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I was forced to attend trial, says Saddam
US man accused of plotting with Al-Qaida
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Suicide bomber kills 8 in Baghdad
Two Australians get life term for drug smuggling
Iran starts enrichment work, say diplomats
Paying for partner’s
plastic surgery on Valentine’s Day
Oxford to woo Indian pupils
Academy by NRI in Pune
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I was forced to attend trial, says Saddam
Baghdad, February 13 Saddam and his co-accused are charged with killing 148 men from the Shi’ite town of Dujail in reprisal for a bid to assassinate Saddam there in 1982. Saddam appeared with his seven co-accused, but he and his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti immediately went into attack mode against a court they said lacked authority because it was created under US occupation. “This is not a court, this is a game,” said Saddam, who still calls himself the president of Iraq, a country he ruled with an iron fist for three decades. Saddam and Barzan stood up and challenged chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman, who Iraqi officials hope would take control of the trial and hand down a quick sentence, which would be hanging if the ousted president was found guilty of crimes against humanity. “I was forced into the courtroom. Exercise your right and sentence me in absentia,” Saddam told the judge. The outburst was typical of a trial marred by the resignation of the first chief judge in protest over what he said was government meddling and the murder of two defence lawyers. Earlier, a court source said two of Saddam’s former senior aides were to testify against him. The source said Ahmed Khudayir, who ran Saddam’s office, and Hassan al-Obeidi, former chief of foreign intelligence, were expected to testify. But one told the court he had been forced to appear as a witness and had nothing to say. “I was brought here by force and I refuse to testify,” Khudayir said. “I did not accept to be a witness.”
— Reuters |
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US man accused of plotting with Al-Qaida
Silicon Valley, February 13 The allegations, disclosed in a federal transcript obtained by “The Philadelphia Inquirer” on Friday, revealed an elaborate plot that included an FBI sting and a clandestine money-drop on a deserted Idaho road. The case also involves a municipal judge from Montana who has devoted the last four years to snaring would-be terrorists online. The FBI says 47-year-old unemployed man Michael Curtis Reynolds of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, “attempted to provide material to Al-Qaida to disrupt governmental function, to change the government’s actions in foreign countries, and to impact on the national debate about the war.” Although not publicly charged with terrorism, Assistant US Attorney John C. Gurganus Jr. made the accusation during a December court hearing in Wilkes-Barre, adding that the case “involves a federal offence of terrorism.” The paper said Reynolds had been being held without bail since December 5 on unrelated weapons charges. Reynolds had a string of bad debts and criminal convictions, including one for attempted arson. His lawyer, Philip Gelso, declined to comment. The paper reported that in the FBI sting two months ago, Reynolds was drawn to a meeting with a purported Al-Qaida operative about 25 miles from a hotel, where he expected to receive $ 40,000 to finance the alleged plot. The Al-Qaida contact was Shannen Rossmiller, a 36-year-old judge, who lives in Conrad, Montana, and was working for the FBI. Rossmiller met Reynolds online last fall. This is not Rossmiller’s first sting. She regularly monitors extremist Muslim websites, searching for potential terrorists. In 2004, she helped win a conviction against a National Guardsman in Tacoma, Washington, whom she met online. When questioned by FBI agents, Reynolds tried to disavow any intent to conspire with Al-Qaida. Authorities say Reynolds told them that he was a patriot and intended to expose an Al-Qaida cell inside the USA. — PTI |
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Cartoon protests: police fires teargas at students
Peshawar, February 13 The protest began in the morning when students began marching to educational institutions in Peshawar, urging people to join their demonstration. The crowd threw stones at a Edwards College, breaking windows and causing other damages at the school founded by Christian missionaries during British colonial rule. The protesters, whom the police said totalled 7,000, also broke windows at the Peshawar Press Club. The police fired teargas and baton-charged the protesters when they tried to march on to the provincial Governor’s residence. It was unknown whether many were wounded, but students were seen carrying away a classmate with an injured leg. Batons and teargas were used again when a group of students went to the city’s main business district and threw stones at shops.
— AP |
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Suicide bomber kills 8 in Baghdad
Baghdad, February 13 Eight more died in attacks elsewhere, including five members of a Shiite religious party gunned down in Baqouba and three policemen who died in separate incidents in Baghdad and Iskandariyah. The suicide attack occurred in the mostly Shiite eastern district of New Baghdad at 9:40 AM as people lined up at a bank to receive government checks in compensation for food rations which were incomplete in the last few months. Police Lt Ali Abbas said the attacker joined the line and blew himself up while security guards were searching people before allowing them to enter the bank.
— AP |
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Two Australians get life term for drug smuggling
Bali (Indonesia), February 13 Renae Lawrence and Scott Rush were the first of nine Australians to be sentenced for their role in a ring that allegedly tried to traffic 8.3 kg of heroin from the Indonesian resort island of Bali last April. Verdicts for the so-called “Bali Nine” are being closely watched in Australia because death sentences in the cases could trigger a public outcry and sour relations between the neighbouring countries.
— AP |
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Iran starts enrichment work, say diplomats Vienna, February 13 Uranium enrichment is seen as a red line by the United States and the European Union in the long-running international standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme, as it is crucial to making atomic weapons. Putting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into centrifuges, which distill out enriched uranium, is a major escalation by Iran in its face-off with the West over a nuclear programme which the USA claims hides secret atomic weapons development and amidst threats by Iran to withdraw from the nuclear NPT. — AFP
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Paying for partner’s plastic surgery on Valentine’s Day
Beijing, February 13 Cosmetic surgery clinics in China’s wealthy metropolis of Shanghai are reporting a boom around February 14, according to the state media with people readily paying for their partners to go under the knife for a plastic surgery. While one couple at a plastic surgery clinic in the city asked for matching eyes, two others asked for matching noses. “I suggested it as a way of celebrating our relationship and bringing us closer together with a special kind of bond,” Liu Yan, 24, who had a matching nose job done with her 28-year-old boyfriend, was quoted as saying by ‘China Daily’. “My boyfriend loved the idea and paid for the whole thing,” she said. According to Liu Chunlong, head of the surgery that performed the operations, business from young Chinese had risen by 30 per cent since February 4 and most of them had been telling that “it was an early Valentine’s present.” And there are other clinics which are offering special Valentine’s Day surgery packages at reduced prices. More and more Chinese youngsters people are today swayed by the Valentine’s Day, compared to the traditional Chinese celebration like the New Year and the Lantern Festival.
— PTI |
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Oxford to woo Indian pupils
London, February 13 “Globalisation doesn’t end at the Thames Valley,” the former European commissioner and governor of Hong Kong said in an interview published in a newspaper today. “I hope it will be the first of several visits to India and China over the next few years,” he said. “I don’t think a serious university can do without a properly thought-through strategy for China and India.” Lord Patten will visit Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi and meet Oxford alumni, speak at a Business School seminar and discuss ways of raising more money for bursaries for Indian students. He said there were around 17,000 Indian students in Britain, compared with nearly 80,000 in the US. He said: “We have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT.” Oxford had twice as many Chinese as Indian students, he said. “One of the problems in India is that we have a rather conservative, stuffy image. People don’t realise the flexibility and modernity of our courses.”
— PTI |
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Academy by NRI in Pune
Toronto, February 13 The academy, a joint venture project, will conduct short-term courses approved by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Transport Canada to train pilots and ground staff, Hemant H Shah, Managing Director of Cubex India, a Winnipeg-based company, said yesterday. Shah, who plans to invest $ 1 million into the venture said pilots would be trained in Winnipeg, Canada, where they would get 250 hours of flying experience, and receive ground training in Pune.
— PTI |
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