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Britain tightens anti-terror laws
Al-Qaida threatens more attacks against UK
G-4 proposal on Security Council in jeopardy
Hiroshima survivor recalls nuke horrors
Iran to restart work at N-plant
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Russian submarine sinks with 7 crew members
Sobhraj gets 20 years for murder
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Britain tightens anti-terror laws
London, August 5 He announced that Hizb ut-Tahrir and the successor organization to al-Muhajiroun would be banned and religious extremists inciting hatred will be deported, in a lengthy Downing Street statement before leaving for holiday. In an apparent reference to a video message by al-Qaida number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, Blair said: “These self same people who were making those remarks yesterday are the people supporting the killing of wholly innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to live by the rules of democracy. “And that is why, when they try to use Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestinian cause as a means of saying ‘we have justification for what we do,’ it is a complete obscenity.” He said a short one-month consultation will be launched on new grounds for excluding and deporting people from UK, which would include fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person’s beliefs or justifying or validating such violence. The Prime Minister said a list would be drawn up of extremist websites, bookshops and centres, involvement with which would prompt the Home Secretary to consider deportation of any foreign national. There would be new anti-terror legislation in the autumn, including an offence of condoning or glorifying terrorism which would apply anywhere, not just in the UK. Blair said the Home Secretary will publish today new grounds for deportation and exclusion. “Deportation is a decision taken by the Home Secretary under statute. The new grounds will include fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person’s
beliefs or justifying or validating such violence. “These grounds will be subject to a short consultation period which will finish this month. Even under existing grounds, however, we are today signalling a new approach to deportation orders,” Blair said. Meanwhile Imran Waheed, a spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir said the group would fight any ban through the courts. Blair said “the circumstances of our national security have now self-evidently changed and we believe we can get the necessary assurances from the countries to which we will return the deportees against their being subject to torture or ill-treatment.” He said the government was prepared to amend the Human Rights Act in respect of interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights if legal obstacles arise. “The government would also consult on legislating specifically for an appeal process which does not stall the deportation procedure.” “Let no one be in any doubt that the rules of the games are changing,” Blair said. The Prime Minister said a “handpicked” unit of senior officials, headed by the Intelligence and Security Co-ordinator Bill Jeffrey would drive forward the agenda along with Cabinet’s counter-terrorism committee which Blair chairs. He acknowledged that while the British public had responded with tolerance to the terror attacks on London, that tolerance was in danger of being stretched. The Prime Minister said anyone who has participated in terrorism or has anything to do with it anywhere would automatically be refused asylum. “We will consult on a new power to order closure of a place of worship which is used as a centre for fomenting extremism and will consult with Muslim leaders in respect of those clerics who are not British citizens, to draw up a list of those not suitable to preach who will be excluded from Britain.”
— PTI |
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Al-Qaida threatens more attacks against UK
London, August 5 In a videotaped message, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command to Osama bin Laden, said the UK was paying the price for supporting the USA and that Tony Blair had brought “destruction in Central London”. The broadcast yesterday, further added to apprehensions of more attacks in London. About 6,000 police, many armed, were on duty at underground and railway stations across the capital. Deputy Chief Constable of British Transport Police Andy Trotter said that London faced an unprecedented threat and remained on a high level of alert.
— UNI |
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G-4 proposal on Security Council in jeopardy
The so-called Group of Four's proposal seeking United Nations Security Council (UNSC) reforms was dealt twin blows on Thursday with the African Union (AU) sticking to its demand for veto rights and China announcing its decision to join the United States in its opposition to the group's proposal.
The Group of Four (G-4) comprises India, Germany, Japan and Brazil. The AU members, meeting in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), reiterated their demand that any new permanent members in the UNSC should have veto rights, a position the Group of Four had abandoned for lack of support. In New York, China's Ambassador to the United Nations Wang Guangya said the Group of Four's proposal was "damaging the prospects for UN reforms". Wang announced China's decision after a meeting with his US counterpart John R. Bolton. He said the United States and China "have shared objectives for the UN reforms, and we have shared objectives for the Security Council expansion". "Definitely both sides see that the process now being pushed by the G-4 is damaging the prospects for UN reform," Wang said. "So therefore both agreed in parallel with our joint efforts to stop it." China and the United States are two of five veto-wielding, permanent members of the Security Council. The other three are France, Britain and Russia. The Council has 10 non-permanent members who are elected for a two-year term and do not have any veto powers. Last month, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, R. Nicholas Burns, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said if the Group of Four brought its resolution to a vote the US would not only vote against it, it would also urge others to do the same. Asked if the "joint efforts" he referred to meant a coordinated campaign with Washington, Wang said: "Coordinated efforts, yes." |
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Hiroshima survivor recalls nuke horrors
Hiroshima, August 5 But she was not particularly concerned. There was a war going on and she was more concerned that her brother-in-law was about to go on a suicidal kamikaze mission. On the fateful morning of August 6, 1945, Yoshikawa, then 21, was walking along with her mother just four km from the centre of the blast. “It was a very hot day. Just when I was about to open my parasol, I saw a huge flash,” Yoshikawa said. At 8:15 am, the nuclear bomb exploded 580 metres above Hiroshima, killing more than 1,40,000 people. The surface temperature near the hypocenter reached as high as 4,000 degrees celsius. “I immediately called for my mother and then lost consciousness. I woke up only to realise both of us had fallen into irrigation ditches,” she said. As a wartime public worker, Yoshikawa was trained to help the wounded in case of US military attacks and she went straight to a nearby elementary school, which became a makeshift shelter after the bombing. It would be years later that Hiroshima survivors would learn exactly what had happened — that they were the first victims of the most apocalyptic weapon ever devised.
— AFP |
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Iran to restart work at N-plant
Tehran, August 5 “Even if their proposals do not allow the resumption of work at
Isfahan, we will resume activities,’’ Hossein Mousavian, said. — Reuters |
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Russian submarine sinks with 7 crew members
Moscow, August 5 Russian navy spokesperson Capt Igor Dygalo said during routine operations in the Beryozovaya Bay in Kamchatka yesterday, deep-sea diving apparatus AS-28’s propeller hit a fishing net. The apparatus got tangled in the net when it tried to free its propeller. According to preliminary reports, the minisub capable of diving up to the depth of 1,000 metres is stuck at the depth of some 190 metres in the Berezovaya Bay, around 42 nautical miles from regional centre Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski.
— PTI |
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Sobhraj gets 20 years for murder
Kathmandu, August 5 “I am shocked, I am absolutely shocked,” was all a dazed Sobhraj could say while policemen escorted him out of the Patan Appellate Court into the waiting police van. “I have no option but to fight it in the Supreme Court,” said Sobhraj who himself took the stand to defend himself against the murder charge that sent him to jail for 20 years.
— IANS |
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Moscow, August 5
