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Tributes paid to 9/11 victims
Indo-Pak talks people-driven, says Chatterjee
Soldier pleads guilty to prison abuse
Book on Bush raises storm
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2 Indians arrested in Bangladesh
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Tributes paid to 9/11 victims
Washington, September 11 The President’s September 11 observances — very similar to how he spent the anniversary last year — began with a service of prayer and remembrance at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House. Then at 8:46 a.m. local time, the exact minute three years ago that terrorists smashed the first jetliner into the World Trade Center, the President and First Lady Laura Bush presided over a moment of silence on the South Lawn. A little over an hour later, surrounded by relatives of victims of the attacks, firefighters and other emergency services personnel, Mr Bush took the rare step of delivering his weekly radio address live from the Oval Office. In about five minutes of remarks, he paid tributes to those who died, expressed gratitude to troops fighting the war against terror and reviewed some of the steps taken to protect the nation from future attack, said a senior White House official. Like last year, Mr Bush signed two proclamations designating September 11 as a national day of prayer and remembrance and the other designating the day as Patriot Day. Meanwhile, dignitaries, community leaders and relatives of victims stood at Ground Zero and gave voice to the names of the dead. Last year, the children of victims took up that task. And today, once again, the names of the 2,749 persons lost in the World Trade Center attack were to be read aloud — this time by parents and grandparents of those lost in the attacks three years ago. At the Pentagon, where 184 persons were killed that day by another hijacked plane, officials laid a wreath and observe a moment of silence. In Pennsylvania, bells toll across the state at the minute the fourth plane went down, killing the 40 passengers and crew aboard Flight 93. Nationwide, communities observed the day in their own ways, with services at local firehouses, memorial dedications, bell-ringing events and flag ceremonies. Meanwhile, the agency that owned the World Trade Center said it would file a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia for damages it suffered on September 11, 2001, noting 84 of its employees were killed in the air attacks. Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, declined to say why the agency sought to hold Saudi Arabia responsible or whether it would also sue other entities. CAIRO: Arabs across the West Asia mourned the death of victims of the September 11 attacks carried out by 19 Arab men, but most blamed the U.S.-led war on terror and Washington’s support of Israel for spreading, not reducing, global militancy and instability. SCHEVENINGEN, The
Netherlands: European Union finance ministers bowed their heads in silence at a meeting on Saturday to mark the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the USA.
— AP |
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Afghans mark 9/11 anniversary with mixed feelings
Bagram Air Base (Afghanistan), September 11 Outside the USA, there is probably nowhere in the world where the repercussions of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were felt more than in Afghanistan. Three years on, the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the world’s worst act of terror, are still unknown and his Al-Qaida group taunts the USA from the rugged Afghan interior. His Taliban protectors, vanquished by a US-led onslaught that drove them from power nine weeks after September 11,2001, are slowly regrouping.
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Indo-Pak talks people-driven, says Chatterjee
New York, September 11 Mr Chatterjee said he had met Pakistanis at various levels and found they desired the two countries to live in peace and have friendly relations. Asked during a press conference here yesterday how long the dialogue process would take, Mr Chatterjee said, “I am not an astrologer, but processes that are ‘people-driven’ succeed.” Mr Chatterjee, who was on way back home after attending a Speakers’ meeting of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Toronto, said he was confident that India and Pakistan would be able to resolve their differences. He also said the issues like whether those having charges against them should be allowed to contest elections, needed to be discussed by political parties. But, he suggested that the cases against politicians, officials and public persons could be decided in an expeditious manner. For, should the persons be exonerated in the end, how could his lost years be compensated, he said. To another question, Mr Chatterjee said there was no change in the economic policies of the country, which were being followed earlier, but only the emphasis has changed. Asked whether there was any discussion at the Speakers’ conference on the rowdiness in Parliaments and whether he thought that Indian Parliament was the most rowdy, he said the meeting had much more important things to discuss.
— PTI |
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Soldier pleads guilty to prison abuse
Baghdad, September 11 Specialist Armin Cruz, a military intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty to maltreatment and conspiracy to maltreat detainees, and the court martial accepted his guilty plea. Cruz (24) is the eighth person to be indicted in the abuse case, which provoked worldwide outrage when it broke in April. As the first intelligence operative to be tried, Cruz’s case is of particular importance. The Pentagon has said the abuse was the work of a few bad military police acting on their own accord, and not on the orders of intelligence officers. But the court martial did not touch on the key issue of whether the intelligence officers ordered the military police to ‘’soften up’’ prisoners ahead of interrogation, as some had suggested — a link that might indicate the higher chain of command knew about or even sanctioned the abuse. Instead, his lawyer said Cruz took full responsibility for his own actions. ‘’While his actions which bring him before the court were limited, he takes full responsibility, and in doing so accepts whatever punishment the court deems appropriate for his role in the incident,’’ lawyer Stephen Karns said in a statement.
— Reuters |
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Book on Bush raises storm
Los Angeles, September 11 Despite sensational allegations and publicity accompanying the book, the mainstream US Press has been reluctant to delve into the claims, partly because of doubts about Kelley’s reporting and partly because the Republican Party has labelled the book fiction. The White House spokesman has called it garbage. The release of the book comes out in the middle of a presidential campaign that has distinguished itself for mud-slinging with ugly charges about the Vietnam War service of both Democrat John Kerry and President George W. Bush. To have someone like Kelley weigh in with allegations that Mr Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, while his father was President can cause severe heartburn in editors concerned about campaign coverage being hijacked by sensationalism. Kelley is famous for biographies that hold her subjects up to a harsh, unflattering light. Her works have included the life stories of Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.
— Reuters |
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Bill Clinton discharged from
hospital
Chappaqua (New York), September 11 The 58-year-old former President arrived yesterday evening at his home in the New York suburb of Chappaqua, according to his spokesman, Jim Kennedy. “The President is in good spirits and has taken short walks in the hospital hallway and in his home today,” Kennedy said in a prepared statement yesterday. Clinton was taken off his respirator and placed in an intensive care unit on Monday. On Wednesday, he was moved back to his hospital room where he walked with assistance, sat in his bed and sat up in his chair.
— AP |
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2 Indians arrested in Bangladesh
Dhaka, September11 The three were arrested after they illegally crossed over to Bangladesh’s northeastern tea-growing Sylhet district. The third arrested was a Bangladeshi and was an accomplice of the two Indians. The police took all three for questioning. The three were identified as Chandan Hajong and Suresh Hajong, both from India, and Kala Gunja a Bangladeshi. Security officials have stepped vigilance along its border with India after 19 persons were killed and several hundreds wounded in a grenade attack on an Opposition rally in Dhaka last month. Two businessmen were also being interrogated for their role in the matter, the police said.
— UNI |
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Lawyer who turned to children’s books
She fashioned weapons out of owl feathers, ate seal blubber for dinner and came face to face with angry bears. But such painstaking research has paid off handsomely for the former solicitor turned author Michelle Paver.
On Thursday Wolf Brother, the first novel of her six part saga set in the stone age is published after achieving what has been described as a world record advance for a children’s book — £3 million. The deal was struck with Orion after last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, earning the author an initial £1.5 million and catapulting her into the league of high earners. Since then, she has signed separate deals with publishers in France, Japan, the United States and 10 other countries. The audio book is also published on Thursday, narrated by Sir Ian McKellen, while Miss Paver’s jubilant agent is confident a film deal with a “top 10 American director” will be announced soon. Described in one review as “Mad Max for kids” the publishers believe it will find an audience in children and adults. Such “crossover” or “kidult” fiction is highly sought-after by publishers — witness the success of Harry Potter of JRR Tolkien. But for Miss Paver the story is written about her as a child — a 10-year-old growing up in Wimbledon who wanted a wolf as a pet. Her parents indulged her fascination with the Stone Age. She was allowed to dispense with her bed to sleep on fur rugs and even skinned and dried her own rabbit, ordered from the butchers — not poached from Wimbledon Common, she says. But the key to the success of Wolf Brother is authenticity. “This is reality not magic. Everything in this book had to have happened. Everything is factually possible — it has to be real. I want the reader to believe they are in the ancient forests,” she said. She insists the book’s magic owes more to ancient superstition, spiritualism and ancestor worship, than the magic wand. But it has been a long journey for the writer. Wolf Brother began life in 1982 when she was studying science at Oxford University but it lay languishing in a box file while she finished her degree and began a successful career as a city lawyer. When corporate life palled, the 43-year-old returned to her childhood obsession of writing. She achieved respectable success with her first four novels and was shortlisted for the Parker Pen Romantic Novel of the year for A Place in the Hills. But it was during a pause in her adult writing that she returned to Wolf Brother, then titled The Jagged Land and set in the Dark Ages. She changed the date by a few thousand years and rewrote the plot. The whole set, titled the Chronicles of ancient Darkness, was conceived during last summer’s heatwave. The series is set in the Mesolithic period, after the last Ice Age, in the forests of northern Europe when clans of hunter gatherers battled with wild beasts. Part of the novel is written through the eyes of Torak, a 12-year-old boy, who is separated from his clan when his father is killed by a giant bear. It falls to him to rid the forest of evil. The other part is seen through the eyes of the wolf cub he befriends. The two eventually confront the bear that killed Torak’s father. As part of her research she travelled to Finland, Lapland and Greenland where she spent time with nomadic tribes. She ate blubber and fish eyes, learnt how to make knives out of slate and bows and arrows out of bark. It was while hiking in California that she had a close encounter with a black bear, inspiring the finale of Wolf Brother. She said: “It felt like being back in the Stone Age and those feelings of survival are all in Wolf Brother.” Spirit Walker, the second book, will be published next year.— By arrangement with The Independent, London. |
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