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Hurricane Katrina leaves 55 dead in USA
56 killed in US strikes at Al-Qaida hideouts
Indians duped by Malay employer camp at Embassy
Hunt on for the last Nazi doctor
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Pervez for Muslim renaissance
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Hurricane Katrina leaves 55 dead in USA
New York, August 30 At least 50 persons were killed in Harrison Country alone in Mississippi state and another five died elsewhere, including in Louisiana. A spokesman for Harrison Country said most of the deaths occurred in one apartment complex and three were crushed under falling trees. The hurricane was downgraded to tropical storm last night. Officials expect the toll to rise as rescue workers go to inaccessible areas which are several feet under water. Insurance industry’s initial assessment is that the damage could be between $ 10 billion and $ 25 billion. Large areas were still flooded and officials were yet to begin the assessment of damage. Reports said large coastal areas were under water as a result of high waves and failure of the drainage system to cope with the heavy rains. The hurricane, which hit the land with sustained winds of 230 kilometers per hour, lost its fury and by last evening winds speeds had come down to around 90 kmph, but it was causing trouble as it moved towards Tennessee and the Ohio River Valley. Search and rescue operations were under way in affected areas and officials said they expected to find hundreds of stranded people. The hurricane did not deter criminals and reports of looting came in as the night fell in the areas without power. In one instance reported by the media, around 50 or 75 persons swarmed through a supermarket in New Orleans, taking away whatever they could lay their hands on before the police arrived. Looting was reported by police in Gulfport, Mississippi, where the storm surge left downtown streets under 10 feet of water. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Banineaux Blanco did not give any official death tally but said some lives had been lost. “We are hearing isolated reports here and there,” she said. Officials said victims of Katrina might had been to be provided shelter for months and that they were preparing for that eventuality. It would take time for them to rehabilitate themselves, they said as reports spoke of heavy damage in some areas. More than 75,000 people are in 240 shelters across the region and officials were advising those who had left the area ahead of the storm against returning immediately as there was no water and electricity in the affected areas. They feared that the number of those seeking shelter would go up as people return to find that they have no place to stay.
— PTI |
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56 killed in US strikes at Al-Qaida hideouts
Baghdad, August 30 The attacks, the second such raid in less than a week, came as Sunni Arabs, believed to be the backbone of the raging insurgency, were seeking alliances to defeat Iraq’s newly drafted charter. “At least 56 persons were killed in the air strikes carried out by US forces near Qaim, close to the Syrian border,” the security source said. The US military said it had no exact numbers of casualties. “There was a total of three strikes targeting terrorist safe houses... Abu Islam (a reported Al-Qaida operative) and several associates are believed killed,” a US military spokesman in Baghdad said. The spokesman said a total of eight bombs were dropped in three air strikes on suspected Al-Qaida hideouts, including a safehouse where Abu Islam and several associates were holed up, the spokesman said. Abu Islam and several associates were believed killed in the strikes around Karabila, near Qaim, about 450 km west of Baghdad, he said.
— AFP |
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Indians duped by Malay employer camp at Embassy
Kuala Lumpur, August 30 They claim they were ill- treated by their employer, a Malaysian of Indian origin, and were not paid their dues. They alleged their agent in India had promised them jobs in a supermarket, but on reaching to Kuala Lumpur they discovered the jobs awaiting them were in factories as workers. Acting Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Panda said the local agent, the Indian agent and the employer had been called to sort out the matter. He said the workers wanted to be sent back home, but their passports were still with the employer. “Arrangements have been made for their temporary stay in a gurdwara,” he added. He said one or two instances of such cases were reported every week. The High Commission would blacklist employers if the allegations were true, he added. “We will not allow local employers to recruit Indian labour if the allegations of the workers are true, he said.” “We can also flag it to the Malaysian Government so that there are no such recurrence,” he said. “At present there is no memorandum of understanding with the Malaysian government on labour issues, but talks are on the issue,” he said.
— PTI |
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Hunt on for the last Nazi doctor
German prosecutors are stepping up the hunt for a notorious former Nazi concentration camp doctor regarded as one of Second World War’s most sadistic criminals after unearthing bank documents that suggest he is still alive.
Dr Aribert Heim, who was born in Austria, murdered hundreds of Jewish prisoners at the Mauthausen concentration camp by subjecting them to gratuitous and brutal medical experiments during the seven weeks that he spent there in 1941. Heim ranks alongside the Auschwitz doctor, Josef Mengele, as one of the most reviled Nazi war criminals. A court trying him in his absence in 1979 concluded that he “wallowed in the fear of death suffered by his victims” while performing hideous operations on fully conscious prisoners. Now 91, he lived in Germany briefly after the war but has been on the run from Nazi-hunters since the early 1960s. Since then there have been alleged sightings of him in South America, Egypt, Spain and Germany. Until only recently investigators assumed that he was dead. German state prosecutors in Stuttgart and the Vienna-based Simon Wiesenthal centre revealed yesterday that they had gained access to Heim’s bank accounts in Berlin, which were shown to contain almost pounds sterling 680,000 in savings and other assets. They said the fact that none of Heim’s three children had claimed the sums on the doctor’s accounts suggested that he was probably still alive. Heim had asked in 2001 that the German tax authorities pay back capital gains tax levied on him because he was living abroad. Der Spiegel magazine disclosed yesterday that the hunt for Heim was also being vigorously pursued by Efraim Zuroff, of the Jerusalem branch of the Weisenthal centre, under the organisation’s “Operation Last Chance”, which is designed to catch the last remaining Nazi war criminals before they die. Heim worked at Mauthausen as a doctor for the Nazi SS from 8 October 8 until 29 November 194.
— By arrangement with The Independent, London. |
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Pervez for Muslim renaissance
Islamabad, August 30 He said there should be an organisation to carry out that discourse on the real values of Islam and work for Muslim renaissance. “Let Pakistan be the source of light. Let Pakistan be the centre of Muslim renaissance,” he stressed. Gen Musharraf said the concept might seem a tall order, but the government was committed to bringing about a change and added that about 40 scholars had been invited from around the world to be part of a guiding force to achieve the goal. Referring to steps taken for combating terrorism, he said terrorists had been picked up from seminaries in tribal areas and added that action would be taken against seminaries which ‘might be’ harbouring terrorists in cities. He said seminaries admittedly were the largest NGOs hosting some 1 million students and providing them free boarding and lodging, but some of them were also involved in spreading hatred and militancy. The Wafaqul Madaris, he pointed out, supported the government’s decision to reform the curriculum and expel foreign students from seminaries. “We will not allow the Madressahs to be used for spreading extremism.” |
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2 workers killed by BSF: Bangladesh
Dhaka, August 30 |
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Indian held for Bangladesh
blasts
Dhaka, August 30 |
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