Beirut, February 28: Hundreds of people braved a cold, driving rain Sunday to march in support of toppling the country’s sectarian political system, which the demonstrators blame for corruption and impoverishing the public.
Protestors held banners reading “The people want to topple the sectarian regime,” and chanted “Revolution has arrived in Lebanon,” hoping to capitalize the wave of pro-change fever sweeping the Arab world.
Beirut, February 28: President Michel Sleiman held talks Saturday with a number of Arab and international leaders on the sidelines of an official visit to Kuwait to participate in ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the Persian Gulf country’s independence.
Sleiman held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad, his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul, Qatari Prince Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Spanish King Juan Carlos and Iraqi President Jalal Talbani.
New Delhi, February 28: Presenting Union Budget 2011-12 in Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee focused on taming inflation, price rise, and increasing investments in infrastructure and agriculture.
Pranab said inflation has remained above the comfort level for most part of the current fiscal and is another focus area.
The overall inflation at 8.23% is higher than the comfort level of the Reserve Bank at 5-6%, he said. The minister added that food inflation had also touched a high of 18.23% in December, but moderated to 11.49 % in mid-February.
Budget Highlights
Beirut, February 28: A man who was arrested last week on suspicion of spying for Israel confessed over the weekend to collaborating with the Jewish state, according to a statement from the Internal Security Forces (ISF).
Beirut, February 28: Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati said Sunday that he would mull other options with President Michel Sleiman if the March 14 coalition decided not to participate in his government.
Mikati spoke a few hours before the March 14 groups announced that they will not participate in his government and will go to the opposition.
Washington, February 28: President Barack Obama extended US support on Sunday for a “national dialogue” in Bahrain, and said it should be “inclusive, non-sectarian and responsive” to the people of the Gulf kingdom.
Obama’s statement came a day after King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa reshuffled his cabinet and allowed the return to the country of an exiled opposition leader after 13 days of protests.
Obama welcomed the changes and the King’s reaffirmation of his commitment to reform.
Vijayawada, February 28: A Task Force team, led by inspectors K Govindaraju and G Ramakrishna, busted a cricket betting racket by conducting a raid at Madhuranagar yesterday.
Five persons were arrested for organising cricket betting for the world cup matches. A sum of Rs 2.1 lakh, a laptop, a colour TV, 12 mobile phones, an amplifier and bookies’ sheets were seized from them.
Disclosing this to newsmen, DCP M Ravindranath Babu said Chimmiri Rangarao of Madhuranagar was running the racket with the help of Juluri Veeranjaneyulu.
Chittoor, February 28: The prices of tomato which hovered between Rs 35 and Rs 40 in the month of January, fell by 70 percent in the first two weeks of February and dropped to rock bottom since the last three days.
Yesterday, they were no takers for it for even 25 paise per kilogram in Madanapalle market, the prime market for tomato, in the region. The tomato farmers were so distressed that they threw some of their produce on roads and resorted to rasta-roko at Madanapalle Market Yard.
Lahore, February 28: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has alleged that President Asif Ali Zardari had once threatened that the Sharifs would be disqualified if the PML-N did not support Dogar (former chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar) courts.
“President Zardari said to me in a meeting that Justice Dogar should be given three-year extension and warned that otherwise the Sharifs would be thrown out of politics,” he said at a ceremony held here on Sunday in memory of Hameed Nizami, the founder of Nawa-i-Waqt group of newspapers.
Quetta, February 28: A district and sessions judge and a civil judge of Sibi were kidnapped in Jaffarabad district on Sunday, while four senior lawyers of the Balochistan High Court, kidnapped five days earlier, are yet to be traced.
Lawyers’ associations have announced a boycott of courts in the province on Monday and threatened to hold protest rallies if the kidnapped judges and lawyers are not recovered.
Lahore, February 28: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has rejected allegations levelled by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif that his province was being deliberately deprived of natural gas.He said there was no discrimination among provinces as far as gas loadshedding was concerned.
Mr Gilani said he had offered to take the issue of gas to the Council of Common Interests to clear rumours about discrimination because his meetings with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif were not the proper forum to resolve the issue.
Nicosia, February 28: Al-Qaeda’s Egyptian-born number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has said the United States is installing sympathetic new regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, demanding Muslims rise up against “whippers” and “invaders”.
The SITE monitoring service said Monday that Zawahiri had released the third of a series of audio messages on uprisings in the Arab world, recorded between the fall of Tunisia’s regime and Hosni Mubarak’s government in Egypt.
Gaza, February 28: A Palestinian was killed Sunday when an Israeli tank opened fire on a group of fighters east of Gaza City, medical sources and witnesses said.
Spokesmen for the Islamic Jihad group said the dead man belonged to their organization.
The witnesses said the tank on the Israeli side of the border opened fire on the group, amid rising tensions following rocket and mortar attacks on Israel and air raids launched in reprisal.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli military denied there had been “any attack” by Israel’s forces against Gaza Sunday.
Sanaa, February 28: Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed Sunday to defend his three-decade regime “with every drop of blood,” accusing opponents of hijacking protests in a ploy to split the nation.
Anti-government protests were held Sunday in cities across Yemen, including the capital of Sanaa, the city of Taiz and the port of Aden.
Despite two weeks of escalating protests demanding that he step down, Saleh has repeatedly refused to resign.
Cairo, February 28: Egypt’s military rulers are likely this week to lift restrictions that have long crushed political opposition and call a referendum on constitutional reforms next month, a lawyer who helped draft the changes said Sunday.
Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Sunday he intends to run for president.
The military is set to cancel a law which gave ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s administration the power to decide who was allowed to form a party, said Sobhi Saleh, a member of the 10-man judicial committee appointed by the military council.
Tripoli, February 28: Armed Libyans opposed to Moammar Gadhafi were in control of the city of Zawiyah, close to Tripoli, Sunday as the Libyan leader again vowed to cling on to power while the U.N. and many nations began moving to isolate him from the international community.
A doctor at a makeshift clinic in the town mosque said 24 people had been killed in fighting with government loyalists over the previous three days.
The rebels said about 2,000 troops loyal to Gadhafi had surrounded the city and said they were bracing for an attack.
Hyderabad, February 28: Former chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) K S Sudarshan on Sunday made a vitriolic attack on former Prime Minister late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru stating that he was a “foreign agent” who worked against the interest of the nation.
Addressing a meeting after releasing a book ‘Om Rashtriya Swaha’, a translation from Marathi to Telugu, Sudarshan blamed Jawaharlal Nehru for the problems that India is facing today particularly in Kashmir.
Mogadishu, February 28: At least 24 people have been killed and 15 injured in violent clashes between Somali government troops and al-Shabab fighters south of the capital Mogadishu, witnesses say.
The victims, mostly civilians, were caught in the crossfire in the ongoing conflict between the warring sides, a Media correspondent reported.
Mortar shells reportedly fired from government forces positions missed their targets and landed at houses in Bula Hawo, a strategic town across neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia in Southern Somalia.
Bangalore, February 28:
Sachin Tendulkar on Sunday reached another milestone as he became the highest century-maker in World Cup history by scoring his fifth hundred in the prestigious event.
The 37-year-old Tendulkar reached the landmark during the group B clash against England when he glanced burly paceman Tim Bresnan for a boundary towards the fine leg region in the first ball of the 35th over. It was his 47th ODI century and his 98th overall.
Tripoli, February 28: For a self-professed (and self-deluded) man of the people, Moammar Gadhafi has, over more than four decades of thievery and oppression, amassed an obscene amount of money.
He may claim parenthood of the “Third Way” between Marxism and capitalism but his multiple bank accounts fall resoundingly in favor of a tyrannical corruption of the later.
Arghandar, February 28: Two bomb explosions on Sunday tore through a gathering of villagers watching a dogfight in the southern Afghanistan province of Kandahar, killing at least 10, officials said.
Zemarai Bashary, Afghan interior ministry spokesman in Kabul, told AFP the bombing in Arghandab district targeted villagers and a police vehicle, killing eight civilians and two police.
“There have been two bomb blasts, one at the middle of a gathering and the other on the side of the road nearby. Eight civilians have been killed, two cops have been killed,” the spokesman said.
Houston, February 28: A Boston couple have offered to sell their own body parts to pay off their children’s $2,00,000 student loan.
“Use my body for anything legal, or medically experimental . Simply pay off all of my children’s student loans and you can use me anyway you need,” an advertisement said asking “Do you need a live ‘cadaver?'” posted on Craigslist Boston in the “jobs wanted” section of the website.
Houston, February 28:
A high school teenager is being held in custody in US until the court determines whether he is a danger to the community following charges that he used internet information to build seven bombs that exploded at different locations during the last two weeks.
London, February 28: England wicketkeeper Steve Davies has become the country’s first professional cricket player to publicly announce he is gay.
“It is something I have lived for a long time with and I am really comfortable about things with now,” Davies said. “I have got nothing to hide and I am ready to tell people.”
Ras Jedir, February 28:
More than 10,000 people fled Libya into Tunisia at the Ras Jedir post on Saturday, most of them Egyptians, the Red Crescent said Sunday, calling it a “humanitarian crisis”.
“More than 10,000 people passed through Ras Jedir yesterday,” the organisation’s regional president in Ben Guerdane, the main border town, Monji Slim said.
More than 40,000 have come through this border post in the past week, including more than 15,000 Egyptians. The flood of arrivals was continuing Sunday.