 |
|
No plans to cut greenhouse gases, says Raja
Kerry
supports Indo-US nuke deal
‘Ultimate climax’ case to be reopened
Gas pipeline blown up in Pak
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Maoists launch massive attack in Nepal
Boeing settles cancer suit
Skeletal remains are of Indian, says NZ police
4 children killed in tent fire
|
|
No plans to cut greenhouse gases, says Raja
Sydney, January 12 “Our agenda is very clear. We are concerned with alleviating poverty,” Environment and Forests Minister A Raja said today. “A country that suffers from poverty and ignorance cannot give a commitment to reducing greenhouse gases.” Mr Raja said his government was also opposed to setting limits, partly because the amount of greenhouse gases its industries pump into the atmosphere is dwarfed by developed nations. India releases one tonne of carbon dioxide per capita, he said, compared to the United States of America which releases 20 tonnes. “Unless these anomalies are computed, we cannot foresee anytime when we could make such a commitment,” Mr Raja said. “Let’s first reduce this gulf between developing countries and developed countries.” India is one of the six countries that have signed onto the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The group, which is also made up of the United States of America, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, along with Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter, wrapped up its inaugural two-day meeting today pledging to focus exclusively on voluntary measures to reduce greenhouse gases such as promoting technologies for clean and renewable energy generation. Canberra and Washington have often been criticised as the only major industrialised nations to refuse to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which legally binds countries to targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. As emerging economies, China and India also have no mandatory Kyoto targets but have promised to do what they can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “There are people who say this bypasses the Kyoto Protocol,” Mr Raja said of today’s plan. “I can say with all sincerity this is another means to achieve the same goal of what has been contemplated in the Kyoto Protocol.” Mr Raja said India had set up a bureau to promote energy efficiency in a number of government sectors, approved an electricity act which provides a framework for more efficient power markets and has set out on an ambitious plan to build mass transit systems in its largest cities. “We cannot give any promises, but that doesn’t mean we are not taking any action to reduce emissions further,” Mr Raja said. “Our system is working to reduce emissions and we are taking many steps. In many sectors, we are introducing technologies to reduce emissions.”
— AP |
|
Kerry
supports Indo-US nuke deal New Delhi, January 12 His support to the nuclear agreement was categoric and unambiguous when he said: “In principle I support this. In principle, I think there is a great gain, a positive gain for India, for the United States of America, for the global community with respect to oversight that doesn’t today exist and it is better to take three quarters of a programme and begin it providing you are not undermining the larger strategic goal of the NPT itself.” He also said the implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal will mean grant of nuclear power status to India. In response to a question whether the deal endowed an implicit nuclear power status to India, Mr Kerry said at a brief interaction at the ORF campus here: “It will be disingenuous to suggest that if the agreement went through, as it is currently defined, it doesn’t accord India that status obviously, it does. I think it does.” Hyderabad: John Kerry today denied that he had opposed outsourcing of IT jobs to India. Kerry, who had lost as the Democratic Presidential candidate in the last elections, said any company had a right to outsource. Refuting perceptions that he had aggressively campaigned against outsourcing jobs to India, he said, “What I was worried was about non-economic choice eyeing for tax benefits”. The Senator was talking to reporters after meeting Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. Trying to make amends to his image in India, Kerry said some stories that came out of campaigning last year suggested that he had a specific problem with outsourcing itself.
|
|
|
‘Ultimate climax’ case to be reopened
Frankfurt, January 12 Armin Meiwes, 44, could face life in prison if convicted of murder by the state court in Frankfurt in a case whose grisly details appalled and fascinated Germans. The trial is scheduled to continue until early March. In early 2004, a court in the central city of Kassel convicted Meiwes of manslaughter and sentenced him to 8 1/2 years in prison. He was spared a murder conviction, with the court arguing that perpetrator and victim used each other as means to an “ultimate climax.” During his first trial, Meiwes, a computer technician, confessed in detail to the March 2001 killing of 43-year-old Bernd Juergen Brandes at his home in the nearby town of Rotenburg. He said Brandes, who travelled from Berlin after answering Meiwes’ Internet posting seeking a young man for “slaughter and consumption,” wanted to be stabbed to death after drinking a bottle of cold medicine to lose consciousness. Prosecutors have painted Meiwes as a butcher who acted simply to “satisfy a sexual impulse.” Federal judges overturned the original ruling last year and ordered a retrial, ruling that the lower court failed to give sufficient consideration to that argument in rejecting the murder charge.
— AP |
|
Gas pipeline blown up in Pak
Multan, (Pakistan), January 12 High explosives were used on the underground, 20-inch diameter pipeline, owned by state-run Sui Southern Gas Co. Ltd said Arif Tareen, a company spokesman. “Miscreants dug up the ground to put explosives on top of the installation. They blew up a two-and-a-half foot (75 cm) piece of the pipeline,” Tareen said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack on the pipe near Kandhkot town, 450 km northeast of Karachi, in Sindh province. The area is near the border with troubled Baluchistan province where separatists, who have been waging a low-level insurgency for decades, have attacked energy and transport infrastructure and security forces. The rebels and other Baluch nationalists say the Baluchistan people enjoy few benefits from the province’s resources. Gas supplies to consumers in most of the country had not been hit but “a few towns in Baluchistan” would face a brief shortage, Tareen said. — Reuters |
|
Maoists launch massive attack in Nepal
Kathmandu, January 12 The offensive which began at around 7 p.m yesterday and continued till late in the night, targeted the area police post,the district police office,the army barrack,the district administration office, the land revenue office and the district education office in the Dhangadhi municipality area of Kailali district, 650 km west of Kathmandu. However, no casualties were reported on the side of the security forces though some government buildings located at Dhangadhi Municipality were damaged, Army sources said. Earlier, reports said about 10 security personnel were missing after the rebels attacked the district police office. An army official at the headquarters said all “our men are in touch and there is no loss on the side of security forces.” The Maoists left the district headquarters after the security forces retaliated, he said, adding “we have foiled their attempt to capture the district headquarters without major damage.” The rebels also detonated a bomb at the Bardia District Development Committee office yesterday, the police said. The building was slightly damaged but no one was injured in the incident. Meanwhile, seven Maoist cadres, including an area committee members and three child soldiers, have surrendered before the district administration in Doti, Radio Nepal said.
— PTI |
|
Boeing settles cancer suit
USA, January 12 The settlement, agreed to in September but not immediately disclosed, ends an eight-year battle with neighbours of Boeing's Santa Susana Field Laboratory in southern California. The settlement included a confidentiality agreement between Boeing and the remaining 133 plaintiffs in the case. "All I can say is we are satisfied and our clients are satisfied," said Barry Cappello, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Boeing spokesman Inger Hodgson declined to comment. Initially about 300 individual lawsuits were filed against Boeing and the lab's former owner, Rockwell International Corp. The plaintiffs said dozens of years of nuclear and rocket engine testing at the hilltop lab were
responsible for a wide range of cancers, auto-immune disorders and tumours afflicting nearby residents. The accident was not widely publicised until 20 years later. For years, Boeing said the meltdown posed no danger to its workers or the public. But disclosure in 1989 of lingering low-level contamination from past nuclear projects created an uproar and pushed the company to halt nuclear research there the following year.
— AP |
|
Skeletal remains are of Indian, says NZ police
Sydney, January 12 Detective Sergeant Craig Scott of Gisborne police said Balwinder Singh, also known as Babu Singh, aged 23 at the time of his disappearance, was reported missing from Gisborne in October, 1993, by a friend with whom he was living at the time. Scott said Singh was an Indian national who came to New Zealand in 1989 and became an overstayer. He was arrested in April, 1992, for possession of a fraudulent New Zealand passport and immigration removal orders were served on him at the time of his arrest, a media report quoted Scott as saying. The police yesterday announced they had upgraded their investigation to a homicide inquiry and were seeking DNA samples from the man’s parents who live in India in a bid to find out if the remains were his, a news website on New Zealand stuff.co.nz reported.
— PTI |
|
4 children killed in tent fire
Islamabad, January 12 Two girls and two boys, aged between eight and 12, died when their tent caught fire in Spaidir Batkool village in the Alai Valley of the province. Three persons were also injured. — PTI |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
