W O R L D

41 killed in Baghdad blasts
Baghdad, September 30
At least 41 persons were killed, most of them children, and 120 wounded in three almost simultaneous car bombings across western Baghdad today, hospital officials said. “We have 41 dead — three men and one woman and the rest children,” morgue director at the capital’s Yarmuk Hospital Naji Shitshan said.

US soldiers tend to their injured colleagues after a bomb exploded in Baghdad on Thursday. Insurgents killed at least 41 persons, most of them children, with a series of car bombs across Iraq on Thursday. — Reuters photo

Bush, Kerry gear up for debate
Miami, September 30
US President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry dig in for tomorrow’s crucial televised debate, with the Democratic challenger aiming to turn the tables on Bush’s lead in recent opinion polls.

Gurkhas eligible for UK citizenship
London, September 30
Thousands of Gurkhas who have served with the British army and want to settle here with their families will be allowed to apply for citizenship with Prime Minister Tony Blair announcing that immigration rules would be changed to let them stay.

Sikh firm gives security to US installations
New York, September 30
Sikhs in the USA have fused their traditional knowledge with modern skills to emerge as the country’s fastest growing group providing security to sensitive government sites ranging from water supply systems to military installations.

‘Guiana 1838’ nets $ 70,540
Houston, September 30
‘Guiana 1838’, a film based on the story of about 1 million Indians who were made to work on sugarcane plantations in British colonies in the 19th century, has grossed a whopping $ 70,540, the highest screen average in the entire North America, over the weekend.

BRIEFLY

A woman grieves at the scene where Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli woman taking a morning jog near Jewish settlements in north Gaza on Thursday. Twenty-one Palestinians and three Israelis were killed on Gaza's bloodiest day for more than two years, as Israel struck back after a rocket attack killed two Israeli children in a border town. — Reuters

	Poll in mind, Blair vows to break ‘glass ceiling’ September 29, 2004
	Foreign troops should leave Iraq, says Musharraf September 28, 2004
	Iraqi National guard chief arrested September 27, 2004
	8 killed in US strike at Fallujah September 26, 2004
	Elections in Jan, says Iraq PM September 25, 2004
	Pakistan’s terror infrastructure cause for worry, says PM September 24, 2004
	Pak not averse to mediation on Kashmir: Pervez September 23, 2004
	Overlap between India, Pak caucuses raises concern September 22, 2004
	UN council seat: Pak to oppose India’s bid September 21, 2004

41 killed in Baghdad blasts

Baghdad, September 30
At least 41 persons were killed, most of them children, and 120 wounded in three almost simultaneous car bombings across western Baghdad today, hospital officials said.

“We have 41 dead — three men and one woman and the rest children,” morgue director at the capital’s Yarmuk Hospital Naji Shitshan said.

Two bombs went off at about 1 p.m. (0230 IST) close to the site of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new water pumping station on the western side of the city, a US military spokesman said.

A suicide bomber killed two Iraqi police and a US soldier west of the capital.

The suicide bomber killed two Iraqi policemen and a US soldier by blowing up his car near a US checkpoint at a crowded intersection at Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.

Another soldier was killed in a separate incident when a rocket hit a US logistics base near Baghdad. The confirmed deaths of the two soldiers raised the number of US troops killed in action since the start of the war to 802.

In rebel-held Falluja, 50 km west of Baghdad, the US forces destroyed a building they said was being used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose group is threatening to behead a British hostage.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi militant group said it had kidnapped 10 persons, including two Indonesian women working for an electronics firm in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television reported. — Reuters

Bush, Kerry gear up for debate

Miami, September 30
US President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry dig in for tomorrow’s crucial televised debate, with the Democratic challenger aiming to turn the tables on Bush’s lead in recent opinion polls.

Bush enjoys a modest lead in most polls of five to eight points heading into the first of three face-offs expected to draw tens of millions of viewers — many of them undecided about their vote on November 2.

Kerry, who has a history of firing up stalling campaigns in their final weeks, promised the truth would come calling for Bush, once the two men step into the spotlight at 9 pm today (06.30 IST tomorrow) at the University of Miami.

He tried to get his retaliation in first — defending his position on Iraq, before leaving the Wisconsin retreat where he sharpened his knives for the session on foreign policy.

Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney had presided over a disinformation campaign to “hide their failures” 34 days before the election, he told supporters in an open letter.
— AFP

Gurkhas eligible for UK citizenship

London, September 30
Thousands of Gurkhas who have served with the British army and want to settle here with their families will be allowed to apply for citizenship with Prime Minister Tony Blair announcing that immigration rules would be changed to let them stay.

Blair made the announcement last night after a lengthy campaign on the behalf of the Nepalese soldiers, the Daily Telegraph reported.

However, Gurkhas, who have served at least four years and were discharged after July 1,1997 - the date on which the brigade’s headquarters moved to the UK - will be eligible for “fast-track” citizenship.

“I am pleased and grateful that so much progress has been made, but I am very disappointed by the cut-off, which I think will be challenged,” Ann Wideecombe, the Tory MP from Maidstone, who has been at the forefront of the campaign, said.
— PTI

Sikh firm gives security to US installations

New York, September 30
Sikhs in the USA have fused their traditional knowledge with modern skills to emerge as the country’s fastest growing group providing security to sensitive government sites ranging from water supply systems to military installations.

Akal Security, wholly owned by the Sikh Dharma community based in Espanola in New Mexico, is the largest provider of security officers for federal courthouses with contracts for 400 buildings across 44 states, including the federal courthouse in Manhattan.

Benefiting from the post-9/11 surge in security, Akal Security, which now employs over 12,000 persons, has landed federal contracts worth over $ 1 billion.

A testimony to the company’s expertise can be the recent contract it won to guard Army bases and ammunition dumps in eight states. — PTI

‘Guiana 1838’ nets $ 70,540
Seema Hakhu Kachru

Houston, September 30
‘Guiana 1838’, a film based on the story of about 1 million Indians who were made to work on sugarcane plantations in British colonies in the 19th century, has grossed a whopping $ 70,540, the highest screen average in the entire North America, over the weekend.

The film, which opened in just one location in Queens, New York, and sold a majority of the seats in advance, has been made by first-timer Rohit Jagessar, a Guyanese American.

The historical docu-drama tells the true story of the Indians who were shipped out of their country to work on sugarcane plantations in the British West Indies, Fiji, Mauritius and Australia among other British colonies. — PTI

She fought back after hijack horror
Peter Popham

Catherine Hill’s life was blown apart by terrorism. Painstakingly, with many false moves, and many terrors confronted and faced down, she has put it back together again. She has come through.

That is why - now, 18 years after a Palestinian terrorist’s hand grenade destroyed one of her buttocks as she sat in a jumbo jet on the tarmac of Karachi airport - she has published her account of what happened, then and after.

Catherine lives with her Italian partner Picci in an old farmhouse surrounded by the urban sprawl of outer Milan.

When Catherine and Picci boarded Pan Am Boeing 747 in Mumbai at the end of their Indian holiday in September 1986, they had not been together long.

Then, at Karachi in Pakistan, four Palestinian terrorists seized the plane - and their lives were transformed.

Children began wailing - and suddenly the terrorists let fly with machine guns and grenades, forcing security guards to storm the aircraft. Catherine’s left buttock was blown off by a grenade.

Her very survival was in doubt for weeks after the blast, as she battled the infections in her wound. Once she was out of immediate danger, she was sent back to Britain to have her pelvis rebuilt.

With the support of Picci, she decided that there might be grounds for suing the airline, Pan Am, whose flight crew had fled the aircraft, leaving the passengers at the hijackers’ mercy. The failure of the plane’s auxiliary power unit in the absence of the flight engineer could have been the trigger for the massacre that followed.

But the Italian lawyers, to whom they took their case, one of them an aerospace specialist, were discouragingly modest in their aims. When Catherine and Picci decided to push for big damages from Pan Am, the lawyers became overtly hostile.

The assault on Pan Am worked to the extent that the company agreed to pay the costs of medical treatment in the USA. Now Catherine began to dream of throwing away her crutches, regaining the full use of her legs. She and Picci flew to New York, and Manhattan proceeded to seduce her as only Manhattan can.

Despite every discouragement from her Italian lawyers, her pursuit of Pan Am continued, culminating in a splendid scene where she gallops through Pan Am’s various Milan offices on crutches with a bailiff, sequestrating the American giant’s property. Already on its knees for different reasons, the airline now became sweetly reasonable. In New York, the two sides came to terms, agreeing to damages of $ 7,00,000.

The big lesson Catherine Hill wants people to take from her story is that being a victim is no good.

— By arrangement with The Independent, London