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Tony Blair to upgrade nuclear weapons
Suicide bomber kills 60 in Iraq
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Top Al-Qaida suspect held
Bangladesh pays tributes to Gen Aurora
WTO ministers reach pact on tariffs’ issue Patient wakes up after 10 yrs
Media experts for repeal of black laws
Fardeen gets engaged today
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Tony Blair to upgrade nuclear weapons
Tony Blair has secretly decided Britain will build a new generation of the nuclear deterrent to replace
the ageing Trident submarine's fleet at a cost of more than 10 billion pounds ($19 billion) ---- a move certain to dismay thousands of Labour party loyalists ahead of the general election.
The disclosure that the decision has already been taken will open Mr Blair to fresh allegations of deception. He said last week that the decision would be taken after the election. But The Independent has learnt he has already decided to give the go-ahead for a replacement for Trident to stop Britain surrendering its status as a nuclear power when the Trident fleet is decommissioned. The choice over the type of nuclear missile system that Britain will deploy is yet to be made. One union chief last night dubbed the new deterrent 'Blair's weapons of mass destruction'. The Independent can also reveal that Britain is involved in a plan to build a uranium enrichment facility in the New Mexico desert, with British Nuclear Fuels involved in a consortium to develop a $1.2bn plant. The UN's nuclear watchdog wants a five-year moratorium on such facilities. Critics argue that the twin developments make it more difficult for Britain to take a principled stance against states such as Iran and North Korea, which are accused of building nuclear weapons. Fuelling those concerns, the White House said yesterday it believed that North Korea had test-fired a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan. A senior defence source told The Independent: "The decision [to replace Trident] has been taken in principle very recently. US law does not allow the US to build bombs for us. We have to build our own for ourselves. There is a very long lead time. That is why the decision in principle had to be taken now." Aldermaston — Britain's nuclear bomb-making facility — has been secretly hiring physicists and mathematicians for the past year to retain the capability to build a new nuclear weapon when a new system is agreed. Trident is not due to be decommissioned until 2024. But the long lead times mean a decision was needed imminently. Defence experts said the replacement for Trident would still be based on submarines, which are less vulnerable to counter-measures. New submarines could be built in British yards, saving thousands of jobs. Britain could buy the missiles 'off the shelf' from the US. The front-runner is a new generation of cruise missiles, based on the RAF's air-launched weapon, Storm Shadow, with its range increased. Trident is virtually useless against such a terrorist threat, because the terrorists do not present a target.
— The Independent |
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Don’t punish me over Iraq, Blair urges voters
London, May 4 ''You do take a lot of criticism, a lot of knocks in the job... (but) trust operates at a number of levels,'' Blair told the BBC, admitting he was weary of trying to convince critics who say his case for the 2003 war had shown him untrustworthy. Blair — whom polls show is well ahead of the opposition Conservatives — was like other party leaders engaged in a frenetic last day of interviews and campaign stops around the country before polls open at 7 a.m. local time tomorrow. Blair is hoping Britain's robust economy, which has outperformed its European neighbours during the global downturn of recent years, will be his vote-winner. Despite a week of fierce attacks on his personal integrity, polls put Blair comfortably on course to win a third consecutive term, albeit with a probable reduction in his massive 161-seat parliamentary majority. If Blair is celebrating victory on Friday — when he also turns 52 —he would be the first Labour leader to win three consecutive elections for a party born out of the working class movements of the 19th century industrial revolution. Despite his lead, Blair was taking nothing for granted on Wednesday, warning that low turnout could scupper him.
— Reuters |
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Suicide bomber kills 60 in Iraq
Arbil, Iraq, May 4 Witnesses said a crowd had gathered outside the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) office, which also served as a police recruiting centre, when the bomber hit. A Health Ministry official in Arbil said 150 persons were wounded. The bloodshed came a day after a new government was sworn in and three months after historic elections that the Iraqis hoped would lead to improved security. The Iraqi politicians, who squabbled for months before forming an incomplete Cabinet, accuse insurgents of trying to spark a civil war with bombings designed to deepen sectarian tensions. The Kurdish north has been relatively free of the suicide bombings and shootings gripping other parts of the country. The KDP is one of the two main parties in a Kurdish coalition that came second in the January 30 polls, which sidelined Sunni Muslims dominant under Saddam Hussein and turned the Shi'ites and Kurds into the new powers. Insurgents have stepped up attacks since Iraq's first democratically elected government was formed last week, with car bombs and other attacks killing about 200 persons. A doctor at Al Jumhouri hospital in Arbil, one of the three medical centres treating victims of the bombing, said he had received 60 casualties so far. The police and firemen inspected the damage at the KDP office as pools of blood mixed with sewage water and flowed over a large area of a street. "I was standing outside. All I remember is seeing a huge explosion and seeing many people that were injured and killed," said Fareed Makhdid, a dazed 28-year-old policeman covered in blood. Arbil, home to the Kurdish regional government, also suffered heavy losses last year when twin suicide bombings hit the offices of the two main Kurdish parties, killing 117 persons.
— Reuters |
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Top Al-Qaida suspect held
Islamabad, May 4 Al-Libbi, a native of Libya with a US $ 1 million bounty on his head, was arrested earlier this week, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. Officials said earlier today that they were questioning other two foreigners on suspicion of links with the Al-Qaida. Two security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the suspects were captured after a shootout on Monday in Mardan, about 50 km north of Peshawar, Capital of the deeply conservative North West Frontier Province. "They are in the custody of a Pakistani intelligence agency," one official said. He declined to give more details, including the suspects' nationalities. Al-Libbi is accused of masterminding two bombings against President Gen Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. The military leader escaped injury but 17 others were killed. Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism, has said the Libyan was the chief suspect in the bombings against him. The security officials have described Al-Libbi as Al-Qaida's Operational Commander in Pakistan.
— AP |
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Bangladesh pays tributes to Gen Aurora
Dhaka, May 4 National dailies and television channels recalled his contribution to the war with photos or footage. Bangladesh's Air Vice-Marshal A.K. Khandaker (retd), Deputy Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh armed forces during the nine-month war, said, "He (Aurora) was a great friend of Bangladesh and sincerely played his role during the Liberation War." "Since my acquaintance with him in May 1971 at Mukti Bahinee (freedom fighters) headquarters at Fort William, I met him several times. I saw him always trying to help us in all possible ways", said Khandaker, who was present from the Bangladesh side at the surrender document signing ceremony at Dhaka's then race course maidan.
— PTI |
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WTO ministers reach pact on tariffs’ issue Paris, May 4 “We have an accord on the AVE,” Amorim told reporters on the sidelines of a World Trade Organisation meeting in Paris. He was referring to “ad-valorem equivalent”, a method for converting tariffs currently expressed in a nominal value, such as euros or dollars per tonne, into a percentage of the price to enable comparison. The trade ministers were mounting a fresh bid to breathe life into flagging global trade negotiations, with the head of the WTO issuing a new warning that the talks could be headed for failure. “This meeting comes at a crucial moment,” WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi had said ahead of the meeting of about 30 ministers from rich and poor nations. With deadlines looming, the diplomats sought to kickstart the Doha round of trade liberalisation talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001. — AFP
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Patient wakes up after 10 yrs
Buffalo, May 4 On Saturday, answering ‘‘yes’’ and ‘‘no’’ questions but nothing more, Donald Herbert (43) began a lengthy dialogue with wife, Linda, and four sons, near his home in Orchard Park, a Buffalo suburb. Scientists say such awakenings into normal consciousness and speech are rare, said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist who studies coma and vegetative states at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. Scientists there have been putting people like Herbert through extensive brain scans and cognitive tests to figure out how they regained coherent speech after so many years. Herbert was initially in a coma after a roof came down on him during a fire rescue a few days after Christmas 1995. During the next year, he regained consciousness, though his speech was slurred, his vision blurred and he needed help with daily activities. He was bedridden and seemed to have no memory of family, friends or the world. By arrangement with the
Los Angeles Times-Washington Post |
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Media experts for repeal of black laws
Islamabad, May 4 This was the general consensus among the senior editors, experts from print and electronic media during a panel discussion , organised jointly by the United Nations Information Centre
(UNIC), Unesco and the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day. |
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Fardeen gets engaged today
London, May 4 According to a family source, the ceremony will be held at a posh London venue with a select group of family members and friends in
attendance. Natasha is the daughter of Mumtaz and British business tycoon Mayur Madhvani. —
PTI
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