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Transport services hit in Kathmandu
Israel lets in 200 workers from Gaza
Iran to go ahead with reactor plan |
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Dresden
remembers victims of Allied bombing Three
Iraqi army officers gunned down Millions spend night under open sky after quake rumour
Floods claim many lives in Venezuela
‘Vera Drake’, ‘Aviator’ share Billboard award
Pope greets people from studio
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Transport services hit in Kathmandu
Kathmandu, February 13 Movement of long-distance vehicles to and from Kathmandu on the highways connecting the capital was crippled. Only 26 vehicles entered Kathmandu and 78 exited from the Thankot check post, the main land route to the capital, sources at army headquarters said. In Palpa district of western Nepal, transport services came to a complete halt but some markets were open, as was the case in Janakpur area of Dhanusha district. Reports said the army escorted vehicles entering or leaving the Kathmandu valley via the Thankot check post. A “sufficient number” of ground forces and helicopters were deployed along major highways, including the road to Raxaul, south of Kathmandu, which is the main trucking route into the country, they said. The blockade, which was largely peaceful in and around the country, did not have much effect in Kathmandu, except the fear of short supply of some essential items due to very few vehicles plying on the highways. Schools and colleges were closed because of the Basant Panchami festival and despite the blockade call, Nepal’s only train service resumed with protection by security forces. The call for a blockade and traffic strike coincides with the February 13, 1996 start of the Maoists’ bloody struggle to topple the monarchy and install a communist republic in the kingdom. Purna Shrestha, a member of the Nepal Transport Entrepreneurs’ Federation, said “very few vehicles except mini-buses, were operating in the south-eastern part of the country with long-route bus services and public goods carriers at a standstill”. “There is no movement of vehicles along the highways in the western parts of the country except a few micro-buses,” he said. Businesses and traffic in the capital were normal, with media censorship possibly limiting the impact of the strike call. Residents of Kathmandu might face a scarcity of essential items if the movement of loaded trucks and passenger buses continues to decline in the next few days. However, the government has reduced the prices of LPG cooking gas and kerosene to give relief to people.
— PTI |
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Israel lets in 200 workers from Gaza
Gaza, February 13 In further steps to bolster peace moves, Israeli leaders met to finalise the release of 500 Palestinian prisoners and both sides agreed that Israel would hand over security control of the West Bank city of Jericho this week, officials said. Abbas won a pledge from Hamas Islamic militants yesterday to keep a de facto truce while it weighs the ceasefire he agreed with Israel. In a major policy shift, Hamas said it would not retaliate immediately for any Israeli action. Palestinian labourers were allowed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the first time in five months. Officials said about 210 were allowed through the Erez Crossing to be met by Israeli employers. Jobs in Israel were once a lifeline for workers in impoverished Gaza, but employment was severely curtailed after the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000. The Palestinians work largely in building construction and farming. Israel said the measure helped stop suicide bombings, though Palestinians called it collective punishment. Permits for workers were restricted to those aged over 35, married and with children — those seen as unlikely to carry out attacks. Security checks are stringent for anyone crossing the Erez. As part of a package of goodwill gestures to Abbas, Israel has said it would suspend military operations against leading militants and release 900 of some 8,000 Palestinians held in its jails. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s cabinet was expected to approve the release of a first batch of 500 prisoners at a meeting today. Israeli and Palestinian officials also met to finalise the handover of Jericho to Palestinian control. The step — largely symbolic since there are no Israeli troops in Jericho — is likely to happen this week. Hamas is still deciding whether to formally back the ceasefire agreed between Abbas and Israel, but promised yesterday to maintain calm in the meantime. Israel plans to evacuate the settlements from the occupied Gaza Strip around mid-year and hopes for calm that will allow it to coordinate the withdrawal with the Palestinian Authority.
— Reuters |
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Iran to go ahead with reactor plan Tehran, February 13 “We welcome such proposals but we will not under any circumstances replace our heavy-water research reactor,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. “We will continue working on our heavy-water reactor.” EU negotiators in talks with Iran over its nuclear activities have offered to send a mission to help Tehran obtain a light-water research reactor in what would be the first concrete move towards rewarding Tehran for abandoning uranium enrichment. Britain, France and Germany are trying to convince Iran to dismantle an enrichment programme the USA says is part of a covert atomic weapons development, in return for economic and political rewards. Tehran insists its nuclear programme is purely for civilian energy needs. Meanwhile, the United States of America has been flying surveillance drones over Iran since last year to look for evidence of nuclear weapons programmes and probe air defences, The Washington Post reported today. Citing three US officials with knowledge of the effort, The Post said the small, pilotless planes use radar, video, still photography and air filters designed to pick up traces of Nuclear activity to gather details not accessible by satellites. — AFP, AP
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Dresden remembers victims of Allied bombing Dresden, February 13 An early service in memory of the victims who died on February 13, 1945 was held at the Church of the Cross in Dresden, the city known as the “Florence of the Elbe” river and which was then and remains a German cultural jewel. Sixty athletes also took part in a peace run. Ambassadors representing the Allies laid wreaths in memory of the roughly 35,000 people who died in the storm of Napalm-like chemical weapons. City authorities were expecting around 10,000 people to flock to the grounds of the Semperoper opera house later holding candles to remember the night when Dresden burnt. The commemorations this year have taken on particular meaning because a neo-Nazi political party, the National Democratic Party (NPD), recently won seats in the Saxony state parliament, of which Dresden is capital. The far-right party, which in September won seats in a state assembly for the first time since 1968, is trying to exploit a death toll that has been difficult to establish . In an interview today, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned people not to forget Germany’s responsibility for World War II. — AFP
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Three Iraqi army officers gunned down Baghdad, February 13 Brig-Gen Jadaan Farhan and his companions were travelling in a white four-wheel drive vehicle through Baghdad’s Kazimiyah district when the attack occurred, an Iraqi police officer said on the condition of anonymity. A claim of responsibility for the attack in the name of Al-Qaida quickly surfaced on a website that often posts statements by Islamic militants. The claim described the brigadier general as a senior commander in the Iraqi National Guard and the Guard Commander at Taji camp, an American facility about 25 km north of Baghdad. — AP
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Millions spend night under open sky after
Peshawar, February 13 The people made announcements over loudspeakers in mosques in majority of towns and villages in Karak, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Kohat, Hangu, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Peshawar and all other districts and the adjoining tribal agencies early in the evening, creating a panic among the residents who took to open places in heavily overcast conditions that strong tremors would hit these areas some time in the night. The rumour, which purportedly started in Karak or Lakki Marwat districts around 5 p.m., spread like jungle fire and the people started making telephone calls to their near and dear ones in other cities of the province to warn them about the "impending disaster". In response to a telephone call received from Karak around 6 p.m., the Dawn bureau soon after contacted the Met Office in Peshawar to clarify the situation regarding the rumour about earthquake. The official on duty told this correspondent that so far no system was in place or any apparatus was invented anywhere in the world to predict earthquakes. He termed the rumour misleading and unfounded. By midnight, announcements were made over loudspeakers in all major cities of the province, including Peshawar, advising the people to come out of their houses and gather in open places to save themselves from the disaster. Virtually, it was an emergency-like situation in the provincial capital and all the major and small cities and towns across the NWFP. Following announcements from mosques, the people along with women and children came out from their houses and started assembling in parks, streets, fields and graveyards. Despite a heavy downpour and freezing cold, they were reluctant to return to their homes. The interesting point of the whole situation was that the rumoured timing of the "likely earthquake" was different in all the districts. An engineer, who telephoned the Dawn office from Karak around 7 p.m., said that the "epicentre" of the rumour was Karak, south of Peshawar, where the people in almost all parts of the district had been informed over loudspeakers by the time that an earthquake of high intensity would hit the region. Meanwhile, NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani has ordered an inquiry into the rumour and tasked the Special Branch to trace out the responsible elements. AFGHANISTAN:
Tens of thousands of residents scared by rumours of an earthquake spent a chilly night in the open in Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan. The rumour spread after relatives and friends in Peshawar called people in Kabul telling them an earthquake was likely to hit the region, but it was not known what caused the people to expect a tremor. |
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Floods claim many lives in Venezuela
Caracas, February 13 Local authorities said they had found at least 25 bodies in Santa Cruz de Mora in Merida state and feared many more were dead after rains flooded rivers and sent scores of mudslides tumbling onto homes, roads and bridges. “We’ve found 25 bodies,” Mr Alexis Rodriquez, Mayor of Pinto Salinas in Merida, told state television yesterday. “We’re cut off from Merida and there is only access by air and they are opening a path to get people out.” Authorities said several missing buses could have been caught in floods. Military helicopters and navy vessels this week evacuated more than 15,000 stranded tourists and residents from the coastal states near Caracas after mudslides and swollen rivers destroyed roads and shanty homes in poor neighborhoods. At least 18 persons died in flooding and land slips in Caracas and neighboring areas. The weather cleared up along the coast yesterday, but heavy rains lashed Tachira and Merida states in the western mountains near Colombia.
— Reuters |
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Major fire in central Madrid
Madrid, February 13 Parts of the building, the city’s fourth tallest, were simply crumbling away under the intensity of the flames, prompting fears the whole edifice might eventually collapse. The blaze broke out on the 21st floor of the 31-storey skyscraper, which had just been renovated. “The cause appears to have been a short circuit,” emergency services spokesman Javier Ayuso told reporters. Almost six hours after the fire broke out pieces of burning debris were cascading down from the floors.
— AFP |
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‘Vera Drake’, ‘Aviator’ share Billboard award
London, February 13 Leonardo DiCaprio, who played billionaire playboy and inventor Howard Hughes, flew into London with Martin
Scorsese, Director of ‘’The Aviator,’’ for British cinema’s big night of the year. The critically acclaimed film bagged the Best Film BAFTA and Cate Blanchett was picked as the Best Supporting Actress for her role as Katharine Hepburn. But DiCaprio failed to bag the coveted Best Actor award — that went to Jamie Foxx for his portrayal of singer Ray Charles in ‘’Ray.’’
— Reuters |
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Pope greets people from studio Vatican City, February 13 The 84-year-old pontiff waved to the crowd and gave a brief greeting before the Vatican’s No. 2, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, carried on with the papal message. The sea of worshippers gathered under his window erupted in applause at the sight of the pope. “We meet again in this place to praise the Lord,” the Pope said in his message. “I would like to thank you and those many following on radio and television for your closeness, affection and above all prayer during my hospitalisation at the Gemelli Polyclinic.” — AP
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