Aberdeen (Scotland), May 4
British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s party risked losing control of the Scottish Parliament to a pro-independence rival today and his government also suffered losses in local elections.

Yesterday’s elections to councils in England, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were the last chance for 39 million voters to give their verdict on Blair’s decade in power.

Blair’s popularity has slumped due to the Iraq war and a series of political scandals and he is expected to announce next week that he will leave the office by July. Finance minister Gordon Brown (56) is almost certain to succeed him.

With results likely to dribble in throughout today it was too early to call the Scottish Parliament vote but there were clear signs of a swing to the Scottish National Party (SNP).

With 74 of the 129 seats decided, the SNP gained 12 and Labour lost seven. Opinion poll had suggested the SNP, which wants independence from Britain, could oust Labour as the biggest party in the parliament.

The opposition Conservatives took comfort from a BBC projection that showed its share of the national vote had risen to 41 per cent, above a 40 per cent threshold deemed necessary to win a parliamentary election.

In England, with results in from 132 of the 312 councils up for grabs, the Conservatives gained 15 and Labour lost five.

Blair has been Labour’s most successful leader, winning three parliamentary elections in a row. But poll suggest voters have lost trust in him since he took Britain into the Iraq war.

SNP leader Alex Salmond has pledged to hold a referendum on Scottish independence in 2010 if his party wins control of the Edinburgh parliament.

The Scottish vote was marred by hitches. Voters complained that tens of thousands of votes had been rejected complex ballot papers confused people. Counting in some major constituencies was delayed by computer scanning glitches. — Reuters

Bangkok, May 4
International delegates today agreed that the world has the technology and money to limit catastrophic global warming, but that it must act now to reduce the harmful effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

Promptly adopting biofuels, renewable energy sources, greater energy efficiency and other steps can mitigate world-wide disaster, according to a report adopted by government-appointed delegates from more than 120 countries at a conference in Bangkok, Thailand.

Coming out of the meeting early today, delegates said science appeared to have trumped politics, especially opposition from China, which wanted language inserted allowing for a greater buildup of greenhouse gases in the environment before action would be taken.

China, the world's second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after the USA, took a strong stance during the four-day meeting in Thailand. Along with India and other developing countries, it had pushed to raise the lowest target for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, delegates said.

Beijing and its supporters had argued moves to make deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions risked stifling its spectacular economic growth, delegates said.

"It's all done," said Peter Lukey, a member of the South Africa delegation. "Everything we wanted to see was there and more. The message is: We have to do something now." — AP

Bishnu Budhathoki writes from Kathmandu
Breaching the past pacts and understanding reached with the seven-party alliance not to call any strike, the CPN-Maoist, a major constituent of Nepal’s interim government, on Friday shut down five districts of mid and far-western region protesting against the clash between the Armed Police Force and Young Communist League (YCL) activists.

Activists of the Tharu Mukti Morcha (TMM), a sister organisation of former rebels, imposed a bandh in Banke, Bardiya, Dang, Kailali and Kanchanpur districts of Terai.

Meanwhile, demonstrators vandalised the statue of the late King Birendra in Ghorahi bazaar of Dang district.

Toronto, May 4
Sikh militants had in 1986 threatened to kill then Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and blow up the Toronto subway system, according to just declassified documents before the Air India inquiry commission.

An anonymous letter received by police in early July 1986 laid out the terrorist attacks that would unfold if Talwinder Singh Parmar, who mastermind the Kanishka bombing which left 329 people dead, and others in jail at the time were not released.

On July 8, 1986, the first indication of retaliation against the Canadian government emerged in the form of an anonymous letter to: kill Prime Minister Mulroney, blast the Toronto subway system, movie theatres, banks and commercial malls, says an RCMP letter outlining the threat, National Post reported today.

The letter to a counterpart at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is among thousands of formerly secret papers just released as part of the massive disclosure at the Air India inquiry.

Parmar had been arrested in June 1986, along with five Hamilton members of the Babbar Khalsa, and charged with plotting acts of terror in India. They were later acquitted.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had in a letter warned that there might be other acts of retaliation in Canada because of a series or arrests in different cases.

Recent law enforcement actions in fact may cause an escalation in violence on the part of Sikhs sympathetic to the Khalistan movement, says the letter, signed by Chief Supt. J.A.N. Belanger. — PTI

Islamabad, May 4
The Pakistan Foreign Office has shrugged off disclosures made by International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), a UK-based think tank, in its dossier on nuclear scientist Dr A Q Khan, saying there was nothing new that warranted a comment.

“Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam was nonchalant about it and merely said that this is like many other studies conducted in the past”,the Dawn reported.

The spokesperson rubbished the notion that Pakistan may still be dependent on illicit sources and smuggling routes to maintain its nuclear programme.

The dossier titled ''Nuclear markets: Pakistan, A Q Khan and the rise of proliferation networks; a net assessment'' was launched in London on Wednesday. — UNI