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Mush: I personally warned Bhutto
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Bilawal will never be accepted as a Bhutto: Aunt
2 Indians commit suicide in UAE
2 injured in shooting at California grocery store
Major fire hits Iraq oil refinery
Maoists snub Nepal army chief’s remarks
Gandhigiri in Malaysia
It’s no more a man’s world, men tell survey
Quake sparks panic in eastern Indonesia
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New polls show Obama way ahead of Hillary
Senator Barack Obama, fresh off a surprise victory in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, has taken a commanding double-digit lead over presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to two state polls released on Sunday.
Obama holds a 10-point lead in the new CNN-WMUR poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire and a 13-point advantage over Hillary in the new USA Today-Gallup poll.Both surveys indicated a dramatic boost in support for Obama since he won the Iowa caucuses on Thursday.Clinton was placed third in that contest. The next electoral battle will be waged in New Hampshire when the Granite State conducts its primaries on Tuesday. The CNN/WMUR New Hampshire Primary Tracking Poll gave Obama 39 per cent to 29 per cent for Hillary Clinton and 16 per cent for John Edwards, a former Senator from South Carolina. An earlier Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday showed a virtual dead heat in New Hampshire,with Clinton on 31 per cent and Obama 30 per cent.More respondents in both of the new polls said Obama had the best shot at winning the presidential elections in November.Clinton had the majority support prior to the Iowa caucuses. Among women voters, till now considered Hillary Clinton's strong base of support, the polls found Obama had comparable support. A defeat in New Hampshire would be a serious blow to Hillary’s hopes of becoming her party's nominee for the presidential elections.While Iowa and New Hampshire do not necessarily produce a winner from either campaign, they can boost contenders' chances ahead of primaries in larger states. Many of the states will hold their primaries on February 5, also known in American politics as "Super Tuesday." Among the Republican Party candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona leads former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney by six points in the CNN-WMUR poll and four points in the USA Today-Gallup poll.The CNN poll had former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, the Republican winner in Iowa, at 14 per cent.
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Mush: I personally warned Bhutto
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says he personally warned Benazir Bhutto about the threat to her life but in the end her luck ran out.
“I knew that she’s under threat. She herself knew that. I told her personally,” Musharraf said in an interview to CBS News’ “60 Minutes”. Asked by interviewer Lara Logan if it was then just a matter of time before the attackers caught up with Bhutto, Musharraf replied: “It’s your luck. There’s no real protection against a suicide bomber really.” Bhutto was killed while she was leaving a rally in Rawalpindi on December 27. Musharraf said news of her death came as an “utter shock” to him. But it was no secret that the President and the former Prime Minister shared a rocky relationship. Musharraf characterised it as “up and down”. In fact, he said he was a “little upset” with her when she disregarded his advice not to return to Pakistan before the parliamentary elections. Initially, Musharraf said she had agreed to stay on in Dubai. “But then she decided to come all of sudden. Now that changed a little. It upset me a little.” He accused Bhutto of changing the “goalposts frequently, depending on the ups and downs here in the country.” Asked if she was annoying him, Musharraf replied: “On many occasions. But on many other occasions she was positive.” He said he had to interact with Bhutto for the sake of the nation and admitted he did not have a personal friendship with her. On the day of the rally in Rawalpindi, Musharraf said he had “intelligence that this is a dangerous place and there’s a likelihood of a suicide attempt”. “We asked her not to go,” he said. “She insisted she would go. We stopped her. And we got such a poor flak - we got flak from all over the world, from media, from Western media.” He said Bhutto was partly to blame for her death. “She should have just gone and moved fast, gone and waved, yes. But if you’re standing and - because you are vulnerable. You’re vulnerable and people are charging,” Musharraf said. “And all the film that you see, people are charging. Now, when people are there by the hundreds swarming around you, this man is one of them. Who can check these people at that stage? “God was kind - she went into the car in spite of the fact that she was waving and all that. She did go into the car. Now is the point. Why did she stand outside the car?” Musharraf asked. He bristled at the suggestion that some of Bhutto’s supporters accuse him of a role in her murder. “This is unfortunately a very baseless allegation. Nobody has a right to blame anyone for killing anyone unless they have the proof,” he said.
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Bilawal will never be accepted as a Bhutto: Aunt
Islamabad, January 7 Ghinwa, who heads the Shaheed Bhutto faction of the Pakistan People’s Party, was married to Mir Murtaza, Bhutto’s brother, who was shot dead in mysterious circumstances when she was the Prime Minister. “Bilawal is a Zardari and not a Bhutto. The public would never accept Bilawal as a Bhutto and time would decide whether the decision to make him the PPP chairman was right or wrong,” Ghinwa told The Post. Ghinwa, who is of Lebanese origin, described the relationship between her and Bhutto as “not good” and said there had been no attempts at reconciliation.
— PTI
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India, Malaysia to step up defence cooperation
Kuala Lumpur, January 7 The two sides also agreed to strengthen efforts to combat terrorism, a joint statement issued after in-depth talks between visiting defence minister A. K Antony and his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak said here. Anthony said India and Malaysia emphasised the need to further continue cooperation in defence supplies and defence industry, including technology assistance, co-production, joint ventures and industry collaborations. The two sides would hold service specific military- to- military talks, alternately in India and Malaysia.”As part of the joint efforts to intensify our bilateral defence cooperation, the Indian Air Force will undertake the training of Royal Malaysian air force pilots and technicians," he said."The first phase of training by the Indian Air Force has commenced in India last month," Antony, who is here on a two-day visit, said. In the second phase of the training,31 Indian Air Force personnel will arrive here next month to train pilots and technicians and are expected to be in Malaysia for two years, he told reporters. The two sides also exchanged views on the security environment in the Asia Pacific region and agreed on the need to have more dialogue and cooperation.
— PTI
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2 Indians commit suicide in UAE
Dubai, January 7 Several Indian associations have expressed concern over the increasing incidents of suicide among workers and urged the Indian missions to start counselling centres in labour camps for the benefit of the workers. Lack of higher education for children, job insecurity, low wages, long periods of separation from families, poor working conditions and lack of medical insurance drove many of them to commit suicides. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs had announced a 24x7 helpline for Indians working abroad - to be set up at 13 missions in the Gulf, Singapore, Malaysia and South-East Asian countries. Smart cards, containing all information regarding employment and insurance would be introduced for all future emigrants. A 32-year-old labourer identified as J.S was found dead in his room in the industrial area of Khor Khowair, the Gulf News quoted a police official as saying.The victim had hanged himself with rope fixed to the fan, he said. In another suicide case, a 57-year-old Indian identified as M. A hanged himself from the fan of his residence in the city.There were more than 3.6 million Indian migrant workers in Gulf, almost half of them from Kerala.
— UNI
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2 injured in shooting at California grocery store
Chino (US), January 7 The man arrived at the Rio Ranch Market in Chino, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, yesterday, with his two young children in tow, Chino police Lt Al Cheatam said. He shot at four persons inside, but hit only his girlfriend and girlfriend’s sister. The girlfriend worked in the store’s bakery. “At first everyone thought it was a balloon that went off in the store,” Fabio Cebreros, a customer in the store, told KABC-TV. “But then after you heard two more shots just randomly go off, pow! pow! It was chaos.” The police said the man was holding his girlfriend hostage when it confronted him. “She had been shot, we could tell that by her bleeding, and he was holding her in a position where he had his gun to her head,” Cheatam said. “One of our officers was able to get a good line of sight between him and the hostage and the shooter, and we were able to resolve the situation by the officer firing a round at the suspect.” The girlfriend’s sister was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition, the authorities said. The girlfriend was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.It was unclear if the sister also worked at the store.No names were released. The two children were in the custody of the Child Protective Services, the authorities said.
— AP
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Major fire hits Iraq oil refinery Iraq, January 7 An engineer at Baiji refinery, some 180 km north of Baghdad, said the blast had destroyed the plant’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) unit, where the fire had broken out, but other operations were unaffected. A Reuters cameraman at the complex said he saw at least one dead body. Workers were hurriedly evacuated as flames raged through the LPG unit. A police official in Baiji said three people had been killed in the blaze. The refinery engineer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said four people were burnt beyond recognition and the engineer in charge of the LPG unit was missing. Two hours after the blaze erupted, firefighters succeeded in largely extinguishing it, said the engineer, who blamed the fire on an accident. “There was no sabotage. It was caused by a technical fault,” he said. He said the LPG unit had been shut down for repairs and was coming back online on Monday when it was rocked by an explosion at 5.00 am and then a second a few minutes later. The initial explosion was at a storage tank containing 5 million litres of fuel. “This is the biggest fire I have ever seen at Baiji refinery. We have not had a fire like this before,” said the engineer, employed at the complex since 2003. At least 10 firefighting trucks were on the scene and more were summoned from nearby towns to help battle the blaze as a fleet of ambulances transported the injured to a hospital. The Baiji refinery is a key transfer point in Iraq’s oil infrastructure, pumping crude oil from the country’s northern oilfields to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. — Reuters
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Maoists snub Nepal army chief’s remarks
A day after the Chief of Army Staff, General Rookmangud
Katawal, ruled out the possibility of integration between the politically indoctrinated Maoist combatants into the Nepal Army, a senior Maoist leader today said that such remarks expressed by Katawal could adversely affect the ongoing peace process.
Talking to journalists in
Kavre, 32 km northeast from Kathmandu, where former rebels had gathered to hold their central committee meeting, minister for information and communication and Maoist spokesperson Krishna Bahadur Mahara opined that the General's remarks contravened the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement. Mahara said that the row over the integration of Maoist People's Liberation Army
(PLA) into the national army could have surfaced within the Nepal army fold and not among political parties. He also said it was an objectionable comment made by Katawal at a time when the government was trying to integrate the PLA fighters. On Sunday, before leaving for a week-long official visit to China, General Katawal had said that the Nepal Army should remain free from any political ideology or ism to maintain its competency, professional discipline and impartiality. Pro-king party demonstrates against government
After almost a two-year-long slumber following the April Uprising in 2006, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal
(RPP-N), the pro-king group in Nepal, today took to the streets for the first time demonstrating against the recent political understanding reached among the ruling seven-party alliance (SPA). The
RPP-N, which is dominated by staunch supporters of pro-palace and former Phanchas who enjoyed power during the 30-year-long autocratic Panchayat regime before 1990, today carried out a demonstration in Kathmandu protesting against the government decision to amend the interim constitution that declares Nepal a republic state by abolishing the 239-year-old Shah Dynasty. Addressing the gathering,
RPP-N chairman Rabindra Nath Sharma said, "The SPA coalition government and interim parliament have no right to snatch the people's fundamental rights to decide the fate of monarchy by declaring the country a republic." He also said that they would struggle against the government for the sake of people's rights. Party leader and former home minister during the direct rule of the king Kamal Thapa said they would not comply with the recent amendment in the interim constitution. "The SPA and the interim parliament have no right to impose their hegemony by abolishing the monarchy," said Thapa advocating for ceremonial constitutional monarchy in the country. "It is the people's right to decide the fate of the monarchy through a referendum," he added. Terming SPA as autocratic, Thapa said the repeated postponement of the polls was due to fear of the seven parties getting 'no good' response from the people.
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Gandhigiri in Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, January 7 The “Valentine Roses Campaign” will be the first public event organised by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) since a massive protest demonstration here on November 25, which saw the police using tear gas and water cannons to disperse some 20,000 ethnic Indians. Hindraf chairman P. Waytha Moorthy, now in London, said a minimum of 10,000 Malaysian Indians would assemble outside Parliament on February 14 to gift red and yellow roses to premier Abdullah Badawi in conjunction with Valentine’s Day. Moorthy said Hindraf “wishes to assert that this is purely a peaceful gathering with the view to present our beloved Prime Minister with roses to enlighten him on the predicament and cry for justice” of the Indian community. — PTI
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It’s no more a man’s world, men tell survey
London, January 7 About 52 per cent of survey participants said that men have to live according to women’s rules. Asked what it means to be a man in the 21st century, more than half said the society tries to feminise them, turning them into waxed and coiffed metrosexuals. The research also showed that just as many women feel their work-life balance has been stretched to breaking point. Men say they “feel handcuffed” by political correctness - only 33 per cent feel they can speak freely and say what they think, whereas two thirds find it safer and easier to keep their opinions to themselves. About 2,000 men and women were polled on the Internet across 10 television regions.
— PTI
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Quake sparks panic in eastern Indonesia
Jakarta, January 7 The US geological survey placed the strong quake, shallow at only 35 km (21.7 miles) deep, at an epicentre at 8 km (5 miles) north of the coastal town of Manokwari in Indonesia’s West Papua province. “There are several houses on fire but we don’t know yet how many exactly,” Fauzi, head of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency’s earthquake centre, said.
— Reuters
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