Month: April 2010

Thimphu, April 28: Heads of eight South Asian countries, including Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will on Wednesday seek a joint initiative to tackle climate change threats and also boost trade and regional cooperation among SAARC nations that more often than not do not see eye to eye with each other on most issues.

As the 16th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference gets under way in this serene and pollution-free capital city of Bhutan the summit’s key theme “Towards a Green and Happy South Asia” seems only apt.

Tehran, April 28: UN Security Council member Brazil demanded on Tuesday that Iran guarantee its nuclear programme has no military aims, saying the crisis has become the single most important security issue in the world.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said his country will work to avoid new sanctions against Iran, but urged Tehran and world powers to show “flexibility” over an atomic fuel deal stalled for several months.

Yale, April 28: Vajinder Toor, a 34 year old Indian origin doctor teaching at Yale University is gunned down in the parking lot outside his condominium in this New Haven suburb.

According to Branford Police spokesman Lt. Geoffrey Morgan, Toor was shot multiple times. Even, the shooter also fired at Dr. Toor’s six-months-pregnant wife, but missed.

Shortly after the incident, the police arrested Lishan Wang, a 44-year-old Chinese emigre, about a mile from the scene as he drove toward I-95.

New York, April 28: An American student who studied in London has admitted that he helped a friend deliver some protective clothing to an al-Qaida military commander fighting Americans in Afghanistan.

The plea by Pakistani-born Syed Hashmi to a single count of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida was entered in US District Court in Manhattan, averting a trial that was supposed to begin today.

Rome, April 28: A politically connected priest on trial for allegedly sexually molesting young boys proclaimed his innocence and denounced what he said was “mud” being thrown on the Pope concerning the clerical abuse scandal.

The Rev Ruggero Conti made a spontaneous declaration during a court hearing in Rome. He is accused of sexual violence and prostitution concerning seven young boys who frequented his parish in a working class neighbourhood of Rome.

Bangkok, April 28: Protesters in Thailand pushing for early elections threatened mobile rallies across Bangkok on Wednesday in defiance of a state of emergency, which would increase the risk of clashes with troops or rival protest groups.

The capital was relatively calm overnight and the number of demonstrators at the “red shirt” rally in an upmarket shopping district of the capital was little more than 1,000 at dawn.

United Nations, April 28: The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution that seeks the creation of a special body to prosecute pirates caught off the Somali coast and asks all countries to criminalise piracy.

The Russian-drafted resolution, which passed unanimously by all 15 member-states of the Security Council, appealed to all countries “to criminalise piracy under their domestic law and favourably consider the prosecution of suspected, and imprisonment of convicted, pirates apprehended off the coast of Somalia, consistent with applicable international human rights law.”

New York, April 28: The killer of African-American rights activist Malcolm X was freed today after more than four decades in the prison system, an official said.

“He was released today. His release was approved,” said Linda Foglia, spokeswoman, at the New York state department of correctional services.

Thomas Hagan, who confessed to the 1965 shooting of Malcolm X, had been partially free on work release for the last 22 years, although he was still required to spend two nights a week at a low-security Manhattan prison.

Augusta, April 28: An American citizen on a flight from Paris to Atlanta claimed to have a fake passport and said he had explosives in his luggage, forcing federal air marshals to intervene and the plane to land in Maine, US officials have said.

The officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, believe the man’s passport is authentic.

Chicago, April 28: An Indian-origin doctor at the Yale School of Medicine was shot dead by a Chinese colleague, who also tried to kill victim’s pregnant wife, police said.

Vajinder Toor (34) was shot multiple times in the parking lot outside his condominium in the New Haven suburb on Tuesday, according to Branford police spokesman Lt Geoffrey Morgan.

The police has charged Toor’s former colleague Dr Lishan Wang in the killing. Wang was a former colleague of Dr Toor s at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Mexico City, April 28: More than 2,700 bullets were fired at a Mexican official in a failed attempt on her life, an official has said.

Public safety secretary Minerva Bautista Gomez, who was wounded in the attack in the western state of Michoacan, “is now stable and she’ll leave the hospital very soon”, the official said Tuesday.

The secretary was attacked on Saturday on a Michoacan highway that had been blocked with a trailer by the hit men.

Two of her bodyguards and two civilians were killed in the attack, while Bautista and nine others were wounded.