W O R L D

300 injured in S Africa rail crash
Pretoria, January 31
Two passenger trains packed with school kids and rush-hour commuters collided near the South African capital Pretoria today, injuring up to 300 persons, medics said.

Rescuers work on the site of a train accident near Kalefong station, Attridgeville, in the west of Pretoria on Thursday. — AFP

Girl who performed for Obama shot in Chicago
Chicago, January 30
A 15-year-old girl who performed at President Barack Obama's inauguration last week was shot dead in Chicago by a gunman who opened fire on a group of kids hanging out in a park, the police said today.

Plea against Kayani discharged
A Division Bench of the Islamabad High Court on Thursday discharged an intra-court appeal against the three-year extension granted to the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.

300 injured in S Africa rail crash

Pretoria, January 31
Two passenger trains packed with school kids and rush-hour commuters collided near the South African capital Pretoria today, injuring up to 300 persons, medics said.

The accident took place before 11:30 am IST when a commuter train heading from the suburbs to the capital ploughed into a stationary train on the same track.

Medical workers said up to 300 people had been treated for various degrees of injury.

"We do have 20 seriously injured," said Johan Pieterse of Tshwane Emergency Services.

"Both of the trains were full of commuters and between them were lots of schoolchildren on the way to school," said Pieterse.

"We counted about 50 plus children," he added.

At least three people were said to be in a "critical" condition according to Chris Botha, a spokesman for emergency services provider Netcare.

"The people who were critically injured suffered multiple injuries to the body," said Botha.

At least one person was airlifted to the nearby Milpark Hospital, others were taken by ambulance and many were treated at the scene.

Rescue workers struggled to cut away the tangled wreckage of the trains to free the passengers.

One of the train drivers was freed from the carriage where he was trapped for two hours.

"He's critical at this stage," said Pieterse.

The trains were operated by Metrorail, the country's rail system in cities.

The cause of the accident is unknown.

"At this stage we do not want to speculate," said Metrorail spokeswoman Lillian Mofokeng.

It is just the latest serious rail accident to hit South Africa's urban rail network.

In 2011, 857 commuters were injured in Johannesburg's Soweto township when a passenger train smashed into a stationary train during the peak rush hour period.

The Passenger Rail Agency of South, has itself described its passengers as "travelling like cattle."

Over 90 per cent of commuter trains in South Africa date back to more than fifty years, the most recent dating from 1986. The network is currently undergoing a major revamp to upgrade its fleet, spending $14 billion, over 20 years. — AFP

Girl who performed for Obama shot in Chicago

Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton (R) is comforted by her sister and nephew at a park where her daughter Hadiya was killed in Chicago on Wednesday. — AFP

Chicago, January 30
A 15-year-old girl who performed at President Barack Obama's inauguration last week was shot dead in Chicago by a gunman who opened fire on a group of kids hanging out in a park, the police said today.

"It is believed that the offender mistook the group for gang members and fired at them," Chicago police office Laura Kubiak said.

Hadiya Pendleton -- described by a relative as a "walking angel" -- was sheltering from the rain under a canopy with about 10 or 12 other teenagers yesterday when the gunman leaped over a fence, opened fire and then jumped into a getaway car at 2.30 pm.

Her friends scrambled in fear and did not stay to help Pendleton or the two boys were were also injured, Kubiak said.

"As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy," her godfather, Chicago police officer Damon Stewart, lamented to the Chicago Sun-Times.

"I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken."

The park where Pendleton was shot is about a mile away from Obama's South Side home.

Chicago is struggling to control an epidemic of gang violence, which helped push the city's murder rate up 16 per cent to 506 people in 2012. The city has already logged more than 40 murders so far this year.

The shooting also comes as the nation is embroiled in a debate over gun violence. — AFP

Plea against Kayani discharged
Afzal Khan in Islamabad

The applicant, Colonel Inamur Rahim (retd), urged the court to allow him to make changes in his plea. However, the Bench rejected his request. The court had earlier rejected his plea against the extension granted to the army chief. He had stated in the petition that the army chief could not remain in uniform after attaining the age 60 years according to the Army Act.

Strike over war crimes trials hits B’desh, 3 killed

Police detains a suspected activist of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami during a strike in Dhaka on Thursday. — AFP

Dhaka, January 31
Bangladesh was on the boil today as activists of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami clashed with the police, leaving three people, including a constable, dead and several others injured, during a nationwide strike called to protest the 1971 war crimes trials.

The nationwide general strike was enforced by the Jamaat-e-Islami and backed by main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to halt an ongoing trial of their top leaders for 1971 war crimes charges.

Two people were killed in northwestern Bogra in clashes between pro-government and Jamaat-e-Islami activists. — PTI

Brazil night club owner attempts suicide

Santa Maria, January 30
An owner of the Brazilian night club where 235 people perished in a weekend fire tried to commit suicide, the police said, as the number of survivors seeking medical treatment after the disaster continued to rise.

Elissandro Sphor tried to kill himself with a plastic shower hose, said a senior police official in the town of Cruz Alta 125 km from Santa Maria, where the club owner is hospitalised. —AFP

Sharif blew chance to seize Indian territory: Musharraf
Afzal Khan in Islamabad

Former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf has claimed that the Kargil operation was a military success, offering an opportunity to seize 300 square miles of territory from the Indian Army, but the chance was lost after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the US seeking truce.

On Lt Gen (retd) Shahid Aziz’s recent allegations that the former army chief was guilty of putting a “tight lid” on the Kargil war, Musharraf claimed that Kargil was a military success but Nawaz Sharif lost it politically.

“We lost the Kargil war, which was a big success militarily, because of Nawaz Sharif,” said Musharraf. “If he had not visited the US, we would have conquered 300 square miles of India,” he claimed.

“Telling everyone about it was not necessary at all,” said Musharraf in an interview with a news channel. He added that he felt Aziz had an imbalanced personality and had resorted to character assassination by making these accusations.

Former ISI chief Gen Ziaddin, who was named by Sharif to replace Musharraf, said the latter had besought Sharif to go to Washington to rescue the trapped soldiers.

Ziauddin was jailed by pro-Musharraf generals within hours of his appointment when they staged the coup.

In the interview, Musharraf said Kargil was not a major operation but a localised one.

We lost the Kargil war, which was a big success militarily, because of Nawaz Sharif…. If he had not visited the US, we would have conquered 300 square miles of India
— Pervez Musharraf, Pak Army ex-chief

Syria warns of ‘surprise’ response to Israel attack

Beirut/Amman, Jan 31
Syria warned on Thursday of a possible “surprise” response to Israel’s attack on its territory and Russia condemned the air strike as an unprovoked violation of international law.

Damascus could take “a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes”, Syrian ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali said a day after Israel struck against Syria. —Reuters

BRIEFLY

Chinese court convicts monk, nephew for inciting immolations
Beijing: A Tibetan monk was given a suspended death sentence and his nephew sent to 10 years in prison for inciting self-immolation protests against Chinese rule. Monk Lorang Konchok, 40, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and has been stripped of his political rights for life, in what was seen as a deterrent punishment in the region hit by unrest. — PTI

2 members of Pak polio team killed
Islamabad: Two members of a polio vaccination team were killed when their motorcycle hit a bomb in the restive Kurram tribal region of Pakistan on Thursday, the latest in a string of attacks targeting volunteers engaged in a drive against the crippling disease. The two volunteers were on their way to administer polio drops to children in Mali Khel area of Kurram Agency. — PTI

6.7 magnitude quake hits Chile
Santiago: A strong 6.7-magnitude earthquake jolted northern Chile on Thursday knocking out electricity and local telecom services but no immediate tsunami warning was issued. The earthquake occurred at 2015 GMT (0145 IST), at the relatively shallow depth of 47.5 km and the epicentre was located 102 km from the mining town of Copiapo. — AFP

NASA launches gen-next satellite
Washington: NASA on Thursday launched a new unmanned communication satellite to stay in touch with the International Space Station astronauts and relay more Hubble telescope images. The first of NASA's three next-generation Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS), known as TDRS-K, was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. — PTI

Nine killed in Karachi violence 
Karachi: The chief of one of Pakistan’s largest seminaries was shot dead on Thursday in a fresh wave of violence that killed at least nine, including two prominent religious scholars. Mufti Abdul Majeed Deenpuri, 60, a well-known religious scholar and head at Jamia Binoria Uloom Islamia was shot dead with two other colleagues on the busy Shahrah-e-Faisal road near nursery in the afternoon. — PTI

Chinese hackers target NYT computers
New York: The New York Times on Thursday said Chinese hackers carried out sustained attacks on its computer systems, breaking in and stealing the passwords of reporters, including in India, after the paper’s expose of vast wealth amassed by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s family. China dismissed newspaper’s claims that Chinese hackers have persistently attacked computer systems of the paper for the last four months. — PTI