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Kerry hits back as North Korea threatens Japan
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and South Korea's Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se in Seoul on Friday. — AFP 3 crude bombs hurled at Indian envoy’s car in Bangladesh |
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Special to The Tribune
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Kerry hits back as North Korea threatens Japan
Seoul, April 12 Kerry, visiting Seoul to give US backing to military ally South Korea, joined President Barack Obama in decrying North Korea’s incendiary rhetoric — and urged China to step in. The air of crisis that has engulfed the region for weeks, since North Korea staged a rocket launch and atomic test, was given even greater menace from a US intelligence report that said it may now have a nuclear warhead in its arsenal. US and South Korean military officials downplayed the assessment by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), but Pyongyang warned of direct results if Japan executes its threat to shoot down any North Korean missile. The North's Korean Central News Agency said that such a “provocative” intervention would see Tokyo — an enormous conurbation of 30 million people — "consumed in nuclear flames". "Japan is always in the cross-hairs of our revolutionary army and if Japan makes a slightest move, the spark of war will touch Japan first," KCNA said in a commentary. Unbowed, an official at Japan’s Defence Ministry said that the country “will take every possible measure to respond to any scenario” while Kerry warned that a North Korean missile launch would be a “huge mistake”.
— AFP |
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3 crude bombs hurled at Indian envoy’s car in Bangladesh
Dhaka, April 12 "The High Commissioner (Pankaj Saran) is completely unhurt and there is nothing to be worried about... he will return to Dhaka in line with his visit schedule," an Indian high commission spokesman told PTI. A police official in Khulna said unidentified miscreants hurled the bombs in front of a number of parked cars while the Indian envoy was in a meeting with the local chamber leaders. Assistant police commissioner Abul Kalam Azad said the explosions slightly wounded three people, including his driver, but the cars were undamaged and a massive manhunt was launched to track down those who exploded the bombs.
"We suspect that activists of Jamaat-e-Islami exploded the bombs ahead of their planned general strike in the (Khulna) district to create fear among public so their programme could be enforced...we think it is a stray incident," the official said. A local journalist who was covering the envoy's programme said the explosions came as Saran was about to complete his address at Chamber of Commerce and Industries building. The Indian High Commission officials said the envoy went to coastal Khunla region today to survey cyclone affected areas as a project was underway there with Indian assistance for rehabilitation of the victims. Last month, a low intensity crude cocktail bomb exploded outside a hotel in Dhaka during President Pranab Mukherjee's visit amid a general strike in called by fundamentalist Jamaat-Islami to protest the conviction of three of its top leaders for 1971 war crimes.
— PTI
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Top official gambles away Rs 3 crore meant for poor, jailed
Shyam Bhatia in London An international civil servant, who stole more than the equivalent of Rs 3 crore destined for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, has been revealed as a gambling addict who started to steal after a visit to Las Vegas. He was caught after trying to obtain a cash advance for an event in support of World AIDS Day Thirty-one-year-old Pradeep Moorthy claimed £58,000 (more than Rs 45 lakh) in travelling expenses and additional bogus claims of £3,17,000 (more than Rs 2.6 crore) for consultancy work that was paid into the bank accounts of three school friends. The school friends have been named as Andre Turner, aged 32, and Suresh Kadungala and Waseem Alam, each aged 31, who pretended to be contractors. They laundered the stolen money through their bank accounts in exchange for 50 per cent of the takings. Both Kadungala and Aslam have been given 15 months suspended sentences, but an arrest warrant has been issued for Turner who failed to turn up in court. Moorthy’s story was played out in a London court of law - Southwark Crown Court - which heard how he was a budget assistant with responsibility for the budget of the Secretariat’s Social Transformation Programme Division, known as SPTD, which looks after child health, universal primary education and ways of combating AIDS and Malaria. The court heard how the money taken from the SPTD budget was earmarked for “some of the poorest nations on Earth.” Moorthy was strictly brought up and taught not to gamble, but his life changed after a routine holiday to the US gambling capital of Las Vegas in 2006. Defence lawyer David Philips explained, “He resisted on the first two days, but on the third day he succumbed. He enjoyed it so much that he couldn’t resist the temptation of gambling.” The court was also told how Moorthy would routinely place bets on his way to work, during the day and on his way home. He has now been jailed for three years and eight months after admitting fraud and for what Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith described as an “appalling abuse of trust.” During the trial, the judge asked why it was so easy for Moorthy to steal the funds. Separately, British Government officials have criticised the Secretariat for what they describe as “unsatisfactory” weaknesses in financial management. Earlier, Detective Constable Nikki Hubbard from the London police’s Economic and Complex Crime Unit commented on how “Moorthy not only duped his friends, who will now have criminal records for life, but he also was taking money to fund his gambling habit which had been earmarked for research into AIDS, poverty and other welfare issues in some of the poorer Commonwealth countries. “He abused his position of trust for his own personal gain with little concern of how it would affect his friends or the impact he was having farther afield on those considerably less fortunate than him.” Fall from grace
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Musharraf admits to deal with US on drone strikes
Islamabad, April 12 Musharraf said there was no blanket agreement with the US on the controversial drone campaign and that his regime had cleared missile strikes "only on very few occasions where the target was absolutely isolated and (the drone strike) had no chance of collateral damage". The drone strikes were discussed "at the military (and) intelligence level" and cleared only if "there was no time for our own (special operations task force) and military to act", he said. "That was...maybe two or three times only," he told CNN in an interview. Sometimes, he said, "you couldn't delay action". He added: "These ups and downs kept going...It was a very fluid situation, a vicious enemy...mountains, inaccessible areas". Musharraf said that one of those killed by US drones was Nek Mohammed, a tribal warlord accused of harbouring Al-Qaida militants in the tribal belt. In June 2004, Pakistan intelligence said Mohammed died after Pakistani forces launched a missile at a house where he was staying. Pakistani leaders have for long denied the country's involvement in clearing drone strikes.
— PTI |
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9 soldiers killed in fresh fighting in northwest Pakistan
Taliban attack kills 13 Afghan soldiers Ex-German Prez charged with corruption $50 bn Russian drive for space supremacy French Senate adopts gay marriage law
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US Secretary of State John Kerry today demanded North Korea abandon an expected missile launch as the communist state threatened a nuclear strike on Japan amid a chilling new evaluation of its offensive capability.
