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Counting of votes put ‘on hold’ in Afghanistan: official
Bush calls Kerry dangerous Leftist
Swaraj Paul’s son weds
at London Zoo
Sunni Arabs in Iraq scared of going to the polls
Suicide bomber attacks US convoy, 2 dead
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USA frees 154 Iraq detainees
UN sanctions mean ‘war’, warns N. Korea
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Counting of votes put ‘on hold’ in Afghanistan: official
Kabul, October 11 “The JEMB (Joint Electoral Management Body) ordered the hold of counting,” because of complaints about the vote by several candidates, JEMB spokesman Aykut Tavsel told AFP. “The secretariat of the JEMB will wait for the order to commence the counting,” he added, without predicting when that might be. The process to reconcile the number of ballots with the number of people who voted was continuing, and some ballot boxes were still arriving at eight counting centres around the country, he said. Earlier, a senior United Nations spokesman downplayed the delay. “I’ve always said that the actual counting of the ballots would not start before two to four days,” UN spokesman Almeida e Silva told AFP. Once counting of the votes began, first results could be out “in three to four days,” he said. “The estimate is that final results will take two to three weeks.” Ballot boxes were being transported to eight counting centers by air and road, “using trucks, helicopters, airplanes and even the now famous donkeys and horses,” Almeida e Silva told a news conference yesterday.
— AFP |
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Bush calls Kerry dangerous Leftist
Crawford (Texas), October 11 Kerry wants to empower government, Bush wants to use government to empower individuals, it’s a theme that Bush has been repeating, and voters can expect to hear it drummed home again in the final televised show-down in Tempe, Arizona on Wednesday. “Much as he tried to obscure it, on issue after issue, my opponent showed why he earned the ranking of the most liberal member of the United States Senate,” Bush said to cheers from supporters during a rally in the northern state of Minnesota on Saturday. That message could win votes in the United States, where the term “liberal” is often considered an insult. Bush describes himself as a “compassionate conservative,” a slogan he used in 2000, and throughout his political career. “We’re throwing labels around,” is how Kerry handled the salvo in the second presidential debate, in St Louis on Friday. Kerry has represented one of the most left-leaning states in the country, Massachusetts, in the Senate for 20 years. “You’re going to hear a lot more about Senator Kerry’s record in the coming days,” Bush strategist Karl Rove advised. The US President allowed himself a day of rest at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, yesterday to prepare for the final debate on Wednesday. Clearly bested by his rival in their first debate on national security and the Iraq war, in Miami on October 1, Bush rebounded in the second match, with questions on all subjects posed by members of the audience. Kerry’s strong showing in Miami enabled him to catch up with Bush in voter polls, putting the White House race into a dead heat. The third debate is to focus on domestic themes; questions will be posed by a moderator. Bush appeared far more at ease with the format of the second debate, a so-called town-hall style event in which citizens asked questions, allowing the President to address the public with his trademark informality. But Kerry seems better suited to the more formal format of the first and third debate, which do not involve direct participation by the public. Attacked by Kerry on the Iraq war, Bush is now trying to steer the campaign back into the domestic arena. Even though his record is mixed on that score, it allows him to recycle arguments he used against his Democratic opponent of four years ago, Al Gore.
— AFP |
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Swaraj Paul’s son weds
at London Zoo
London, October 11 The wedding, attended by family members and close friends, was performed as per Hindu and Jewish traditions. Thirty-four-year-old Angad, who is the Chief Executive of the family-owned Caparo Group and its investments in India, has also earned a name in the film industry. He was the executive producer of ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, ‘Snatch’ and ‘School for Seduction’. Angad’s forthcoming productions include ‘Rang De Basanti’ with Bollywood star Aamir Khan. Prominent among those present at the wedding were
Mrs Sarah Brown, wife of Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown along with her son John, Indian industrialists Subrato Roy, head of the Sahara group and his wife, Mr K.K. Birla and his family, leading hotelier Lalit Suri and his wife and Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal along with wife Mehr Jessia.
The conservatory was put up in the grounds encompassing the statue of Ambika, daughter of Lord Paul who died of leukaemia in 1968. “We decided to celebrate the wedding near Ambika’s statue so that we have her presence on such a great family occasion,” Lord Paul, who is also British Ambassador for Overseas Business, said adding “it means a lot to us.”
— PTI |
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Sunni Arabs in Iraq scared of going to the polls
New York, October 11 Many prospective Sunni voters are so suspicious of the American enterprise in Iraq, and so infuriated by the chaotic security situation in Sunni-dominated areas, that they are likely to stay away from the poll in large numbers, Sunni Arabs leaders, who had dominated Iraqi politics since the nation’s birth in 1920, said in interviews with the New York Times. Sunni participation is crucial to the election. While a Sunni boycott remains far from certain and some Sunni leaders still hold out hope for a turnaround, American officials fear that if large numbers of Sunnis do not vote, the election will be regarded as illegitimate and may even feed the insurgency that has gripped much of the country, the paper reports. While US military commanders say they intend to open up many predominantly Sunni areas now under insurgents’ control, some Sunni tribal and religious leaders told the Times that so far the campaign appeared to have had the opposite effect, alienating the people it is supposed to liberate. “What elections are you talking about?”, Raad Rahim Ahmed, a 50-year-old resident of Samarra was quoted as saying. He said American soldiers killed his wife and two children when they cleared the city of insurgents last week. “I’ve lost my entire family,” he said. “Why should I trust this government? Why should I vote at all? Although several Sunni-based political parties have taken roots here, their leaders told the paper that their attempts to rally constituents were failing in the face of cynicism and violence. Many of those who want to take part in the elections say they can do so only in secret, lest they risk assassination by Sunni insurgents. With voter registration to begin November 1, the Times reports that some Iraqi leaders say they are hoping that enthusiasm among the Sunnis for the elections will pick up, especially if the violence is brought under control. Some Sunni leaders predict that more of their brethren will decide to take part as it becomes more certain that the elections will not be postponed. But for now, the paper says, the mood among tribal and religious leaders as well potential voters appears to be one of apathy. Many leaders say they are especially fearful that the Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under former President Saddam Hussein, face an era of persecution under an American-backed alliance of Shiites and Kurds, who together make up as much as 80 per cent of the population. Both groups are expected to vote in great numbers. Already, one of the largest independent Sunni groups, the Association of Muslim Scholars, has announced that it will not take part in the elections, the Times reports. The group claims to represent 3,000 Sunni mosques around the country.
— PTI |
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Suicide bomber attacks US convoy, 2 dead
Mosul, Iraq, October 11 “Initial reports indicate that there were civilian and military casualties,” the US military said in a statement, adding that it had been a “complex” attack. Witnesses said they saw body parts scattered in the street after the blast, which occurred in southern Mosul on the main highway leading into the city from the south. The bomb gouged a crater two metres (six feet) deep in the road and destroyed four vehicles. US soldiers opened fire after the attack, the witnesses said. Insurgents have frequently mounted attacks on US forces in Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad. Separately, the police said the beheaded bodies of two Mosul residents had been found in the city in the past 24 hours. One was discovered today in an eastern district, the other in the south of the city the previous day.
— Reuters |
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USA frees 154 Iraq detainees
Baghdad, October 11 “There were 154 prisoners scheduled for release today,” said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, after an AFP photographer saw dozens freed from Abu Ghraib at the western edge of Baghdad. Johnson said the releases were not linked to a peace initiative in Baghdad’s Sadr City, where Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia started handing in its arms today.
— AFP |
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UN sanctions mean ‘war’, warns N. Korea
Seoul, October 11 The warning came after US officials last month hinted at bringing North Korea to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if it continued to cold-shoulder talks on the country’s nuclear weapons drive. “Sanctions mean a war and war does not know any mercy,” Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said here. “If the US applies more sanctions to the DPRK (North Korea) by putting the UN in motion, the DPRK will promptly and resolutely react to it with self-defensive war deterrent force.” The agency said the US would “be wholly responsible for all ensuing fatal consequences if war breaks out.”
— AFP |
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‘Superman’ Christopher Reeve dead
Bedford (New York), October 11 Reeve fell into a coma on Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while at his New York home and died yesterday, his publicist, said on the phone from Washington. Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound, a common complication for people living with paralysis. In the past week, the wound had become severely infected, resulting in a serious systemic infection. "On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank Northern Westchester Hospital for the excellent care they provided to my husband,’’ Dana Reeve, Christopher’s wife, said in a statement. "I also want to thank his personal staff of nurses and aides, as well as the millions of fans from around the world who have supported and loved my husband over the years.’’ Reeve broke his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia. Enduring months of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury and to move an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.
— AP |
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Nobel Economics Prize for Kydland, Prescott
Stockholm, October 11 “Their awarded work established the foundations for an extensive research programme on the credibility and political feasibility of economic policy,” it said. Their research revealed how “economies become trapped in high inflation even though price stability is the stated objective of monetary policy.” When households expect higher taxation, they tend to save less, while companies tend to set higher prices and spend more on wages when facing higher inflation. “The laureates showed how such effects of expectations about future economic policy can give rise to a time consistency problem. If economic policy-makers lack the ability to commit in advance to a specific decision rule, they will often not implement the most desirable policy later on,” the jury said. They will share the prize sum of $ 1.4 million. The Nobel Economics Prize, the last of the six coveted prizes to be awarded this year, is the only one not originally included in the last will and testament from the creator of the awards, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. It was created by the Swedish Central Bank in the commemoration of its tercentenary in 1968, and was first awarded in 1969. It is also funded by the bank.
— AFP |
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Stockholm, October 11
