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Thousands of Nepalese protest
WTO meet: World Bank sides with poor
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EU okays CIA prisons probe
Iraqis defy Qaida bullet to vote
Palestinians vote in West Bank
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Thousands of Nepalese protest
Kathmandu, December 15 The seven parties also announced a general strike tomorrow in protest against the overnight killing of 11 civilians by the soldier who fired indiscriminately at worshippers in the Kali Temple during Full Moon Day Festival at Nagarkot tourist resort near here. The soldier died in the incident, which also left 19 others injured. Shouting anti-King slogans, some 30,000 protestors marched through the streets of the Nepalese capital. The march had already been planned by the alliance, but it quickly turned into a protest rally against the gruesome killings. Angry crowds also burned tires to block the road outside a local hospital where bodies of the villagers had been taken. Eyewitnesses said the soldier dressed in a combat jacket and civilian trousers had returned drunkenly to the gathering of worshippers after an earlier spat with a local. He then fired indiscriminately over a period of between 10 and 15 minutes on the crowd of up to 500, they said. “I was sitting on the wall and watching the festival when the soldier suddenly fired indiscriminately and shot my feet,” said Krishna Bir Tamang, 45, speaking to reporters at the army hospital. Another of the injured, Kalu Tamang (30) said the shooting caught him by surprise. “I was having fun, watching the dancing and singing when a bullet hit my left shoulder and I saw blood oozing from my wound. The wound is very painful now,” he said at the same hospital. An AFP reporter saw bloodstains on the altar of the temple and bullet holes inside and outside the building. Blood was also spattered over a path leading from the shrine.
— PTI/AFP |
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WTO meet: World Bank sides with poor
Hong Kong, December 15 As WTO nations haggled in Hong Kong, over 1,000 anti-globalisation activists marched peacefully under the watchful eyes of the riot police a short distance away, but they promised a more aggressive demonstration tomorrow. ‘’Today our actions are peaceful ... tomorrow we will show a difference phase of this struggle to smash the WTO,’’ said Park Min-ung, general secretary of the Korean Peasants League, a group representing South Korea’s 4 million farmers. Inside the convention centre, the World Bank added its voice to the indignation expressed by least-developed countries over their treatment at the meeting. ‘’In the three days the meetings have taken so far, the rich countries have transferred more than $2 billion to their farmers in various forms of support,’’ World Bank Vice-President Danny Leipziger said in a statement. ‘’In the same period, the 300 million poorest people in Africa have earned less than $1 billion between them.’’ Poor nations slammed Washington and Tokyo for baulking at a deal that would allow their exports in free of duties and quotas, saying that after years of prescribing liberalisation for others it was time they ‘’swallowed their own medicine’’. One official said US trade representative Rob Portman ‘’went ballistic’’ over that statement, which was issued by Zambian Trade Minister Dipak Patel on behalf of the poorest WTO countries. The US also came under fire over the $4 billion a year in subsidies enjoyed by its cotton farmers and won little respite when it announced its willingness to offer duty-free access for cotton from impoverished West African states. ‘’They export cotton. Why would they import any of our cotton? What they need to do is halt the subsidies,’’ said Francois Traore, president of the African Cotton Producers Association. The European Union, for its part, took flak for a banana import system that Latin American growers say favours former European colonies and for its refusal to lower import tariffs for farm goods from developing countries. Portman said he saw little chance of a breakthrough at the six-day talks, and suggested that a further meeting would be needed to resolve farm issues holding up a global trade pact. The Hong Kong meeting was initially intended to approve a draft trade treaty that would free up business in farm and industrial goods and services, and lift millions out of poverty. That plan was abandoned because of differences between rich and poor, particularly the EU’s stand on market access for farm goods from developing countries without further concessions from them on industrial goods and services, though the 149 WTO member states still hope to reach a deal by the end of 2006. Saddled with that impasse, the WTO had hoped to come away from Hong Kong with at least a duty-free and quota-free deal for the 49 poorest nations and their 700 million people. But the US has been reluctant to allow poor exporters free access to sensitive areas such as textiles, sugar and cotton, and Japan does not want to open up its rice market. The EU, meanwhile, came under pressure for refusing to endorse a 2010 date for ending farm export subsidies. The 25-nation EU says Washington must first indicate how it plans to reform its food aid system, arguing that — because the aid is in kind rather than cash — it amounts to as great a subsidy for US farmers as European export subsidies.
— Reuters |
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EU okays CIA prisons probe
Strasbourg, (France), December 15 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had stated on a European tour last week that the USA respects the sovereignty of European countries in its fight against terrorism but she would not confirm or deny specific reports of CIA secret prisons in Europe. EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini told parliament yesterday that there is no evidence so far to confirm the allegations.
— Reuters |
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Iraqis defy Qaida bullet to vote
Baghdad, December 15 Only scattered insurgent violence broke the general calm, unlike the January 30 vote for an interim assembly, when about 40 persons died, many of them in nine quick-fire suicide bombings. A guard was killed and a policeman wounded by a bomb at a polling station in Mosul today, one of several blasts as polls opened at 0930 hrs IST in the northern city, where Sunni Arabs and Kurds are at daggers-drawn over power and territory. At the same time a mortar blast set off sirens in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone government and embassy compound. Two civilians and a US Marine were treated for minor injuries, the US embassy said. An explosion rocked Ramadi, another bastion of Sunni Arab revolt. But in the most remarkable turnaround from the January 30 poll, people lined up to vote in the western city, determined to have a say in the new, fully empowered, four-year parliament. They had boycotted the first, US-backed election in January. Bitter at the power exercised by an interim parliament of Shi’ite Islamists and Kurds, Sunni militants said they would defend polling stations in cities like Ramadi against groups, such as Al Qaida, who vowed to disrupt the vote. That truce, combined with sealed borders, a three-day ban on traffic and a mass presence of police and troops, with 160,000 Americans keeping discreetly in the background, made for a vote that could scarcely be more different from January. “Ballot boxes are a victory of democracy over dictatorship,” said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as he cast his vote. “The real triumph is that people are casting ballots — whoever they choose — and that they’ve chosen voting over bombs.” Hadi Mishaal, who was wounded in fighting for Saddam against Americans in 1991, and who hobbled 2 km on a crutch vote in Baghdad with his wife, said: “I hope we can have a government that will help me and give me my rights.” US President George W. Bush hailed the expected turnout among Sunnis as a sign that nationalist insurgents were being drawn into a political dialogue that would marginalise diehard rebels — Baathist followers of Saddam and Al Qaida Islamists. Meanwhile more than 7,000 Iraqi expatriates in Australia had cast their votes in national assembly elections by the time polling stations opened in their home country today, an official said. Some 15.5 million Iraqis are eligible to vote in the election, that many hope will restore stability and sovereignty to the strife-torn nation, with expatriates taking part through the out-of-country voting (OCV) programme. —
Agencies |
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Palestinians vote in West Bank
Ramallah (West Bank), December 15 Voting began at 7 a.m. (10.30 IST), according to the local election commission. “There has been a strong turnout at the polling stations, especially in Nablus and al-Bireh,” said Bashar al-Diq, executive director of the local elections commission. Around 1,48,000 Palestinians were entitled to vote in today’s elections for 414 council seats. About one-fifth of the 1,321 candidates are women. Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was among voters expected to cast their ballot in the town of al-Bireh, which adjoins Ramallah. The election pits Abbas’s dominant Fatah party against the radical Islamists of Hamas, which has enjoyed a strong showing in the three earlier rounds of voting. Its success at the municipal level has persuaded the movement to agree to participate in what will be its first-ever parliamentary elections on January 25. Today’s ballot was expected to provide a much firmer indicator of the Islamists’ strength as it will be the first time that voting has taken place in the cities. This round will take place in 40 municipalities, including the largest West Bank city of Nablus, Jenin and Ramallah, headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. — AFP |
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