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Nuclear talks to be decisive, says Iran
Militants in PoK undertake relief work
Cop interviews Charles in Diana probe
Racial tensions erupt in Sydney
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Hard days ahead for Bolshoi Theatre 35 killed in Pak bus fire
Blast in Spain
Hostage crisis unresolved, says Britain
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Nuclear talks to be decisive, says Iran
Tehran, December 11 Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hamid Reza Asefi also reiterated that Iran would stick by its demand to conduct ultra-sensitive nuclear fuel work. “This meeting will be very serious. Everything depends on this meeting,” Asefi said of the planned talks — provisionally scheduled to take place in Vienna on December 21. “We expect this meeting to pay attention to the facts and Iran’s rights. We believe that we must be treated without discrimination. We don’t want more than others and we won’t settle for anything less,” he said. “The topic will be Iran’s right to enrichment,” he added. EU-Iran talks collapsed in August when Tehran ended its suspension of uranium conversion, a first step towards enrichment. But the two sides remain fundamentally deadlocked over the core issue of Iran’s effort to master the entire nuclear fuel cycle. Meanwhile, Russia has strongly opposed the move by “certain international quarters” to politicise the Iranian nuclear issue. “We would be very strongly opposed to any attempts to politicise this issue and to be guided by anything except the need to keep non-proliferation regime intact,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news channel in Moscow today. He said Iran was currently cooperating with inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), adding that the IAEA Board of Governors would prepare a regular report on the issue in two-three months.
— AFP, UNI |
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Militants in PoK undertake relief work
Islamabad, December 11 With the blessings of the Pakistan Government, most of the banned groups are working under different names and have set up field hospitals, makeshift operation theatres and medical camps at various places in the PoK. “Their volunteers are working round the clock to help the quake survivors,” the media reports said. PoK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan recently met banned Lashkar-e-Toiba former Chief Hafiz Saeed at the “PM House” in Muzaffarabad to thank him for his group’s active involvement in relief operations. The Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) is now operating under the name of the Jamaat-ud-Daawa, which has also been placed on the watchlist of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry. Intially, the Pakistan Government had directed the police to dismantle relief camps set up by jehadi groups in the affected areas. However, it later allowed them to resume
activities. The militant groups involved in the relief work are the LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, Tahreekul Mujahideen, Al Badr, Hizbul Tehrir and Tehrik Nifaz-e Shariet Muhammadi. The JeM is operating under the name of Khuddamul Islam, while its splinter group has resurfaced with a new identity—Al Asr Trust. Militant groups concede that the quake has caused major damage to the Harkatul Mujahideen’s facilities at Balakote and Batrasi, the Tehreekul Mujahideen’s at Muzafarabad, the JeM at Bagh and the Al Badr at Oghi. Even Jamaat-ud-Daawa, which runs a chain of seminaries, schools and hospitals in PoK, admitted that around 100 of its activists were killed in the quake, but within days the organisation managed to launch a countrywide
campaign to collect relief goods for the victims and rescue those buried under the debris of the collapsed buildings. A leader of the JuD Yahya Mujahid said his organisation is not associated with any terrorist group or individual and added the JuD had no link with the LeT.
— UNI |
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Cop interviews Charles in Diana probe
London, December 11 John Stevens, the former head of London’s police force, questioned Charles as part of his probe into circumstances surrounding Diana’s death in a high-speed car crash in Paris in 1997. “I am happy to confirm that the Prince of Wales met with Lord Stevens as part of his inquiry,” a spokeswoman for Prince Charles told Reuters. The Sunday Times newspaper said the meeting took place at the prince’s London home, Clarence House, and lasted for several hours. Britain’s Royal Coroner Michael Burgess had asked Stevens to examine allegations that Diana’s death was not an accident as part of an official inquest. Diana, whose marriage to Charles broke down in 1992 and later ended in divorce, was killed along with her lover Dodi al Fayed and their driver Henri Paul in the crash in a Paris road tunnel. A French inquiry in 1999 ruled that the accident was caused by Paul being drunk and driving too fast. Allegations and conspiracy theories have emerged in the aftermath and Burgess said he wanted the inquest to put an end to the speculation. On the day the inquest began in January 2004, reports said that Diana had written a letter to her former butler Paul Burrell 10 months before her death in which she said she suspected Charles was trying to kill her. “This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous,” the letter said, according to excerpts leaked to the British media. “My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury.” Royal commentators said the letter raised questions about Diana’s state of mind and in fact reduced the credibility of any of the allegations aimed at Charles. Dodi’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, owner of exclusive London store Harrods, has said he believes his son and Diana were murdered by British secret services because their relationship was embarrassing the royal household.
— Reuters |
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Racial tensions erupt in Sydney
Sydney, December 11 At least three persons were arrested and several injured in alcohol-fueled fights. Television images showed police protecting an ambulance being pelted with beer bottles and a group of young women attacking another woman. Other youths stamped on police vehicles and police officers fought back with batons and pepper spray. The behaviour, “is nothing short of disgusting and disgraceful,” said Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin. It’s certainly not the Australian way.” “What has been occurring on some fronts is that people of Middle-East backgrounds that have been seen in the Cronulla area, a swarm of the crowd has approached these people with vile abuse, in the most un-Australian way,” Mr Goodwin said. A police spokesman, commenting on the condition of anonymity said three men, aged 16, 29 and 34, were arrested and were being questioned after fights erupted among some 5,000 people who converged on Cronulla beach in southern Sydney. Many youths were carrying beer bottles, waving Australian flags and chanting racist slogans following reports that youths of Lebanese descent were responsible for last week’s attack on two of the beach’s life guards. Earlier this week, the police boosted the number of officers patrolling the beach after mobile phone text messages began circulating calling for retaliation for the attacks.
— AP |
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Hard days ahead for Bolshoi Theatre
Moscow, December 11 Even in the grey and grim days of the Soviet era, this building was a veritable oasis, epitomising Russian glamour and culture. For it is here that generations of Russians were held spellbound by the haunting beauty and sheer magic of performances of Swan Lake and Giselle. Today, the world-famous Bolshoi Theatre, the Russian capital’s best-known landmark after the Kremlin and Red Square, has been boarded up for renovation. The cash-strapped company was forced to close last July as it was feared that the decaying building was nearing collapse. Officially, the building is expected to reopen in 2008. But most Muscovites are not sure if this deadline will actually be met as the restoration has been estimated at a mind-boggling $ 490 million and the Russian Government has apparently yet to find the funds for this mammoth job. In fact, there are strong rumours in the Russian capital that the project could even take as long as a decade or even longer. While uncertainty about the Bolshoi Theatre’s future continues, the ballet company has been provided alternative space for its performances in a nearby building, which is much smaller than the original opulent theatre. In addition, ballet lovers can watch their favourite performances at the State Kremlin Palace, a concrete and glass structure built during Khruschev’s regime. “ It was originally built to host Communist Party congresses but today the 6,000-seat auditorium is home of the Kremlin Ballet Company,” explains our guide and interpreter, Sasha. But, clearly,life without the Bolshoi Theatre is just not the same. Visitors as well as scores of Russians would rather skip a ballet performance than watch one at any other theatre. For, ballet and the Bolshoi Theatre have become synoymous over the years and even today, when the building stands closed, tourist guides never forget to point it out to eager visitors. It is not that Russia does not have other ballet companies. Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet is its closest rival, boasting of famous performers like Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. It is a different matter that both created more than a sensation when they defected when on tour abroad. But,as any Moscovite will tell you, “The Bolshoi is Bolshoi.” Says our guide, “ We really miss it.” People have fond memories of their visit to the Bolshoi as they recall its sheer grandeur and beauty. Then, of course, there is all the folklore, associated with any such place. One story is that dancers here would have to hold their noses while performing as the place under the stage was overrun by cats and the smell of the cat pee often became unbearable. The theatre might be closed but the Bolshoi company’s reputation as one of the greatest remains undiminished. Next year, it will undertake one of its biggest world tours since the Soviet period when it travels to the UK to perform Swan Lake, Giselle and Spartacus. The company still attracts the best talent as Russians have not lost their passion for ballet. Earlier, ballet was a means of travelling abroad but today it is seen as a passport to
fame, glory and stardom. |
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Lahore, December 11 Friends of the groom were celebrating the marriage in the eastern city of Lahore by letting off fire crackers in front of his house when one of the fireworks set alight the fuel tank of the bus, the police said. — Reuters
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Blast in Spain
Madrid, December 11 “We don’t have any information yet about the kind of device so we can’t say whether or not it was (Basque separatists) ETA or street violence or what it was exactly,” a police spokesman said. Earlier this week ETA exploded five small bombs on motorways around Madrid, as Spain celebrated the 27th anniversary of its Constitution, which some regional nationalists see as blocking greater self-rule for them. Basque guerrillas have killed some 850 persons since 1968 and in the last two years have frequently set off non-fatal bombs in their campaign for an independent homeland. The group is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States.
— Reuters |
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Hostage crisis unresolved, says Britain
London, December 11 “We are doing through the Foreign Office, through (Foreign Secretary) Jack Straw, everything possible to try and make sure his life is saved and that of his colleagues is protected,” Reid said on television. “But we have no further indication of any movement as of this morning,” Reid added. “It is not the whole of Iraq that is afflicted with these problems,” Reid replied when it was suggested how bad security in Iraq was. “I don’t in any way underestimate it but the second thing which is important is that it does not deter Iraqis, and particularly Iraqi democrats, coming out and showing their support for the new freedoms and democracy they have,” Reid said. “That is why this Thursday’s elections, the first big general election in Iraq, are so important,” Reid added. The four were kidnapped in Baghdad two weeks ago. The so-called Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness holding the activists had extended an ultimatum to kill them until yesterday.
— AFP |
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