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3 Indians held for immigration racket Migrants to Britain to pay surcharge SAARC for common power grid Bagri tried to unite terrorists, says witness Car bomb attack wounds 31 US troops
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3 Indians held for immigration racket Washington, December 9 Those arrested in New Jersey were Indian “recruiters” Sudhir Passi, Shripad Shroti and Chetna Pandya and American customs inspector Otis Rackley. “Rackley essentially held a key to the gates of the USA and sold access to people willing to buy their way over our borders,” US Attorney Christopher Christie said. Investigators were tallying the number of immigrants the inspector helped sneak in or stay illegally in the USA. Initial estimates suggest the smuggling mill could have netted its operators between $ 5,00,000 and $ 1 million, New Jersey-based newspaper Star Ledger reported. Assistant US Attorney Scott Resnik, the prosecutor in the case, said investigators believed Rackley took payoffs from “upwards of 200” illegal immigrants. Those arrested face conspiracy charges with a maximum prison terms of between five and 10 years. The immigration racket came to light when Passi and Shroti reportedly approached a passenger, who was a government informant, and offered to sneak him into the USA for $ 4,000 in August last year. Rackley allegedly whisked the informant past the customs counter on his arrival at Newark Liberty International Airport last month asking him to “look sad” to pretend he had come to America for a family medical emergency, prosecutors told a New Jersey court last week.
— PTI |
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Migrants to Britain to pay surcharge London, December 9 The surcharge is expected to raise £450 million a year, a quarter of the £1.8 billion annual cost of Britain’s immigrant and asylum system, The Guardian reported yesterday. Home Office officials have justified the move to surcharge migrants saying that they make a “windfall gain through being granted access to the UK labour market.” “Economic migrants benefit in many ways working in the UK, over and above a higher salary expectation, and it is appropriate to pass on some of the costs of these benefits on to migrants through a further one-off charge upon application”, says Home Office background document. “Similarly there are sound economic and presentational grounds for considering additional charges. It is both fair and economically efficient that government in raising revenue should look to appropriate the windfall gain that migrants derive.” The £500 is on top of the £125 for work permits now being phased in. The surcharge is in the small print of Home Secretary David Blunkett’s Immigration and Asylum Bill, which gets its second reading in the Commons next week.
— PTI |
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SAARC for common power grid Dhaka, December 9 The consensus was reached yesterday after a two-day meeting of the SAARC technical committee on energy which wrapped up deliberations adopting a 20-point Dhaka declaration. The officials decided to put forward the proposal on the power grid to the heads of state and government of the region who are scheduled to meet in Pakistan from January 4 to 6 for the SAARC Summit, ‘The Independent’ newspaper reported today. During the first meeting of the Committee here last year, a proposal to have common power grid among Bangladesh, Bhutan and India was made. But all the seven SAARC countries showed interest and consensus was reached, vernacular daily ‘Prothom Alo’ said quoting meeting sources. The Joint Secretary-level meeting discussed common issues relating to energy security and the need to formulate common policy for the power sector was also emphasized. Bangladesh Minister of State for Energy and Mineral Resources A.K.M. Mosharraf Hossain and Minister of State for Power Division Iqbal Hasan Mahmood stressed the need for cooperative approach to deal with power shortfall by taking natural advantage of member states into consideration. Hossain said Bangladesh has plenty of gas, while India possesses huge coal deposits. “If these two sources are used in a coordinated manner, people in the region will be able to have power at a very cheap rate,” he added.
— PTI |
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Bagri tried to unite terrorists, says witness Vancouver, December 9 Keith Weston, chief of Scotland Yard’s anti-terror cell, said Ajaib Singh Bagri wanted British and Canadian arms of Babbar Khalsa to unite under the leadership of Talwinder Singh Parmar, the alleged mastermind behind the Air-India bombing. Weston, in his testimony to the British Columbia Supreme Court yesterday, said he had interviewed Bagri in 1985. In another testimony, retired Canadian police officer Wilf Bells told the court that Bagri had mentioned about his hatred for Hindus during an interrogation about a fire incident at his house in 1985.
— PTI |
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Car bomb attack wounds 31 US troops Mosul, December 9 Major Trey Cate of the 101st Airborne Division said soldiers at the base in Tal Afar, west of Mosul, fired on the vehicle when it failed to stop at an entry point. The vehicle then blew up, he said. “The vehicle did not stop, so soldiers fired on it. It then detonated. None of the injuries are life-threatening,” said Cate, adding it appeared to be a suicide bomb attack.
— Reuters |
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Baghdad, December 9 The US military said it had no immediate information about the crash or any casualties.
— Reuters |
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Six killed in Moscow blast Moscow, December 9 According to the Moscow Emergency Situations and Disaster Management Department, the bomb was probably planted in a Mercedes car belonging to Hotel National. While police spokesman Kirill Mazurin said preliminary investigation suggested that a female suicide bomber detonated the bomb, other police officials quoted by RIA Novosti did not rule out that it could be part of a mafia war as many companies had their offices in the hotel.
— PTI |
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Five get Right Livelihood Award Stockholm, December 9 The 2003 Right Livelihood Honourary Award was presented in a ceremony yesterday in Stockholm to David Lange, whom the jury recognised “for his steadfast work over many years for a world free of nuclear weapons”, Right Livelihood said in a news release posted on its website. Lange was prime minister of New Zealand in 1984 when the country passed legislation that banned nuclear-powered and armed vessels from New Zealand’s territory and promoted the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Right Livelihood also honoured Walden Bello and Nicanor Perlas of the Philippines “for their outstanding efforts in educating civil society about the effects of corporate globalisation, and how alternatives to it can be implemented”. Two organisations also received the award. The Citizens Coalition for Economic Justice of South Korea was recognised for working successfully since 1989 to make Korean economic development more just, inclusive and democratic.
— DPA |
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