Vancouver, November 24
Former Ontario Premier Bob Rae will head a new public inquiry into the deadly 1985 Air-India bombing disaster to examine failures to stop the attack, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan has said.

The announcement came after Rae, the independent investigator appointed to review the Kanishka bombing trial, delivered a report yesterday recommending a “focussed, policy-based inquiry” to answer lingering questions about the Kanishka bombing which killed 329 persons off the Irish Coast.

McLellan, who had tapped Rae in April to evaluate possible next steps after the acquittal of the two principle suspects in the plane bombing, said that he was the ideal person to head the new inquiry given his understanding of the case and rapport with victims’ families.

She said a formal order establishing the investigation would be in place to allow swift pursuit of answers about the tragedy.

In his review report, Rae had said the 1985 disaster “was mass murder. This was a bombing attack carried out on Canadian civilians and the consequences of that have to be understood by the people of Canada.

He said “the Air India bombings were the worst encounter with terrorism that Canada has experienced. We cannot leave any issues unresolved.”

Rae stressed, however, that an inquiry could not determine civil or criminal responsibility in the downing of Air India Flight 182. “The fundamental objective of an inquiry has to be lessons learned,” he told reporters. — PTI

Dhaka, November 24
At least 30 persons were injured and many arrested during the clashes between Opposition supporters and the police here as an Opposition-sponsored strike disrupted normal life and business today.

Witnesses said the Awami League (AL) supporters clashed with the police at Bangabandhu Avenue, Stadium Gate, Panthapath and Lalbagh in the city.

Shops, schools, business centers and private offices were closed. Traffic on the streets was thin while government offices worked on skeleton staff.

Earlier, a bus was damaged at Paltan while the police picked up several pro-hartal activists from the Zero Point in central Dhaka. At Lalbagh, the police charged batons on a procession, led by former AL MP Haji Selim, leaving several workers injured.

The all-too familiar exchange between the country’s two most powerful women — Ms Hasina and Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who took power following a 2001 election with two-third majority in Parliament, came as the government maintained tight security following a recent wave of bombings and the killing of two judges in the southern town of Jhalakathi on November 14. — UNI

London, November 24
Last year’s tsunami continues to bring a seemingly disjointed world together for the sake of its survivors. It has inspired a unique effort - one that does not seek to raise funds by appealing to people but seeks to bring them closer to the reality of those who survived nature’s fury.

It then inspires them to engage in the humanitarian task of reviving shattered lives - this time of children left high and dry on bruised coastlines across the world.

The effort centres round an unusual book conceived by a British-Indian who could no longer face the personal sense of guilt and powerlessness he felt. Anuj Goyal, former director of BBC’s famous children’s programme ‘Blue Peter’ and now a children’s author decided to inspire the world’s best children’s disaster relief charities to come together and ensure a long-term reconstruction of the lives of the tsunami survivors.

He got aid workers from UNICEF, SOS Children, Handicap International, Save the Children and Y Care to travel to the villages in India, Indonesia, Maldives, Thailand, Somalia and Sri Lanka and hunt for child survivors. He then got 16 of the world’s finest children’s authors to recount powerful tales of fear and survival, as narrated to eight aid workers by children who battled the tsunami and managed to escape it.

Over the past few months, the book titled “Higher Ground’ has been selling phenomenally and is helping voluntary organisations get on with relief operations across affected landscapes. The first print order of 15,000 has been sold off, while the second special tsunami anniversary edition of the book is about to hit the racks. This one will be accompanied by a recorded version of the book in the shape of a CD that features readings of selected stories by world acclaimed artistes like Sean Bean, Dawn French, Stephen Fry, Van Klimer, Meera Syal and Jamie Theakston.

As for the book, it has been published by Chrysalis Children’s Books, UK, and features the maximum narratives — four — from India. While two of these are from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the other two are from the villages of Tamil Nadu.

A major launch of the book took place in the famous Warburg Gallery on October 6. The day further saw the opening of an exhibition of paintings sent in by a group of children who survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka. The exhibition is the result of efforts made by UK-based businessman Esmor Davies who is running two special schools in Sri Lanka for children who survived the tsunami.

The paintings (some of which are now adorning the prestigious Queen’s Robing Room in House of Lords) will be auctioned in March next year. Anuj Goyal is happy with the way these two events have unfolded. “These events are uniquely designed”, he says. “Their objective is not just raising charity but helping the world know what happened on the shores of various countries that day, how these children fought an unrelenting nature and how barriers of caste and creed fell to pieces in the horrifying moments when death stared people in the face”, he added. 

Islamabad, November 24
Official circles here are pressing Pakistan’s case that the US should treat India and Pakistan on a par in helping them meet their growing energy needs. And it is being claimed here that several US think-tanks and nuclear-related bodies are stressing the need for addressing Pakistan’s grievances in this respect.

Informed sources told Dawn here on Wednesday that there was a growing realisation in the Bush Administration as well that Pakistan needed to be offered the much sought after nuclear cooperation to help it generate 8,800 MW of electricity by 2030 by accepting its “safeguards and non-proliferation assurances”.

This view has been bolstered by the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already been extending such cooperation to Pakistan after satisfying itself that the country meets its safeguard requirement.

Pakistan has also accepted to build “proliferation resistant nuclear power plants” as proposed by the IAEA, sources said.

Pakistan has largely succeeded in removing the “security concerns” of the US Government and that was why a number of US think-tanks as well as various nuclear-related agencies have started supporting Pakistan over the issue, a source added.

Pakistan was recently informed that due to “legislative bottlenecks” the Bush Administration could not so far succeed in firming up the case for offering Islamabad civilian nuclear cooperation like that of India.

The way the US Government spearheaded a campaign to help secure Pakistan roughly $ 6 billion from international donors and bilateral creditors for reconstruction, the source added, time was not very far when Islamabad would also be offered cooperation in establishing 10 to 13 new nuclear power plants in the country. Pakistan has based its case for acquiring nuclear energy for peaceful uses on three counts — it does not have enough oil resources, it wants to contain global warming and that it will ensure security of supplies.

The authorities in Islamabad recently conveyed to the US authorities yet again that there should be no discrimination between India and Pakistan over the nuclear issue, especially when all the required assurances had been given about the safety and security of the proposed nuclear power plants. —By arrangement with The Dawn

Seoul, November 24
South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk resigned his official posts today to take responsibility for ethical violations by his team during landmark research to create the first cloned human embryo.

Hwang said that researchers in his team had donated their own eggs without his permission and that other women were paid for eggs used in his breakthrough project, also without his knowledge.

Hwang, a Korean national hero and the first man to clone a human embryo, admitted that he had lied when ethical questions began to surface last year about the origin of the supply of human eggs. “I feel so sorry to speak about such shameful and miserable things to you people,” he told a press conference in his first public comments on a scandal that has been brewing for months. Hwang said he was resigning all official posts including the chairmanship of a new research body, the World Stem Cell Hub, established last month by the government to produce stem cell lines here for research institutes worldwide.

But Hwang said he would continue his own trail-blazing research and retained the backing of the government, which earlier said today he had done nothing wrong. “There were no breaches of legal or ethical standards in the course of obtaining human eggs for the research,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Hwang in February 2004 announced the first-ever cloning of human embryos, from which they harvested “therapeutic” embryonic stem cells. This year they unveiled the world’s first cloned dog. — AFP