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Egypt train crash kills 51
Two Asians offloaded from flight to Manchester
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10 die in Moscow market blast
Saddam’s second trial begins
France to re-open Diana’s death probe
India, Russia to focus on joint war games
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Egypt train crash kills 51
Qaliub (Egypt), August 21 Two carriages were derailed in a tangle of torn metal as one train slammed into the back of another. Another 138 passengers — mostly farmers or government workers commuting to Cairo — were injured in the crash which also set one train ablaze. “The number of casualties has been established at 51 dead and 138 injured,” said Health Minister Hatem
al-Gabali, quoted by the government news agency MENA. Earlier, a security source had said that rescue workers had extricated at least 43 bodies from the twisted remains of the two carriages as cranes were brought in to help lift the wreckage. Hundreds of onlookers and would-be rescuers crowded at the crash site at Qaliub, 20 km north of the capital. Preliminary findings of a police investigation into the cause of the crash suggested that the train coming from Mansura ignored a light and rammed into the rear of the other train. Ambulances rushed the injured to Cairo and other hospitals in this southern region of the Nile delta. Policeman Mamduh Amer said most of the victims were farmers or government employees.
— AFP |
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Two Asians offloaded from flight to Manchester
MUSLIM leaders on Sunday spoke of their dismay after a passenger mutiny in which several British families refused to travel on a plane with two Asian
men. The two men were forced to leave the flight bound for Manchester after fellow passengers wrongly suspected them of being terrorists.
Several people on board flight ZB 613 from Malaga to Manchester became alarmed by the men’s presence and demanded that the airline staff remove them from the plane. Cabin crew informed the Spanish authorities of the passengers’ fears and the men were ordered off the Monarch Airlines flight and questioned by the police for several hours. They were eventually cleared and put on an alternative flight to Manchester. Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the incident, which follows a security alert over an alleged bomb plot at Heathrow two weeks ago, demonstrated “the high level of suspicion that ordinary Muslims are often being unfairly subjected to.” He added: “They (Muslims) are increasingly being treated as though they are guilty of plotting terrorist acts unless proved innocent, rather than vice versa.” Similar incidents in which people of Asian or Middle-Eastern appearances have been targeted by fellow passengers have been reported on pilots’ and cabin crew’s websites, including one in which two British women with young children on a flight from Spain apparently complained about a bearded Muslim even though he had been security checked twice before boarding the plane. Mr Bari said he hoped it would not lead to a growing culture of targeting Muslims. “While it is of course sensible for all of us to be vigilant, it is not sensible to pick on Muslims simply because they happen to dress differently or appear to be speaking to each other in Arabic,” he said. The plane bound from Malaga, which had 150 passengers on board, had been due to take off at around 3 am, last Wednesday, but was delayed by around three hours after three families refused to enter the Airbus 320 aircraft unless the men were removed, and a further two families with children left the plane in protest. Heath Schofield, an industrial chemical salesman from Cheshire, who was travelling on the plane with his wife and two daughters, Emily, 15, and Isobel, 12, said some passengers had become alarmed by how the men appeared. “We were coming back to Britain with a load of people in flipflops and shorts but the two men were wearing jumpers and leather jackets,” he said. His wife, Jo Schofield, a college lecturer, said there was a “pin-drop’s silence” when the two men entered the cabin, and that they were eventually led off by the police, with their heads bowed, as people watched in silence. She said suspicion was first aroused after another passenger claimed to have heard them speaking in Arabic, and believed they had said something alarming. Mrs Schofield she was “frightened” by how quickly people’s attitudes had changed and was worried for the
future. By arrangement with The Independent, London. |
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10 die in Moscow market blast
Moscow, August 21 The explosion at 1200 IST, which brought down a two- storey shopping pavilion at the eastern Eurasia Cherkizovsky market, was caused by “an uncased device” containing about one kg of the chemical explosive Trinitrotoluene (TNT), according to the Emergency Medical Aid Centre. “An uncased explosive device, yield measuring about one kg of TNT, went off in the territory of the Eurasia market” used mostly by traders from China and the Far East or from former Soviet republics in Central Asia, Itar-Tass news agency reported citing the Centre. Investigators said it could have been an instance of ganglands settling scores. Rival criminal gangs in the Russian capital occasionally plant small bombs at markets.
— PTI |
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Saddam’s second trial begins
Baghdad, August 21 The trial opens a new legal chapter for the ousted Iraqi leader, who once again faces a possible death penalty for the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds during the Iraqi army’s ‘Operation Anfal’ - Arabic for “spoils of war.” The 1987-88 crackdown was aimed at crushing independence-minded Kurdish militias and clearing all Kurds from the northern region along the border with Iran. Saddam accused the Kurds of helping Iran in its war with Iraq. Many villages were razed and countless young men disappeared, according to survivors. “It’s time for humanity to know...the magnitude and scale of the crimes committed against the people of Kurdistan,” the lead prosecutor for the Anfal case, Munqith
al-Faroon, said in his opening statement at the trial’s first session today.
— AP |
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France to re-open Diana’s death probe
London, August 21 Previous examinations of samples taken from Paul have always suggested that his blood alcohol level was three times over the drink drive limit, when the Mercedes he was driving smashed into a Paris underpass - killing him, Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed. However, there have always been doubts about the French laboratory team mishandling the blood tests. And the recent claims by the manager of the London mortuary that the princess was not pregnant when she died have raised further suspicion over the cause of her death. This has now been partially supported by former Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens, who has been reinvestigating the crash in advance of an inquest. Even Dodi’s father, Mohammed al-Fayed, has repeatedly claimed that the blood samples were switched to make Paul appear drunk. He still suspects that Diana and his son were murdered on orders from British royal family because she was pregnant with Dodi Fayed’s child. The French Director of Public Prosecution has, therefore, authorised a judge to probe the evidence of two forensic experts who tested Paul’s blood. The idea is to lay conspiracy theories to rest, prompted by missing and sloppy paperwork. “We are providing all assistance to the British inquiry into Princess Diana’s death,” said a spokesman for the criminal investigation department for the Paris police. A lawyer who has been involved in the case since 1997 told the Daily Mail: “It is clearly a cause for concern that the alternative theories as to the cause of the accident have never been examined properly.”
— ANI |
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India, Russia to focus on joint war games
Moscow, August 21 Visiting Chief of Army Staff Gen J.J. Singh called on the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Army Gen Yuri Baluyevsky, to discuss a wide range of issues, including services-to-services cooperation between the land forces of the two nations and sustained supplies of spares for the military hardware. “The two military leaders discussed the plan of interaction between the land forces of the two countries in 2007, with focus on joint exercises,” a Russian Defence Ministry statement said after the Army Chief’s talks with General
Baluyevsky. Joint development of new weapon systems and training of Indian military personnel in Russia’s defence institutions were also discussed during General Singh’s parleys with the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. This is his first visit to Russia as the Army Chief and is seen as part of New Delhi’s efforts to allay Moscow’s concerns over growing Indo-US bonhomie in the defence sector.
— PTI |
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