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UK for ‘Good Friday’ accord model to solve Kashmir issue
Kashmiri separatist leader Thakur dead US urges restraint in Pak missile programme 5 Indians jailed for kidnapping
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2 of Indian origin get life term 2 NRIs denied ‘marriage’ licence 4 Britons held on return from US camp
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UK for ‘Good Friday’ accord model to solve London, March 10 The 1998 “Good Friday” accord can form the basis for resolution of the India-Pakistan disputes, including the contentious Kashmir issue, according to a wide spectrum of political leaders in Britain — from top government functionaries to Members of Parliament to leaders of the Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, and other political groups of Northern Ireland. British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mike O’Brien also suggested that the leadership of the two countries take a cue from the 1998 agreement and resolve their problems peacefully and amicably. A group of Indian journalists, mainly from Jammu and Kashmir, were taken to Northern Ireland where senior functionaries of the Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (UDP) gave a detailed briefing on the trendsetting accord, which has virtually marked the cessation of terrorist violence in the region. However, there have been several roadblocks in the full implementation of the agreement and the British Government was forced to suspend the Irish Assembly due to a deadlock among the political groups on some critical issues. Security officials from Northern Ireland, including Ian Kerr and Geoff Beattie, briefed the delegation on important clauses of the agreement, devolution of powers and security-related issues.
— UNI |
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Kashmiri separatist leader Thakur dead London, March 10 He was 55. He is survived by his wife and two children. He died at 1000 hrs GMT (3.30 pm IST). Thakur was ailing from some time as his lungs and other vital organs were not functioning. He was on a life-support system. His brother was by his bedside when he died. His wife and two children are living in Baramula district of Jammu and Kashmir. The funeral will be held here on March 12 after the Friday prayers.
— UNI |
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US urges restraint in Pak missile programme Washington, March 10 “We continue to urge Pakistan and other countries in the region to exercise restraint in their nuclear weapons and missile programmes, as part of an ongoing effort to relieve tensions and build confidence in the region,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday in response to Islamabad’s test-firing of its first 2,000 km-range surface-to-surface Shaheen-II ballistic missile. “We understand that Pakistan notified neighbouring countries before the test,” he said. Pakistan’s test-firing of the missile yesterday came in the midst of Indo-Pak peace process and was apparently aimed at matching India’s Agni-II ballistic missile having a strike range of over 2,000 km.
— PTI |
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5 Indians jailed for kidnapping Singapore, March 10 It said the teenager’s father, Selvaraj Shunmujam, owed one of the captors, Allagan Naliappan, $ 9,410, but hadn’t repaid his debt. Naliappan confronted Shunmujam about the money in July, 2003, and took the son, Vigneshvaran (18), with him when Shunmujam was unable to come up with the cash. Naliappan and four accomplices were arrested after Shunmujam was unable to come up with the cash. Naliappan and four accomplices were arrested after Shunmujam arranged to hand over the money for his son’s release, the ‘Straits Times’ newspaper said. A court convicted all five men, and sentenced Naliappan to nine months in prison, while sentencing another man, Ganesan Nachiappan, to eight months, the newspaper added. The other men were sentenced to seven months each.
— AP |
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2 of Indian origin get life term Durban, March 10 They were found guilty of killing Krisnavelli Pillay (19), Levera Naidoo (17) and Rashida Abdulla Khan (16) in a
sugarcane field on October 16, 2002. The girls were shot dead after they allegedly witnessed Thevar and Gumede stealing a firearm and attacking a person. The sentencing came when another high profile case involving the killing of three Indian men by three black Africans was taken up by the Durban High Court. In this case, the court was hearing evidence on how Krishna Govender, Clive Pillay, Thagaraj Pillay and Karthigasan Naicker were kidnapped from a sports stadium in Chatsworth on August 23, 2002 and then taken to a lonely spot. Three of them were allegedly stabbed to death while Naicker survived by pretending to be dead.
— PTI |
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2 NRIs denied ‘marriage’ licence Washington, March 10 The two, Vegavahini Subramaniam and Vaijayanthimala Nagarajan, who go by the names of “Vega” and “Mala”, said they were denied a “marriage” licence in King County in Washington state on Monday in response to which they had filed a suit against the state, according to a media report.
— PTI |
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4 Britons held on return from US camp London, March 10 The fifth man released from the controversial US camp at Guantanamo Bay was detained for questioning.
— AFP |
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Study unravels Uranus mystery Paris, March 10 The evidence from Earth, Jupiter and Saturn determined that a planet’s magnetic field should be like that of a bar magnet, with a north and south pole that runs roughly along the sphere’s rotational axis. But Uranus — and Neptune, too, Voyager found — is radically different. Their magnetic fields are tipped over (the north-to-south line lies midway to the equator or even closer) and there are two north and two south poles, as if the field were produced by two bar magnets. The reason for this, according to a new theory published in British journal Nature, is that the underlying structures of Uranus and Neptune are radically different from what was previously assumed about these cold, distant planets. Planetary magnetic fields are created like a dynamo: beneath the planet’s surface, there is an electrically conductive fluid, which is driven around by an energy source. In the case of Earth, for instance, the planet’s solid inner core is bathed in a molten iron-rich fluid, which is propelled around by the planet’s rotation and by convection currents, which transfer heat from the core towards the surface. And in Jupiter and Saturn, the magnetic field is believed to derive from a thick layer of sub-surface hydrogen, compressed by gigantic pressures into an electric soup of protons and electrons, which revolves around a small solid core. Where Neptune and Uranus differ, the new study says, is that even though they are gas giants, their interior structure is different from those of Jupiter and Saturn. It suggests that these two outer planets may have only a thin layer of metallic convicting fluid. This has a big effect on the magnetic field, limiting it to a thin “shell” just under the gassy hydrogen surface. That phenomenon may also cause the field to be tipped on its side compared to the rotational axis and also inflict the “quadrupole” effect. |
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