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Abbas condemns attacks on Israel LTTE ‘recruiting’ tsunami-hit kids
India, China to outshine USA
by 2020: report |
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US soldier found guilty
in Iraq prisoner abuse
Possible shoreline on Saturn moon
Woman pulls gun on Iraq minister
Six rebels die in Dagestan gunbattle
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Abbas condemns attacks on Israel
Ramallah (West Bank), January 15 In a speech marking his formal inauguration, six days after his overwhelming victory in the election to replace the late Yasser Arafat, Mr Abbas said he wanted a mutual ceasefire and that Israelis must learn to share land with the Palestinians if the “vicious circle” of violence was to end. “We are seeking a mutual ceasefire to end this vicious circle,” Abbas told MPs in the speech in which he reiterated his condemnation of attacks by armed Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who completely boycotted his arch-enemy Arafat, has decided to freeze official contacts with the Palestinian Authority in the wake of an attack on a Gaza border crossing in which six Israelis were killed. “In the last few days, a number of incidents have taken place. We condemn these actions, whether by the Israeli occupation forces or the reactions of some Palestinian factions,” Mr Abbas said. “This does not help bring about the calm needed to enable a credible and serious peace process.” Mr Abbas consistently criticised the use of weapons during the four-year Palestinian uprising but Israel had said that he must translate his words into action and dismantle what it called “the terrorist infrastructure.” Mr Abbas stressed his commitment to the roadmap peace plan which called for an end to attacks by Palestinian militants. The blueprint called for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, along a secure Israel, but had made next to no progress since its launch amid the continuing violence on both sides. The new leader, who is seen as a moderate, also urged the Israeli people to acknowledge the need to share land. His speech was made against a backdrop of a fresh bout of violence in Gaza where four Palestinians were killed during an Israeli army incursion into the Zeitun neighbourhood of Gaza City.
— AFP |
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LTTE ‘recruiting’ tsunami-hit kids
AS Sri Lanka struggles with the devastation wreaked by the December 26 tsunami, human rights groups say the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is forcibly recruiting orphaned children to replace fighters it lost in the catastrophe.
"The Tamil Tigers are preying on the most vulnerable by taking advantage of children who have been orphaned or displaced by the tsunami," said Mr Jo Becker, children's rights advocacy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch. The LTTE is estimated to have lost between 700 and 2,000 soldiers during the tsunami, including nearly 400 women and girls who were washed away from an LTTE training camp in Mullaitivu. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported on Thursday three cases of children recruited from camps for tsunami survivors in Batticaloa and Ampara, on Sri Lanka's eastern coast. The Human Rights Watch has received additional information on LTTE recruitment of children in Trincomalee and Jaffna. "As the LTTE seeks to rebuild its forces after the tsunami, children are at enormous risk," Mr Becker warned. "Children have always been targeted, but children who have lost their homes or families from the tsunami now are even more susceptible to LTTE recruitment." The Sri Lanka Democracy Forum (SLDF) has also warned that the spiralling political violence in Sri Lanka's north and east is threatening relief and development. The SLDF has received reports that military recruitment by the LTTE has resumed, taking apparent advantage of the increased vulnerability of displaced people. The Human Rights Watch in November had documented LTTE recruitment of thousands of children since a ceasefire between the government in Colombo and the LTTE took effect in early 2002. It noted that at a relief camp in Trincomalee, a 16-year old boy who had been recruited prior to the tsunami and later escaped told credible sources that he recently witnessed the LTTE recruit three girls from the camp. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a human rights activist told the Tribune that the LTTE was using the crisis to set up an interim administration in the north and east of the island nation. |
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India, China to outshine USA
by 2020: report
Washington, January 15 The 114-page report, titled "Mapping the Global Future", said the likely emergence of India, along with China, as new major global players - similar to the advent of a united Germany in the 19th century and a powerful USA in the early 20th century - will transform the geopolitical landscape, with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries. "In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the American Century, the 21st century may be seen as the time when Asia, led by India and China, comes into its own". "A combination of sustained high economic growth, expanding military capabilities and large population will be at the root of the expected rapid rise in economic and political power for both countries," the report said. The report is the third unclassified document prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the past seven years that takes a long-term view of the future. The report pointed out that by 2020, China's gross national product (GNP) would exceed that of individual Western economic powers except of the USA. India's GNP would overtake or be on the threshold of overtaking European economies. Barring an abrupt reversal of the process of globalisation or any major upheavals in these countries, the rise of these new powers is a virtual certainty, it stated.
— UNI |
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US soldier found guilty
in Iraq prisoner abuse
Texas, January 15 A 10-member military jury yesterday found Graner, 36, a former civilian prison guard, guilty on 10 charges, many of which were documented by photographs of sexual humiliation of naked men that shocked the world after they were leaked last year. Graner stood at attention and looked straight ahead without any visible reaction as the verdict was read. He held his hands tightly clenched. Because the jury altered one count to a lesser charge of assault, rather than use of force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm, in one attack his maximum sentence was lessened to 15 years from a possible 17 1/2 years, a prosecution spokesman said. In his closing argument, Graner's lawyer said the former Pennsylvania prison guard was following orders of military intelligence officials at Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad as part of a vital, larger U.S. war effort in Iraq. ''Corp. Graner is a smart guy, professional and he was doing his job in Iraq,'' defence attorney Guy Womack told the court. ''Now the government would ask a corporal, an E4, one of the junior people there, to take the hit for it.'' The prosecution argued that Graner and others in his unit acted without orders for their own gratification. ''This cannot become the recruitment poster for the United States Army,'' prosecutor Capt. Chris Graveline said as he held up an enlarged photo showing Graner in front of a pyramid of naked detainees. ''The accused is a smart person and he is the instigator of what happened at Abu Ghraib among the MPs (military police),'' he said. The charges revolved around Graner's organizing a pyramid of seven naked Iraqis, one of whom he struck and two of whom he demanded simulate having oral sex; putting a leash around a naked prisoner's neck, and assaulting an inmate recovering from gunshot wounds.
— Reuters |
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Possible shoreline on Saturn moon
Pasadena (California),
January 15 The first picture from a height of about 16 km, as Huygens descended before landing on the surface, showed what scientists said appeared to be a shoreline. They speculated the channels might feed into canyons on the surface. "I think none of us would have expected ... this kind of unveiling, but it is pretty consistent with the surprises we've seen before," said Mr Al Diaz, NASA's associate administrator for science. The $3 billion Cassini-Huygens mission, a joint project of NASA and the European and Italian space agencies, was launched in 1997 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to study Saturn, its rings, moons and magnetosphere. In December, the Saturn explorer Cassini dropped off Huygens for a three-week journey toward Titan, culminating in the probe's parachute-slowed plunge to the moon's surface. The photos were beamed from the European Space Agency's headquarters in Germany. Officials there said it appeared that Huygens landed on some sort of solid surface rather than in liquid. They did not offer any speculation on where the "drainage channels" in the photo might lead or how they were formed. — Reuters
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Woman pulls gun on Iraq minister
Cairo, January 15 Hazim al-Shaalan told the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper the 40-year-old woman had drawn the gun, loaded with poisoned bullets, during a meeting with him and other officials more than one week ago. She had entered the office saying she wanted to pass on some important security information to Shaalan. ‘’She surprised everyone by taking out a gun she was carrying and directing it towards him at a distance of one metre. However after a moment she collapsed and began to cry,’’ al-Hayat said. The woman, an Arab from Kirkuk, was the wife of a man currently jailed for involvement in a Baghdad car bombing. Shaalan said the plan had been hatched by a Syria-based Iraqi group led by Mohamed Younes al-Ahmed, an Iraqi Baath Party official. Sabaawi Ibrahim, a half brother of Saddam Hussein, was also involved in the plot, he said. Shaalan said the woman had revealed a wider plot involving a group of 50 women chosen ‘’to carry out terrorist operations and assassinations in Iraq.’’ The women were the wives or relatives of people jailed for or killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces and US-led forces. Shaalan said they had undergone training in Syria ‘’under the supervision of Iraqi terrorist elements living there’’. Iranian religious men had also supervised the training, he said. — Reuters
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Six rebels die in Dagestan gunbattle
Moscow, January 15 A colonel and two commandos from a special police squad died in a gun battle with five militants in a house in the town of Kaspiisk, Inter-Fax news agency reported. One other commando was wounded. One of the militants died and four were captured. Five more suspected militants seized a house on the outskirts of Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala after being tracked down by the police. They let the occupants go, telling them they were “fighters of Islam”, Inter -Fax said. NTV television reported that although the house had been completely destroyed, the police were concerned that the militants might be still alive, hiding in the basement.
— Reuters |
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