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22 Filipinos found alive in rubble
UN members back Annan with standing ovation
UN commends India’s “white revolution”
Guantanamo prisoners abused: FBI
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Assessment of ministries’
work begins
Japan extends troop deployment in Iraq
US House passes Intelligence Bill
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22 Filipinos found alive in rubble
Manila, December 9 One soldier told DZMM radio that troops and miners clearing debris in the town of Real pulled a 50-year-old woman and three children from the building’s cavernous basement, which was used as a chapel by a group of born-again Christians. The woman told rescuers there were about 20 survivors after the building collapsed on November 29, Captain Gerry Sultana added. “We were digging through mud, concrete slabs and twisted iron bars when we heard faint voices and cries for help from below the ground,” Sultana told DZMM. “We never expected any survivors from the ruins. After three days of digging, we only found decomposing bodies.” Nearly 1,400 people are dead or missing after a typhoon and three tropical storms hit provinces east and north of Manila in a span of two weeks, unleashing mudslides and flashfloods. Rescue teams are scrambling to get food, clean water and tents to at least 650,000 survivors. Fears of disease are running high due to lack of sanitation. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called the discovery of the four survivors in Real a ‘’miracle’’ and said rescuers hoped to reach the rest. At least 100 people were believed to have been inside the two-storeyed building, with four managing to scramble out just after it collapsed. About 40 bodies have been found in the rubble. Sultana said the woman and three children found on Thursday had no injuries but were very weak and “white as ash” after surviving on water dripping from the ceiling. They were taken to a military camp for medical attention.
— Reuters |
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UN members back Annan with standing ovation
United Nations, December 9 Mr Annan has been accused by some Republicans in the U.S. Congress of presiding over corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food programme for Iraq, administered by the United Nations but supervised by the 15-nation Security Council. “I interpret this long ovation as an acknowledgment of your actions and also an expression of confidence in yourself and also of the work you have undertaken at the helm of the United Nations,” Assembly President Jean Ping of Gabon said after the applause, which lasted nearly a minute. “In a world that is held hostage to doubt, by confusion and at times to confrontation, you have always remained a point of reference as well as a source of wisdom and of inspiration for millions of individuals worldwide,” Mr Ping said. Many European, Asian and African leaders had already come to Mr Annan’s defence. U.S. diplomat Patrick Kennedy was among those standing in the General Assembly hall, although the White House has issued no statement of support. “It was merely a sign of respect,” a U.S. official said. Mr Annan was there to brief the assembly on an independent report by 16 current and former world leaders and prominent diplomats on how the United Nations should be reformed to address global threats in the 21st century. The 95-page report outlined 101 proposals, including new criteria for military intervention and how to combat poverty, AIDS, social upheavals, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and organised crime. It criticised U.N. bodies ranging from the Security Council to the Human Rights Commission and suggested that the world body offer buy-outs to many of its aging staff.
— Reuters |
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UN commends India’s “white revolution”
New York, December 9 India’s milk production rose from around 30 million tonnes in 1980 to an estimated 87 million tonnes by 2003 and despite increasing population, availability per person rose from less than 50 kilo calories per day in 1980 to 80 kilo calories per day in 2000, a report on hunger by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. The report forecasts that India’s dairy production will triple by 2020. The increased availability of milk, it emphasises, “represents an important improvement in nutrition in a country where many people are vegetarian and depend on dairy products for most of the animal proteins in their diet.” FAO estimates that increasing milk production has boosted the incomes of 80 to 100 million families, the vast majority of whom are marginal or small farmers whose plots are often too small to support their families and landless labourers who depend on common grazing lands and forests for fodder. “More than 70 per cent of India’s milk is produced by households who own only one or two milk animals,” it said adding it is helping the rural poor.
— PTI |
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Guantanamo prisoners abused: FBI
Washington, December 9 The account of incidents in 2002 involving foreign terrorism suspects held at the base was contained in a July letter from FBI counterterrorism official Thomas Harrington, to Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, the army’s provost marshal, and was confirmed by Pentagon and Justice Department officials. Harrington, who headed a group of investigators which visited the base, detailed incidents including one in which a female army interrogator grabbed a male prisoner’s genitals and bent his thumbs backward. Two other incidents he described included a prisoner who was menaced by a dog and placed into isolation and another detainee whose mouth was covered with duct tape. In his letter, Harrington referred to the incidents as examples of ‘’highly aggressive interrogation techniques’’ and asked Ryder, the army’s senior criminal investigator, to take ‘’appropriate action.’’ Harrington wrote that the FBI told Pentagon lawyers in January 2003 about the abusive treatment, but the matter had not been addressed. “We take all allegations seriously and investigate each one fully,” Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the Guantanamo prison, said in a statement yesterday provided by the US military. — Reuters |
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Assessment of ministries’
work begins
Islamabad, December 9 The process of monitoring performances of ministers and secretaries has already begun. This was stated by the Information Secretary of Pakistan Muslim League, Tariq Azeem Khan, who is also the Minister of State for Overseas Pakistanis, while responding to questions on Wednesday at a briefing about the performance of the government in its first 100 days. Answering a question, Mr Azim brushed aside any conspiracy theory behind the continuous lack of quorum, particularly in the Lower House, and denied it was an attempt to undermine the Shaukat Aziz government. He said it was the Opposition that was creating the quorum issue by withdrawing its members from the House. The minister said the 6.4 per cent GDP growth, the huge foreign exchange reserves, price stabilisation, wheat and fertiliser imports, approval of 41 projects worth Rs 203 billion, enhanced investments, exploration of more markets for Pakistani goods and creating a new image of Pakistan abroad were achievements of the Aziz government. |
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Japan extends troop deployment in Iraq
Tokyo, December 9 Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a close ally of US President George W. Bush, broke with the growing number of countries that have pulled troops from Iraq where an insurgency shows little sign of abating. “It is Japan’s responsibility to help Iraqis rebuild their nation,” Mr Koizumi told a press conference. Japan had sent peacekeepers to Cambodia and East Timor, but its 550 troops in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa are the first it has deployed since 1945 to a country where there is active fighting. They are barred by the US-imposed constitution from using force. The Iraq mission is officially meant for reconstruction,.
— AFP |
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US House passes Intelligence Bill
Washington, December 9 “We have come a long way towards taking steps that will ensure that we do not see another September 11th,” said House Rules chairman. — PTI |
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