Turkey women MPs to wear head scarves in House
Ankara, October 31
Four female lawmakers from Turkey's Islamic-rooted government attended parliament today wearing head scarves for the first time, breaking a long taboo in the staunchly secular country.

 

Pope acts like grandpa: A boy hugs Pope Francis while he addresses a crowd at St Peter's square in the Vatican on the occasion of Family Day. — AFP

Little boy sits in pope’s chair, steals the show Pope Francis was speaking at St Peter's Square about the important role grandparents play when a little boy walked up behind him and confidently climbed up and sat down on the pontiff's white chair. The Vatican says Francis was surrounded by elderly faithful and their grandchildren on Saturday night at a rally to encourage family life when the boy came up, wearing a striped shirt, jeans and sneakers Acting like an indulgent grandpa, Francis let the boy explore the area undisturbed before tens of thousands of people. The pope smiled while reading his speech as the boy sat in the empty chair, gazed up at him and even at one point clung to the pontiff's legs.

Austerity measures find no takers in Italy Protesters clash with the anti-riot police during a demonstration against the government's austerity measures and to press for their demand of affordable housing, in downtown Rome on Thursday. — AFP

 

 

 

The Hague, October 31
Syria has completed destruction of critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and filling munitions with poison gas, the global chemical weapons watchdog said today.

The announcement by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons came one day ahead of the November 1 deadline set by the Hague-based organisation for Damascus to destroy or "render inoperable" all chemical weapon production facilities and machinery for mixing chemicals into poison gas and filling munitions.

Destruction of the equipment means that Syria can no longer produce new chemical weapons. However, Damascus still has to start destroying existing weapons and stockpiles. The country is believed to have around 1,000 metric tons of chemicals and weapons including mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin.

In a statement, the OPCW said its team is "now satisfied that it has verified, and seen destroyed, all of Syria's declared critical production and mixing/filling equipment." It added that, "no further inspection activities are currently planned." Completion of the initial stage of destruction is a significant milestone in an ambitious timeline that aims to destroy all of Damascus' chemical weapons by mid-2014.

Inspectors said earlier this week they had completed their first round of verification work, visiting 21 of 23 sites declared by Damascus. Inspectors were unable to visit two sites because of security concerns, underscoring the risky nature of a mission to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal in the midst of an ongoing civil war.

However, the OPCW said today that the two sites they could not access were, according to Syria, "abandoned and ... the chemical weapons programme items they contained were moved to other declared sites, which were inspected." Syria has submitted a plan for the total destruction of its chemical weapons that has to be approved next month by the OPCW's executive committee.

In a further sign of progress in the mission, a group of eight OPCW inspectors returned to the organization's headquarters today.

"On behalf of the OPCW, I thank you and all of our colleagues from the Joint OPCW-UN Mission who remain in Syria for your outstanding service," Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said in comments released by the OPCW. "I salute the fortitude and courage you've all demonstrated in fulfilling the most challenging mission ever undertaken by this organisation." —AP

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan's main anti-graft outfit, has decided to reinvestigate all high-profile cases, including those against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari, even if some of them have been partly decided by courts.

The bureau took the decision at a meeting held here on Wednesday to analyse whether investigations conducted into such cases had been fair or affected by pressure or favouritism.

Two corruption cases against the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah will also be reinvestigated under the directives of the Lahore High Court. Bureau spokesman Ramzan Sajid said that NAB chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry had decided to constitute a combined investigation team for cases which might have been partly decided by the accountability courts of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. “The team will look afresh into different aspects of the cases to ensure that they are vigorously persued.”

The under-trial cases against the prime minister and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif include the Hudaibya Paper Mills case, the Ittefaq Foundry (wilful loan default) case and a case related to assets beyond the known sources of income.

The proceedings in the cases were adjourned sine die by the accountability court in 2001 when the Sharif brothers were in exile. After their return, NAB filed an application to seek reopening of the cases in 2007 and a court allowed it to do so.

But, the trials were adjourned again sine die in 2010 by the court which observed that these could be commenced if an application signed by the NAB chairman was submitted.

On Friday, a court in Islamabad reopened six cases against Zardari which had remained dormant because of immunity enjoyed by him as the President.

London, October 31
British police have arrested four people in an investigation of UK citizens suspected of attending terrorism training camps in Syria.

Metropolitan Police say two men and a woman were arrested today morning in East London. Another man was arrested in Lancashire in northwest England, and all four who are between the ages of 21 and 31 are being questioned by police.

Police said the four were arrested on suspicion of "failing to disclose information which might be of assistance in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of a person involved in an act of terrorism.

" The arrests come after police charged two brothers last month with attending a terror training camp in Syria and firearms offences. — AP