition in hospital, said Zhu Guiming, an official with the propaganda department in Taixing city. Zhu said two teachers and a security guard also were hurt.

The attacker was a 47-year-old local man, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Beijing, April 29: China has agreed to build two new civilian nuclear reactors in Pakistan, a report said on Thursday, amid persistent concerns about the safety of nuclear materials in the restive south Asian state.

Chinese companies will build at least two new 650-megawatt reactors at Chashma in Punjab province, a newspaper said.

China began building a reactor at Chashma in 1991 and broke ground on a second one in 2005, which is expected to be completed next year, it said.

Bangkok, April 29: The Thai Army said on Thursday it would step up efforts to stop anti-government protesters in Bangkok getting more weapons, a day after a soldier died in the latest clash in a seven-week campaign to force early elections.

The violence stoked fears of more unrest ahead which could sink consumer confidence in southeast Asia’s second largest economy. The central bank is due to release growth forecasts later on Thursday.

Moscow, April 29: A bust-size statue of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin will be erected in the Russian city of Tambov ahead of the World War II Victory Day celebrations.

“The republican
committee of the North Ossetian Communist Party made the bust to express gratitude to the Tambov regional committee for helping South Ossetia during the conflict with Georgia (in August 2008),” Andrei Zhidkov, branch head of the Russian Communistic Party, said on Wednesday.

Bangkok, April 29: Thailand’s anti-government “Red Shirt” protesters on Thursday called for the European Union to send observers to Bangkok to prevent a crackdown as rival “Yellow Shirts” readied their own rally.

A day after clashes between the opposition demonstrators and troops left one soldier dead and 18 people injured, the Reds said they would go to the European Union delegation in Bangkok to ask the body to help in the crisis.