W O R L D

US doing intensive planning to strike Iran: report
New York, February 25
The US is in an advanced stage of “intensive planning” for a possible bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year at the instance of President George W. Bush, a report has said.

DOG’S DAY: A 5-year-old dachshund receives physical therapy in a pool at "El Perro", an aqua fitness centre for dogs, in Tokyo on Sunday. — Reuters

• Iran ready for war: minister

41 die in attack near Iraq college
Baghdad, February 25
A suicide bomber struck today outside a college campus here, killing at least 41 persons and injuring dozens as a string of other blasts and rocket attacks left bloodshed around the city.

• US planes pound Baghdad

Iraqi president ill, taken to Jordan
Baghdad, February 25
Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani is ill and travelled to Jordan for tests after a drop in blood pressure, a senior government official said today, but his office said there was no cause for concern.

B’desh forces net corrupt politicians
Dhaka, February 25
Bangladesh Army-led joint forces have held more former ministers and politicians on charges of corruption as 72-hour deadline, to submit account of their wealth, expired today.

India, Nepal renew trade agreement
Kathmandu, February 25
India and Nepal have agreed to renew a crucial trade agreement that is due to expire on March 5. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting between commerce ministry officials of the two countries.

Indian dies waiting for papers
Dubai, February 25
An Indian man who regained consciousness after being in coma for three months in Bahrain has died before his family could obtain papers to take him home.

US doing intensive planning to strike Iran: report

At least five senior US military commanders will quit if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, defence and intelligence sources in London said.

New York, February 25
The US is in an advanced stage of “intensive planning” for a possible bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year at the instance of President George W. Bush, a report has said.

Writing in the New Yorker magazine, journalist Seymour M. Hersh quoted former intelligence officials as saying that a special planning group had been established in the offices of the joint chiefs of staff, tasked with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran.

The administration’s efforts to contain Iran, the article contended, complicated its strategy for victory in Iraq, which depends on a Shia-dominated government whose leaders have ties to Iran.

But increasingly, it said, the administration’s message is that “the bleak situation in Iraq was the result not of its own failures of planning and execution but of Iran interference”. American military and special-operations teams, have escalated their activities in Iran, crossing the border from Iraq to gather intelligence and to pursue Iranian operatives, the report said.

The administration, the article contended, was now examining a “wave of new intelligence” on Iran’s weapons programmes.

Current and former American officials have been quoted as saying that the intelligence, which came from Israeli agents operating in Iran, includes a claim that Iran has developed a three-stage solid-fuelled intercontinental missile capable of delivering several small warheads each with limited accuracy inside Europe.

“The validity of this human intelligence is still being debated,” the report said.

In the past month, it says, an air force adviser on targeting and the Pentagon consultant on terrorism, the Iran planning group has been handed a new assignment: to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.

Two carrier strike groups, the Eisenhower and Stennis, are now in the Arabian Sea and the article said one plan was for them to be relieved early in the spring, but there was worry within the military that they might be ordered to stay in the area after the new carriers arrive.

A former senior intelligence official was quoted as saying that the current contingency plans allow for an attack order this spring. — PTI

Iran ready for war: minister

Tehran, February 25
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that Iran had “no reverse gear” on its way to mastering the technology to make nuclear fuel, voicing fresh defiance before major powers meet to discuss the dispute.

Meanwhile, an Iranian deputy foreign minister echoed the tough talk, saying that the Islamic republic, which is accused by the West of trying to make nuclear weapons, was ready for any possible scenario, “even for war”.

“We have prepared ourselves for any situation, even for war,” Manouchehr Mohammadi, one of the deputies to the foreign minister, was quoted by ISNA as saying at a conference in the central city of Isfahan.

Launches space missile

Iran has launched a missile capable of reaching space, Iran’s state television Web site reported on Sunday, quoting an Iranian aerospace official. “Iran has successfully launched its first space missile made by Iranian scientists,” head of Iran’s aerospace research centre Mohsen Bahrami was quoted as saying. — Reuters

41 die in attack near Iraq college

Baghdad, February 25
A suicide bomber struck today outside a college campus here, killing at least 41 persons and injuring dozens as a string of other blasts and rocket attacks left bloodshed around the city.

US planes pound Baghdad

Baghdad, February 25
The US forces launched air strikes in southeast Baghdad, Iraqi officials have said, as a series of massive explosions rocked the war-torn city.

"American aircraft are bombarding terrorist targets that have been chosen by the US and Iraqi forces, as part of our Baghdad security plan," said Brigadier General Qasim al-Mussawi, spokesman for the operation.

US spokesmen were not immediately willing to comment, but AFP reporters in downtown Baghdad heard the rumble of more than 30 powerful blasts in rapid succession at around 0030 hours IST today.

Shortly after the first blasts, electricity was cut in a part of central Baghdad, but it was not clear if these events were linked.

A senior Iraqi interior ministry official said that the air strikes were aimed at insurgent strongholds in Bo'aitha, a sparsely populated neighbourhood on the west bank of the Tigris, south of the city centre. — AFP

Iraqi president ill, taken to Jordan

Baghdad, February 25
Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani is ill and travelled to Jordan for tests after a drop in blood pressure, a senior government official said today, but his office said there was no cause for concern.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told Reuters Talabani left for Amman on Sunday afternoon and would be treated at a specialist hospital in the Jordanian capital. — Reuters

B’desh forces net corrupt politicians

Dhaka, February 25
Bangladesh Army-led joint forces have held more former ministers and politicians on charges of corruption as 72-hour deadline, to submit account of their wealth, expired today.

Among others,former Works Minister and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party(BNP) leader Mirza Abbas, former Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Mosharraf Hossain, former Secretary to the Power Ministry Akhtar Hossain and Dhaka City Corporation Commissioner Abdul Quayum were arrested when they had come to submit their statements on wealth to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Office this morning.

The arrested persons had been on the list of ''50 corrupt'' prepared by the interim caretaker government. The ACC that has been reconstituted with former Army Chief Hassan Mashhud Chowdhury as chairman, is now spearheading a combat against corruption to clean up the state before holding the stalled parliamentary elections, which were postponed for an indefinite period following the imposition of the state of emergency on January 11.

The ACC, on February 18, had published the first list of “50 corrupt", mostly politicians from two major parties, and had sent them summons, directing them to submit the statements of their wealth within 72 hours of receiving the notice.

According to the ACC directive, those not detained will have to submit the statements appearing in person and the detained will have to do so through legal representatives. — UNI

India, Nepal renew trade agreement

Kathmandu, February 25
India and Nepal have agreed to renew a crucial trade agreement that is due to expire on March 5.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting between commerce ministry officials of the two countries.

"For the time being, both countries have agreed to automatically renew the trade treaty from March 6.

“We will also hold another round of discussions soon to improve, review, and renew the treaty," Purushottam Ojha, joint secretary at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, who headed the Nepalese delegation, said after the conclusion of the meeting here on Friday.

Indian Embassy sources have said that no change had been made while renewing the treaty. — PTI

Indian dies waiting for papers

Dubai, February 25
An Indian man who regained consciousness after being in coma for three months in Bahrain has died before his family could obtain papers to take him home.

Surjit Singh Bedi, who was found unconscious in July last year without any identification papers in Bahrain's capital, died on Friday in a hospital due to cardiac arrest, Daily News reported. His sister in Punjab's Hoshiarpur was reportedly struggling to complete formalities and obtain papers proving his citizenship.

While he was in coma, Bedi lay in hospital for nearly three months under a nametag that read "unknown" and remained unidentified even after he regained consciousness on October 28, 2006, because he could not remember who he was. A former colleague later identified him after he saw his picture in a newspaper. — PTI

Rosetta makes crucial fly-by of Mars

Darmstadt (Germany), February 25
A European spacecraft carried out a close fly-by of Mars today, a crucial manoeuvre in its meandering 10-year voyage through the solar system to make the first soft landing on a comet.

Applause broke out in the European Space Agency's mission control centre in western Germany as the Rosetta comet probe's radio signal was picked up after 15 tense minutes of silence as the craft passed behind the Red Planet.

Rosetta had used Mars' gravitational field to change course and head toward two similar flybys of Earth this year and in 2009, which will accelerate it toward its distant target comet.

The craft had passed barely 250 km from Mars. The navigation had to be precise, as a mistake could not be corrected.

It was a manoeuvre the craft had not been designed to make, taking it into Mars' shadow where solar panels could not generate electricity to keep its systems alive. The original Rosetta mission would have taken it on a course where it did not fly through shadow; but a launch delay forced a change to a different target comet.

Rosetta had blasted off on March 2, 2004 from Kourou, French Guiana. Its destination - in 2014 - is comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a 5-km-long irregular chunk of ice, frozen gases and dust named after its discoverers, Soviet astronomers Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko. — AP