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Christmas fires kill 31
Tears in paradise as tsunami recalled
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Russia awaits reply from Iran on nuke proposal
Iraq’s Shies reject Sunni appeal
US troops to leave Pak in March
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Christmas fires kill 31
Beijing, December 26 Firefighters rushed to the scene and put out the blaze, which broke outshortly before midnight yesterday at the Tandao bar in Zhongshan, a city
in Guangdong province, the media said. A police officer in Tanzhou township reached by telephone ruled out mediaspeculation that arson was the cause of the fire, but declined further comment. “Witnesses said disco lights fell to the ground and exploded after
the boss handed out Christmas gifts,” a resident who lives nearby told Reuters. The police sealed off the street, where the bar occupied the first two
storeys of a building, another resident named Chen said by telephone. “We’ve heard lots of rumours. Some said it was disco lights. Others said it was a gas pipe,” Chen added. Christmas has been gaining popularity in recent years among young
atheist Chinese, who find it fashionable to party. GUATEMALA CITY: Five children from the same family died when a blaze started by a firework set off
for Christmas ripped through their cardboard and plastic shack in Guatemala, firefighters said. Minor
Chalti, spokesman for Guatemala’s fire department, said the fire, in a poor area in the north of the capital,
was started by a stray firework that fell on the roof of the children's home in the early hours yesterday morning. Cholotio said the five, aged between 2 and 13 years old,had been left alone in the house while their mother
searched for three more siblings who had stayed out late in the neighborhood
for Christmas celebrations. The firework, a hand-thrown device that emits a squealingnoise as it flies, was one of many thrown to mark
the transition from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. The sky over Guatemala City is lit up every Christmas
with fireworks and fatal accidents are common. — Reuters |
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Tears in paradise as tsunami recalled
Koh Phi Phi (Thailand), December 26 Tears rolled down cheeks as memories of those killed by the tsunami on the once paradise Thai island of Phi Phi overflowed from eyes fixed on the azure waters of the bay from where the giant waves came. “There’s never going to be closure,’’ said Trisha Broadbridge, whose Australian Rules footballer husband Troy was killed, as gentle waves slapped at fishing boats riding at anchor off the backdrop to cult movie ‘’The Beach’’. On Phi Phi, on nearby Phuket island and Khao Lak beach to the north, people from all over the world joined Thais in remembering the 5,395 people known to have been killed in Thailand by the tsunami, which left nearly 3,000 people missing. “I just want to cry. I find it hard to believe the whole thing,’’ Australian Joy Vogel said at Khao Lak, clutching a wedding photograph of her daughter, who was three months pregnant when the tsunami took her and nearly 2,000 other foreigners. “But I feel all the tsunami people who died are with us. The essence of my daughter lives on,’’ she said by a police patrol boat swept two kilometres inland, which has become a memorial. Like many other relatives of the tsunami dead, Vogel is involved in an aid programme to help Thais who suffered. “I want to make my daughter’s life count for something,’’ she said. Mourners laid flowers — white, the symbol of purity. “We just wanted to come, to come to see them,’’ said 49-year-old Jaysar Gul, who came from Istanbul with her husband Ali to mourn their daughter Seda and her British fiance Justin. “We miss them so much. We just want to be together,’’ she said tears, streaming down her cheeks. Seda’s body has never been found. On the Patong beach, one man sat weeping in the sand before a gently lapping sea, a bouquet of white roses laying in front of him. He declined to talk to a reporter. He was among hundreds of Westerners, including survivors and relatives of those killed, who traveled to sites along Thailand’s world famous beachfront where their loved ones were swallowed by tsunami last year. Ulrika Landgren, 37, Malmoe, Sweden, brought her nine-year-old son Jesper to the Patong beach where nine of their family’s friends died. “Somehow it’s good to see this place,” she said, tears leaking from behind her sunglasses. Some foreigners were upset by a crowd of photographers preventing them laying down flowers. One tearful woman yelled at them to “just go away, please’’. “We don’t care about the pictures in the paper,’’ she shouted angrily. It was no easier for survivors such as Brandon Behle, a 23-year-old from San Diego, California who lived through the tsunami on Phi Phi. For him, it was the sound of a helicopter carrying dignitaries from the mainland that brought back the images of the desperate evacuation of the injured and dying. “It’s kind of surreal, especially hearing the chopper coming in,’’ said Behle. “That’s just what it sounded like back then.’’
— Reuters, AFP |
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Russia awaits reply from Iran on nuke proposal
Moscow, December 26 Iran denied yesterday that it had received a proposalfrom Russia, which announced on Saturday that it had sent the plan to Teheran. “We presented an official memo to Iran on Saturday. Weare waiting for a reply,” Mr Vyacheslav Moshkalo, a diplomat
at the Russian Embassy in Teheran, was quoted as saying. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow declined comment, but
it said in a statement that a meeting took place today between Iranian Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari and Deputy
Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev. The two nations’ contradictory statements may be
the result of an Iranian attempt to gain time without directly rejecting
a proposal from Moscow, a longtime ally. Uranium enrichment is a key step in the nuclear
process that produces either fuel for a reactor or the material needed for
a warhead. The United States has accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear
weapons. Iran insists its programme is aimed only at generating electricity.
— AP |
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Iraq’s Shies reject Sunni appeal
New York, December 26 It was not clear whether Iraqi election rules would permit such a seat donation, even if the Shias had agreed, the report said. The move by the Sunni bloc known as the Iraqi Consensus Front, the largest group of Sunni parties, was an effort to prevent a deadlock in forming a government and avoid delays that could fuel the insurgency. Many Sunni Arabs have expressed anger over what they say was widespread fraud in the election. Demonstrations by Sunnis over the results have broken out in several Iraqi cities.
— PTI |
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US troops to leave Pak in March
Islamabad, December 26 Mr Crocker announced the withdrawal of the soldiers during a visit to the quake-hit areas in Pakistani Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province. However, the Ambassador said the US forces could stay if a request was made and if they were needed there. A US army mobile surgical hospital operating in Muzaffarabad and a US Combined Medical Relief Team operating in Shinkiari have provided urgent medical care to over 9,000 injured people. — IANS |
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Indian people’s ‘sexiest man’
Silicon Valley, December 26 Michael Manga, a 37-year-old geology professor of UC Berkeley, who won the $500,000 MacArthur ‘genius’ grant earlier this year, was included in the People magazine’s world’s 14 sexiest men list including Matthew McConaughey, Matt Damon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Orlando Bloom among others. “My first inclination, of course, was to say no, because that’s not how I perceive myself,” Manga, father of two boys, said. “But it is a way to let people know about science and that it is OK to be a scientist.” “I think a lot of people would be thrilled to have him as their professor,” Ms Sporkin, People’s Executive editor said. “He has long hair, he’s hip, he’s young.” Manga’s wife “laughed for an hour” when her husband told her he was going to be in America’s favourite celebrity rag. “He just isn’t a People magazine kind of guy,” she says. Manga was one of only two men in academia admitted to the ranks of America’s dreamiest dudes. “That’s why I agreed to do this,” he explains. “I wanted to get information out to people who wouldn’t normally hear or see anything about science.” Although finding it amusing, Michael concedes he is teased about it. “The MacArthur is so much better,” he says. “The nice thing about being at Berkeley is that no one reads People, so no one knows about this yet. And that’s the way it should be. It’s kind of embarrassing in a way, because it’s not how I perceive myself.”
— PTI |
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