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Baghdad, June 14Twelve persons were killed, including five foreign contractors, and more than 50 others wounded today when a car bomb exploded as three vehicles drove down a busy street in the Iraqi capital. Iraqis rush to the scene of a car bomb attack in the centre of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Monday. A suicide car bomber blew himself up on a busy Baghdad street as foreigners in civilian cars drove past, partly demolishing a nearby building. — Reuters
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More prisoners released from Abu
Ghraib
India, China must cooperate to reform UN, says
Narayanan
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Pakistan police smashes Al-Qaida ring
Tokyo still world’s ‘costliest’
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Japanese PM sued over rape allegations
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5 foreign contractors among 12 killed in Baghdad blast
Baghdad, June 14 The US-led coalition “told us that two British, one American, one French and one Filipino were among the dead” in the rush-hour bombing on the east bank of the Tigris, a diplomatic source told AFP. “Their bodies have been taken to a morgue at the Baghdad airport,” the diplomat said, adding that the five contractors had been working for the US company, General Electric. Three other foreigners were wounded, said Iraqi Prime Minister Iyaq Allawi, adding that they had been helping to rebuild Iraq’s battered electricity sector. In addition to the foreign casualties, at least seven Iraqis were killed and some 50 wounded in the bombing, according to a count compiled from three local hospitals. An AFP photographer saw a charred corpse in a burnt sports-utility vehicle and four bodies covered in sheets at the site of the blast at Sadoun Street, a main commercial boulevard lined with restaurants, shops and residences. A convoy of vehicles, two Mitsubishi four-wheel drives and a GMC, sped down the street, not far from the main headquarters of the coalition across the Tigris, when the explosion struck at 8.15 a.m. (0945 IST). Major Mohammed Saleh, a top policeman, said: “It was a three-car American convoy. A suicide car bomber in a small Volkswagen Brazilia drove between the cars and blew himself up,” Major Saleh said. Other witnesses said they thought a parked car was detonated by remote control as the convoy sped by, but there was no independent confirmation. Sergeant Sayed Khamat said the destroyed sports-utility vehicles looked like the cars used by the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority. An angry mob crowded quickly crowded around the two other vehicles that stood charred but intact on the road. Chanting “No, no, America! No, no, Governing Council,” the Iraqis hit the vehicles with sticks and threw stones. Police fired shots into the air but were unable to disperse the crowd who jumped onto the vehicles and then set them on fire. Sergeant Khamat said three persons, badly injured, were taken out of the first vehicle and rushed to hospital. —
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More prisoners released from Abu
Ghraib
Abu Ghraib, June 14 The prisoners were travelling to the cities of Kirkuk, Tikrit and Baqouba, while another group was scheduled to be flown to the northern city of Mosul. “It feels like getting out of a hell of fire into heaven,” said Ali Majid, 34, a former pilot detained for two months after being picked up in a military sweep. The release — the fifth major one since the scandal broke — came one day after the US military pledged that as many as 1,400 detainees will either be released or transferred to the Iraqi authorities by the June 30 handover of power. The Americans will continue to hold between 4,000 and 5,000 prisoners deemed a threat to the coalition. Prisoners are periodically freed from Abu Ghraib, which was also notorious for being a torture site during Saddam Hussein’s regime. The US military has said it will hand over the facility to Iraqi officials in August. —
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India, China must cooperate to reform UN, says Narayanan
Beijing, June 14 “I believe China and India can work together to bring about a democratic transformation of the world body to serve interests and aspirations of mankind,” Mr Narayanan said in his keynote speech at an international seminar to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of Panchsheel. “We believe that the United Nations should be reformed and the UN Security Council expanded,” he said. The seminar was attended by an array of statesmen and former diplomats, including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali. “The appropriate code of conduct for a globalised world would be the five principles of peaceful co-existence and not the over-lordship of one superpower or group of nations. The United Nations should be at the core of this world order”, he said. “Any intervention for the sake of human rights or democracy should be by the United Nations or by its express approval,” he said at the two-day seminar organised by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs. “China and India believe in a multi-polar world where power is diffused over several centres in a world of infinite diversities and differences in terms of culture, language, religion, economic conditions and political persuasions,” he said. In his speech, Narayanan also expressed concern over the emergence of hegemonic domination and attempts to impose a unipolar world and said globalisation should not become a worldwide manifestation of the highest and subtlest form of capitalism. “Unfortunately even after the end of the cold war, peace is eluding the world and forces of hegemonic domination are casting shadows over the world,” he said. “In this new context, the five principles of Panchsheel have become intensely relevant in the conduct of international relations,” he said. Recalling the initiation of the five principles of peaceful coexistence in a document on international relations for the first time on April 29, 1954, he said the principles have continuing relevance to the vastly changed and changing world of today and tomorrow. “Respect for the sovereignty and integrity of nations, non-interference in the internal affairs of countries and non-aggression and equality have become pillars on which a just and peaceful world order can be erected,” he said. Former Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen, who also delivered a keynote speech, said the five principles had withered the vicissitudes of the international situation and had been accepted by the global community as the fundamental norms guiding international relations. “In today’s interdependent, pluralistic and diversified world, the five principles of peaceful co-existence still have a potentially wide application as the fundamental theory guiding international relations,” Qian said. Participants at the seminar will exchange views on four themes, namely the five principles and contemporary international relations; the five principles and globalisation, multilateralism, cultural diversity and new international order; the five principles and Asian security; the five principles and China’s peaceful development. The seminar is being held to review historical achievements of the five principles and to discuss how to inject new vitality into them. —
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21 cops killed in Nepal blast
Kathmandu, June 14 Fifteen security personnel were also injured during the incident, he said. The Maoists ran away as the security forces launched counter-attack and search operations after the incident. —
PTI
Kathmandu, June 14 The two choppers, named Dhruva, landed at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu yesterday, according to high-level security sources here. Mr Natwar Singh, during his two-day visit to Nepal last week, offered cooperation to deal with Maoist violence and help the Nepalese Army strengthen security in the Himalayan Kingdom. —
PTI |
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Pakistan police smashes Al-Qaida ring
Islamabad, June 14 While a 11 member gang of Al Qaida saboteurs, mostly foreigners who were responsible for various attacks in the port city, including on the Army Corps Commander Ahsan Saleem, was busted during the past two days, the Pakistan police said two most wanted Al Qaida militants-Mosad Aroochi, nephew of Khalid Sheikh and Dawood Badini, a leader of Laskhar-e-Jhangvi were also held. Southern Sindh province’s police chief Kamal Shah said they had identified a new Al Qaida-trained terror organisation ‘Jund Allah’ (God’s brigade) as responsible for the violence. Aroochi, who had a $ million reward for his arrest, along with eight others were part of the group. While Aroochi was wanted by the US for various terrorist attacks in Karachi, Badini, who had a Rs 2 million reward for his capture, was wanted by the Pakistani police for various sectarians attacks in Quetta. Badini was captured in a raid on a home in Karachi yesterday. Badini had orchestrated three attacks against minority Shiites in Quetta in 2003 and 2004, which killed 99 persons, the police |
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Tokyo still world’s ‘costliest’ city
London, June 14 Asuncion in Paraguay was the least expensive of the 144 cities to feature in the survey, for the second year running. “There have been some dramatic movements in the rankings this year which are largely due to currency fluctuations,’’ said Marie-Laurence Sepede, senior researcher at Mercer. The survey measures the comparative cost of 200 items in each city, including housing, food, clothing, entertainment and transport. New York was the costliest city in the United States and 12th overall, followed by Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. |
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Japanese PM sued over rape allegations
Tokyo, June 14 “It really staggers me that someone filed such a false suit,” Koizumi told a parliamentary committee after an opposition lawmaker brought up Internet chat about the suit and other rape speculation on a bulletin board website in questions. A Tokyo resident who identified himself as Aiji Kimura said on his website he had lodged the civil suit against Koizumi with the Tokyo District Court on March 30, questioning his fitness to be prime minister. Citing a tabloid magazine report alleging that Koizumi raped a woman in 1967 when he was a university student, Kimura, who is in his 60s, said he was seeking $ 90 (US) in symbolic damages. The original report did not identify the alleged victim, and no woman has come forward making similar claims independently. A spokesman at the Tokyo court confirmed “a damages suit was filed against Junichiro Koizumi” in March. —
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