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India, Lanka working on defence pact Indo-China border talks this month Singapore tightens SARS defences Indonesia’s SC rejects appeal of Bali bomber |
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Indian sentenced for molestation
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India, Lanka working on defence pact Islamabad, January 7 “Defence co-operation between India and Sri Lanka is on the increase. India is training our armed personnel. A defence cooperation agreement will be discussed shortly,” Ms Kumaratunga, who was here to attend the 12th SAARC Summit, said in an interview before her departure for home. She said Indo-Sri Lanka relations had taken off on many fronts, especially in areas of defence and trade. “The India-Lanka Free Trade Treaty, too, is working well to our satisfaction,” she said. Ms Kumaratunga, who is also holding the defence portfolio, said in recent years, India had gradually changed its wait and watch policy after pulling out the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1990 following differences with the then President R. Pemadasa. “There is a gradual change of policy in Delhi. It is coming up slowly after India very justifiably approached its relations with Colombo with caution after the IPKF experience,” she said.
— PTI |
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Indo-China border talks this month Beijing, January 7 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan did not announce the dates of the second round of meetings, he said the two special representatives — Mr
Brajesh Mishra and his Chinese counterpart Dai Bingguo — would be meeting in Beijing in January after the first round in New Delhi on October 23-24 last year.
— PTI |
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Singapore tightens SARS defences Singapore, January 7 A 32-year-old television producer in southern China’s Guangzhou province was this week diagnosed as having SARS. “It’s just a precautionary measure,” Bey Mui Leng, a Health Ministry spokeswoman, said today, noting Hong Kong’s proximity to Guangzhou. Singapore was the world’s fifth-most affected region in a SARS outbreak last year that began in southern China and was spread by travellers. BEIJING: China’s first SARS patient for six months said he had never had contact with civet cats as concerns mounted on Wednesday over a mass slaughter of animals, which are suspected of spreading the disease. The 32-year-old television producer in southern China said he did not know how he caught the pneumonia-like illness and had never eaten or touched the animals, and had not been to wildlife markets recently. The patient, identified by his surname Luo, recalled only having thrown a baby mouse out of the window. MANILA: A Filipino woman suspected of contracting SARS while working as a maid in Hong Kong has pneumonia, not the virus that killed 800 persons around the world last year, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said on Wednesday. The woman and her husband were isolated when they developed fever after she returned home in late December from Hong Kong, which was hard-hit by last year’s outbreak after it swept out of southern China and was spread by travellers. |
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Indonesia’s SC rejects appeal of Bali bomber Indonesia, January 7 Lawyers for the militant, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, said they had yet to be informed of the verdict, but said they would file a judicial review of the case with the Supreme Court — a process that could take months or years. Pri Pambudi Teguh, a spokesman for the Supreme Court, said a three-judge panel threw out Amrozi’s appeal yesterday. Amrozi was the first of the 29 militants convicted in the attack to appeal to the Supreme Court. The October 12, 2002, bombings ripped through a nightclub district on the tourist island, killing 202 persons mostly foreigners.
— AP |
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Kanishka trial key witness of ‘unknown reliability’ Vancouver, January 7 Willie Laurie, a former agent with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, conceded in the testimony yesterday that the credibility of the woman’s statements to him that Ajaib Singh Bagri was involved in the 1985 Kanishka bombing and a failed plot to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi could not be established, local media reported today. Dealing a jolt to the prosecution, which is banking on the woman’s statements and diary accounts to pin the accused, Mr Laurie told the defence lawyer that the CSIS did not verify her accounts. He agreed with Bagri’s lawyer Michael Tammen that the only information linking him with the alleged unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Gandhi was the account provided to him by the woman, but said the CSIS did not verify her account, the Globe and Mail reported. During the third day of testimony, He also said he was not aware of corroboration for additional damning information given by the woman, including whether Bagri had visited her after the Air-India disaster and threatened her if she divulged secrets she shared. Bagri and co-accused Ripudaman Singh Malik are facing murder and conspiracy charges in the June 23, 1985, bombing which killed 331 persons.
— PTI |
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Vajpayee orders Pak sherwanis
Islamabad, January 7 Karachi-based designers Amir Adnan and his wife Huma told The News that Mr Vajpayee had on his flight to Islamabad expressed to his entourage that he wished he landed in Pakistan wearing a sherwani. In Islamabad when his hosts asked him about what kind of traditional present he would like to have, he, according to the designers, said he had a profound liking for sherwani. Amir and Huma said Mr Vajpayee came across as a “very pleasant, soft and decent person.”
— PTI |
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Indian sentenced for molestation Bangkok, January 7 District Judge Victor Yeo found 37-year-old Vidya Shankar Aiyar, a former talk show host, guilty of molesting the 30-year-old woman after taking her home from a party, the Strait Times reported. The victim, who was not identified, was intoxicated and had not consented, the judge said yesterday. The judge described Aiyar’s conduct as “repugnant” saying he had “abused” his position of trust and “took advantage of the helpless woman”. Aiyar, a bachelor who worked for MediaCorp for three years as a broadcast journalist and a presenter, is planning to appeal the decision.
— PTI |
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