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Philippines ex-President Estrada gets life term
Attempt to blow up Buddha carving
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Powerful quake
kills 7, triggers tsunami Birth-rate Pangs
Ayurveda doctor treating hundreds of 9/11 victims
Pakistanis choose
Laden over Musharraf Positronium molecules created
Putin sacks PM ahead of elections
Islamic dress code imposed
in Chechnya
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Philippines ex-President Estrada gets life term
Manila, September 12 Fears that a guilty verdict could trigger widespread street protests and possible riots in Manila seemed misplaced. Pro-Estrada activists staged scattered low-key demonstrations in the city of 12 million people but all were peaceful. The 70-year-old movie star, ousted from power in an army-backed revolt in 2001, listened to the judgment impassively but showed a flash of spirit afterwards. ''I thought the role of justice would prevail here but really it's a kangaroo court,'' Estrada, wearing a traditional Filipino dress shirt and his trademark wristband, told reporters. ''This is a political decision.'' The verdict also barred the former President from ever holding public office again. Estrada was not immediately jailed. The court allowed him to return to his villa, east of Manila, to remain under house arrest until further orders. He is to appeal against the verdict, and the case will also come up for automatic Supreme Court review. ''It is the calm before the storm.'' Estrada was charged with plunder, made up of four counts of corruption, involving diversion of funds amounting to about 4 billion pesos ($85million). Lawyers said he was found guilty on two counts, of receiving payoffs from illegal gambling and taking commissions in the sale of shares to government pension funds. He was cleared of two charges of maintaining a bank account in a false name and of diverting tobacco taxes to his
own use. Estrada was also charged with perjury, related to an alleged misrepresentation of earned income, but was found not guilty. His son Jinggoy, a senator, was found not guilty of
plunder.— Reuters
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Japanese PM Abe resigns
Tokyo, September 12 The hawkish Abe, who took office promising to boost Japan’s global security profile, had seen his clout dwindle after a drubbing in the upper house elections in July, but the announcement came as a bolt out of the blue. “I determined today that I should resign,” a weary-looking Abe told a news conference.
Senior officials said health was a factor in the decision but Abe said he was going because a new Prime Minister would be better able to resolve a deadlock over extending a controversial mission to support US military efforts in Afghanistan.
Abe, at 52 Japan’s youngest Prime Minister since the end of World War II, reshuffled his Cabinet only last month to rekindle public approval, but a poll this week showed support was stuck below 30 per cent. Abe will stay on in a caretaker role until a successor is chosen from his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a party election that officials proposed be held on September 19. LDP secretary-general Taro Aso, a close Abe ally who shares most of his hawkish views on security policy, is seen as
front-runner to become the new Prime Minister. — Reuters
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Attempt to blow up Buddha carving
Pakistan, September 12 However, there was no damage to the image of the sitting Buddha carved into a 130-foot high rock in mountains 20 km north of Mingora, a town in the scenic Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad. A group of masked-men tried to destroy the carving yesterday, said provincial archaeology department official Aqleem Khan. “Militants drilled holes in the rock and filled them with dynamite and blew it up,” Khan said today. “The explosion damaged the upper part of the rock but there was no damage to the image itself,” he added, Buddhism spread through northern India and flourished in Pakistan and Afghanistan hundreds of years before the arrival of Islam. Both countries are now predominantly Muslim. Khan compared the attack on the carving to the destruction of two giant standing Buddha statues in Bamiyan province in Afghanistan in early 2001 by the then ruling Taliban. The Taliban blew up the two ancient statues carved into a cliff face saying they were offensive to Islam, despite appeals from around the world, including from Muslim leaders, that they be saved. “It's just like the way the Taliban used to behave,” he said. Khan said there were no arrangements to guard the site in the Jehanabad area in the Swat valley. The police had been informed of the attack, he said. As in other parts of northwest Pakistan, militants have intensified their activities in the valley in a bid to force people to follow a strict Islamic code. There have also been several attacks on security forces in the valley in recent months. Last week, militants blew up about 60 music, video and cosmetics stalls in a market in the valley after their owners ignored warnings to close their businesses that the Islamists deemed un-Islamic. — Reuters
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Powerful quake kills 7, triggers tsunami Jakarta, September 13 The 8.4 magnitude earthquake also caused extensive damage to buildings along Sumatra’s coast, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Office.Indonesia issued two tsunami warnings, one after the first quake, and the second after a smaller tremor a few hours later in the same area. However, the Indonesian warnings and most others in the region had been lifted by 2330 hrs IST. Several big aftershocks were reported in the area.An official at Indonesia’s meteorological agency said gauges measured a wave surge of one metre after the first quake. Indonesian presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said one person had died after being hit by debris in Bengkulu, in south Sumatra.Some buildings in Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, had collapsed, while some buildings had caught fire. Indonesia’s meteorological agency said the epicentre was 159 km southwest of Bengkulu, a remote area of mountains and forests. — Reuters
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Birth-rate Pangs Ulyanovsk, September 12 “It’s normally something for the home, a fridge or a television set,” Yelena Yakovleva at the Ulyanovsk regional administration press office, said.
— Reuters
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Ayurveda doctor treating hundreds of 9/11 victims
New York, September 12 The unsung hero is Pankaj Naram, who runs Ayushakti Ayurved Health Centre in Malad in Mumbai and frequently visits New York as part of his US practice. Benefiting from his treatment are 500 “Ground Zero” workers and volunteers, including around 400 fire-fighters, affected by prolonged exposure to toxicity in the aftermath of the collapse of World Trade Centre towers on September 11, 2001. Naram has devised four ayurvedic formulas specifically to treat respiratory problems and symptoms of metal toxicity. Naram, who is visiting New York mid-October, says he has distributed the formulas in New York through Serving Those Who Serve, Inc (STWS). He was first approached to help treat the sufferers of the 9/11 tragedy by an STWS cofounder. Dr. Naram's herbal formulas clear up the lungs, flush the toxins naturally and improve the compromised immune system." The doctor's detox and immune-boosting herbs are listed as dietary supplements by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and can be safely integrated with a participant's current western medicine protocol. A survey by Jim Dahl, a leading medical researcher of New York, STWS programme participants reported that Naram's herbs were 32 per cent more effective than other treatment protocols they had tried. Dahl's paper based on the survey has been accepted for publication in 'Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine', a reputed US journal. STWS has also introduced in their programme meditation and breathwork inspired by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living as well as energy healing. — IANS
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Pakistanis choose Laden over Musharraf Washington, September 12 In a broader measure of America’s unpopularity in its ally against terrorism, 19 per cent of Pakistanis see the US favourably, half the number with a positive view of India, a bitter rival Pakistan has fought in three wars since 1947. The Pakistani President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, is less popular than Osama bin Laden, though both are far better liked than President George W. Bush. The survey was released by Terror Free Tomorrow, a bipartisan group that seeks to reduce support for international terrorism. Its advisory board includes Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, and Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman who helped lead a study of White House Iraq policy last year. Group’s president Ken Ballen said the poll was the most worrisome of 23 it had conducted in the Muslim world over the past three years because of the anti-American, pro-bin Laden feelings it found and the unpopularity of Musharraf, who led the only Muslim nation with nuclear weapons. “It’s disturbing. It’s almost like a perfect storm” of distressing findings Balen said. By 49 per cent to 40 per cent, most Pakistanis said it is important to defeat Al-Qaida, the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
— AP
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Paris, September 12 The achievement may help the development of fusion power as well as directed-energy weapons such as gamma-ray lasers, but also spur explanations for a long-standing enigma about the universe, they hope. Under the standard laws of physics, for every type of ordinary-matter particle, a corresponding ‘antiparticle’ exists. For instance, the positively-charged proton has a negatively-charged counterpart, the antiproton. The electron, which is negatively charged, is offset by the positively-charged positron. When particles and antiparticles come together, the meeting is only very brief, for they annihilate each other in a flash of energy. In the case of electrons and positrons, the two species of particle create a short-lived, hydrogen-like atom called positronium, whose existence was first mooted in 1946 and confirmed five years later. The theoretician behind positronium, American physicist John Weeler, also suggested that positronium should exist as a two-atom molecule called Ps2, and that there should even be a three-atom version, Ps3.Until now, this hypothesis has never been confirmed, the big problem being the task of creating such finicky, fleeting molecules in lab conditions. — AFP
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Putin sacks PM ahead of elections
Moscow, September 12 Putin accepted Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov’s resignation at a meeting at the Kremlin but did not immediately name a replacement. Fradkov will continue on an acting basis in the post until a new premier has been named and confirmed by Parliament. “We all have to think together how to build a structure of power so that it better corresponds to the pre-election period and prepares the country for the period after the presidential election in March,” Putin told Fradkov, according to Interfax news agency.
— Reuters
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Islamic dress code imposed
in Chechnya
Grozny, Russia, September 12 The Kremlin installed 30-year-old Ramzan Kadyrov as Chechnya's President to crush a decade-old separatist insurgenc. Kadyrov, who this year made a pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia, said Chechnya had different traditions. "I repeat once again -- women must either wear headscarves, or they should not work (for state institutions)," he said. "You may say I make unlawful statements, but I will not back down."
— Reuters
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