shameen Scotland, August 25: Scotland’s justice minister on Monday defended his much-criticized decision to free the Lockerbie bomber, as the U.S. State Department said that though it disagreed “passionately” the move would not affect relations between America and Britain.
Kabul, August 25: One of the youngest people ever held at Guantanamo was welcomed home Monday by Afghanistan’s president and joyful relatives after almost seven years in prison — freed by a military judge who ruled he was coerced into confessing to wounding U.S. soldiers with a grenade.
Mohammed Jawad, now about 21, flew to the Afghan capital in the afternoon and was released to family members late in the evening. Turbaned men, many who had traveled to Kabul from villages in a nearby province, greeted him with a flurry of hugs and wide smiles.
London, August 25: An Israeli official said on Monday that efforts were under way to hold a summit between the Israeli, Palestinian and US leaders next month to signal the relaunching of the stalled Mideast peace talks.
The proposed groundbreaking meeting between US President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas follows months of intense international pressure on Israel to halt Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Seoul, August 24: A US official charged with enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea sought South Korea’s support during talks in Seoul on Monday even as Pyongyang makes conciliatory moves after months of military grandstanding.
A high-ranking North Korean delegation led by close aides of leader Kim Jong-il sent to mourn a former South Korean leader met President Lee Myung-bak on Sunday and delivered a message from the North’s leader in their first formal communication since Lee took office about 18 months ago.
Singapore, August 24: Singapore has downplayed media reports of a plot to attack an Asia-Pacific summit in the city-state in November, the Straits Times newspaper reported on Monday.
“The rumours are rumours. You check it, if it is unverifiable, you know you can’t be chasing after every rumour,” Second Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam was quoted by the daily as saying during a mock terrorist attack exercise on Sunday.
The Singapore Police Force and the Ministry of Home Affairs were not available for immediate comment.
Washington, August 24: The US Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing CIA employees and contractors to prosecution for their treatment of terrorism suspects, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Citing an unnamed “person officially briefed on the matter”, the newspaper said the recommendation was made recently by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and presented to Attorney General Eric Holder.
Managua, August 24: Nicaragua has become illiteracy-free after reducing to 3.5 percent the number of citizens who do not know how to read and write, President Daniel Ortega has announced.
Ortega made the announcement at a rally held on Saturday at the Revolution Square in Managua, where Education Minister Miguel de Castilla gave him the certificate. The President recalled that the literacy campaign had begun on August 23, 1980, a year after the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution.
Yokosuka, August 24: The US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Nimitz made a port call at the US Navy base in Yokosuka, west of Tokyo, on Monday.
The US Navy said the port call is intended to provide the crew with rest and replenish supplies. But observers said it may be part of US efforts to make Yokosuka a hub for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.
The Nimitz is scheduled to depart Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in a few days.
Tehran, August 24: Iran told world powers on Monday they must stop working against its atomic drive and instead adopt a policy of interaction with the Islamic republic to resolve the nuclear crisis.
“It is the right time for the other parties to review their policy. Rather than countering Iran, they should interact with Iran,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told reporters.
World powers and Israel are at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear programme which they suspect is aimed at making atomic weapons, a charge consistently denied by Tehran.
Seoul, August 24: South Korea and the United States will not be swayed by North Korea’s peace overtures unless it gives up its nuclear weapons, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Senior visiting North Korean officials met President Lee Myung-Bak on Sunday to deliver a verbal message from their leader Kim Jong-Il, the latest in a series of conciliatory gestures by the communist state after months of sabre-rattling.
Washington, August 24: Al Qaeda remains “very capable” of attacking the United States, the senior-most US military officer said, as he tried to boost waning US support for the conflict in Afghanistan.
Nearly eight years after the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed some 3,000 people, al Qaeda is “still very capable, very focused on it,” chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday.
“They also are able to both train and support and finance, and so that capability is still significant,” he said.
Moscow, August 24: Investigators in Russia have fully ruled out the possibility that a terrorist attack was behind last week’s Siberian power station disaster which killed at least 69 people, prosecutors said on Monday.
“It has been established that the accident was of a technical nature,” the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors said in a statement.
“The concrete causes of the accident will be determined in the course of the investigation. The investigation has fully examined the theory of a terrorist attack and refuted it.”
Cairo, August 24: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t have to look to the street protests or angry Web sites to get a sense of challenges ahead for his disputed second term. There’s enough potential heat coming from right inside the country’s leadership.
And these days, that trouble has a name: the brothers Larijani.
Seoul, August 24: A fresh contingent of 300 South Korean troops has begun operating off the Somali coast, replacing an anti-piracy unit that had been deployed there since April, officials said on Monday.
The Dae Jo Yeong destroyer took over on Saturday from the 4,500-ton Munmu the Great, which has escorted a total of 300 boats and is due to return to South Korea by mid-October, Joint Chiefs of Staff officials here said.
Jakarta, August 24: The Indonesian Navy (TNI AL) is stepping up security in the country’s sea borders to anticipate terrorist threats, a naval officer said.
In the western part of Indonesia, the Navy was coordinating with the Malaysian and Thai navies to detect terrorist threats in its sea bordering the two countries, Naval Chief of Staff Admiral Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno said here yesterday.
“In the eastern part, TNI AL is coordinating with the Malaysian and Philippine navies. These are all designed to detect and prevent as early as possible terrorist threats,” he said.
New Delhi, August 24: The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a Central Vigilance Commission probe into the alleged irregularities at Prasar Bharati Corporation, as ordered earlier by the Delhi High Court.
While allowing the Central Vigilance Commission inquiry, a Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan stayed the other part of the High Court order, which said that said that the day-to-day functioning of Prasar Bharati will be carried out by three members of the Board — CEO BS Lalli, Member (Finance), and Member (Personnel) — jointly.
Pune, August 24: A toddler and a middle-aged man have succumbed to swine flu in Maharashtra and Gujarat, pushing the nationwide toll due to the pandemic to 71 even as schools and colleges in Pune, which had been shut due to the spurt in the infection, reopened on Monday after nearly two weeks.
Over 100 more fresh cases of flu infection were reported from various states on Sunday.
New Delhi, August 24: With his name not figuring in the CBI chargesheet in the coffin scam, former defence minister George Fernandes on Monday demanded an apology from Congress for alleging his involvement in the 2002 case.
“I needed no ‘clean chit’ from the CBI to know that the aluminium casket purchase issue had never even come to my table during my tenure as defence minister let alone my drinking the blood of martyrs, as the Congress accused me of doing,” the JD-U leader said in a press statement here.
Chandigarh, August 24: In a development that could help ruling Congress ahead of the Haryana Assembly polls, BJP has decided to part ways with Indian National Lok Dal led by former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala.
The BJP, whose state leadership had strongly objected to the alliance with the INLD last year after the two parties went separate ways in 2004, has been unhappy with the number of seats being offered by INLD to them for the polls.
BJP leader Vijay Goel said, “We have decided to go it alone in Haryana”.
Pune, August 24: A two-and-a-half-year old girl child has died of swine flu here taking the total number of fatalities due to the deadly virus in the city to 23, Health Department officials said Monday.
The child, suffering from a liver disorder was admitted to the Command hospital on August 21 after she tested positive for H1N1 virus. She succumbed to the deadly infection last night, they said.
Mumbai, August 24: Extending its gaining streak for the third session in a row, the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex Monday rose by 289 points in early trade on heavy buying by funds, driven by a firming trend in the global markets.
The 30-share index, Sensex, shot up by 289.17 points, or 1.70 per cent, to 15,530.00 with most of the sectoral indices gaining up to 3.12 per cent. The BSE barometer had gained over 430 points in the past two sessions.
The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty climbed 76.85 points, or 1.61 per cent, to 4,606.65.
Mumbai, August 24: Continuing its surging trend for the fourth day in a row, the Indian rupee appreciated by another 23 paise to 48.39 against the dollar in early trade on Monday in line with strong equity markets and weak dollar overseas.
The domestic currency resumed firm at 48.40/42 a dollar against its last weekend’s close of 48.62/64 a dollar and later moved narrowly in the range of 48.39 and 48.45 in the initial 30 minutes of trading.
It was quoted steady at 48.40/42 a dollar in late morning deals in lacklustre activity.
Singapore, August 24: Oil prices rose in Asian trade today, bolstered by improved investor sentiment amid widespread hopes for a global economic recovery, analysts said.
A weaker US dollar was also a factor behind the surge in oil prices, they said.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, gained 25 cents to USD 74.14 a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for October delivery advanced 44 cents to USD 74.63.
Lahore, August 24: As the Opposition PML-N targeted Yousuf Raza Gilani for “letting the dictator off the hook,” the Pakistani Prime Minister on Sunday acknowledged there were differences between the PPP and the Nawaz Sharif-led party on the issue of trying former president Pervez Musharraf for treason.
“Nothing has been decided as yet… The matter of Musharraf’s trial under Article 6 of the Constitution (for treason) has not ended yet,” Gilani told reporters while visiting the residence of Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali.
Islamabad, August 24: Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Sunday the security forces will continue their offensives against the Taliban during the holy month of Ramadan, the Online news agency reported.
“We are not interested in a ceasefire,” Malik said. “They haven’t kept their commitment in the past. We will continue targeted actions against the Taliban.”
The Taliban had announced that it will stop fighting during Ramadan, which began on Saturday and is traditionally considered a time of peace.