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Volcker panel ‘favoured’ Annan
‘Disappeared’ NRI’s kin wants CBI inquiry
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India’s response not positive, says Musharraf
74 killed in Chinese mining mishaps
7 killed, 100 injured in B’desh blasts
China clones gazelles in goat’s womb
Blast kills 12 in Pak
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Volcker panel ‘favoured’ Annan United Nations, December 8 Mr Robert Parton said the panel, led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, used a “more stringent standard of proof” to evaluate evidence against Mr Annan and gave him preferential treatment. The Volcker panel issued a sharp denial. Mr Parton, a lawyer and a former FBI agent, resigned from the inquiry in April. His allegations arose in a 60-page survey by the International Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives. The panel found that the now-defunct 64 billion dollar oil-for-food program was mismanaged and corrupt because of a “failure of leadership” at the world body. It was the first time that Mr Parton, who took 16,000 pages of documents with him when he left the Volcker Committee, spelled out his doubts in detail. “No matter what I show, the conclusions of this report are not going to change unless I have a smoking gun,” Mr Parton was quoted as saying in the report. He alleged that the Volcker inquiry “was unwilling to reach any conclusion that would result in significant adverse consequences for the Secretary-General.” Mr Volcker, in an interim report in March, concluded there was not enough evidence to prove Mr Annan had influenced the 1998 awarding of an oil-for-food contract to the Swiss inspection firm, Cotecna, that employed his son Kojo. But it said Mr Annan did not properly investigate conflict-of-interest allegations before or after the contract was awarded. — Reuters
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‘Disappeared’ NRI’s kin wants CBI inquiry
London, December 8 Under arrest in London are Surjit Athwal’s husband Sukhdev Athwal and her mother-in-law Bachan Athwal. Although the motive of crime will surface during the trial that commences at Old Bailey court in London early next year, circumstances point towards an “honour killing”. Surjit was planning to divorce her husband a few days before she undertook a trip to village Aulakh Kalan in Punjab with her mother-in-law. The latter returned, but Surjit did not. Her body was never found. The first information Surjit’s family received about her was from an anonymous caller in India who said she had been throttled and her body dumped into river Ravi. Although Scotland Yard has unravelled some of the mystery, it is still waiting to hear from Punjab Police. Metropolitan Police (Met) has even announced a reward of £20,000 for anyone who offers information on Surjit’s murder. The Punjab Police, on its part, did arrest two of Bachan Athwal’s relatives — Darshan Singh and Charan Singh — in 2000 but they were acquitted by a court of law for want of evidence. Surjit’s family is convinced that Punjab Police is not interested in the case. Her brother Jagdeesh Dhillon has long been demanding a CBI enquiry and will soon petition the Indian Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India in this regard. He says, ‘The Punjab Police took a long time to register an FIR, though Surjit disappeared in December 1998. Its investigation was not transparent. We were not called as witnesses”. Surjit, a 26-year-old from West London, had gone to Punjab to attend a wedding. She has not accessed her bank accounts all these years — a proof that she is dead. She had been married for 10 years and was feeling stifled, she told some friends before coming to India. After her disappearance, her in-laws said she had left the village all by herself and had not returned. But neither Surjit’s family nor Metropolitan Police was convinced. Her brother, who campaigned for seven years for her case, says, “It was after five years of campaigning that the British foreign secretary Jack Straw agreed to push our case. The British Government never applied the kind of pressure it applied to solve other cases involving missing white people. “When Lucy Blackman disappeared in Japan, the British PM publicly criticised the Japanese for their failure to trace her. There was however no such urgency in our case. As if Surjit was less British than Lucy. She was serving Her Majesty’s customs in London”, he added. Met Police are also re-examining 120 other cases of women who disappeared over the past 10 years. The idea is to see if the disappearances have anything to do with “honour’. |
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India’s response not positive, says Musharraf Islamabad, December 8 About the proposal of de-militarisation in Kashmir, he said “the (Indian) response has not been positive so far but we need to take it forward.” Addressing a press conference at the end of the summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Makkah, Musharraf said the Kashmir issue was being addressed by both India and Pakistan. He said the Makkah Summit of the OIC, in which moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq had taken part, recognised the need to address the Kashmir issue and similar disputes confronting Muslim countries by having a conflict resolution mechanism in its new charter. Musharraf said Pakistan was successfully waging the war against terrorism and had destroyed all sancturies in its the mountainous north and south Waziristan areas and they were on the run. Over 70,000 of Pakistani troops were conducting operations against the suspected terrorists and al-Qaida operatives, he said. — PTI
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74 killed in Chinese mining mishaps
Beijing, December 8 China has been hit by a string of major coal mine accidents in less than two weeks. On Tuesday, rescuers recovered the body of the last miner missing in a November 27 explosion in Northeast China, bringing the final death toll in that mishap to 171. According to official statistics, on an average, at least 18 miners die each day in China in mining accidents. Officials often blame the growing number of accidents to lax safety standards in illegally-run mines, especially in the far-flung countryside.
— PTI |
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7 killed, 100 injured in B’desh blasts
Dhaka, December 8 The police said the bombs were detonated by suicide squads of Islamic militants at a crowded place in the town around 9.45 am. The second bomb exploded after half an hour. The blasts occurred near a cultural club “Udichee” leaving its joint secretary, Khawja
Haider, dead. The first bomb exploded when police and fire brigade personnel were trying to defuse it by spraying water on it. The second bomb detonated in the crowd watching the police dispose off the bomb kept outside the “Udichee” club, a cultural organisation. The “Udichee” was first targeted in Jessore town in 1999, when a powerful grenade exploded at its cultural function, leaving 10 persons dead and many wounded.
— UNI |
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China clones gazelles in goat’s womb
Beijing, December 8 No other countries have been able to clone Mongolian gazelles within goats, said Zeng Yitao, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and one of the seven scientists who came to Linyi City of east China’s Shandong province to appraise the cloning project. Experts said the cloning provided a way to preserve the precious breeds in the animal circle. Mongolian gazelles are an improved breed of goat living in China. Zeng said scientists extracted the body cells of Mongolian gazelles and planted them into the follicle cells of the goats, after the goat’s genes were taken away. Six out of the 26 goats got pregnant and bore six baby gazelles, only two of which stillborn, scientists said.
— PTI |
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Blast kills 12 in Pak
Wana (Pakistan), December 8 The bomb was planted in a hotel restaurant in Jandola, the gateway town to the troubled region of South Waziristan, and destroyed nearby weapons shops and other businesses. “Twelve people were killed and more than 40 people were hurt.”
— AFP |
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