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30 countries sign N-fusion plant deal
War on terror may last 30 years
India wants UN Security Council expanded
Dutch poll: Immigrants may favour Labour
Moni Varma, Rami ‘Asians of the Year’
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Lebanon minister
shot dead
SVR denies ex-spy's poisoning
Six imams removed from flight
Musharraf visits Shiv temple
Deal in Nepal
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30 countries sign N-fusion plant deal
Paris, November 21 At a ceremony hosted by French President Jacques Chirac, representatives of the European Union, the United States, Japan, India, Russia, South Korea and China signed the ITER agreement in the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris, finalising the project after years of negotiations. ''If nothing changes, humanity will have consumed, in 200 years, most of the fossil fuel resources accumulated over hundreds of millions of years,'' said President Chirac, underscoring the stakes behind the project. ''It (the ITER project) is the victory of the general interest of humanity,'' he added. The ITER reactor will aim to turn seawater into fuel by mimicking the way the sun produces energy. Its backers say that would be cleaner than existing nuclear reactors, but critics argue it could be at least 50 years before a commercially viable reactor is built, if one is built at all. Unlike existing fission reactors, which release energy by splitting atoms apart, the ITER would generate energy by combining atoms. Despite decades of research, experimental fusion reactors have so far been unable to release more energy than they use. — Reuters
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War on terror may last 30 years
London, November 21 "What is required is a complete re-assessment of current policies but that is highly unlikely, even with the recent political upheavals". The US Democrats triumphed in legislative elections on November 7 in which they reclaimed the House and the Senate, at the expense of President George W. Bush's Republicans. "Most people believe that the recent elections mark the beginning of the end of the Bush era but that does not apply to the war on terror," said Professor Paul Rogers, who wrote the report, in a statement. "In reality there will be little change until the United States faces up to the need for a fundamental re-think of its policies". The report showed that the United States is now faced with a dilemma: if it withdraws from Iraq, insurgent groups will be able to operate freely in the biggest oil reserve in the world. "If it stays, though, then US soldiers become an increasing magnet for radical factions, with Iraq becoming a training ground for new generations of paramilitaries, just as Afghanistan was in the 1980s against the Soviet occupying forces," the report said. — AFP
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Kidnapped BBC reporter says he is back home
Islamabad, November 21 Dilawar Khan Wazir, from the BBC's Urdu-language service, said: “I was sitting in a taxi when five or six persons grabbed me. Then I was blindfolded and taken to an unknown place. I was beaten up.” On Wednesday, the men put him into a car and left him in a deserted area in Islamabad, he added. Earlier, international media watchdogs urged Pakistan today to investigate the disappearance of a journalist working for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Several reporters in Pakistan covering the conflict in the tribal areas have been abducted and some have been killed over recent years. Wazir, who also reports for Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, went missing in suspicious circumstances after visiting his brother in Islamabad
yesterday. ''The Pakistani authorities must do their utmost to shed light on the disappearance of Dilawar Khan,'' Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. ''The circumstances of his disappearance lead us to fear he was abducted.'' Fears for Wazir were raised after a group of unidentified men visited a university hostel where his brother lives and said Wazir had been hurt in an accident and taken to a hospital. The brother, Zulfiqar Ali, and the BBC checked at the hospital but there were no signs of Wazir. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists also expressed concern about Wazir and called for action. The head of the BBC's Urdu Service, Mohammad Hanif, said he was worried. ''Considering the fact that we have been regularly reporting stories about journalists being picked up by security agencies in Pakistan, we are really concerned,''
he said on a BBC website. — Reuters
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Teaching Americans respect for kirpan
Early last year an elderly Sikh woman was "treated like a criminal" by a security guard after she mistakenly carried her kirpan into a
US immigration office in San Jose, California.
"The guard didn't know the significance of the kirpan, and a simple mistake by the woman turned into a nightmare," recalls Mr Manjit Singh, chairman and co-founder of the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF). A spate of similar incidents convinced Mr Singh it was time Americans were educated about the importance of the Sikh article of faith. On Monday, SALDEF unveiled a poster produced in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that provides a brief introduction to the kirpan and offers security recommendations for law enforcement officials when they come in contact with someone wearing the miniature sword. "We want to ensure that the kirpan is treated respectfully and the person who is wearing it is treated with sensitivity," Mr Singh told the Tribune. The Sikh community has felt an increased sense of urgency to explain its faith to Americans after Sikhs became targets of hate crime, some deadly, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. The kirpan, a religious sword, serves as a constant reminder to a Sikh's duty to uphold justice, has often caused law enforcement officials much confusion across the United States. The poster will be sent to hundreds of offices under the Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Protective Services, Transportation Security Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Secret Service. "This poster is one part of an ongoing effort by SALDEF to change the way individuals in the United States view the kirpan," said Mr Singh. "We must continue partnering with law enforcement and government officials at all levels to ensure their further understanding of our Sikh practices." In 2004, SALDEF collaborated with the U.S. Department of Justice to produce a poster entitled "Common Sikh American Head Coverings." The poster provided local, state and federal law enforcement officials with basic information about the Sikh faith, the significance of the turban, and provided recommendations on handling the turban when interacting with Sikh Americans.
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India wants UN Security Council expanded
United Nations, November 21 "Any true reform of the United Nations without a comprehensive reform of the Security Council would be like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. It would have left untouched the present correlation of power which is a fetter on solution and a part of the problem," India's Ambassador to the United Nations Nirupam Sen told the General Assembly yesterday. Warning against efforts by vested interests to continue the status quo, he said India favoured expansion of the Security Council and ensuring a strong and effective role for the General Assembly. Decrying efforts by the 15-member council to encroach upon the area of competence of other organs of the world body, Mr Sen emphasised the need to reinvest the 192-member assembly with the powers that it should enjoy under the Charter. Asking the council to respect and maintain the balance between the principal organs as provided in the Charter, he stressed that marginalisation of the assembly because of encroachment by the council into its jurisdiction had been a matter of concern for the wider membership.
— PTI
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Dutch poll: Immigrants may favour Labour
Amsterdam, November 21 After years of heated debate about immigration, the issue has barely featured in this year's campaign due to voter fatigue and a hardening of attitudes across all main political parties, but immigrants could still help determine the election outcome. ''My son couldn't find an apprenticeship because he is an immigrant. There is a lot of discrimination,'' said Bin Ali, who came to the Netherlands from Morocco in 1979 aged 23. ''Dutch children and foreign children are separated. In the school near where I live, there are only foreign children... It isn't normal. You must bring everybody together,'' he said. Bin Ali was speaking at a campaign event in the deprived western outskirts of the Dutch capital that is home to many immigrants, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch-Moroccan who killed filmmaker and Islam critic Theo van Gogh in 2004. The murder exacerbated racial tensions in a country whose reputation for tolerance had already been undermined by the meteoric rise in 2002 of the populist Pim Fortuyn, who attacked Islam and said the Netherlands could not absorb more foreigners. ''In the past four years, not enough noise has been made about divisions between immigrant and non-immigrant, between Muslim, non-Muslim,'' 36-year-old Labour candidate Samira Abbos told the Moroccan community meeting. ''I want to fight back.'' More than 1 million Dutch of immigrant origin are estimated to be eligible to vote in the General Election -- almost 10 per cent of the electorate -- and their views are often underrepresented in mainstream opinion polls. Those polls give the ruling Christian Democrats (CDA) a comfortable lead over their Labour rivals of about five to 10 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, but immigrant voters could help Labour catch up, making the race too close to call. ''If there is a high turnout among immigrants, Labour would gain three seats in all general polls, while the CDA would lose three. So a high turnout could mean a neck and neck election result,'' said Foquz, a group which polls immigrants. Foquz researcher Jorge Cuartas said other polls rely on the Internet, to which many immigrants have no access. He expected a high turnout: ''Immigrants are tired of being talked about and not being part of decisions.'' Labour, which has many candidates of migrant origin running for Parliament, is popular among immigrants for its focus on inner-city problems like fighting poverty and unemployment. In the local elections in March, 80 per cent of immigrants voted for Labour, a study by the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies showed, reinforcing a broader swing to the left.
— Reuters
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Moni Varma, Rami ‘Asians of the Year’
London, November 21 Mrs Cherie Blair, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife, received the Asian Charity of the Year Award on behalf of Loomba Trust, of which she is the President, at a glittering ceremony held at Grosvenor House Hotel at Park Lane here last night. Tarique Ghaffur, CEE, Assistant Commissioner, the highest-ranking NRI police officer in the Metropolitan Police Service, bagged the Asian Leadership in Diversity Award. The 19th Edition of Asian Who's Who International brought out by its Managing Editor J S Sachar was also released at the function attended by Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius Rama Sithanen, President of the Hinduja Group G P Hinduja, MP Keith Vaz and Lord Navnit Dholakia, Deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.
— PTI
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Lebanon minister
shot dead
Beirut, November 21
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SVR denies ex-spy's poisoning
Moscow, November 21 Alexander
Litvinenko, 44, a former officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and a close associate of Putin-baiter Britain-based fugitive Boris
Berezovsky, is in a London hospital with symptoms of severe poisoning. The anti-terror unit of Scotland Yard is probing the case. Tests showed that concentration of the dangerous thallium metal in the ex-spy's body was three times above the norm.
— PTI
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Six imams removed from flight
Minneapolis (US), November 21 The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m. yesterday, airport spokesman Pat Hogan said. A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said the police was called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.
— AP
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Islamabad, November 21 President Musharraf, currently on a visit to the port city, drove down to a Shiv temple in the town which was one of the oldest in the region. — PTI
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Journalist sentenced Death sentence for soldier 
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