W O R L D

US ex-teacher jailed for links with LeT
Washington, April 26
A district court in the US has sentenced a former schoolteacher for the second time to 15 years in prison after an appeals court directed it to reconsider the original conviction for providing material aid to anti-India terrorist outfit Lashkar e-Toiba (LeT).

Iran’s conservatives win majority
Tehran, April 26
Iranian conservatives won a big majority in parliament after two rounds of elections, according to final results today, but the chamber could still prove critical of controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mugabe fails to gain in Zimbabwe recount
Harare, April 26
President Robert Mugabe’s party has failed to secure control of Zimbabwe’s parliament in a partial recount of the March 29 election, results showed on Saturday, handing the ruling party’s first defeat in 28 years.

Chinese rail link to Nepal in 5 yrs
Kathmandu, April 26
China will extend its railway link from Tibet to Nepal’s border in five years, Nepali officials said today, bringing the traditionally friendly nations closer and boosting trade and tourism. The rail link with China could help Nepal reduce its heavy dependence on its giant southern neighbour India for everything from oil to motor parts and medicines.

Children applaud as balloons and pigeons are released during celebrations for the first Iraqi children’s day in Baghdad on Saturday. — Reuters

China for nuclear ties with B’desh
China has shown interest in having nuclear cooperation with Bangladesh modelled on the China-Pakistan ‘civilian nuclear cooperation’ model. Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi talked nuclear cooperation options with Bangladesh foreign adviser Iftekhar A. Chowdhury during a two-day trip yesterday.

Negotiator’s warning on Abbas govt’s future
A top Palestinian negotiator on Friday warned that the government of President Mahmoud Abbas would disappear if a peace deal was not negotiated with Israel by the end of this year.

Family of lynched Hindu find life hard in Pak
Karachi, April 26
The family of a 22-year-old Hindu man, who was lynched by his co-workers for allegedly making blasphemous remarks against Prophet Mohammed, says life will be difficult for them in this Pakistani port city till the "stain of blasphemy" is removed.

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US ex-teacher jailed for links with LeT

Washington, April 26
A district court in the US has sentenced a former schoolteacher for the second time to 15 years in prison after an appeals court directed it to reconsider the original conviction for providing material aid to anti-India terrorist outfit Lashkar e-Toiba (LeT).

The court in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday handed down the sentence for Ali Asad Chandia, a former teacher at a Muslim school who was a part of the "Virginia jihad network" and convicted of providing material aid to the LeT, which has been active in anti-India terrorist activities in India.

Chandia was convicted in 2006 of providing military support to the militant organisation and was one of a dozen men convicted by the US government for training for a "holy war" around the world.

The former schoolteacher was found guilty of acting as an assistant to LeT leader Mohammed Ajmal Khan on his visits to the US in 2002 and 2003 and helping Khan transfer 50,000 paintball pellets to Pakistan.

Chandia's lawyer, according to a report in The Washington Times, has said he will again appeal against the sentence. — PTI

Iran’s conservatives win majority

Tehran, April 26
Iranian conservatives won a big majority in parliament after two rounds of elections, according to final results today, but the chamber could still prove critical of controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Conservatives won 69 per cent of the seats, reformists 16 per cent and independents more than 14 per cent, interior minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi told a news conference.

He was speaking a day after the second round of an election in which 82 seats in the 290-seat parliament were at stake. The first round on March 14 had already assured conservatives of overall victory.

Pour Mohammadi did not give the number of seats won by each faction. But the percentages mean that conservatives will have around 200 seats in the next parliament, reformists 50 and independents around 40.

“My assessment is that the future parliament will be more capable (than the last), with stronger expertise. I hope there will be stronger interaction between the government and the parliament,” he told reporters.

The vote for reformists - whose hopes of mounting a significant challenge were stymied by ass pre-vote disqualifications - appeared to have held up respectably in the second round outside Tehran.

But the reformists fared badly in the run-offs in the capital, with conservatives taking 10 out of the 11 seats having already swept up all 19 of the seats available in the first round, Pour Mohammadi said.

Just one reformist, Ali Reza Mahjoub, was set to sit in the new parliament for Tehran after squeezing into 11th place in the second round, with reformist support hit by a meagre turnout in the capital yesterday. — AFP

Mugabe fails to gain in Zimbabwe recount

Harare, April 26
President Robert Mugabe’s party has failed to secure control of Zimbabwe’s parliament in a partial recount of the March 29 election, results showed on Saturday, handing the ruling party’s first defeat in 28 years.

Results of a parallel presidential poll have not been released and Mugabe has been preparing for a run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Tsvangirai said he won outright and his party had rejected both the recount and any run-off.

For the first time since Zimbabwe’s independence from the Britain in 1980, the MDC wrested a parliamentary majority from Mugabe’s ZANU-PF in the election, triggering a recount of 23 out of 210 constituencies. The Zimbabwe EC said in the 14 out of 23 seats recounted so far, the original results were confirmed.

The commission had ordered the recount after ZANU-PF accused election officials of taking bribes to undercount votes for Mugabe as well as his ruling party and committing other electoral fraud. A number of election officials have been arrested. To win back a parliamentary majority, the ruling party needed to win nine more seats than it did in the first count.

Delays in the recount and in announcing the presidential result have brought growing international pressure on Mugabe (84) and stoked fears of rigging and bloodshed the country. — Reuters

Chinese rail link to Nepal in 5 yrs

Kathmandu, April 26
China will extend its railway link from Tibet to Nepal’s border in five years, Nepali officials said today, bringing the traditionally friendly nations closer and boosting trade and tourism. The rail link with China could help Nepal reduce its heavy dependence on its giant southern neighbour India for everything from oil to motor parts and medicines.

Ai Ping, director-general of China’s international department, met Nepali Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala yesterday and told him that the rail link would bolster their diplomatic and trade ties, officials said.

“They discussed the benefits of the project,” Basanta Gautam, special secretary in Koirala’s office, said.

“The railway link should be complete in five years.”

China and Nepal share a more than 1,400-km border. The planned railway project would link Tibetan capital Lhasa with Khasa, a border town near China-Nepal border.

“It will be an extension of the famous railway link between China and Tibet,” Gautam said.

The 1,142-km rail link between China and Tibet opened in July 2006. The world’s highest, it passes through spectacular icy peaks on the Tibetan highlands, touching altitudes of 5,000 metres. — Reuters

China for nuclear ties with B’desh
A.W. Khan writes from Dhaka

China has shown interest in having nuclear cooperation with Bangladesh modelled on the China-Pakistan ‘civilian nuclear cooperation’ model.

Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi talked nuclear cooperation options with Bangladesh foreign adviser Iftekhar A. Chowdhury during a two-day trip yesterday.

“They (China) wants to get involved in larger nuclear power plant projects. He (Jiechi) has said Bangladesh-China peaceful nuclear power cooperation can be built on the China-Pakistan model,” Iftekhar told the media after seeing off Jiechi at the Dhaka airport yesterday.

Russia had also offered its assistance to build a nuclear power plant here in Rooppur when Iftekhar met Russian foreign minister Sergei Levrov in Moscow last September.

The Bangladeshi government had deferred the construction of the Rooppur power plant but last year it asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to review the site for a power plant to be constructed by 2015.

Jiechi’s trip is a part of a three-country tour to shore up international support for this summer’s Beijing Olympics after recent protests over Tibet.

He said Bangladesh “is a true friend” because of its strong support for the ‘One China policy’.

Negotiator’s warning on Abbas govt’s future
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

A top Palestinian negotiator on Friday warned that the government of President Mahmoud Abbas would disappear if a peace deal was not negotiated with Israel by the end of this year. Saeb Erekat, who is also a senior Abbas aide, said the unchecked construction of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories were the biggest obstacle to this agreement.

“Palestinians are sick of listening with their ears to us talk about peace. They want to see it with their eyes,”Erekat said at a briefing at the Palestine Center in Washington prior to flying back home.

“But if there is not an agreement by the end of this year, I tell you our government stands a chance of disappearing”, he warned, adding, Abbas was not a President who just wanted to hold on to his chair if he was ineffective.

On Thursday, Abbas met President George W. Bush at the White House. The next day, in an interview with the Associated Press, the Palestinian leader said so far nothing had been achieved.Erekat urged the US to push for an immediate freeze of settlement activities and say the 1967 borders, which include the West Bank,the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, define the boundary of a future Palestinian state.

The Palestinian negotiator said if the Israelis were truly interested in peace, they needed to accept a Palestinian state bound by 1967 borders.

Family of lynched Hindu find life hard in Pak

Karachi, April 26
The family of a 22-year-old Hindu man, who was lynched by his co-workers for allegedly making blasphemous remarks against Prophet Mohammed, says life will be difficult for them in this Pakistani port city till the "stain of blasphemy" is removed.

Jagdish Kumar, who worked in a leather factory in the Korangi industrial area, was killed by his colleagues who were reportedly angered by blasphemous remarks he had passed during a debate on religion.

Kumar's family had left the city soon after to go to their hometown of Mirpurkhas to mourn his death.The family, which returned here yesterday, believes the real motive behind the murder was something else.

"Until we get justice we have to live with the same lie which sparks fear among our community," Rameshri, Kumar's elder sister, told the Dawn newspaper. — PTI