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London terror suspect held in Rome
Police raids in west London
Thousands pay tributes to Brazilian killed in London
Foreign financing likely for Iran-India pipeline
Rice tops Forbes list again,
Sonia Gandhi out
New York Mayor apologises to British Sikhs
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Indian American to head Yahoo! Research
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London terror suspect held in Rome
Rome, July 29 The Interior Ministry said the suspect, Osman Hussain, a naturalised Briton of Somali origin, left London for continental Europe after the failed attacks. The British police had arrested one suspected attacker in the city of Birmingham on Wednesday. Earlier, the police in London arrested three men in the city’s Notting Hill neighbourhood and said they were all linked to the failed July 21 attacks on three underground trains and a bus in the British capital. The police identified one of the men arrested in the raid today as Muktar Said Ibrahim, a suspected bomber in the July 21 attacks. The police described Friday’s arrests as “potentially very significant”. The Italian police said Hussain had travelled by train from London to Milan via Paris, and then onto Rome where he was arrested this afternoon at a relative’s apartment in the southeastern Casilino neighbourhood. Police spokesman Roberto Sgalla said Hussain did not resist arrest and was later questioned by Italian magistrates. His arrest warrant was issued with a view to Hussain’s being extradited to Britain. “The anti-terrorism operation, still ongoing, was conducted in the context of international cooperation,” Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said in a statement. Italy’s ANSA news service said Hussain was 27 years old and a suspect in an incident on the underground rail network in west London. A massive manhunt was launched in Britain after July 21 for suspected attackers whose bombs failed to explode. The failed attacks came exactly two weeks after four suspected Islamic militants killed themselves and 52 other persons in blasts on three underground trains and a bus in London.
— Agencies
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Police raids in west London
London, July 29 Sky TV citing police sources, said the operation targeted at least one of three suspected bombers still at large. The fourth was arrested on Wednesday. A Sky reporter said he understood one person had been arrested in today’s operation. A spokesman at Scotland Yard police headquarters said: “We are in the early stages of an armed operation.’’ Policemen are still chasing three of four men who tried to detonate bombs in failed attacks on July 21, exactly two weeks after a team of suspected Islamist militant bombers killed themselves and 52 other people in London. Local resident Martin Pendergast told Reuters by telephone: “The police has sectioned off my estate and the (nearby) Sutton estate.’’ Another witness reported up to six explosions and said he had been told by the police that they were caused by stun grenades. The police has been under pressure to exercise caution after they shot dead Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes in London last Friday because they mistook him for a suicide bomber. London’s police chief Ian Blair said he was devastated for the man’s family but defended the “shoot-to-kill’’ policy with suicide bombers. In the biggest manhunt ever undertaken by the British police, the police chief said he was confident the three would-be bombers on the run would be caught. Policemen are reviewing 15,000 closed circuit television tapes, have taken 1,800 witness statements and received 5,000 calls on their anti-terrorism hotline. One of the underground railway stations targeted by the July 7 suicide bombers was reopened today.
— Reuters |
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Thousands pay tributes to Brazilian killed in London
Gonzage (Brazil), July 29 The body of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, arrived yesterday in Governador
Valadares, in Minas Gerais state, six days after the deadly case of mistaken identity that has raised questions in Britain about ethnic profiling in the aftermath of that country’s worst terror strikes. “This is a loss that all of Brazil has felt,” said Luciano Batel da Silva, De Menezes’ godfather, whose six youngest children accompanied the casket with a show of blood-red flowers. Others in the crowd wore black armbands and waved Brazilian flags, taken up as a protest symbol in Brazil since the killing.
— AFP |
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Foreign financing likely for Iran-India pipeline
Islamabad, July 29 “The gas project is very much on the cards and will not be abandoned,” a source close to the talks said. There is no problem of arranging funds for the 2,670-km pipeline either as international banks and institutions consider it a feasible project. Sources said that Italy’s ENI company, the sixth largest oil and gas producing concern in the world, had expressed willingness to finance the project. Some Indian concerns are also reported to be willing to finance it. A meeting presided over by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday discussed Pakistan’s growing energy needs and decided to pursue the three proposed gas projects. Under other projects, gas will come from Turkmenistan and Qatar. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s comments in Washington earlier this month that the Iran-Pakistan-India project was fraught with risks and that it would be difficult to get an international consortium of bankers to underwrite it were described as ‘‘politically motivated’’ and meant for public consumption. His comments, the sources said, were seen as contradictory to Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar’s latest statement in which he said that New Delhi would go ahead with the project as scheduled. Two technical groups were conceptualizing the project structure with a view to making it safe, especially to the satisfaction of the Indians, the sources said. “Both Pakistan and Iran have assured India that there will be no security problem to the pipeline,” a source said. Unlike the scepticism aired by the Indian media, technical experts in that country do not have two opinions about the importance of the pipeline or the sovereign guarantees offered by Pakistan for its security under an international agreement. The source said that India was seeking subsidised gas prices from Iran and that was the reason it was talking about the so-called risks. The pipeline would run about 1,115 km in Iran, 705 km in Pakistan and 850 km in India. Pakistan would be required to invest around $1 billion to lay its part of the pipeline from the Iranian border to the India border. The three countries are expected to firm up separate consortia for building the pipeline in their territories. It is learnt that the Pakistan-India joint working group, which met in New Delhi recently, held preliminary discussions on the proposal. A final decision, the sources said, would be taken once the transaction structure developed. Pakistan and India would soon appoint separate consultants to prepare structure for the formulation of consortia and other pros and cons of the project.
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Rice tops Forbes list again,
Sonia Gandhi out
New York, July 29 Last year Rice topped the list in her former avatar as National Security Advisor, followed by Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi at second and Sonia Gandhi at third position. Three women from India’s neighbouring countries figure in the list. They are Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (15), Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumartunga (25) and Prime Minister of Bangladesh Begum Khalida Zia (29). The Forbes annual list was unveiled yesterday. Wu Yi has held her second rank this time. Yulia Tymoshenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine, is placed third. She is followed by Philippine President Gloria Arroyo. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is ranked fortieth. US first lady Laura Bush is there (46), so also former first lady Hillary Clinton, who is quite ahead of the former at 26. Among the businesswoman, highest ranking on the list is Margaret Whitman, the Chief Executive of the Internet auction site eBay (5), followed by Xerox Chief Executive Anne Mulcahy. Other celebrities in the list include US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey-who broke into top 10 for the first time. Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is placed 10th.
— PTI |
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New York Mayor apologises to British Sikhs
New York, July 29 “It turned out that these half dozen people did not present any threat whatsoever and it’s a shame and I certainly apologise on behalf of the City of New York any time we ever detain anybody unnecessarily.” “Better they’re found innocent than found guilty I suppose, but it’s a shame that it happened and we love tourists and we want them to keep coming here...” Mr Bloomberg said, according to an official statement from his office. Daily News quoted one of the tourists, identified as 39-year-old Jas, as saying after the incident on July 24: “These things happen, don’t they? We have no hard feelings. It certainly made our trip different, but didn’t ruin it at all.” Mr Bloomberg said while New Yorkers should report any suspicious activity, they should also use “common sense” and avoid profiling people. The city has been on a heightened security alert in the aftermath of the London terror bombings with police asking citizens to report any suspicious objects immediately. — IANS
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Indian American to head Yahoo! Research
Houston, July 29 The appointment of Raghavan, a computer scientist, who joined the leading global Internet company last week, was announced yesterday. He earlier worked with IBM for 14 years before leaving in 2000 to become a vice-president and chief scientist at Verity Inc, a maker of search and retrieval software for corporations, where he later became the chief technical officer. Raghavan, who earned a Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley and a degree in electrical engineering from IIT Madras, will lead research efforts to address complex challenges in key areas for Yahoo!, including search and information navigation, social media, community, personalisation and mobility. Raghavan, a consulting professor of computer science at Stanford University, said: “Yahoo!’s vast network offers opportunities for scientists and researchers that few companies in the world can offer.”
— PTI |
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Pak troops kill one militant, capture 3
Islamabad, July 29 Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the exchange of fire took place at the Shoaib madrassa near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. “We sent our troops there after receiving information about the presence of militants in the area,” General Sultan said.
— AP |
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