W O R L D

Angela Merkel is German Chancellor
Berlin, November 22
Angela Merkel was elected Germany’s first woman chancellor today in a parliamentary vote that ends months of uncertainty and ushers in a fragile new government with the task of reviving Europe’s largest economy.

Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Angela Merkel (left) is sworn as Chancellor in Berlin on Tuesday. Merkel (51) was elected Germany’s first woman chancellor. She becomes Germany’s eighth postwar chancellor and the first to have grown up in the ex-communist east. — Reuters photo

US court finds 2 companies guilty
Sale of missile technology to India
Washington, November 22
A federal court has found two defence companies in New England along with their top executives guilty of violating US export control laws by selling technology that “helped” India improve its Agni medium range nuclear missile.

Suicide bomb blast kills 18 in Iraq
Kirkuk, Iraq, November 22
A suicide car bomb blast killed 18 persons, including 10 policemen, and wounded 28 others in an attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk today, the police and doctors at Kirkuk’s main hospital said.

Bill to plug H-1B visa loopholes
New Jersey Democratic Congressman Bill Pascrell on Monday announced a Bill that if turned into law would make it prohibitive for foreigners to come to the United States on visas intended for immigrant workers.

NRI sentenced to jail for mail fraud
London, November 22
Two persons, including an NRI from a private mail firm, have been jailed for two years each for throwing more than 360,000 letters and parcels, including vital hospital blood test results into a dumping ground and earning over £ one million each by saving the costs of delivering them, in Britain’s largest ever mail destruction case.

Indian denied rights in Bahrain
Dubai, November 22
An Indian housemaid in Bahrain, who became the rallying point for domestic abuse victims in the kingdom, is still being denied her rights despite a favourable court order.

Inter-party clash in Dhaka, 200 hurt
Dhaka, November 22
More than 200 people, including policemen and TV journalists, were injured as Opposition supporters fought with the ruling party workers over joining of the combined oppositions grand rally in capital Dhaka today.

China rejects Bush’s advice
Beijing, November 22
Chinese President Hu Jintao has rebuffed his US counterpart George W. Bush’s suggestion to invite the Dalai Lama to hear his views on Tibet by telling the American leader about Beijing’s position on the issue.

Angela Merkel is German Chancellor

Berlin, November 22
Angela Merkel was elected Germany’s first woman chancellor today in a parliamentary vote that ends months of uncertainty and ushers in a fragile new government with the task of reviving Europe’s largest economy.

Ms Merkel, leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), won 397 votes in the 614-seat Bundestag, the lower house

of Parliament, easily securing the majority she needed to become Germany’s eighth postwar chancellor and the first to have grown up in the former communist east.

Her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder was the first to congratulate a smiling Merkel after parliamentary speaker Norbert Lammert announced the result to a hushed chamber.

“Dear Dr Merkel, you are now the first ever elected female head of government in Germany. That is a strong signal for many women, and certainly for some men too,” Mr Lammert said to laughter.

Merkel and her cross-party cabinet of conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD) will be sworn in later today, formally taking over from the SPD-Greens government that Schroeder has led for the past seven years.

Merkel’s confirmation as chancellor comes two months after her conservatives narrowly beat Schroeder’s party in a general election, she had been expected to win easily.

The result left the 51-year-old pastor’s daughter with no choice but to form a coalition with her long-time rivals. During tough month-long coalition negotiations, Merkel had to abandon her plans for a shake-up of the German social welfare system.

Her government is vowing to repair relations with Washington, strained by Schroeder’s opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. It has also promised to revive the economy, once Europe’s motor but now one of the more sluggish in the 25-nation EU, and cut unemployment that hit postwar highs under Schroeder. — Reuters

US court finds 2 companies guilty
Sale of missile technology to India

Washington, November 22
A federal court has found two defence companies in New England along with their top executives guilty of violating US export control laws by selling technology that “helped” India improve its Agni medium range nuclear missile.

The defence company executives Walter Lachman and Maurice Subillia Jr were sentenced to three years of probation after a five-day sentence hearing on Friday. The court also imposed a fine of $ 250,000 on the company Fiber Materials Inc.

Fiber Materials of Maine and its subsidiary Materials International were found guilty of conspiring to export a control panel from the US to India’s Defence Research Development Laboratory (DRDL) in April 1988. The panel was needed to operate a production size hot isostatic press.

The control panel required a special export license from the US Department of Commerce, and no such license was obtained by the defendants. The control panel and the isostatic press were sold to the defence laboratory which was developing India’s principal nuclear-capable ballistic missile Agni.

The District Court called the defendants’ conduct “fundamentally reprehensible” and said the defendants “sought — for their own private economic advantage and heedless of the national security interests of this country — to exploit imprecision in the regulatory regime for controlling exports,” and, in the process, provided equipment to India which, “may facilitate nuclear weaponry and thereby threaten stability in South Asia.” — PTI

Suicide bomb blast kills 18 in Iraq

Kirkuk, Iraq, November 22
A suicide car bomb blast killed 18 persons, including 10 policemen, and wounded 28 others in an attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk today, the police and doctors at Kirkuk’s main hospital said.

The bomber detonated his explosives-laden car near police vehicles on the main road leading south out of Kirkuk to Baghdad. Ten of those killed were policemen, Colonel Borhan Tayyib Taha said. Some of the wounded were also policemen, he said.

The US military surrounded the blast site soon after the attack. Police sources said they expected the toll to rise as many of those hurt were badly wounded. Ambulances ferried the worst cases to hospitals in Kirkuk. — Reuters

Bill to plug H-1B visa loopholes
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

New Jersey Democratic Congressman Bill Pascrell on Monday announced a Bill that if turned into law would make it prohibitive for foreigners to come to the United States on visas intended for immigrant workers.

Mr Pascrell's Bill seeks to raise the H-1B visa application fee from $1,500 to $4,500 per employee, and companies would have to allow American workers 30 days to apply for open jobs before applying for the visa. It would also change the visa's length of stay from six years divided over two three-year terms to one non-renewable term of three years, or four years divided over two two-year terms.

"My legislation faces the Americans who have high-tech degrees in one hand, and pink slips in the other," Mr Pascrell said while announcing the "Defend the American Dream Act of 2005" in Paterson, New Jersey. "We must address this fundamentally broken programme that is tearing down the labour standards American workers have worked so hard to build up."

Calling his Bill a "real job creation plan," the Congressman said it returns the "American dream to thousands of workers who have worked hard to advance the cutting edge of global technological advancement."

Mr Pascrell is supported in his effort by 34-year-old Sona Shah, an Indian American tech worker from Montclair, New Jersey, who lost her job to an H-1B visa holder in 1998. Miss Shah was born in India and came to the USA at the age of 3 and became a US citizen at 18.

"Americans are being displaced and foreign employees are underpaid and become indentured labour," said Miss Shah, who holds degrees in physics and mechanical engineering from New York University and Stevens Institute of Technology, respectively.

She has filed a discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, ADP Wilco, a financial services company. The lawsuit alleges that the company favoured lower-paid foreign workers brought in through H-1B and other temporary "guest worker" visas.

She said she felt insulted when she learned that ADP Wilco had named its Indian recruitment programme, "Project Delhi Belly" - the term "Delhi Belly" was coined by the British and was used when British officers got diarrhoea in India, Miss Shah said.

Miss Shah's fiancé, Kai Barrett, also used to work for ADP Wilco. Mr Barrett, a British citizen who was hired on an H-1B visa, is also part of the lawsuit and alleges he and other guest workers were not paid the prevailing wage for his job as a programmer.

"This H-1B visa and other such guest worker programmes have provided a vehicle for employers to discriminate against and exploit, both American and guest workers," said Miss Shah. "The negative ripple effect on the American economy, tax base and intellectual capital for America is staggering. We need Congressman Pascrell's Bill because the H-1B visa as it currently stands is riddled with loopholes that enable abuse with no system for accountability."

Mr Pascrell's Bill seeks to reduce the H-1B visa quota to its originally authorised level of 65,000 per year.

The Congressman also had the support of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA. The group's president, Gerard A. Alphonse, said, "In report after report, government investigators have found serious weaknesses and failings in the H-1B programme."

"Contrary to the law's intent, the programme can be used to fill any job at almost any wage, and the vast majority of employers are not required to recruit American workers first," he said.

NRI sentenced to jail for mail fraud

London, November 22
Two persons, including an NRI from a private mail firm, have been jailed for two years each for throwing more than 360,000 letters and parcels, including vital hospital blood test results into a dumping ground and earning over £ one million each by saving the costs of delivering them, in Britain’s largest ever mail destruction case.

Judge Andrew Goymer at Southwark Crown Court yesterday banned Inderpal Narula, (33), and Royston Heaton, (42), from working as company directors of Mail Logistics, in Acton, west London, for a year while awarding the two-year jail terms.

Narula, from Burnham in Berkshire, was told to pay £ 500,000 and Heaton, of Holton, Oxford, £ 400,000 in compensation within four months.

Discarded post included vital hospital blood test results, doctors’ letters of certification and acceptance letters for university places.

Other victims included banks that lost sales materials, and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, which lost copies of its product catalogue.

Mail Logistics was contracted to deliver post in bulk but Narula and Heaton ordered much of the post to be dumped in skips. The price charged for the distribution of each piece of mail ranged from £ 1 to £ 100, which Narula and Heaton spent on luxury houses and fast cars.

The Royal Mail became suspicious after receiving complaints from overseas magazine subscribers who had not received their orders. Hundreds of copies of Geo-Scientist and Majesty Magazine were then found in a skip at Mail Logistics premises.

Officers found leaflets and letters from the charity Amnesty International as well as letters of certification allowing doctors to work overseas from the British Medical Council. — PTI

Indian denied rights in Bahrain

Dubai, November 22
An Indian housemaid in Bahrain, who became the rallying point for domestic abuse victims in the kingdom, is still being denied her rights despite a favourable court order.

Anita Devi Verma, severely battered by her employer over two years ago, was yet to receive compensation for the sufferings she underwent and has been reduced to living on erratic income from odd jobs since Bahrain laws forbid her from working elsewhere, media reports said.

Her former employer, Mr Meena Raj Kumar, who admitted to the physical abuse in the court and served a brief jail term for it, has refused to sign her exit papers unless she drops the case, Bahrain Tribune reported.

The Migrant Workers Protection Society was informed that Mr Kumar would sign the exit papers only if Anita Devi drops her case, whose formalities are yet to be completed. Anita’s lawyer as well as the Ministry of Justice had informed the society that there was no need for her to be present in Bahrain, as the case would be pursued by the prosecution.

But the housemaid is stuck in the country waiting for the sponsor to sign her exit papers. — UNI

Inter-party clash in Dhaka, 200 hurt

Dhaka, November 22
More than 200 people, including policemen and TV journalists, were injured as Opposition supporters fought with the ruling party workers over joining of the combined oppositions grand rally in capital Dhaka today.

Police fired tear gas canisters and used batons to disperse angry workers near National Press Club in Central Dhaka.

In retaliation, the Opposition workers burned down a police bus. Scattered clashes were also reported in different parts of Old Dhaka, Keraniganj and Gazipur where armed activists of the ruling party swooped on Opposition processions proceeding towards the grand rally at historic Paltan Maidan where their (Opposition) leader Sheikh Hasina delivered her speech calling for resignation of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and immediate general elections.

In Keraniganj in Old Dhaka, Opposition and ruling party workers were locked in fierce clashes for hours together leaving nearly 100 people wounded, seven with bullets.

Police and local media said more than 20,000 opposition activists were rounded up from the Capital and outside in a bid to foil the rally. — UNI

China rejects Bush’s advice

Beijing, November 22
Chinese President Hu Jintao has rebuffed his US counterpart George W. Bush’s suggestion to invite the Dalai Lama to hear his views on Tibet by telling the American leader about Beijing’s position on the issue.

“The two sides touched upon the Tibet issue and the Chinese leader stated China’s position on the Tibet question and on the Dalai Lama,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a terse remark, when asked about Bush’s comment that he had raised the issue of Tibet with the Chinese leadership during his talks on Sunday. — PTI