W O R L D

New Israeli govt sworn in
Jerusalem, May 5
Israel’s new coalition government led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose centrist Kadima party has vowed to separate from the Palestinians and draw the country's final borders by 2010, has been sworn in after parliamentary approval.

Iran revises taxes for foreign workers
Indians feel the heat, may leave
A sizeable Indian community, including businessmen, has sought immediate intervention of the Union Government to thwart its exodus from Iran where the Government has decided to hike rates of taxation for foreign national working there.

South Korean riot policemen fight with anti-US protesters and farmers as the authorities moved to clear two rural townships to pave the way for a new US military base. — Reuters

British Cabinet reshuffled after local poll debacle
London, May 5
Britain’s beleaguered Prime Minister Tony Blair today reshuffled his scandal-riddled Cabinet sacking Home Secretary Charles Clarke, stripping Deputy Premier John Prescott of his departmental responsibilities and shifting Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a day after the ruling Labour party’s heavy defeat in local elections.

New Israeli govt sworn in
Harinder Mishra

Jerusalem, May 5
Israel’s new coalition government led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose centrist Kadima party has vowed to separate from the Palestinians and draw the country's final borders by 2010, has been sworn in after parliamentary approval.

Lawmakers at the Knesset voted 65-49 in favour of the government yesterday after Olmert presented policy guidelines of the new formation emphasising on his “convergence plan”, calling upon for further evacuation from the West Bank to re-define Israel’s borders, either through negotiations or unilaterally.

“On the eve of the elections, and immediately thereafter, we placed on the public agenda policies that are clear and inescapable,” the incoming Prime Minister who leads the centrist Kadima party told the Knesset before the vote of confidence.

“We did not for one moment try to obscure the national agenda this government will bring to fruition. The entire government will act according to this commitment,” he emphasised in reference to the plan.

When Olmert came to sign the declaration of allegiance after the vote, a technical snag put the process on hold with three pens, one after the other, failing to work before the fourth came to his rescue.

Right-wing Shas party makes a comeback in the new government, despite stating that it opposes the evacuation plan, thus putting the new government in minority for the stated agenda.

Earlier, Olmert pledged to carry on with the “painful concessions” his predecessor Ariel Sharon started by ceding land to secure Israel.

Keeping settlements spread out all over Judea and Samaria “creates an intermingling of populations which is impossible to separate, and which endangers the state of Israel as a Jewish state”, he said.

“Even if the Jewish eye fills with tears, and the heart is torn, we must safeguard the principle that we must keep a solid and stable Jewish majority in our state,” the Prime Minister emphasised.

However, he said the main settlement blocs will stay a part of Israel in any future arrangement.

“The achievements of the settlement movement in main concentrations will forever be an integral part of the sovereign state of Israel, along with Jerusalem, our united capital,” Olmert told the Knesset.

Olmert said he would try to hold a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, over his convergence plan that aims to draw Israel's borders. — PTI

Iran revises taxes for foreign workers
Indians feel the heat, may leave
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

A sizeable Indian community, including businessmen, has sought immediate intervention of the Union Government to thwart its exodus from Iran where the Government has decided to hike rates of taxation for foreign national working there.

Under the law, which was earlier abolished in 2002, the Islamic Republic of Iran has decided to charge all foreign nationals 30 per cent of their income as income tax besides levying heavy fee for work permits and social security given to them.

Under the new law, the highest salary fixed for an Indian national is US $ 2800 per month of which 30 per cent would go as work permit fee. Sources in the Indian community, which has about 200-odd families in Iran, say that annual liability of each member of the community now works out to US 12,000 per annum. Besides, he has to pay other taxes, including salary and social security tax. The total liability would be as high as US $ 40,000 a year.

Efforts to reach Mr Debu Pardhan, Minister in the Indian Embassy in Teheran, were unsuccessful. The Indian Ambassador to Iran, Mr Manbir Singh, is currently on leave.

In 2001when Iran first proposed the law for coordination in calculating the salaries and fringe benefits of foreign nationals by levying heavy work permit charges and subsequent taxes, the Indian community protested. It was on the intervention of the Indian Government that the Iranian Government relented and exempted the Indian community from payment of the new taxes.

The Indian community in Iran feels that unless the new law was reviewed or abolished as in 2001, it may not be possible for it to survive in Iran.

The new tax regime is equally applicable to all foreign nationals. For example, for a European the upper end income limit has been fixed at US $ 7,000 per month against US $ 2800 for an Indian.

But in the case of Indians, most of them are third and fourth generation businessmen who do not get or earn any foreign exchange and their income level, they maintain, cannot be equated with a top of the rank executive.

The new tax regime would also be applicable on Indian companies undertaking various infrastructure development and other civil construction projects. It would act as a deterrent for Indian companies seeking to invest or take contracts there.

Incidentally, there is no reciprocal tax treaty on dual taxation between India and Iran. The Indian community wants that facilities extended to expatriates of the two countries should be on reciprocal basis.

It was around 1925 that the first lot of Indians, about 180 families, went to the Iranian border town of Zahidan. They drove there from the western districts of the then Punjab province in the company of truck drivers who used to transport goods to Iran. After their initial influx, these Indians gradually started settling down in the nearby towns of Zabol, Birijand and Mashhad. In 1950, some more Indians went to Iran and settled down en bloc in Teheran. They were predominantly Sikhs, but there were also some Gujaratis among them. In the 1960s and early 70s, the Shah of Iran permitted immigration into the country of about a million expatriate professionals to run its essential services. Among the new arrivals were about10,000 Indian doctors, engineers and teachers.

However, most of them, except a few doctors, left Iran after the Iranian revolution which ended the Shah's rule. As of now, the number of Indians who have settled down in the country consists of approximately 150 families in Teheran, 35 in Zahidan and only two in Isfahan.

Student held for attacking Editor dead

Islamabad, May 5
A Pakistani student who was arrested for allegedly trying to hurt a German newspaper Editor for publishing Prophet Muhammad cartoons has died in custody in Berlin, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said today.

Tasnim Aslam identified the student as Amer Cheema, but would not say exactly when he had been arrested. She said an initial report from Berlin suggested that Cheema hanged himself at a prison, and added that Pakistan was trying to get more details.

“So far we only know that he had been detained for allegedly trying to hurt the editor of a German newspaper in Berlin, and his trial had not started yet,” she told The Associated Press.

Ellen Goelz, a diplomat at the German Embassy in Islamabad, said she had no information about the student although she had seen media reports. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry had not contacted the embassy about it, she said.

According to Pakistani media reports, a hardline Islamic lawmaker Mian Aslam met with Cheema’s father in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital, yesterday and promised to raise the issue in the parliament. Earlier this year, Muslims held rallies across the world to condemn the cartoons. Some protests turned violent, including in Pakistan, where at least five persons died in the unrest. — AP

British Cabinet reshuffled after local poll debacle

London, May 5
Britain’s beleaguered Prime Minister Tony Blair today reshuffled his scandal-riddled Cabinet sacking Home Secretary Charles Clarke, stripping Deputy Premier John Prescott of his departmental responsibilities and shifting Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a day after the ruling Labour party’s heavy defeat in local elections.

In a wide-ranging reshuffle aimed at reinvigorating his government and restoring public support, Blair made Defence Secretary John Reid the new Home Secretary. Margaret Beckett, currently the Environment Secretary, has become the Foreign Secretary. Des Browne has replaced Reid as the Defence Secretary.

Clarke becomes the highest-ranking casualty of sweeping changes to the Cabinet and will return to the backbenches after a string of Home Office blunders regarding the deportation of foreign criminals. He had been under massive political pressure over the improper release of more than 1,000 foreign prisoners from the UK jails.

Jack Straw was another Cabinet heavyweight to lose his job as Foreign Secretary and will replace Geoff Hoon as Leader of the House of Commons. Hoon will take on a new Cabinet-level post as Minister for Europe under a reform of Foreign Office.
— PTI