Baghdad, August 31: The son of the late leader of Iraq’s largest Shiite political party was chosen Monday to take the reins of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a party official said.
The choice of Ammar al-Hakim to succeed his father, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, was widely expected. But there have been questions whether the relatively inexperienced son can hold the organization together during a politically sensitive time in Iraq.
Damascus, August 31: Syria’s president on Monday dismissed Iraqi accusations that his country has been used as a launching pad for violence in Iraq, calling the allegations “immoral” and politically motivated.
Iraq and Syria are entangled in a diplomatic dispute over demands that Damascus extradite two suspects wanted in recent suicide attacks on government ministries in Baghdad that killed about 100 people. The tension led both countries to recall their ambassadors.
Kolkata, August 31: After a series of electoral losses, West Bengal’s ruling Left Front Monday sought to enthuse its cadres by organising a huge rally in the city to mark 50 years of a mass movement against food shortages.
Held six weeks after Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee-led main opposition Trinamool Congress mobilised lakhs of people in its annual Martyrs’ Day rally, the ruling combine’s show of strength – with claims of nearly 600,000 in attendance – choked traffic in large parts of the city.
Hyderabad, August 31: The stage is set for Telugu Mahila president R.K. Roja to switch loyalties to the Congress. After calling on Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy at his camp office on Sunday she did not rule out reports about her quitting the TDP.
She said she was yet to take a decision on joining the Congress, but indicated it was only a matter of time when she said: “I have no objection to work under a leader (Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy) who cares about his followers and will not leave them when they are in distress.”
Expresses surprise
Hyderabad, August 31: Hard-pressed to make power available at the required level to meet the varied requirements of the 2.11 crore consumers, including 28 lakh farmers free of cost, the Andhra Pradesh government is on a fast-track route to have both Hinduja and BPL power projects completed at the earliest.
After giving the necessary clearances to the projects, it has now set November and December as the deadlines for the Hindujas and BPL, respectively, to achieve financial closures and 2012 to commence generation after a 30-month period.
Kolkata, August 31: Claiming that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is “surrendering to the imperialists” and framing policies adversely hitting the poor, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) patriarch Jyoti Basu Monday said the Left parties will staunchly oppose such moves.
Dubai, August 31: Saudi Arabia’s Interior Minister, Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz, has said a suicide bomber’s attempt on the life of his son on Thursday night will not change the Kingdom’s counter-terrorism strategy which leaves options for “repentant” extremists to surrender.
Speaking to a group of businessmen in Jeddah, Prince Naïf said Thursday’s incident “will not change this policy by which we open the door for those who repent”.
Chennai, August 31: The city-based Shriram EPC, an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company, has decided to make material handling equipment in partnership with an American company, said a top company official here Monday.
“We have been building the material handling systems ourselves for turnkey contracts executed by us. We now intend to get into this business seriously,” Shriram managing director T. Shivaraman told reporters on the sidelines of the company shareholder’s meeting.
Bangalore, August 31: The cream of Indian golfers, including Mukesh Kumar, Digvijay Singh, Rahil Gangjee, Harmeet Kahlon and Shamim Khan, will be seen in action in the Global Green Bangalore Open 2009, a 72-hole strokeplay event, to be held here Sep 2-5.
The tournament will have a total purse of Rs.30 lakhs. The winner will receive Rs.4.8 lakhs.
The venue, the Karnataka Golf Association (KGA), is considered a challenge for golfers with the strategically located hazards and lightening fast greens.
Greater Noida, August 31: A businessman was shot dead while another was critically injured when two motorcycle borne assailants fired at them here, police said Monday.
The incident occurred late Sunday in the Dadri area of Greater Noida.
“Vinod Goel, president of the Dadri Vyapar Sangh was travelling on a motorcycle with another businessman Manoj Goel, when two motorcycle borne assailants opened fire on them,” a police officer said.
Dubai, August 31: Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Monday that parliament would decide whether or not former president Pervez Musharraf should be tried for tampering with the constitution and sacking the Supreme Court judges after imposing an emergency in November 2007.
Gilani made the remarks while speaking to reporters during a visit here, Online news agency reported.
Earlier this month, Gilani said “we should do what is doable” on the Musharraf trial. He urged the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to stop playing to the gallery on the issue.
Kabul, August 31: Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s share of the vote in the hotly disputed Aug 20 presidential election shrank to 45.9 percent Monday, but still ahead of his nearest challenger by more than 12 percent, according to official figures.
Figures posted on the Independent Election Commission’s website showed that former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah garnered 33.3 percent of vote with ballots tallied from 47.8 percent of polling centres in the country.
New Delhi, August 31: Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, who took over as the new chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) Monday, said creation of the post of chief of defence staff (CDS) is in the national interest.
He took over as the chairman, COSC from outgoing Indian Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta. The COSC was constituted to coordinate among the three forces till the time a consensus is reached on the creation of a CDS.
New Delhi, August 31: Unhappy with Pakistan’s lack of action against the Mumbai attackers after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit meeting, India has decided to put on hold a meeting between the foreign secretaries who were expected to meet this month.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is unlikely to go to Islamabad for talks with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Basheer before the foreign ministers of the two countries meet in New York later this month, official sources said.
New Delhi, August 31: The three Congress-ruled states of Haryana, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh will elect new assemblies Oct 13 in the first popularity test after the April-May Lok Sabha elections.
The Election Commission said the results of the single-phase balloting will be known Oct 22.
Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla said the date of polling was decided after studying climatic conditions, academic schedules, festivals, law and order condition and availability of central police forces.
New Delhi, August 31: The Supreme Court Monday admitted CPI-M Kerala state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s plea against the state governor’s approval to the Central Bureau of Investigation to prosecute him for his alleged role in a corruption case as a minister in 1997.
A bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice B.S. Reddy admitted Vijayan’s lawsuit directly for hearing, skipping preliminary formalities like issuing notices to various parties to the lawsuit and seeking their replies, as it involved some important questions of law.
Kabul, August 31: The commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan said Monday in an assessment of the war that a new strategy was needed to fight the Taliban, while NATO officials disclosed he is expected to separately request more troops.
Increasing U.S. forces is a hot-button issue that could ignite furious debate in Washington on the U.S. military’s future in an increasingly unpopular war. Some Democratic senators have increased calls for a timeline to draw down troops.
New Delhi, August 31: The government is mulling a uniform licence fee for various services offered by telecom operators, a top official said here Monday.
“The DoT (Department of Telecommunications) is considering implementing a uniform licence fee,” said Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura at a conference organised by the Internet Service Providers Association of India.
Telecom operators currently pay between 6 percent and 10 percent of their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) to the government as licence fees for the right to offer telephony and related services.
New Delhi, August 31: Seeking to draw a line under the controversy surrounding last month’s meeting between Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan on Saturday replied in the negative when asked whether the Sharm el-Sheikh summit between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan had been a step forward. “But,” he hastened to add, “it certainly wasn’t a step backward.”
Mumbai, August 31: Buoyed by the victory in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance in Maharashtra is confident of taking on the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (SS-BJP) combine in the Oct 13 assembly elections.
In sharp contrast, discontent prevails in the SS-BJP camp as poll dates were announced Monday.
However, the ruling Democratic Front (DF) alliance is wary of the newly-united Third Front and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
Shimla, August 31: Higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh experienced moderate snowfall, officials said Monday.
“Higher reaches of tribal Lahaul and Spiti district have experienced moderate snowfall since Sunday night. This (snowfall) was after a gap of more than four months,” public relations officer of Lahaul and Spiti district Sher Singh told IANS on phone.
The Lady of Keylong peak in Lahaul and Spiti district and the Rohtang Pass in Kullu district have also received snowfall, he said.
Los Angeles, August 31: The Walt Disney Co. said Monday it is buying Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E.
Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters. Many of them, including the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee.
Mumbai, August 31: Buoyed by the victory in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance in Maharashtra is confident of taking on the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (SS-BJP) combine in the Oct 13 assembly elections.
In sharp contrast, discontent prevails in the SS-BJP camp as poll dates were announced Monday.
However, the ruling Democratic Front (DF) alliance is wary of the newly-united Third Front and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
New Delhi, August 31: In his first substantive comments on relations with Pakistan since the July 16 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said that averting another major Mumbai-like incident was the government’s top priority and that unless Islamabad took “real action” against those involved in terrorism, the progress it had reported so far in the Mumbai case would amount to “a chimera.”
New Delhi, August 31: The following are some comments by experts and representatives of Indian industry on India’s gross domestic product (GDP) during the first quarter of this fiscal, which expanded 6.1 percent:
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission: It is consistent with what we have been maintaining. This definitely shows the worst is finally over. We expect to see improved performance in subsequent quarters.