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Battle rages in Lebanon amid UN debate
Israeli warning freezes aid |
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Gravity changed after tsunami
Gas pipeline blown up in Pak
Satyajit films in students’ curriculum
China executes official for spying
Chocolate that crunches fat, boosts love
‘India proposed more autonomy for Kashmir’
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Battle rages in Lebanon amid UN debate
Beirut/Jerusalem, August 8 Israel launched 80 airstrikes against Lebanon overnight, targeting more than 40 Hizbollah buildings after the guerrillas fired over 140 rockets at Israel. Hizbollah guerrillas killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded seven. The Israeli army said its troops had killed 25 guerrillas. The Arab League, which has demanded that the ceasefire resolution drafted by the US and France be changed to include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, sent a delegation to New York to argue its case at the UN. The UN Security Council is now expected to vote on the resolution only on Wednesday or Thursday. At the same time, Lebanon pledged to deploy 15,000 peacekeeping troops in the area along the border if Israeli troops pulled out — an offer that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described as “interesting” and worthy of consideration. “It looks interesting and we will examine it closely,” Olmert said. “We had said from the outset we would like to see the Lebanese army...combined with strong military support from other countries.” Israel’s Security Cabinet is expected to meet on Wednesday and approve plans to expand military operations in Lebanon, including sending troops 30 km into that country. Israeli military planners said they would push deeper into Lebanon to target Hizbollah sites and reduce its capability to launch rockets. “I have instructed the army commanders to prepare for an operation to control all the (rocket) launching sites,” said Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz. Observers, however, were hopeful about Lebannon’s plan to deploy peacekeepers as it was backed by two Hizbollah members of the Cabinet. Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fuad Saniora too said his government would “impose its full control, authority and presence” over the country.
— PTI
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Geneva, August 8 Further deliveries of urgently needed supplies to towns and villages in the south were on hold, said Christiane Berthiaume, a spokewoman for the UN's World Food Programme. "Due to the insecurity, there will not be a convoy to the south today," she told journalists. Berthiaume told AFP that agencies had decided not even to try to ask for security assurances from Israel for each convoy of trucks in the south under a procedure used so far. The Israeli military today dropped leaflets warning it would strike any vehicle, "whatever its nature", travelling south of the Litani river on suspicion of transporting weapons. "We would need at least two convoys a day in the south - that's the strict minimum - and six a day for it to be good,and we're far off that," Berthiaume said. Supplies managed to get through in the south in recent days, but on at least two occasions other vehicles just 30 metres away were struck by missiles, according to Berthiaume. Wivina Belmonte, a spokeswoman for the UNICEF, said:"Nearly one month into the conflict, there are two words that sum up where the humanitarian situation is: it's just 'not enough'." The UN agencies said trucks carrying relief supplies were ready to roll from Syria into northern Lebanon and Beirut today, for the first time since a key route was cut by air raids several days ago. — AFP
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Jakarta, August 8 The discovery signifies a new use for the data from NASA's two gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) satellites and might offer a new approach to understanding how earthquakes work, a release from Ohio State University said. The research paints a clearer picture of how the Earth changed after the December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, the 9.1-magnitude temblor in the Indian Ocean that caused a deadly tsunami, killing nearly 230,000 and displacing more than 1 million people. Centered off the west coast of northern Sumatra, the event followed the slipping of two continental plates along a massive fault under the seafloor. The slippage occurred along 1,207 km of the line where the Indian plate slides under the Burma plate, a process called subduction. The quake raised the seafloor in the region by several meters for thousands of square km. "The earthquake changed the gravity in that part of the world in two ways that we were able to detect," said Shin-Chan Han, a research scientist in the OSU School of Earth Sciences. First, he said, the quake triggered the massive uplift of the seafloor, changing the geometry of the region and altering previous global positioning system (GPS) satellite measurements from the area. Second, the density of the rock under the seafloor was changed after the slippage, and an increase or decrease in density produces a detectable gravity change, Han said. — Antara
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Karachi, August 8 A company official said an 18-inch diameter pipeline was blown up in the Pat Feeder area near Sui, the town where the main production plant for Pakistan’s largest gas field was located. ‘’The damage has caused a shortfall of 110 mcdf of gas per day but we have made up the deficiency from other supply lines,’’ the official added. He said supplies to consumers remained unaffected and the repair work on the damaged pipeline was likely to be completed within 48 hours. Nobody has claimed the responsibility for the attacks on the pipelines, but the officials said they suspected Baluch militants were responsible. Tribal militants have been waging a low-level insurgency in Baluchistan for decades but they have stepped up attacks on government installations, including gas and transport facilities, in recent months. Baluch militants resent that local resources are being used to benefit other regions and have intensified attacks in the recent months on gas pipelines, rail links and government buildings and army bases in the province. They say profits from Baluchistan’s gas reserves go to outsiders while the people of the province, Pakistan’s biggest but poorest, are neglected. — Reuters
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Satyajit films in students’ curriculum
Warsaw, August 8 They will be screened at the Summer Academy of Films in Zamosz, some 400 km from the Polish capital. The organisers have collected from around the world 262 old movies, including 10 films of the late Satyajit Ray. The purpose is to show and teach the students different styles of filmmaking. "It is really a great honour for India that they have selected 10 classics of Satyajit Ray, starting from 'Pather Panchali', 'Apur Sansar', 'Aparajito' to 'Charulata' and others. "The organisers have given preference to Ray's films as compared to other masters such as Federico Fellini and no other director's works have been selected in such a big number," said Anil Wadhwa, the Indian ambassador to Poland. Piotr Kotowski, chief of the academy, said their selection of Ray's films is "a tribute to Satyajit's genius". "He is one of the all time great directors and our students will understand parallel Indian cinema in a better perspective," Kotowski told IANS over the phone. Meanwhile, Bollywood movies are having a regular run in Poland for the last 18 months with great success. Aamir Khan's "Mangal Pandey - The Rising" is getting good response from the audience in Warsaw. — IANS
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China executes official for spying
Beijing, August 8 China and Taiwan have been spying on each other since their split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 but trade and tourism have blossomed since the late 1980s. Tong
Daning, who was in his mid-50s and held a rank equivalent to a notch below Assistant Minister in the National Development and Reform Commission, was executed in April, said the sources, who requested anonymity. “He was one of the most senior government officials to be executed in recent years,” a source said. Tong sold classified documents in exchange for about $ 250,000 over 15 years, the source added.
— Reuters
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Chocolate that crunches fat, boosts love
London, August 8 The Sexy Bar is packed with cocoa solids and ground chilli. Both ingredients are said to act as an aphrodisiac and the chilli also boosts the metabolism, which helps burn fat. Top chef Paul Da Costa Greaves, of Exeter, Devon, spent almost two years creating the $-3.99 bar. “It’s a taste experience just four pieces are enough to have an effect.” “The Incas enjoyed choc with chilli. It could be beneficial”, diet expert Jacqui Lowdon was quoted by The Sun as saying.
— ANI
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‘India proposed more autonomy for Kashmir’
Islamabad, August 8 The daily Nation, quoting unnamed officials, said the Indian proposals were contained in a “non-paper” sent to Pakistan. One of the proposals envisaged the return of Jammu and Kashmir to its pre-1953 constitutional state — which means all its affairs, except defence, foreign matters and communications, would be run by the state government, the daily said. Last month Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri had said Islamabad had received the “non paper” from India in response to President Pervez Musharraf’s suggestions for resolution of the Kashmir issue.
— PTI
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