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13 killed, 50 hurt in B’desh twin blasts
Canadian govt toppled
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Dawood on US radar screen: magazine
Hindu artefacts in London Museum
Pneumonia hits Pak quake children
'Bad sex in fiction' award
Developing states attack rich over trade
Lahore bus trial run on Dec 11
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13 killed, 50 hurt in B’desh twin blasts
Dhaka, November 29 The bombs went off between 9 am and 9:30 am in nearby Gazipur and southeastern Chittagong districts. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far. A man strapped with bombs around his body entered the lawyer’s room of Gazipur court and set off the devices, witnesses said, adding that among the dead were two lawyers and the attacker, whose body was found wrapped in wire. The injured, many of them with critical wounds, were rushed to local hospitals and also ferried to capital Dhaka. The private NTV reported that at least 10 persons were killed and 40 injured in the suicide attack in Gazipur, suspected to be carried out by the banned Jamatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB). In the other incident in southeastern Chittagong port city, a suicide attacker set off the device as the police checked those arriving at the local court, killing three persons, including two policmen, witnesses said. The third was believed to be a suspected Islamic militant. Police comment on the incidents was not yet available. Angry Bangladeshi lawyers in different districts across the country started a boycott of courts. Lawyers in Chittagong, Gazipur, Sylhet and other districts staged protest marches in court complexes. The JMB, which seeks to establish strict Islamic rule in the Muslim-majority country, carried out previous attacks on courts. The outfit first carried out attacks on August 17 in court and government office premises in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, while a second attack was staged in October. Two weeks ago, two assistant judges were killed in the southern town of Jhalakathi by a suspected suicide attacker, also allegedly linked to the banned group. Security has been beefed up in courts and senior judges have been provided with police gunmen. The police has arrested two persons for their alleged role in sending bomb threats to several western missions in Dhaka, including that of the US and Britain. — PTI
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Ottawa, November 29 Canada’s three opposition parties, who had threatened for months to topple the government amid acrimonious exchanges in the House of Commons over Liberal Party corruption allegations, voted 171 to 133 late last night to force an election. Voters are likely go to the polls either on January 16 or January 23, 2006. Three Canadian minority governments were previously felled by no-confidence votes, but Mr Martin’s Liberals were the first ever to fall on a stand-alone censure motion. The motion comes after Mr Martin rejected an Opposition ultimatum to promise to dissolve Parliament in January. He had instead pledged to call an election in March or April, 30 days after the release of a final report on a government funding scandal involving the previous Liberal government. But New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jack Layton withdrew his crucial support for the Liberals soon after the release of a damning preliminary report on the scandal in early November. The Liberals are accused of receiving kickback from advertising firms awarded millions of dollars in government contracts from 1995 to 2002, during the government of then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien to counter a separatist movement in the French-speaking province of Quebec. — AFP
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Dawood on US radar screen: magazine
Dawood Ibrahim is on “Washington’s radar screen” and his network is the focus of investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to a US news magazine.
In its post-9/11 crackdown on terrorism, the Bush Administration branded Dawood a “specially designated global terrorist” in October, 2003. Washington then asked the United Nations to take action against Dawood and he was added to the list of terrorists on November 3, 2003. A spokesperson for the U.S. Treasury Department, Molly Millerwise, said the Mumbai don was listed for his 'ties to the Al- Qaida.' These sentiments are echoed in the US News & World Report article in which author David Kaplan notes Dawood, a Muslim exile from Mumbai, "has thrown in his lot with the Al-Qaida and other jihadists, according to US and Indian governments, and has become one of the world's most wanted terrorists." According to U.S. intelligence sources, Dawood financed the activities of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by the US in October, 2001 and banned by the Pakistani government. “Notably, he shared his smuggling routes with the Al-Qaida and funded Islamic extremists aimed at destabilising the Indian government,” Ms Millerwise told The Tribune. Routes established by Dawood’s network were subsequently used by Osama bin Laden. Dawood also reportedly travelled to Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. Following the Mumbai blasts, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence made Dawood an offer: “If he relocated to Pakistan’s port city of Karachi and kept working with the ISI, it would guarantee him control of the nation’s coastal smuggling routes,” according to the article in U.S. News & World Report. “For 12 years now, Dawood has called Pakistan home, where he is believed to own shopping malls, luxury homes, and shipping and trucking lines that smuggle arms into India and heroin into Europe. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) puts D Company’s annual income in the hundreds of millions of dollars and says it has up to 5,000 members,” it said. In September 2004, Assistant Secretary of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Treaury Department Mr Juan Carlos, told a Congressional committee that Dawood, the holder of Pakistani passport G869537, had been listed as "an Al-Qaida facilitator now living in Pakistan." The US designation of Dawood as a global terrorist meant any assets belonging to Dawood within the U.S. were frozen and transactions with U.S. nationals prohibited. Mr Zarate called on the international community “to stop the flow of dirty money that kills.” |
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Hindu artefacts in London Museum
London, November 29 For the first time in its history, the Museum has offered its space for a special display of Hindu religious objects, collected laboriously from the foreshores of the Thames where they have been found dispersed over the recent years. The well-turned-out section stands next to the prestigious slot where London’s Lord Mayor’s historic royal chariot rests. A world apart in both content and history, the two sections appear delightful, as they together weave the tapestries of two diverse cultures — British and Indian. As for the section, it is rather uniquely titled. Called “Sacred Thames”, it looks rich with images of Indian gods and goddesses and a host of objects that symbolise elaborate rituals of Hinduism. The concept note of the Museum authorities confirms that the section seeks to establish the significance of water in Hinduism and the role the Thames has come to play in the cultural and religious life of the Hindus settled in Britain. Says a Museum official, “In recent years, objects relating to the Hindu faith have often been found lying on the shores of the Thames. The interesting bit is that these have neither been accidentally lost nor dropped on the foreshores. They have been placed in the Thames just as they would have been placed in the Ganga back in India. This time we decided not to squander a spiritual heritage, but preserve it for posterity”. About the collection and its display design, Mr Hirabhai Nanavati from the Harrow area of London says, ‘The display is culturally very sensitive. It is something we have been wanting for ages but have never managed to achieve. I am sure every Hindu in London has viewed the ensemble.’ Occupying prime space at the entrance of the Museum’s exhibition hall, “Sacred Thames’ features artefacts, including silver and bronze prayer plaques, ivory and mud pots used for worship, divas, images of Ganesha, Vishnu, Hanuman and Durga. Other interesting displays include candleholders, plaques bearing names and images of religious leaders and a bronze idol of Lord Swaminarayana. Most of the objects on display are made of silver, ivory, copper and bronze. Although planned with Divali festivities (which, quite surprisingly, go on for a month in England) in mind, the collection will now be preserved as a whole. The Museum plans to include it among its exhibits so that it can tell a comprehensive tale of the cultural diversity of London.
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Pneumonia hits Pak quake children
Muzaffarabad, November 29 The United Nations begged the international community for extra help as it raced against time to save millions of people threatened by disease and hypothermia because of the sudden change in the weather. Some snow fell in mountain villages overnight and the temperatures fell below freezing throughout the disaster zone, threatening to bring about a second wave of deaths that aid agencies have long warned of. “Pneumonia has spread among children, according to data received from different places,” Sardar Mahmood Khan, district health officer in Muzaffarabad, the ruined capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, said. The October 8 quake killed more than 74,000 people in Pakistan and India but the biggest fears have been for the 3.5 million survivors left homeless by the disaster. The United Nations said late last night that two children — a three-month-old boy and a young girl — had died of suspected pneumonia after the first snowfall of the winter in northern Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir at the weekend.
— AFP |
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London, November 29 Rushdie has been shortlisted for the award for his latest novel, "Shalimar the Clown" (Jonathan Cape), while Tejpal has entered the fray with his book, "The Alchemy of Desire" (Picador). The "Bad Sex in Fiction" award for 2003 was given to another Indian writer, Aniruddha Bahal, for his book, "Bunker 13". The books by Rushdie and Tejpal are among 11 shortlisted titles for this year's award instituted by "Literary Review", a London-based literary journal. The award is given for the worst, most redundant or embarrassing description of physical intimacy in a novel. The authors shortlisted this year include literary giants such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Updike and Paul Theroux. Now in its 13th year, the prize, which only targets literary fictions, aims "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it". The winner, who will be announced on Dec 1 at the In and Out Club in London, is awarded a semi-abstract statue representing sex in the 1950s and a bottle of champagne, if he or she turns up. — IANS
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Developing states attack rich over trade
Geneva, November 29 The countries — Brazil, India, Indonesia, Namibia, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela — accused the European Union, in particular, of giving little away in agriculture while demanding big sacrifices from poorer states in industrial goods and services. “Developing countries are being called upon to bear the burden of any new market opening,” they said in reference to struggling World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks. “The removal of anti-development distortions in international agricultural trade is central,” they said. The 148-state WTO has abandoned plans for the Hong Kong conference to cap four years of hard bargaining with an accord on a detailed blueprint for a new free trade treaty. With all political bargains struck, months of work on the detail will still be needed and time is running out to meet the end-2006/early 2007 final deadline for a treaty that supporters say would boost world economy and ease poverty. “We have to ensure that the Hong Kong outcome is balanced,” EU ambassador to the WTO Carlo Trojan told member-states.
— Reuters |
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Lahore bus trial run on Dec 11 Islamabad, November 29 The trial run of the Amritsar-Lahore bus service, which was postponed due to the October 8 earthquake, would be held on December 11 and 13, Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said here today.
— PTI |
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