Month: September 2014

Kenya will partner with the US to fight against terrorism that has affected some sectors of the East African country’s economy.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Interior Monica Juma said Friday Kenya was glad to have a partner like the US that is committed in the terror campaign to wipe out agents of horror and fear.

“The threat of terrorism affects all countries, and all nations of goodwill must join hands to combat the peril that has, of late, intimidated the world like it has never been experienced in the past,” Xinhua quoted Juma as saying.

Cooperation between Iran and the US in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) is impossible, a senior Iranian military commander said Friday.

“Such cooperation is not possible at all, because Iran is standing against the IS, as the United States has created the IS,” Xinhua quoted Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Masoud Jazayeri, as saying.

IS militants by no means can approach the border regions of Iran, as they will face the might of the Iranian armed forces, Jazayeri added.

Former CAG Vinod Rai’s remarks on the role of former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G and coal block allocation led to a verbal brawl between the BJP and the Congress with the ruling party terming the charges “serious” while the latter accused Rai of a “publicity stunt”.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the charges are now revealing the real picture and proving that Manmohan Singh did not have any power in his hands.

Pope Francis, pope of the Catholic Church, will hold a public mass along the iconic shoreline of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo during his visit in January next year, an official said Friday while announcing official details of the tour.

The mass on Colombo’s Galle Face will be held on the morning of January 14, 2015. The mass will be closely followed by a visit to the Madhu Church in northern Sri Lanka, which is considered to be the oldest Christian shrine in the island, the Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, told reporters, Xinhua reported.

The European Union (EU) Friday announced to delay implementation of the association agreement with Ukraine until the end of 2015.

EU Trade Commissioner Karl De Gucht, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin and Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Alexei Ulyukayev in a trilateral ministerial meeting agreed on the importance of promoting trade liberalisation in support of growth and greater prosperity, in line with their WTO obligations, Xinhua reported.

All the 45 recently released Fijian blue helmets were welcomed back to a camp of the UN force in the Golan Heights, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Friday.

“The 45 previously-detained Fijian peacekeepers in the Golan were welcomed back yesterday (Thursday) to the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) Camp Faouar by the Force Commander, Lieutenant General Iqbal Singh Singha, as well as other mission colleagues,” Xinhua quoted Dujarric as saying at a press briefing.

“The 45 soldiers have undergone a medical assessment,” he said.

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease has severely disrupted health services for children in Liberia, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned Friday as efforts were intensified to halt the spread of the deadly disease.

Sheldon Yett, UNICEF’s representative in Liberia, stressed that child mortality in this African country has significantly slumped over the past decade, but now “Ebola is threatening to wipe out all those hard-earned gains for children and for Liberia”, Xinhua reported.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a food assistance programme for people affected by the current conflict with distributions in transit centres and public shelters in Donetsk and Luhansk in the country’s east, a UN spokesperson said Friday.

The WFP kicked off the relief operation following a request from the Ukrainian government, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a daily press briefing here, Xinhua reported.

Russia considers Washington’s new anti-Russian sanctions as another hostile step, the Russian foreign ministry said Friday.

“We consider Washington’s new anti-Russian sanctions as a next hostile step on the US administration’s confrontational course,” the ministry said in a statement Friday.

Romania’s population will not be affected by interruptions in gas supply in the coming winter, Minister-delegate for Energy Razvan Nicolescu said Friday.

Nicolescu said that this is one of two conclusions drawn after his discussion with natural gas transporter Transgaz, and oil and gas producers Petrom and Romgaz, about the national situation on gas supply for the winter, Xinhua reported.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Friday called for commitment to South-South cooperation to ensure shared prosperity and sustainable development.

“Extreme poverty, rampant inequality, malnutrition and vulnerability to climate and weather-related shocks persist,” Ban said in his message to mark the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation which is observed Sep 12, Xinhua reported.

Despite remarkable advances in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, Ban said, progress across the South has been uneven.

The Armed Forces and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have rescued over 1,27,000 people affected by the floods in Jammu and Kashmir as part of the ongoing rescue and relief operations in the state.

Retired American general John Allen is being tasked with coordinating a global coalition in support of US-led efforts to combat the Islamic State militant group running amok in Syria and Iraq, the State Department said Friday.

The retired Marine Corps four-star general was named as the special presidential envoy by Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in the Middle East trying to mobilise regional support for Washington’s expanding battle against the radical group, Xinhua quoted State Department spokesperson Marie Harf as saying.

President Pranab Mukherjee will visit Vietnam from September 14 during which a number of pacts are expected to be inked including cooperation in strategic oil sector that may not go down well with China which has been protesting Indian presence in oil blocks in South China Sea.

During the four-day visit, the President would hold talks with top Vietnamese leadership on international, regional and bilateral issues including cooperation in key areas of security and air connectivity.

A 15-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly gang-raped by three youths in a bus stand in Hanumangarh district’s Mallisar, police said on Friday.

The incident took place on the night of September 10 and the girl was recovered the bus stand in an unconscious state yesterday morning.

In an FIR filed at Bhadra police station yesterday, the girl’s father alleged that she was lured by Vikas Jat, Jeetu, and one unidentified youth to the bus stand around 10 PM on Wednesday and raped.

Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptualla Friday called upon the people to ensure communal harmony in the country, adding that the government alone cannot do it.

Speaking at a function of the minority affairs ministry here, she referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message from the Red Fort on Independence Day on communal harmony.

“Let us honour the prime minister’s word and spare no effort to ensure communal harmony and peace,” she said.

Defence research agency DRDO has sent nine tonnes of ready-to-eat meals appealing to local taste buds for flood-ravaged areas here.

It has also established a communication link between the CRPF in Srinagar and the Home Ministry through a satellite communication netwrok.

“Nine tonnes of Ready-to-Eat (RTE) packaged foods appealing to the local tastes was prepared and packed on warfooting at Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) Mysore, which prepares such meals for the armed forces,” a DRDO release said.

Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asim Bajwa of the Pakistan army on Friday said that the army was fully committed to upholding the Pakistani constitution and democracy.

Speaking at a press conference, Bajwa said that the Pakistan army had “clearly extended its support for supremacy of the constitution.” At the press conference, he also ruled out any connection with the ongoing ‘political activity’ in the city.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday asserted her Trinamool Congress “has not taken” a penny from the tainted Saradha Group and accused the opposition parties of protecting the “real culprits”.

Under fire from the opposition after the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the multi-crore rupee Saradha chit fund scam, arrested a Trinamool leader Rajat Majumdar and interrogated a number of her party leaders and MPs, Banerjee said the issue was raised by her opponents only before elections.

A Saudi and an Iraqi convicted of murder and a Saudi convicted of drugs trafficking were beheaded in Riyadh today, the interior ministry said.

Fahd al-Said and Iraqi Abderrahman al-Muaissab were found guilty of causing the death of Hossa bin Abid by breaking into her home, attacking her and tying her up so they could rob her, a ministry statement reported by state news agency SPA said.

In the other case, Saudi Saad al-Oteibi, a repeat offender, was executed for bringing “a large quantity of amphetamines” and hashish into the kingdom, the ministry said.

President Pranab Mukherjee will travel to Vietnam on a state visit from September 14 to September 15.

In a press conference conducted by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), it was announced that during his visit, the President will meet Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, President Truong Tan Sang and General Secretary of the Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong. (ANI)

Following the production of the “missing” case papers in the Salman Khan hit-and-run case, the trial against the actor will resume before the sessions court here from Sep 24.

The prosecution Friday informed the court that all the original documents – barring one – pertaining to witness statements and case diaries “missing” since the past few months have been found.

Producing the 63 documents, the prosecution also assured Sessions Judge D. W. Deshpande that the single missing document would also be traced out soon.

The US Friday slapped tougher sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis, targeting Russia’s largest bank and leading energy and defence technology firms.

The US added Russia’s largest bank — Sberbank of Russia — to the existing prohibitions on US persons providing equity or certain long-term debt financing and tightened the debt financing restrictions on six Russian banks, Xinhua quoted the US Treasury Department as saying in a statement.

The Supreme Court on Friday held that three percent reservation for differently-abled persons be given in all category of government jobs including in appointments and promotions to IAS while pulling up the Centre for “frustrating” the very purpose of empowering legislation by opposing it.

A bench headed by Chief Justice RM Lodha said the disabled persons have not got their due in the last 19 years after framing of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, which was passed in 1995.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Ankara Friday for talks aimed at building a coalition against Islamic State jihadists, a visit that comes after Turkey said it would not allow its air bases to be used for strikes on the extremists.

The top US diplomat, touring the Middle East to establish a coalition of more than 40 countries, is to meet with Turkey`s leaders including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks on measures to defeat the militants in Iraq and Syria.