New York, April 15 
Sikhs here led Baisakhi celebrations by organising a rally protesting against the alleged discrimination, bias and harassment faced by them.

While organising the rally yesterday, they also released a civil rights agenda and a report, which were the result of a year-long survey of 1000 Sikh members by the community coalition. 

The report titled-- Making Our Voice Heard: A Civil Rights Agenda for New York City Sikhs -- alleged that a large gap existed between the law and the actual experiences of the Sikh community. 

State assembly member Jose Rivera and City Council members John Liu, David Weprin, Robert Jackson and Leroy Comerie were also present in the rally.
According to the report, 41 per cent of Sikhs had been called by derogatory names or slurs; half of the Sikh students had experienced some form of harassment at school based on their religion or national origin; one in 10 Sikhs believed had been refused employment or a job promotion because of their community identity; while about half of the Sikh immigrants did not have any form of health insurance for either themselves or their family members.

''The civil rights agenda not only helps to identify and document the bias, discrimination and harassment experienced by Sikhs in the city, but also takes the critical step of putting forth a bold prescription on ways government may best address these issues,'' Liu said.

The report claimed that Sikhs in the United States suffered from significant issues of bias and discrimination in all walks of life.

''It is the coalition's intention to continue to address these issues both through research and advocacy,'' the Sikh Coalition said, adding, ''On this Baisakhi Day, we call on all Sikhs to stand up for their civil rights and fearlessly maintain their articles of faith.'' 

Sikhs are among the largest linguistic and religious groups within the broader Indian-American community, which is estimated to number about 3 million. — UNI

Islamabad, April 15 
No Sikh couple in Pakistan has, so far, married under the Sikh Marriage Act  2008 approved by President Pervez Musharraf on  January 16.

The Act replaced the Anand Marriage Act 1909 after Sikhs demanded that it be repealed since it did not cater to the requirements of their marriages. 

Even as many Sikh couples tied the knot on Baisakhi, none of them were registered under the SMA, the Daily Times quoted Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PSGPC) president Bishan Singh as saying yesterday.

Singh said a delegation of Sikhs from across the world met Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, who assured that the government would resolve the problems of the Sikhs. He said the SMA needed to be amended and that no couple had applied to him to register their marriage under the Act.

Former federal minister Afzal Haider had earlier announced that many Sikh couples would marry on the Baisakhi festival and their marriages would be registered under the SMA. 

Pakistan is the first country in the world to have enacted a separate law to register Sikh marriages. The SMA addressed certain problems of Sikhs not considered by the Anand Marriage Act 1909 such as maintenance, custody of children, registration of marriage and alimony.

The Sikh Marriage Ordinance 2008 has 32 Sections, which state various terms and conditions for Sikh marriages. The Sections include issues such as restitution for conjugal rights, void and voidable marriages, grounds for dissolution of marriages (which include contracting another marriages and cruelty), divorce by consent, and a provision for legitimacy of children. — UNI 

Top leaders of the four-party coalition today resolved their major differences and reaffirmed commitment to restore judges in accordance with the Murree Declaration.

“The leadership reiterated that the commitment to reinstate the deposed judges within 30 days after the formation of the government would be honoured in letter and spirit,” information minister Sherry Rehman told reports in a brief chat after the meeting.

“There is no confusion and no need for any elaboration,” she remarked, adding that the judges’ issue would be treated separately from the constitutional package being worked out to restore balance of powers among various institutions.

The meeting that was billed by some observers as make or break occasion for the fledgling coalition was attended by PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, ANP president Asfandyar Wali Khan and a representation of JUI secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who could not attend because he was indisposed.

The government has decided to allow Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi to resume its political activities that were severely curbed during the past five years under the rule of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Karachi. 

Officials in the interior ministry here said Afaq Ahmed and Amir Khan of the Haqiqi group would be released. They said the Sindh government has decided to review the cases instituted against the two top Haqiqi leaders and they would be exonerated in the cases where their involvement could not be proved.

The move to let Haqiqi revive its activities is part of the PPP government's resolve to take strict measures for improving the law and order situation in Karachi. The reshuffle in the security structure and changes in police hierarchy are among a series of steps being taken in this context. 

The government has assured Haqiqi leaders that they would be provided full security. Many of the MQM-H leaders and activists had either been eliminated physically in past five years or put in jail on various charges. 

Officials said the government would encourage the group to rebuild its headquarters Bait-ul-Hamza which was demolished in October 2002. 

"The establishment of lasting peace in Karachi is one of he top priorities of the government and it is a most important and difficult task," an interior ministry official said. 

Gaza, April 15
Two major Gaza universities suspended classes on Tuesday, saying a fuel crisis in the Hamas-controlled territory was making it difficult for students to travel to school.

The pro-Hamas Islamic University and al-Aqsa University, identified with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah movement, told students and teachers they could stay at home until next Saturday.

Al-Kamalain Shaath, president of the Islamic University, said only about 30 per cent of its 20,000 students had attended class in recent days. He said most of the students lived outside the city and “it is not easy to walk”.

The crisis took shape after petrol station owners in the Gaza Strip refused to accept fuel supplied by Israel, in protest at smaller quantities piped into the territory.

The situation worsened after Israel’s decision to close the Nahal Oz crossing point, where two Israeli civilians were killed in the last week’s attack by militants on the only terminal for transferring fuel to the Gaza Strip and its 1.5 million people.

Israeli officials accuse Hamas of preventing the distribution of fuel already pumped into the territory in order to create a crisis to pressure Israel to ease the blockade it tightened after the Islamist group seized the Gaza Strip in June.

“The crisis in Gaza is part of the choice made by the residents of Gaza to take Hamas as its leader,” Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak told reporters in the southern town of Sderot, a frequent target of cross-border rocket attacks.

“We will continue to supply fuel and simple humanitarian needs, things for hospitals, and cooking gas,” he said. “In the meantime, the crossings, in general, will remain closed.”

Israel’s defence ministry said in a statement it would allow in industrial fuel for Gaza’s lone power plant on Wednesday in response to a request from Egypt.

Hamas, which won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006 and has rejected Western calls to recognise Israel and renounce violence, has blamed any fuel shortages on the Israeli blockade. — Reuters

Kampala (Uganda), April 15 
An overnight fire at a primary school dormitory in Uganda killed 19 schoolchildren and two adults, the police said today.

By the time the fire brigade reached the school, most of the dormitory for girls had already burned down. The students were between the ages of 7 and 10.

The authorities were investigating the cause of the fire at Buddo Primary School, 12 km from the capital, Kampala, said police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba.

The doors to the dormitory had been locked from the outside and there was no electricity during the time of the fire, said school worker James Kiiza.

"We suspect that bad people are responsible for the fire," he said. "We cannot say it was due to electricity shortcircuit. And the door was locked from outside, which shows that someone could have first locked the door before setting the fire." 

He said workers have been on strike for more than a month because they have not been paid. — AP

Dubai, April 15
Dubai has probably become the first city in the world to have AC bus stop shelters, with 47 of the 1,000 planned shelters opening in different parts of the city.

"We are going to open at least 816 bus shelters within the next few months across Dubai, and the rest will be opened by the end of the year," said Eisa Abdul Rahman Al Dossari, CEO of the Public Transport Agency at the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority, yesterday.

"The aim is to encourage people to leave their cars and use public transport buses in comfort and to ease traffic congestion," Al Dossari said.

The bus shelters will have snacks and soft drink vending machines, ATMs and an integrated set of public services and facilities such as recycling garbage containers and other facilities.

Raman Multani, CEO of the Right Angle Media, which is involved in the construction of the shelters, says out of the 500 locations, 315 bus stops in high-density areas have two shelters to accommodate higher numbers of passengers.

Temperature inside the shelter will be maintained at 22 degree Celsius and some 200 employee will maintain the shelters. — PTI 

Baghdad, April 15
A car bomb killed atleast 60 people and wounded 80 others outside a government office in the Iraqi city of Baquba today in one of the deadliest attacks in months, the police said. The death toll was expected to rise because there were still charred bodies inside cars at the scene of the blast in the capital of Diyala province, north of Baghdad.

The police and a hospital source also said a suicide car bomb had killed 13 people and wounded 14 others in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. That bomb exploded outside a restaurant. Diyala, a multi-ethnic region and one of the most volatile parts of Iraq, has been the scene of operations against Al Qaida by the US and Iraqi forces in recent months.

Suspicion seemed likely to fall on Al Qaeda for the Baquba attack given its penchant for using car bombs. The bomb exploded outside the office of the provincial government in Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad, the police said and mainly women and children were among the victims.

Medical sources said ambulances were struggling to get the wounded to hospitals because of the sheer number of casualties. The strike was a reminder of remaining instability in the north at a time when most of the attention is focused on fighting in the south and in Baghdad between security forces and the Shi’ite Mehdi Army.

Three fighters were killed in one gunbattle in the slum, before US troops ordered air strikes that killed another three, the military said in a statement. Spokesman Lieut-Col Steven Stover said US forces in a tank killed another four militants who attacked them in a separate engagement. The Shi’ite slum has been the scene of fierce street battles over the past three weeks. The fighting has been more intense than at any time since the first half of 2007, thrusting the Iraq war back to centre stage in the US presidential campaign.

A suicide attack and two car bombs killed 18 people in northern Iraq yesterday. Among the dead from those attacks were 12 members of Iraq’s Kurdish Peshmerga security force, who were in a truck near the Syrian border when a car bomb exploded as they passed by. — Reuters

New York, April 15
The passionate love of Jack and Rose could not find its path as the magnanimous Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg 96 years ago, but now scientists claim that the Ship’s doom was also due to the use of low quality and faulty rivets.

US researchers have discovered that the builder of the Titanic struggled for years to obtain enough good rivets and riveters and ultimately settled on faulty materials that doomed the ship. The builder’s own archives, scientists say, harbour evidence of a deadly mix of low quality rivets and lofty ambition as the builder laboured to construct the three biggest ships in the world at once -- the Titanic and two sisters -- the Olympic and the Britannic, a report in the New York Times said.

When the safety of the rivets was first questioned 10 years ago, the builder ignored the accusation and said it did not have an archivist who could address the issue. Now, historians say new evidence uncovered in the archive of the builder, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, settles the argument and finally solves the riddle of one of the most tragic ship mishaps of all time.

The company says the findings are deeply flawed. “The board was in crisis mode, It was constant stress. At every meeting it was, ‘There’s a problem with the rivets and we need to hire more people,” said Jennifer Hooper McCarty, whose doctoral thesis at Johns Hopkins University analysed the Titanic’s rivets. The company also faced shortages of skilled riveters, the archives showed. McCarty said, for half a year, when the Titanic set sail, the company’s board discussed the problem at every meeting. — UNI

London, April 15
A Indian-origin former accountant has been sentenced to over seven years imprisonment in Britain for duping investors of a whopping £ 100 million.

Shinder Singh Gangar (46), who was described by the judge as having “great ability and personal charm”, promised clients a return of up to 160 per cent a year on money invested with him. But there was no such investment scheme and the money was instead put into off-shore bank accounts. The transactions were conducted through a accountancy company Dobb White & Co. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Elephants had aquatic ancestors
LONDON: Modern-day elephants descended from an early ancestor which lived in water nearly 37 million years ago, a fossil study has revealed. A team of international scientists analysed chemical signatures preserved in fossil teeth of the animal said to be similar to a tapir, a hoofed mammal which looks like a cross between a horse and a rhino. — PTI

Marilyn Monroe sex reel fetches $1.5 m
NEW YORK: A 15-minute film clip of the late movie legend Marilyn Monroe giving oral sex to an unidentified man was sold on Monday to a businessman, who chose to remain anonymous, for $1.5 million, The New York Post said. The film is a copy of a 1950s black and white 16-6mm clip owned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose first director Edgar Hoover tried but failed to prove the man in it, who never shows his face, was US president John F. Kennedy. 

13-yr boy inflates 213 balloons with nose
BLAINE (US): A 13-year-old US boy hopes to win a balloon-blowing record by a nose. Blowing through one nostril at a time, Andrew Dahl inflated 213 balloons within an hour on Friday, a feat that has been submitted for review by the Guinness World Records. His father, Doug Dahl, measured the balloons to make sure each was at least 20 cm, the minimum diameter and his mother, Wendy Dahl, kept the tally. — AP