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Don’t meddle in Iraq, Bush tells Iran
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Riots: 3 Nepal ex-ministers held
UK docs embark on keyhole heart valve surgery
Suicide attack spurs Israeli strike on Gaza
Hamas, Fatah agree on truce in Gaza
Climate change: Experts launch data review
Norah Jones album a big seller
New Bangladesh police chief appointed
Indian held for murder in Canada
Baglihar dam: Verdict on Feb 12
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Don’t meddle in Iraq, Bush tells Iran Washington, January 30 However, he denied any plans to invade the country. “If we find the Iranians are moving weapons that will end up harming American troops, we’ll deal with it,” Mr Bush said in an interview with the National Public Radio. Stressing once again that failure in Iraq would be a “disaster”, Bush said it would be ironic for the Democrat-controlled Senate to come up with a resolution disagreeing with the administration’s attempts to send around 21,000 more troops in Iraq after unanimously voting to send Lt Gen David Petraeus, a votary of troop increase, to head the mission. “It is ironic that the Senate would vote 81-0 to send a general into Iraq, who believes he needs more troops to do the job, and then send a contradictory message,” Mr Bush said. “It makes common sense for the Commander-in-Chief to say to our troops, the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government that we will help you defend yourself from people that want to sow discord and harm. And so, we will do what it takes to protect our troops,” he said. Mr Bush, however, denied any plans to invade Iran. “I have no intent upon going into Iran. I don’t know how anybody can say, well, protecting the troops means that we’re going to invade Iran. We will protect our interests in Iraq. That’s what the American people expect us to do,” he
said. — PTI
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Riots: 3 Nepal ex-ministers held
Kathmandu, January 30 While former Forests Minister Salim Miya Ansari was arrested from his house in the capital this morning, two other ex-ministers Kamal Thapa and Badri Mandal were taken into custody last night, hours after Home Minister Krishna Bahadur Sitaula said stern action would be taken against those fanning the violence in Terai, the southern plains of Nepal. Former District Development Committee chairman of Morang Ballav Dahal was also arrested today in the same connection, the police said. A senior Home Ministry official confirmed the arrests and said the three ministers were being questioned by police. Minister for Physical Planning and Construction Gopalman Shrestha has said that the government will round up at least two dozen ministers of the ex-royal regime and King Gyanandra’s advisers. Violent protests erupted on January 19 in a town in Terai over the rights of Madhesi community and have since spread to the entire region, claiming eight lives, including that of an Indian, till now. The Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and Jatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha have held violent demonstrations saying the Interim Constitution has “failed” to address the issues raised by the Terai people. Nepal’s Minister for Industries, Commerce and Supplies Hridayesh Tripathi resigned yesterday accusing the government of not doing enough to the defuse tension. — PTI
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UK docs embark on keyhole heart valve surgery
London, January 30 In the new technique, heart valves are implanted using a catheter inserted into an artery in the groin, avoiding the trauma of an open heart surgery. It has been developed to treat elderly patients who would otherwise be too infirm to undergo a major surgery. Jan Kovac, consultant cardiologist at the hospital, said the procedure was the biggest invention in cardiology in 30 years since the introduction of coronary angioplasty, a similar keyhole operation done to unblock clogged arteries. ''In the past, patients had to endure open heart surgery and had to stay in the hospital for at least a week after their operation,'' Dr Kovac said. The new catheter treatment is quicker, avoiding the need to cut the breastbone and stop the heart. In most cases, patients are back home within a few days of undergoing the procedure, he said. The procedure has been previously carried out at hospitals in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada. — Reuters
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Suicide attack spurs Israeli strike on Gaza
Jerusalem, January 30 The air strike targeted a tunnel located near the Karni border post, which is the main crossing point for goods traffic between Israel and the Gaza Strip, an Israeli military spokesman said. “Palestinians were preparing to use it to commit an attack in Israel,” said the spokesman. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to continue a “battle without respite against the terrorists and their commanders” after the suicide bomb attack early yesterday, the first such attack in the Jewish state in nine months. The 21-year-old bomber from the Gaza Strip managed to infiltrate Eilat, a popular holiday spot at the southernmost tip of Israel, in a complex assault claimed by the radical Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The blast ripped through the tiny Lehamim Bakery in a residential neighbourhood of Eilat, sowing terror in a town that had previously been spared suicide bombings. The bakery owner and two employees were killed in addition to the bomber, who entered the shop carrying the explosives in a backpack, police said. “I saw bits of flesh flying through the air. I saw a hand on the ground. I couldn’t move. My whole body froze. I was shaking. Bits of flesh were on my T-shirt,” said Muriel Zohar, 39, who was on her way to the bakery at the time. — AFP
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Hamas, Fatah agree on truce in Gaza
Gaza, January 30 Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar, speaking after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas met a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, said the two sides agreed to take all gunmen off the streets of Gaza. Previous ceasefires, including one last month, have been short-lived. The violence has derailed unity government talks between Hamas and Fatah and prompted some families in the densely populated territory to flee their homes. Many shops and schools have been closed. Zahar said the factions agreed to “pull all gunmen from the streets and remove checkpoints, ... return all security forces to their positions and end all forms of tensions”. They also agreed to hand over those suspected of involvement in the killings to prosecutors for investigation, and prevent the bloodshed in Gaza from spilling over to the West Bank. Zahar was accompanied by Haniyeh, Abbas aide Rawhi Fattouh and an Egyptian security delegation which attended the talks. “The president and the prime minister call on Hamas and Fatah to abide by the above mentioned agreement and to meet immediately to discuss all the remaining issues in preparation to resume the broad national meeting over the formation of a national unity government,” Zahar said. — Reuters
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11 Iraqi Shias killed in blasts
Baghdad, January 30 The police said the blast also wounded 30 people. The town of Khanaqin is near the Iranian border and is ethnically and religiously mixed, with a population of Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shias. Three people were killed in an explosion at a Shia mosque in a town about 70 km south of Khanaqin. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. The focus of Ashura is the holy Shia city of Kerbala south of Baghdad, where an estimated 2 million pilgrims have gathered to mourn the death in battle of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson there 1,300 years ago.
— Reuters
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Climate change: Experts launch data review
Paris, January 30 On Friday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release its first assessment since 2001, in a document likely to have far-reaching political and economic repercussions. "Concerns about climate change and public awareness of the subject are at an all-time high," noted Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chairman. "At no time in the past has there been a greater global appetite for knowledge on any subject than there is today on the scientific facts underlying the reality of global climate change." Christian Brodhag, representing the French hosts, said "the fight against climate change" had become cemented into national and European policy. Brodhag said that the 2003 heatwave in France, which killed an estimated 15,000 people, mainly the elderly, had awoken his country to the danger. "This is why our fellow citizens no longer question climate change." But one delegate said many representatives at the conference feared the draft report poorly reflected urgency about climate change, especially about damage to Earth's ice cover and polar caps. New data released today showed that 30 reference glaciers monitored by the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service lost about 66 centimetres in thickness on average in 2005, bringing the loss about 10.5 metres on average since 1980. "The new data confirms the trend in accelerated loss during the past two and half decades," the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said. Climbers for the environment group Greenpeace scaled the Eiffel Tower to hang a protest banner of a thermometer, representing the threat of global warming. The report will be the fourth since the IPCC was launched. The panel is highly regarded for its neutrality and caution, and it wields a big influence over government policies, corporate strategies and even individual decision-making. In 2001, the IPCC declared that carbon pollution from burning oil, gas and coal had helped drive atmospheric levels of CO2 to their highest in 420,000 years. CO2 is the principal "greenhouse gas," a term that applies to half a dozen gases that linger invisibly in the atmosphere, trapping the Sun's heat instead of letting solar radiation bounce back into space. Over the previous 50 years, temperatures climbed by around 0.1 C per decade and most of the warming could be blamed on human activity, the 2001 report said. It predicted that by 2100, the global atmospheric temperature will have risen between 1.4 and 5.8 and sea levels by 0.09 to 0.88 metres (3.5-35 inches) compared to their 1990 level, depending on how much greenhouse gas is emitted. Pachauri said climate science had leapt ahead since 2001, and the report would eliminate some important areas of uncertainty. The draft report is agreed by consensus among the some 500 scientists and government representatives in the IPCC's Working Group 1. Two other volumes will be issued in April in what will be the fourth assessment report on climate change by the IPCC since it was established in 1988. The two others will focus on the impacts of climate change and on the social-economic costs of reducing greenhouse gases. The draft report is agreed by consensus among the some 500 scientists and government representatives in the IPCC's Working Group 1. Two other volumes will be issued in April in what will be the fourth assessment report on climate change by the IPCC since it was established in 1988. The two others will focus on the impacts of climate change and on the social-economic costs of reducing greenhouse gases. The IPCC was set up by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and UNEP in 1988. Since then, "a generation has already been born that has seen (climate) changes and extremes as part of their daily life," observed Jeremiah Lengoasa, the WHO's assistant secretary general.
— AFP
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Norah Jones album a big seller London, January 30 EMI, which issued a profit warning earlier this month, had previously tipped the Jones album to be a big seller for the second half of their fiscal year. The album was released around the world last week and in the US today, EMI said, and it is the number one in the iTunes albums music store in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Switzerland, according to the iTunes Web site. It is also number one on the Amazon.co.uk music chart. ''Amazon.com continues to be one of our top retailers for Norah Jones' work,'' Saul Shapiro, senior vice president of sales for EMI's record label Blue Note said in a statement. ''We were very pleased that Amazon's customers were so enthusiastic once again about Norah's unique, intimate sound.'' EMI issued a profit warning on January 12 and ousted its two top music executives after poor Christmas sales from among others, Robbie Williams.
— Reuters
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New Bangladesh police chief appointed
Dhaka, January 30 While Additional Inspector-General of Police Noor Muhammad has been made the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Additional IGP of Special Branch, Naim Ahmed, has been appointed the Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, officials said today. The government has appointed the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Rangpur area, Major-General Sheikh Mohammad Monirul Islam as Director General of the SSF. He has replaced Sayed Fatemy Ahmed Roomi. Bangladesh Military Academy commandant, Brigadier General Shamim Chowdhury was sent to Borga cantonment as its GOC while Brigadier-General Shabbir, Brigade Commander of Khagrachari, was made the BMA commandant. Commissioners of Sylhet, Barisal and Rajshahi metropolitan police have also been changed. — PTI
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Indian held for murder in Canada
Vancouver, January 30 Kulvir Grewal (18), a university student, was arrested Sunday for stabbing Atinder Singh to death the same day. Kulvir had apparently fled after stabbing Singh and was later tracked down by police dogs near the University of Western Ontario. The police also recovered the knife used in the crime. Kulvir's lawyer, Donald Crawford, asked the case to go over to February 5 pending more information, the London Free Press newspaper reported. Kulvir's mother and another family member were also in the courtroom.
— IANS
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Baglihar dam: Verdict on Feb 12
Islamabad, January 30 The verdict of the Swiss neutral expert, Raymond Latiffe, will be conveyed to heads of diplomatic missions of the two countries in either Geneva or Berne, it is learnt. “The verdict will be relayed on February 12 to either our permanent representative in Geneva or our ambassador in Berne from where it will be electronically transmitted to the Foreign Office,” a senior Foreign Ministry official told Dawn. The neutral expert would invite the diplomats of the two countries to his office and hand them each a written copy of his final verdict, the official said. The verdict would be binding on both parties. The Baglihar verdict acquires special significance in India-Pakistan context given that it would be the first bilateral dispute to be settled through third party mediation in a transparent process with consensus of both parties. So far the two countries have failed to resolve any outstanding dispute bilaterally despite numerous rounds of talks over the past few decades. Also, the ruling on Baglihar would determine the course of action Pakistan would take on another water dispute that it has with India over its plan of constructing a 330 mw Kishanganga dam on the Jhelum river in Kashmir. With exactly two weeks left before the much-awaited verdict on Baglihar is issued, there are conflicting signals on which way it is likely to go. While there is no official word yet, there are some media reports that suggest a favourable outcome for India and others that claim the verdict would uphold Pakistan’s contention. Pakistan’s position is that the design of the Baglihar dam is in breach of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty. It maintains that the 450mw dam project on the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir would allow India far more water storage than agreed under the bilateral water-sharing treaty. Pakistan’s main concern is that the gated structure in the design would provide India the capability to manipulate flow of water to Pakistan’s disadvantage. However, India maintains that the design is in accordance with the stipulated provisions of the treaty. The Baglihar dam project is seen in India as crucial for meeting the electricity needs of power-starved Jammu and Kashmir. A major worry in official circles here is that if the verdict supports the Indian contention, it would amount to a carte blanche for India to build more dams. It is feared that this could potentially be a source of more tension between the two neighbouring countries. The verdict was scheduled to be issued in December 2006 but the expert deferred it to January 2007 after his final meeting with Pakistani and Indian delegations in Washington in November. He sought more time to review the matter in the wake of certain new elements brought to his notice by Pakistani experts. By arrangement with the Dawn
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World’s most expensive home Ex-soldier admits killing family 84-yr old wins lottery 
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