Beijing, May 25
A powerful aftershock jolted southwestern China today, killing at least two persons and injuring over 480 and rattling the already temblor-weary residents even as the death toll from the massive earthquake mounted to nearly 63,000.

The aftershock of 6.4 magnitude jolted Qingchuan County in quake-devastated Sichuan province in southwest China, damaging many homes and roads.

The aftershock lasting about a minute was also felt in Xi'an, the capital of the northwestern Shaanxi province, forcing the residents to flee from homes and offices to come out into open spaces, it said.

It was felt in many parts of Sichuan, including the capital Chengdu, and swayed high-rise buildings, state-run official Xinhua news agency said quoting an engineer with the China National Seismic Network.

The aftershock — the strongest to hit Sichuan province since the devastating May 12 quake — was also felt in Beijing and is one of the strongest to hit Sichuan since the May 12 earthquake.

The death toll in Sichuan province alone mounted to 62,161 persons with 347,401 persons injured, a local official said. Thousands more are still missing. — PTI

Tangshan (China), May 25
Well before this city was destroyed by an earthquake 32 years ago, the coming disaster was loudly preceded by strange animal behaviour and other bizarre signals that survivors wish they heeded.

"The animals were trying to tell us something. If only we knew that, not so many people would have died," said Fu Wenran, a retired farmer, whose wife was among the estimated 240,000 who perished in Tangshan's quake on July 28, 1976 in China.

Several survivors of the disaster in this northern city said the toll in this month's quake in south-western China could have been minimised if such clues had been validated.

Chinese media reports and Internet blogs have buzzed with the reports of mass migrations of thousands of frogs and toads near the quake region in Sichuan province just before the May 12 disaster, which left more than 80,000 people dead or missing.

There is little dispute among scientists that animals can predict earthquakes, possibly through sensitivity to pressure waves.

"Physical and chemical stimuli emanate from the earth prior to an earthquake and animals can probably sense that," said George Pararas-Carayannis, a chemist and oceanographer.

The constitutional package proposed by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has evoked mix response with lawyers and some political leaders saying it aims at delaying the restoration of deposed judges and providing indemnity to Musharraf’s post-November 3 unconstitutional acts.

The PPP central executive committee (CEC) that endorsed the package on Saturday was also divided and a group of leaders lamented that the party was fast losing its public standing because of ambiguous attitude on the judges’ case and covert support to Musharraf.

The Supreme Court bar association president and prominent PPP leader Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan came out with a strong statement after attending the meeting that any attempt to reduce the tenure of the Chief Justice would not be accepted.

Though he believed that nothing was final as yet as the constitutional package was just a set of proposals, Aitzaz said he was not hopeful that the government would move with greater urgency to reinstate judges in near future.

“We will have to go ahead with our plans to stage a march on June 10,” Aitzaz said.

According to PPP sources, there was a difference of opinion within the CEC whether the party should take Musharraf into confidence about the proposed constitutional package or not. A minority opposed any contact with the presidency as, according to them, it could erode the party’s popularity.

Only one coalition partner, Awami National Party (ANP) chief Afzandyar Wali Khan, publicly supported the package and welcomed the proposal for change of North West Frontier Province’s name into Pakhtunkhawa.

Another coalition partner, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, said he would express his comments only after seeing the package. He said his party would support any move to impeach President Musharraf.

Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said his party would give its candid opinion on the issue when consulted. But, he said, the party would never accept in abridgment of tenure of the Chief Justice.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Imran Khan in separate comments said the package virtually endorsed and indemnified Musharraf’s imposition of emergency, dismissal of 60 judges and amendments in the Constitution.

Kabul, May 25
Peace talks between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants have already led to an increase in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, NATO said today.

Faced with a wave of suicide attacks, Pakistan has begun negotiations with Taliban militants who control much of the mountainous region on its side of the border with Afghanistan and thinned out the number of its troops in the largely lawless area.

But the draft peace accords make no explicit mention of militants stopping attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on Saturday vowed to carry on fighting Afghan and foreign forces in Afghanistan regardless of the talks.

''We have seen increased activity in the eastern part of the country especially which we believe can only be attributed to the de facto ceasefires and a reduction of Pakistani military activity,'' NATO's civilian spokesman in Afghanistan Mark Laity told a news conference.

''We respect the sovereignty of Pakistan absolutely but it's important they take into account the need to ensure that any agreements they make do not lead to an increase in violence in Afghanistan,” he said. — Reuters

London, May 25
Asking embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to act “tough” and put his feet down in dealing with bickering in the ruling party, NRI industrialist and Labour peer Lord Swraj Paul today insisted that he still is the “best man” to lead the country.

“There is no doubt that he needs to be tough. This is a wake up call. He needs to put his foot down. He is a gentlemen and the best man in the country to run the country,” Paul, a close friend of Brown, said following the party's electoral debacle. including in last week's byelection.

He suggested that the Prime Minister should effect a cabinet reshuffle.

"I don't think we have a better man than him in the country but he has to exert his authority. I think he's too gentle and hence people misunderstand him. Otherwise, he is very tough leader and the best man." Paul is particularly upset after the ruling party lost the safe Labour Crewe seat by 7,860 votes and the local polls.

In a series of dramatic developments, Jack Straw, justice secretary, and Geoff Hoon, the chief whip, were accused by MPs loyal to Brown of having stirred up revolt over his leadership among cabinet colleagues after the byelection defeat, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Quoting Downing Street sources, the report ruled out an early Cabinet reshuffle to reassert Brown's authority. — PTI

Kathmandu, May 25
Nepalese leaders today failed to break a deadlock on key issues linked to the formation of a coalition government, with just days remaining for a crucial meeting of the Constituent Assembly, which is expected to declare the country a republic.

A high-level meeting of the top leaders of the major political parties, the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the CPN-Maoist, failed to reach a consensus on key issues such as amending the interim constitution and making a separate provision for a president.

"The meeting has been put off until tomorrow morning,” Nepali Congress vice-president Gopal Man Shreshtha said.

"Todays meeting failed to make any progress as all three parties stuck to their stance," said the leader of the Nepali Congress, which emerged as the second largest party in last months Constituent Assembly polls.

The Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML have set three conditions for joining a coalition government led by the CPN-Maoists i.e. making provision of a separate president, amendment to the provision that requires two-third majority for forming and dissolving the government, disbanding the Maoists' People's Liberation Army, and youth wing Young Communist League.

The mainstream parties have proposed that the constitution be amended to allow the formation and ouster of government though a simple majority.

At the meeting held at Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koiralas residence in the capital, the ruling Nepali Congress and the CPN UML adhered to their respective positions, which was rejected by the Maoists. — PTI 

Breaking the previous record set by a Japanese climber, 77-year-old Nepalese citizen Min Bahadur Sherchan on Sunday set another world record by scaling the world’s highest peak Mt Everest.

According to Nanibabu Dahal, spokesperson at the Senior Citizen Mt Everest Expedition, Nepal 2008, elderly citizen Sherchan from Myagdi district in western Nepal successfully scaled the Everest at 8:40 am on Sunday.

In 2007, seventy-one year old Katsusuke Yanagisawa, a retired school teacher from Japan, had created a record by scaling the world’s highest peak successfully. Last week, 48-year-od Appa Sherpa had broken his own world record by scaling the summit for 18th time.

According to officials at the Nepal Tourism Board, in this season around 220 climbers, including 87 foreigners, have already conquered the summit till Sunday morning. Around 3,000 persons have scaled Mt Everest since 1953 May 29, 1953, after Switzerland’s Edmund Hillary and Nepali citizen Tenzing Sherpa conquered the summit for the first time.

Durban, May 25
The death in South Africa's raging anti-immigrant attacks today rose to 50 as concerns mounted for hundreds of thousand people, including Asians, who have been displaced by the two weeks long violence.

A Bangladeshi citizen has become the latest victim of the xenophobic attacks which spread to other provinces like Mpumalanga, North West, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.

“The death toll during the xenophobic attacks in Gauteng has reached 50,” police said today.

The Bangladeshi citizen, whose name has not been disclosed, was attacked and his shop was looted yesterday in the town of George in the Western Cape province, the latest area to be affected by the violence.

More than 30,000 foreigners have now been made destitute, since the violence first broke on May 11 in the township of Alexandria in Johannesburg.
Around 500 persons have been arrested for indulging in violent activities which have displaced 17,000, the police said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people took part in protest marches in Johannesburg and Durban against the xenophobic attacks. The protest marches come at a time when South Africans in general, including political, religious and civic leaders, condemning the attacks as a "shame" on the country.
President Thabo Mbeki has come under severe criticism for failing to take action after the first violent attacks.

Yesterday, some shacks were burnt in the Ramaphosa informal settlement but the police managed to calm the situation down. In Actonville, the police also broke up a fight between a number of local residents and foreigners living in the community. — PTI 

London, May 25
The search for the wreckage of the Titanic was actually a Cold War cover story for a secret mission to find the remains of two nuclear submarines, the oceanographer who located the luxury liner has revealed.

Dr Bob Ballard, who led a team in 1985 that found the wreckage of the ship 73 years after it sank in the Atlantic, has claimed that he had to find and inspect the remains of the two submarines in a top secret mission for the US Navy before he was allowed to locate the Titanic. “I couldn't tell anybody. There was a lot of pressure on me. It was a secret mission. I felt it was a fair exchange for getting a chance to look for the Titanic.

“We handed the data to the experts. They never told us what they concluded-our job was to collect the data. I can only talk about it now because it has been declassified,” The Sunday Telegraph quoted Dr Ballard as saying.

When USS Thresher and USS Scorpion nuclear submarines sank during the 1960s, more than 200 men lost their lives and suspicions were raised that at least one of them, Scorpion, had been sunk by the erstwhile USSR.

In 1982, Dr Ballard approached the US Navy for funding to search for the Titanic with a robotic submarine craft that he had developed. He was told that the military were not prepared to spend large sums of money on locating the liner, but they did want to know what had happened to the submarines. Officials were anxious to find out how the nuclear reactors had fared after being under water for so long. — PTI

Washington, May 25
This time Democrat Barack Obama criticised Republican John McCain by comparing him with the unpopular Bush administration, in an effort to make the former war hero's opposition to a college aid bill for military veterans a campaign issue.

Obama appealed to military veterans yesterday in Puerto Rico, where primary elections are due on June 1, saying he cannot understand why McCain opposes legislation that will provide college scholarships to people who have served in the US military.

"Now, let me be clear: No one can dispute John McCain's love for this country or his concern for veterans…I don't understand why John McCain would side with George Bush and oppose our plan to make college more affordable for our veterans", Obama said.

"George Bush and John McCain may think our plan is too generous. I could not disagree more". He later responded to McCain's assertion earlier in the week, that Obama had no right to speak on veterans' issues because he had not served in uniform, saying it made "no sense whatsoever".

"I didn't serve, like many people of my age, because the Vietnam War was over by the time I was of draft age and we went to an all-volunteer army, but obviously I revere our soldiers and want to make sure they are being treated with honour and respect,"Obama said.

McCain was a navy fighter pilot who was shot down and spent nearly six years imprisonment in Vietnam. He has stressed on his impressive military record as against Obama's lack of the same during the campaigning.

The issue may gain attraction, in part because the US is marking the Memorial Day holiday weekend to remember military service members who have been killed in battles. — AP 

The Hague, May 24
The International Court of Justice here ruled, Singapore has sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh while Malaysia owns the Middle Rocks, and South Ledge belongs to the state in whose territorial waters it is located.

The judgement, delivered on Friday, closed the 28-year-old territorial dispute between Malaysia and Singapore over the island, which Singapore called Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge.

Pulau Batu Puteh is located 7.7 nautical miles off the coast of Johor's Tanjung Penyusuh. Both countries have pledged to abide by the decision of the ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, whose decision is final and not subject to appeal.

Malaysia and Singapore have also repeatedly emphasised that whatever the decision handed down by the ICJ, would not strain ties between the two neighbours.
The judgement was delivered by the ICJ vice-president Shawkat Al-Khasawneh, who was the acting president in the case, at 10 am Netherlands time. Shawkat and 15 other judges had heard the oral submissions by both countries from Nov 6-23 last year. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Baby found alive inside cloak of dead woman
KIRKUK: An Iraqi baby boy was found alive on Saturday, inside the cloak of either his mother or aunt after both the women had been shot dead in northern Iraq, a local police official said. Colonel Ali Mahmoud, who said the baby was in good health, explained that the infant and the bodies of the two women had been found by villagers.When the bodies of the two women were identified, the baby was reunited with his father — AFP

Cuba has maximum 100-year-olds
HAVANA: About 1,800 Cubans are over 100 years old, making it the country with the highest rate of centenarians, an expert said. Eugenio Selman-Housein, chairman of the 120 Years Club also said on Saturday, "Life expectancy has gone up to almost 80 years" on the communist-run Caribbean island. The 120 Years Club, created in 2003, promotes a style of living and eating that will help people live a long and happy life. The oldest Cuban is a 122-year-old woman. — AFP

Japan’s feline 'stationmaster'
KINOKAWA: In the times of need, the Japanese say they can even ask a cat for help. In this town in the western Japan, people look to Tama, a nine-year-old cat working as master of an unmanned train station. The creature, wears a formal uniform cap of Wakayama Electric Railway and calmly watches passing passengers who greet her. The company feeds her in lieu of salary. — AFP

Man jumps 24 trucks
MASON: Robbie "Kaptain" Knievel, son of the late daredevil Evel Knievel, successfully jumped over 24 delivery trucks on Sunday night, at the site of one of his father's most famous stunts. "Hopefully I'll see you after the jump," Knievel told the crowd before he climbed the start ramp. — AP

7 killed in Colombia quake
BOGOTA: A strong earthquake struck central Colombia, on Sunday, killing at least seven people and sending thousands of panicky residents into Bogota’s streets. The quake shook this Andean capital for several seconds, the state geological agency put the strength of the quake at 5.5 on the Richter scale. — AFP

Immigrants' shops attacked
ROME: A gang armed with sticks and baseball bats attacked three shops in Rome run by immigrants from Bangladesh. Shop windows were smashed but no one was injured. Rome's new mayor, Gianni Alemanno, condemned the Saturday’s attacks. — AP

Helicopter crash kills three
LOS ANGELES: A tour helicopter crashed on an island off the southern California coast on Saturday morning, killing three people and injuring three others, a county sheriff's deputy said. The helicopter shot flames from its exhaust pipe while it was over water, then went down on the west end of Santa Catalina Island.The crash killed two men and one woman immediately, said county supervising fire despatcher Melanie Flores. Their identities were not released.— AP