Dubai, April 18
Over 2,000 employees of a contracting company, mostly Indians, have stopped work protesting poor living conditions and lack of an allowance for working in a high-risk work environment in the Bahraini firm.

Of the 2,000 workers, 1,489 were Indians and rest were Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis and Filipinos.

Embassy officials of the four countries met the workers and the management of the Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) to iron out a solution to the problem.

The Bahrain Ministry of Labour has sent an arbitration team to talk to both workers and management to resolve the crisis even if it warned that the protest was illegal.

The company officials also called the protest as illegal.

Besides the Indians, the agitating workers comprise 218 Pakistanis, 109 Filipinos, 97 Nepalis and four Bangladeshis.

"It seems that poor living conditions are at the core of the discontent among the workers," Second Secretary at the Indian Embassy, R Raghunathan was quoted as saying by the Bahrain Tribune.

The workers have presented a list of 13 demands to the management, that include better air conditioning, toilet facilities and a safer working environment.

Community volunteer John Iype, who is also involved in reaching a solution, said: "The workers say that they are served bad food which is neither nutritional nor tasty, that they get no medical care and all complaints are treated with doses of paracetamol."

Ahmed Al Kabbaz, senior labour relations specialist in the Ministry of Labour, said the management had agreed to meet some of the demands of the workers. — PTI 

Tehran, April 18
Senior inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will arrive in Iran on Friday to visit nuclear sites, including the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, a senior Iranian official said today.

The visit follows Iran's declaration last week that it had enriched uranium for use in power stations for the first time, stoking Western suspicions of a covert atomic bomb project.

Iran insists it wants nuclear technology for civilian purposes to satisfy its booming demand for electricity.

''We will discuss Iran's enrichment of uranium to 3.5 per cent,'' said the official, who asked not to be named.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who visited Iran last week, said inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog had taken samples and would report back to the IAEA's Board on whether the Iranians had indeed achieved  3.5 per cent enrichment.

The United Nations Security Council has urged Iran to stop enrichment work and has asked ElBaradei to report on Iranian compliance by April 28.

The IAEA Director said Iran had told him it would step up efforts to answer questions on its atomic plans.

Iran has repeatedly vowed to pursue its nuclear activities but would cooperate with the IAEA, as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

''The deputy head of the IAEA and the inspectors will discuss the remaining issues,'' the official said, calling the visit a routine part of Iran's commitment to international treaties.

The IAEA says it cannot verify that Iran's nuclear programme is entirely peaceful despite three years of investigating, but it has found no hard proof of efforts to build atomic weapons.

In February, Tehran ended snap inspections of its nuclear facilities after it was referred to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions.— Reuters

Kuala Lumpur, April 18
Lawyers and activists today slammed a Malaysian ruling-party lawmaker over comments that women provoked rape with "indecent" attire.

The New Straits Times on Sunday quoted Badruddin Amiruldin, as saying in an interview that "clothes play a part when someone becomes a rape victim." "Clothes can be indecent, too. That's why rape happens," Badruddin was quoted as saying. The interview did not elaborate on what he mean by "indecent." Badruddin could not immediately be reached for comments.

The legislator is also a senior official in the United Malays National Organisation, the key party in the ruling National Front coalition.

His comments drew outraged responses from Malaysian Bar Council and the Women's Aid Organisation. "It reflects the attitude that rape is a women's fault," said the WAO's president, Meera Samanther. She demanded that Badruddin apologise for his comments.

The Malaysian Bar Council, which represents about 8,000 lawyers, expressed shock. —AP

Kathmandu, April 18
Brooms to sweep him out of power, walking backwards to indicate his regressive rule and shoes to show the utter contempt for him, Nepal’s King Gyanendra is the focal point of all these and more as innovative demonstrators take to the street in ever increasing numbers.

In 2004, when he had not yet seized direct control of the government with the help of the army, the king was greeted with flowers when he began a tour of the districts outside the capital.

Today, the same subjects, antagonised as never before by the king’s highhanded absolute rule for nearly 17 months, have something else in their hands, brooms.

As Nepal’s major opposition parties began a do-or-die agitation for the restoration of democracy on April 6 and the anti-king protests began escalating, demonstrators put their creativity to use to devise something new every day and hold the attention of the nation as well as the international community.

The popular tourist town of Pokhara in central Nepal Monday saw the unprecedented scene of dozens of housewives taking out an anti-king rally, flourishing brooms high in the air and demanding he be swept out of power.

Physicians, one of the most respected and serious communities, have joined the protests en masse, treating injured protesters free in many places. Doctors from the Maharajgunj Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, one of the oldest in the kingdom, yesterday walked backwards for some time as part of the protests to indicate the king’s reign was a retrogressive step for the country.

Chitwan district in southern Nepal, famous for its nation park breeding the endangered one-horned rhino and crocodile, takes the credit for beginning the novel demonstrations when last week, protesters roped in 20 elephants to stage an anti-king march.

A novel sight once again greeted the people of Narayangarh town in the same district Monday when folk artistes and the relatives of security personnel took out a colourful march amidst folk songs and dances, demanding peace and the cessation of attacks on peaceful protests.

The “pen-down” strike and wearing black armbands or black scarves are the favourite forms of protests by hotel employees, Supreme Court staff and even civil servants.

Kirtipur city in Kathmandu valley has been at the forefront of the cultural revolution against the king, organising improvised poetry sessions with college students scrambling up on boulders to recite fiery lines against emergency and autocracy.

However, so far, the government had had only one stock response: excessive force. —IANS

Jenin, April 18
Israeli troops raided a West Bank village near Jenin early today and arrested the father of a suicide bomber who killed nine persons in an attack in Tel Aviv, witnesses said.

The family of the bomber, Samer Hammad, had emptied the home of all furniture overnight for fear the army would demolish the building, as it often does the homes of attackers, the witnesses said. But the army was not immediately preparing to destroy the building, the witnesses said.

The militant Islamic Jihad group took responsibility for yesterday's bombing and identified Hammad as the attacker soon after the explosion at a falafel restaurant in Tel Aviv.

In a video released by the group, Hammad said the bombing was dedicated to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. —AP

Washington, April 18
In one of the high-profile terrorism cases, an Arab-American former university professor has pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a Palestinian group officially designated as terrorist by the USA.

Sami Al-Arian, 48, formerly a professor at the University of South Florida, pleaded guilty in a closed hearing in the central Florida court to conspiring to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

He will serve time in prison and then be deported after offering the guilty plea last week.

The plea came more than three years after his arrest and four months after a jury acquitted him on eight counts of supporting terror groups. —PTI