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Friday,
May 2, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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SARS
claims 11 more lives South Korean workers toss leaflets during a May Day rally in Seoul on Thursday. According to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), about 30,000 workers gathered in Central Seoul to ask for a better labour environment such as five-day week and abolition of discrimination against irregular workers.
— Reuters photo First
army-run SARS hospital in China |
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KANISHKA BOMBING
The body of a two-year-old Palestinian boy, Amir Ayyad, lies in blankets after he was killed by a bullet wound during an Israeli attack on the Shijaia neighbourhood
outside Gaza City on
Thursday.
Indo-Pak situation frightening: Armitage Meeting on
Indo-Pak ties today UK sleuths in
India to find murder suspect Violence mars
functions
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SARS claims 11 more lives
Beijing, May 1 It quoted the Health Ministry as saying that seven of the new deaths were in Beijing, currently the hardest-hit place in the world, along with 122 of the latest cases. Meanwhile, the outbreak of SARS has forced China to scale down events today to mark the International Labour Day, with the ruling Communist Party using the occasion to salute front-line medical workers in the fight against the disease. "People’s Daily", the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, in an editorial, paid respects to medical staff and scientists working in the front line of fighting SARS. Extending May Day greetings to millions of workers, Chinese vice-president Zeng Qinghong said the government had taken the prevention and treatment of SARS as a significant political task, since it was closely related to the people’s health and security, and even to the stability of China’s development and its international reputation. In a related development, China is desperately trying to identify and cut off the transmission of the deadly disease by all means - even by "quarantining" used currency notes. The country’s apex bank, the People’s Bank of China, is putting more new cash into circulation and holding used banknotes for 24 hours before putting it back into people’s hands, the state media reported today. Some banks were even sterilising soiled currency notes using ultraviolet radiation to try to kill the SARS virus. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of the four public sector banks, is urging customers to use automated teller machines, telephones and the Internet to do their banking. HONG KONG: Doctors in Hong Kong are trying to change the death certificate of a five-year-old boy who died of a SARS-like illness, a news report said on Thursday. James Lakandi died last Thursday and his family was given a death certificate which said the cause of death was "atypical pneumonia (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and immunodeficiency". Doctors at the city’s Queen Mary Hospital now want to alter the death certificate to remove the reference to SARS, saying that he was killed by another form of atypical pneumonia. The Nepalese boy died after being isolated and treated with the anti-SARS drug ribovarin and steroids, South China Morning Post reported.
Agencies |
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First army-run SARS hospital
in China Beijing, May 1 A Taiwanese nurse treating SARS patients died, as Canada, worst hit after Asia, reported two more deaths, one day after rejoicing over the lift of a WHO warning against travel to Toronto city. With the 187 new cases reported today, China's nationwide death toll now stands at 170 and the number of cases at 3,647. With the five new casualties, the death toll in Hong Kong special administrative region has mounted to 162. The deceased include five men aged between 34 and 83.
PTI |
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KANISHKA
BOMBING
Vancouver, May 1 On the third day of the murder trial, a Canadian Pacific Airlines ticket agent repeatedly contradicted statements she made to the police in the month after the bomb explosion in 1985. Martine Donahue told the court that she had reviewed her official statements to the police about a month before arriving at a British Columbia Supreme Court to testify. She had made four statements to the police in 1985, swore an affidavit in 1988 and testified at a trial in 1990. But she did not remember what she had on earlier occasions when questioned by defence lawyer Richard Peck. Mr Peck, who represents Kamloops millworker Ajaib Singh Bagri, one of the main accused in the bombing, said he was interested in the voice of the caller who made ticket reservations on June 19, 1985. In response to the questions, Ms Donahue said the voice was “very refined” and had a light East Indian accent. Asked if the voice was distinctive, she said “no.” On being asked whether it was “very distinctive”, she again said “no.” Mr Peck later pulled out the statement she gave to the police on June 24, 1985, the day after the bomb explosion. In that Ms Donahue had described the voice as “very distinctive.” Mr Peck asked if the caller spoke “very good English”, to which she replied that is a bit far-fetched .
PTI |
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Israeli
troops raid Gaza, seven Palestinians shot
Gaza, May 1 The raid sent a strong signal to international mediators led by the USA and the new Palestinian Government that Israel would press ahead with such operations despite the release yesterday of a West Asia peace ''road map''. Israeli officials say they will not change the way they confront a 31-month-old Palestinian uprising until the Palestinians show they are cracking down on militants as required by the ''road map''. Residents of Shijaia neighbourhood outside Gaza City said an Israeli armoured force rumbled in after midnight, laying siege to the family home of a militant from Islamic group Hamas and calling on those inside to leave. Hamas and an armed offshoot of the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and new reformist Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas claimed responsibility for a Tel Aviv suicide bombing that killed three persons yesterday . Witnesses in Shijaia reported heavy fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen and said tank shells were fired at the besieged home of Hamas militant Youssef Abu Heen. They said helicopter gunships fired missiles at what appeared to be positions held by gunmen. Ahmed Ayyad, a blacksmith, said his two-year-old son, Amir, was killed by a bullet as the toddler stood near a window facing Israeli troops. ''I could not help him,'' Ayyad said, choking back tears at the local morgue. ''What road map? It is nonsense...the Israelis do not want peace — you can ask my son.'' Six other Palestinians, among them at least three civilians, were killed during the gun battle and more than 12 wounded, witnesses and hospital officials said. An Israeli military source confirmed that an operation was under way in Shijaia ''against the terrorist infrastructure''. The source said at least six soldiers were wounded in the fighting. Earlier in the West Bank, two Palestinian gunmen were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers near the village of Yatta, residents said.
Reuters |
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Indo-Pak situation frightening: Armitage
Washington, May 1 "... You will see India and Pakistan with a thousand-mile shared border and a 50-year history of enmity and war — a situation that is truly frightening when you add into the mix nuclear weapons outside the system of international restraints," Mr Armitage said in an address to the National Defence University yesterday. On North Korea, he said: "It is blighted nation led by a dictator who defies his international commitments and fiddles with nuclear threats". "And you will see Iran where an entire generation is ready to change, while elements of a violent and backward past look to buy and to build weapons of mass destruction despite their solemn obligations to the contrary". He said agreements such as the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and the Chemical Weapons Convention and organizations such as the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group constituted a global security architecture that had served us satisfactorily and kept us safe". And yet, he continued, "the system we have in place for dealing with such proliferation challenges does not really offer solutions for these problems. This is a system that works to dampen the demand for such capabilities and to deny the means to develop them and with some success. But it is not a system that has a clear and consistent way of dealing with nations who pass certain milestones.
PTI |
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Meeting
on Indo-Pak
ties today Islamabad, May 1 "The meeting will look at all aspects of India-Pakistan relations and may consider some confidence-building measures to further reduce tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours," officials said. Pakistani officials yesterday said that Islamabad planned to announce a package of confidence-building measures, which include reopening of its airspace to Indian overflights. During the meeting, top officials of Pakistan Foreign Office will brief General Musharraf and Mr Jamali on the impact of peace initiatives by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Pakistani Premier during the past few days.
PTI |
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UK sleuths in India to find murder suspect
London, May 1 The three-member investigative team led by Detective Superintendent Alan Betts will be liaising with the Interpol, the CBI and the Punjab police to snare the suspect, Maninder Singh, and take him back to the UK. The CBI has taken up the case and is trying to locate 35-year-old Maninder Singh, who fled to India two days after 17-year-old Hannah Foster's body was found near her house in Portswood, Southampton. She had been raped and strangled. The Hampshire police has spent four weeks putting together a legally watertight case against Maninder Singh. Mr Betts has taken the dossier of evidence to India to ensure that Maninder does not escape extradition. The investigative team, that includes a detective and a constable who speaks Punjabi, is expected to be in India for a week. Police inquiries revealed that Maninder caught a flight from Heathrow to India on March 18. A warrant for his arrest was issued by Southampton magistrates on the grounds of murder, kidnap, false imprisonment, rape, manslaughter and perverting the course of justice. Maninder fled to India, leaving behind his wife and two children and reportedly took away a substantial sum from their savings. Hannah, who had been offered a place at a medical school, was abducted as she walked home after a night out on March 14. She had complained to friends that she was being stalked by an Asian man.
PTI |
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Violence
mars functions Berlin, May 1 Hundreds of masked youths smashed store windows and overturned cars in the Prenzlauer Berg district of the city. By dawn the rioting had spread down Schoenhauser Allee in what used to be East Berlin. At least 2,500 policemen in riot gear moved in with batons and tear gas to bring the violence to an end.
DPA |
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