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Protesting BA staff return to Heathrow
Withdrawal from Iraq to
be conditional,
Indian immigrants refuse to leave Gaza
Pak Oppn warns of joint action
NASA’s Mars orbiter blasts off
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Protesting BA staff return to Heathrow
London, August 12 BA had to cancel all in and outbound flights to Heathrow airport, including those operating from New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai, following an “unofficial” strike by some 1,000 ground staff in sympathy with 600 workers sacked by BA’s in-flight meals supplier Gate Gourmet. Some of the staff, who include baggage handlers, started returning to work at Heathrow tonight. Talks are due at conciliation service ‘Acas,’ but passengers are still waiting to hear when flights will resume. Acas said talks were to start “shortly” between union bosses and the catering firm Gate Gourmet. BA had to cancel all flights in and out of Heathrow airport last night after talks broke down with the wild cat strike. BA usually runs about 550 flights a day from Heathrow in the busy holiday season. As many as 70,000 passengers are thought to have been caught up in the chaos today, both at Heathrow and airports around the world. Talks yesterday aimed at reinstating 600 sacked staff from Gate Gourmet, which supplies BA’s in-flight meals, had collapsed. In a statement, Acas said the parties involved had “agreed to open discussions, without prejudice via the use of Acas, in order to resolve the major difficulties they face.” Flights by Qantas, Sri Lankan, Finnair, GB and British Mediterranean airways, also serviced by BA ground staff, have also been affected by the strike.
— PTI |
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Withdrawal from Iraq to
be conditional, says Bush
Washington, August 12 Mr Bush was answering questions at his Texas ranch after a meeting of his Cabinet there, including Vice President Richard Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He said he was confident that the Iraqis would meet the deadline of August 15 for framing a constitution and later this year it will be put before the Iraqi people for their approval. The establishment of a democratic constitution, he said, is a critical step on the path to Iraqi self-reliance. “We have a strategy to help them succeed. On the one hand, we are hunting down the terrorists, and we are training the Iraqi security forces so Iraqis can defend themselves. As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. And when that mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will
come home to a proud and grateful nation. “The mission in Iraq is tough, because the enemy understands the stakes. A free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will deliver a serious blow to their hateful ideology.” After September 11, said Mr Bush, “I made a commitment to the American people that this nation will not wait to be attacked again, and we are going to stay on the offense. And we are fighting the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere so we do not have to face them here at home.
— PTI |
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Indian immigrants refuse to leave Gaza
Jerusalem, August 12 “We are not leaving on our own. Let them come and throw us out,” Avin Gangte from the Bnei Menashe community hailing from North-East of India said. Calling the move dictatorial, Gangte said: “Ours is a just fight. We have sacrificed a lot here and the government doesn’t have the mandate for what it is doing arbitrarily. We will fight together.” Backing his colleague, Yoel Ilan of the community said: “The settlers have been made into a national nuisance and our contribution to the state been completely ignored. The vilification campaign against us is depressing.” When asked about the risk of losing property and compensation money, most of the community members said they “don’t care” and that “they belong to a family and would go by the decision of the local council”. “The compensation being offered is anyway not good enough and fair. Even if we are thrown, we will continue to fight for an appropriate solution for each one of us and demand to be settled together,” Gangte, who immigrated from Manipur and works as a gardener, said. The government recently announced that those staying in the Strip after August 15 would be doing so illegally and it won’t be responsible for the loss of their property. It also threatened them with reduced
compensation. — PTI |
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Pak Oppn warns of joint action
Islamabad, August 12 The announcement was made by Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim at the conclusion of an all-party conference (APC) on the issue of ‘‘pre-poll rigging in local government elections’’. The APC was attended by representatives of 33 political parties and over a dozen lawyers and human rights organisations. Accompanied by Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Mr Fahim read out a joint declaration issued at the end of the APC. He said it would be ensured through the movement that future general elections were held under an independent caretaker government and independent election commission. Answering questions, he said modalities for launching the movement would be finalised soon by the Opposition parties. Through the joint declaration, he said, the Opposition parties demanded that references against the President, the Prime Minister, the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Sindh and the provincial and federal ministers be filed for violating the Code of Conduct for the local body polls so that ‘‘they are tried in court and punished according to law.’’ The Opposition parties called for the appointment of a permanent chief election commissioner with consensus. They demanded that judges of higher judiciary should be administered a fresh oath under the 1973 Constitution to enable them to play their role according to the constitution rather than the whims of a particular person. Mr Fahim said the APC expressed deep concern over the fact that the government had turned the elections into a ‘‘farce’’ by depriving the electorate of the fundamental right to freely elect candidates of their choice and to campaign for them. The ARD chief said: “Instead of appointing a permanent chief election commissioner (CEC), Gen Musharraf has appointed an acting CEC who could be removed any time.” He said a large number of Opposition candidates had been forced to withdraw nomination papers through ‘‘unconstitutional, illegal and immoral use of police, administrative machinery and intelligence agencies’’. |
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NASA’s Mars orbiter blasts off
Cape Canaveral (USA), August 12 The orbiter, which lifted off at 7.43 a.m. (05.13 p.m. IST), is being sent to step up the search for signs of water on Mars and to help pick sites for possible landings on the planet in the future. Technical problems with the rocket had been blamed for postponing earlier launch attempts on Wednesday and Thursday. But NASA said the Atlas V rocket was doing well in the early stages of its mission. The rocket left three days after the space shuttle Discovery returned to Earth. The “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the next step in our ambitious exploration of Mars,” Douglas McCuistion, Director of NASA’s Mars exploration programme, said earlier. “We expect to use this spacecraft’s eyes in the sky in coming years as our primary tools to identify and evaluate the best places for future missions to land,” he added. Learning about the history of water distribution is also expected to shed light on possible previous Martian life forms. The orbiter will use a spectrometer that can detect minerals linked to the existence of water, a radiometer that analyses atmospheric dust, water vapour and temperature, and an Italian radar that can look under the ground to detect water. One of the three cameras on board the orbiter has one of the sharpest lenses sent to survey a planet, which will give scientists on Earth a peek at rocks and surface terrain.
— AFP |
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Radical cleric Bakri freed in Lebanon
Beirut, August 12 Judge Said Mirza told The Associated Press that he ordered Bakri’s release after it appeared “that he has not committed any crime and there are no criminal records against him.” Mirza added Bakri was a free man. It was not immediately clear where Bakri was headed following his release. Officers of the General Security Department had arrested Bakri in Beirut yesterday, five days after he flew to Lebanon on holiday from the UK, where he has lived for the past 20 years. Britain said today that it had barred the Muslim cleric from returning on the grounds that his presence was “not conducive to the public good.”
— AP |
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