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Asian nations for comprehensive fight against terror
No-trust motion against Pak Speaker defeated
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Senior Hamas leader killed in Israeli attack
Jerusalem, October 22 Senior Hamas leader Adnan al-Ghoul, second-in-command of the outfit and the founder of its military wing, and his deputy were killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, prompting vows of revenge from the organisation.
Soldier given 8-yr jail term for Abu Ghraib abuse
Panel releases list of oil buyers from Saddam
India opposes reproductive human cloning |
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Evidence supports Einstein’s theory
of relativity
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Asian nations for comprehensive fight against terror
Almaty (Kazakhstan), October 22Decrying “double standards” in dealing with terrorism, 17 Asian countries, including India, today asserted that the fight against the menace in all its forms and manifestations should be “comprehensive” and not “selective.” The 17-member ministerial meeting of Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), attended by External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh among others, adopted a catalogue which prescribed cooperation among the member-states in curbing terrorism and preventing separatist activities. The catalogue on the CBMs included cooperation in military-political dimension, fight against new challenges and threats, and in the area of economic, environmental and human dimension. It asked the member states to exchange information concerning fight against terrorist, separatist, extremist activities and organised criminal groups and when necessary, develop mechanism to combat their activities. The meeting emphasised the centrality of the UN in the promotion of international peace, favoured “independence and sovereignty” of Iraq, political and economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and expressed concern over situation in West Asia. The meeting adopted a declaration saying that the threats posed by terrorism, separatism and extremism “undermine the very foundation of international peace and security” and stressed that the fight against these should be “global, comprehensive and sustained and not selective or discriminatory and should avoid applying double standards.” — PTI
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No-trust motion against Pak Speaker defeated
Islamabad, October 22 The combined Opposition of the Islamic alliance of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) had moved the no-confidence motion against the Speaker last week, accusing him of allowing the hasty passage of the Bill that permits President Pervez Musharraf to also keep the office of army chief beyond 2004. When Deputy Speaker Sardar Yaqoob, chairing the special session, invited Mr Hussain to present his arguments in defence before allowing three main Opposition leaders to speak on the motion, the Opposition members raised slogans and tore copies of the House Business Rules and ballot papers. The leaders demanded more time for debate on the issue. When Mr Yaqoob did not concede their demands and let all 107 Opposition deputies present in the House speak for it, the Opposition members refused to take part in the balloting. “As there is no vote in favour of the no-trust motion, it stands negated,” the Deputy Speaker announced before adjourning the session until Monday. The Opposition needed 172 votes in the 342-member House to depose the Speaker. Their current strength in the House stood at 144. General Musharraf had pledged to step down as army chief before December 31 this year after a deal with the MMA on the set of constitutional amendments, also called the Legal Framework Order, which granted sweeping powers to him and rendered the elected government and Parliament secondary. All Opposition parties had already announced to launch a protest against President keeping the two offices simultaneously. — UNI
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Senior Hamas leader killed in Israeli attack
Jerusalem, October 22 An Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at a car in which al-Ghoul and his deputy Imad Abbas were travelling late last night in the north of Gaza City. The killing of al-Ghoul, an expert bombmaker and the brain behind the indigenous Qassam rockets, was the latest in a string of targetted assassinations Israel has carried out against the outfit. Describing the slain militant as a “leading Hamas figure,” responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis, the army in a statement said he had manufactured rockets, which had killed 3 persons in the recent months, masterminded at least two suicide bombings, and developed anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. Hamas has confirmed the death of 46-year-old al-Ghoul and his deputy. As the word of his death spread, thousands of angry Hamas supporters took to the streets in several refugee camps, calling for revenge and chanting anti-Israel slogans.
— PTI |
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Soldier given 8-yr jail term for Abu Ghraib abuse
A
US Staff Sergeant was sentenced to eight years in prison yesterday for sexually and physically abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad. Sgt Ivan Frederick, the most senior enlisted man charged in the prison abuse scandal, pleaded guilty to five charges of abuse at the prison last year, including making three prisoners masturbate and punching another so hard in the chest that he needed resuscitation.
Sergeant Frederick, 38, was stripped of his rank, ordered to forfeit pay and dishonourably discharged. Michael Holley, the military prosecutor, welcomed the punishment but called on the authorities to consider the "corporate responsibility" for widespread abuses. The court martial in Baghdad was told abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail was directed by the CIA and was not the just the work of a few "bad apples" as the Pentagon claimed. The trial also heard that orders were received from the military high command to "soften up" detainees , further undermining claims from Washington that the offences committed against Iraqis were by soldiers acting on their own initiatives. In evidence considered highly embarrassing for the US administration, Capt Donald Reese, a military police commander at Abu Ghraib, described how CIA agents seemed to have a free run of the prison: "They came in at any time of the day. They came in through the back door and put prisoners in one of the cells. We were told by OGA (other government agencies) that they would be back for them again later. Sometimes they wore civilian clothes, sometimes military uniforms. Military intelligence sometimes had their name tags removed." Captain Reese said shortly after his arrival in October 2003, he saw detainees being held naked in the prison and wondered "what on earth" was going on. "I was told it was the actions of the military intelligence community and it was an accepted practice", he stated. A Chief Warrant Officer, Kevin Kramer, from military intelligence, said he received an e-mail from US command headquarters in the August before the more severe abuse began, demanding interrogations be "toughened up". "The gloves are coming off gentlemen" it read and went on to say that a Captain Boltz "wants the detainees broken". "We were told we weren't getting the intelligence they expected. Therefore, we must not be conducting enough to get the intelligence.... They were trying to get us to do more aggressive interrogations," Captain Kramer told the court. — By arrangement with The Independent, London. |
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Panel releases list of oil buyers from Saddam
New York, October 22 Of the list released yesterday, 3,545 companies exported goods to South and Central Iraq, receiving payment totaling $ 32.9 billion, 248 received or paid for Iraqi oil under contract totaling $ 64.2 billion and 941 are identified by name only for export to northern Iraq which was under a separate programme. The panel, headed by former American Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, plans to release its final report late spring next year. The panel was set up by Kofi Annan after allegations surfaced that the Saddam Hussein regime siphoned off billion dollars illegally in connivance with companies that did business with Iraq when it was under UN economic sanctions and also bribed world body officials. — PTI
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India opposes reproductive human cloning
United Nations, October 22 It is unethical and morally unacceptable, its delegate Kalraj Mishra, MP, told the UN legal committee, participating in a debate on human cloning yesterday, adding “it cannot be justified.” The committee started deliberations with the hope of drafting an international treaty to address the issue. Though all member nations of the world body oppose reproductive human cloning, many support “therapeutic cloning” for research into debilitating diseases and spinal cord injuries. But so far as research on stem cells is concerned, Mishra said, researchers must have all options and science must decide the relative efficacies of different kinds of stem cells. “We do not agree with the view that research should be allowed only on certain stem cells,” he told the delegates. “We believe that every country has a right to choose appropriate technological methods and procedures as long as those are in tune with the universally accepted standards of human dignity,” Mishra said. India, he said, had been in the forefront of promoting scientific and technological research on the fields of biology and genetics. — PTI
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US presidential race ‘most expensive’
Washington, October 22 The independent Centre for Responsive Politics found that combined spending on 2004 White House and congressional races will reach a record $ 3.9 billion — almost a third more than the previous general election. “Overall, if we look at what the federal elections are expected to cost in 2004, we’re looking at about a 30 per cent increase over 2000,” Larry Noble, the centre’s director and a former senior attorney with the US Federal Election Commission
(FEC), said.
— AFP |
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Evidence supports Einstein’s theory
of relativity
Washington, October 22 It said the researchers believed they had measured the effect that was first predicted in 1918 by using Einstein’s theory of general relativity by “precisely observing shifts in the orbits of two earth-orbiting laser-ranging satellites.” The finding, NASA yesterday said, constituted the “first accurate measurement of a bizarre effect that predicted the rotating mass would drag space around it.” The so-called “frame-dragging effect,” said Erricos Pavlis of the Joint Centre for Earth System Technology in Greenbelt, Maryland, one of the team leaders, “is like what happens if a bowling ball spins in a thick fluid such as molasses. “As the ball spins, it pulls the molasses around itself,” he said. “Anything stuck in the molasses will also move around the ball. Similarly, as the earth rotates, it pulls space-time in its vicinity around itself. This will shift the orbits of satellites near earth,” he said.
— AFP |
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