Kabul, November 13
A suicide car bomber struck a US military convoy passing through a crowded market in eastern Afghanistan today, killing at least 20 civilians and a US soldier and wounding an additional 74 civilians, officials said.

Separately, an explosion in southern Afghanistan killed two NATO troops, the military alliance said in a statement. It did not disclose the troops’ nationalities.

The suicide attack in the east, happened in Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province, said Lt Commander Walter Matthews, a US military spokesman.

At least 20 civilians were killed in the blast, which also killed a US soldier, Matthews said. Seventy-four civilians were wounded, said Ajmal Pardes, a provincial health official.

The bomber struck the convoy near a crowded market, where people were trading sheep, cows, goats and other animals, said Ghafoor Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief.

The wounded civilians were admitted to a hospital in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, Khan said. The death toll was likely to rise, he added.

Taliban militants regularly use suicide attackers and car bombs in their assaults against the US, Afghan and other foreign troops in the country. But a majority of the victims in such attacks have been civilians. — AP

Islamabad, November 13
Gunmen kidnapped an Iranian diplomat and killed his guard in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar today, the police said, in the latest violence against foreigners in the volatile region.

The diplomat, identified as Athar Zada, was heading from his home to office with his guard when his car was ambushed in Hayatabad, a neighbourhood near Khyber tribal region where Al-Qaida and Taliban militants as well as criminal gangs are very active.

“I confirm that the commercial attache of the Iranian consulate is abducted and his guard has been shot dead,” police official Noor Zar said.

The abduction came a day after killing of a US aid official outside his home in the city.

Peshawar is the last city on the road to the Khyber Pass, the main land route to Afghanistan.

The Afghan ambassador-designate to Pakistan was kidnapped from Hayatabad neighbourhood on September 22.

Increasing violence has raised fears of instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan, whose support is seen as vital to the defeat of the Al-Qaida globally and the Taliban in Afghanistan. — Reuters

London, November 13
BBC journalist Sam Mason, who joined the BBC Radio Bristol in September, has been sacked from her job for making “completely unacceptable” racial comments when ordering a taxi.

The taxi firm which records messages routinely in case of queries or complaints, recorded her speaking to the operator about her daughter and telling her, “A guy with a turban on is going to freak her out.” Mason, 40, was subsequently suspended and then fired 24 hours later when the operator passed a transcript of the conversation on to The Sun newspaper, which then contacted the BBC.

The transcript shows how she ordered a taxi to take her 14-year-old from her house in Clifton to her grandparents’ home.

In the recording, Mason says, “I know this sounds really racist, but I’m not being . . . please, don’t send anyone like, you know what I mean. An English person would be great, a female would be better.” The operator replies, “We would class that as being racist. We can’t penalise the Asian drivers and just send an English one,” before Mason retorts “You’ve managed it before.”

Mason insists that if it were she, she “wouldn’t care if it had two heads, but it’s my little girl we are talking about.” She is then passed to a male operator, she tells him that his female colleague has a “bad attitude.” She says, “I work at the BBC. I’m far from racist and that uneducated woman has no right to call me one.” “I don’t want her to turn up with a guy with a turban on, it’s going to freak her out. She’s not used to the Asians,” she says in the recording.

Mason then rang off but called back later to complain before a manager accepted her booking.

A BBC statement said, “'Although Mason’s remarks were not made on-air, her comments were completely unacceptable and, for that reason, she has been informed that she will no longer be working for the BBC with immediate effect.” — UNI

London, November 13
The internet is under increasing threat from hackers who aim to bring down entire networks as battles between cyber-criminals intensify, a new report has warned.

A survey of 70 of the world’s largest internet companies brought out the growing anxiety from growing threat from hackers. It found growing concern over a range of new threats from malicious hackers, many of them rival criminal gangs trying to damage each other’s operations.

To make matters worse, while the ferocity and frequency of the hackers’ attacks were growing, the capability of their targets to cope was weakening due to financial pressures.

The chief weapon remains so-called botnets, or networks of infected or robot PCs, which can be hijacked by the hacker to transfer vast amounts of data over the internet.

The aim being to swamp computer servers with large amount of data and bring down entire networks.

The new study by a US company Arbor Networks, which helps internet service providers (ISPs) monitor the performance of their networks, found that the size of the biggest botnet attacks has grown a hundredfold since 2000. It noticed a significant increase in attacks being targeted at e-commerce sites. — PTI

Moscow, November 13
A crew member manually switched on the automatic fire extinguishing system in the Russian nuclear submarine Nerpa, causing the death of 20 persons by suffocation, the inquiry panel announced today.

“The military investigation has identified the member of the crew, a sailor, who set off the anti-fire system on board the submarine, without authorisation,” panel spokesman Vladimir Markin said.

“This sailor has already admitted his error,” the Vesti TV said. Twenty persons were killed and two injured on Saturday in the accident on the new Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine being tested in the Sea of Japan, pumping Freon gas into vessel and starving the crew members of oxygen.

The authorities said there was no fire on board the submarine, which is to be handed over to India on a 10-year lease. Despite the accident, the Nerpa passed its tests and will be authorised for use by the Russian Navy, according to the head of the military’s general staff, Nikolai Makarov.

Russian media had reported earlier that the vessel was to be leased to India on a contract worth $650 million, but news agencies quoted a senior arms industry official saying this was not the case.

Saturday’s accident was the worst naval disaster in Russia since the sinking of the Kursk submarine in the Barents Sea in 2000, in which all 118 sailors on board died. — PTI

Dhaka, November 13
Bangladesh’s population index crossed 16 crore mark in the past one year with a growth rate of 1.7 per cent, slightly more than India’s 1.5 per cent, according to the latest United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report published here today.

The country’s population with the present growth rate will reach 25.41 crore in 2050, says the report, while India with its population expected to be 165.8 crore, will become the most populous nation overtaking China by that year.

China with 0.6 per cent growth will have 140.8 crore inhabitants by 2050, according to the report released simultaneously in other countries of the world. Pakistan, whose population is 16.7 crore now, will have 29.2 crore people by 2050. However, Sri Lanka would witness a negative growth during this period. Its present population of 1.94 crore would come down to 1.87 crore then, it said.

Bangladesh’s population in 2007 was 14.71 crore.

However, the country’s total fertility rate has decreased to 2.81 in 2008 compared to 2.98 in 2007, the report said, adding that during the period the per capita gross national income (GNI) has also dropped to $1,230 from $2,090.

The total fertility rate in India is 2.78 per cent while it is 1.73 in China, the report said.

Bangladesh’s GNI lies far below other countries of the subcontinent like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka where the per capita income is $4,000, $2,410 and $3,730, respectively, and slightly better than Nepal’s $1,010. — PTI

Islamabad, November 13
Pakistan today said it was looking forward to continue constructive engagements with India to address all outstanding issues and achieve a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship.

Foreign office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq in his weekly briefing said the two countries were preparing for the fifth round of Composite Dialogue after completing the first four rounds.

“The meeting on Terrorism & Drug Trafficking will be held on November 25 in Islamabad, while one on Sir Creek will be held on December 2-3 in New Delhi under the fifth round of Pakistan-India Composite Dialogue,” Sadiq said.

The dates for remaining meetings are being finalised, said the spokesman, adding since 2004, Pakistan and India have completed four rounds of the Composite Dialogue.

Sadiq termed the issue of prisoners between the two countries as a “humanitarian issue” and said Pakistan has sought the release of its nationals from Indian prisons while facilitating the release of Indian prisoners in this country.

“A total of 29 Pakistani prisoners will be repatriated to Pakistan on November 14 via the Wagah border,” he said. The list of prisoners to be released was handed over by the Indian external affairs ministry to the Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi today.

Asked if India had shared with Pakistan any information regarding investigation in the Samjautha Express blasts, the spokesman said, “Pakistan has not been shared any investigation by the Indian government.” — PTI

BRIEFLY

Jilted lover blows up building
BERLIN: A German charged with murder for causing a gas explosion that destroyed half an apartment building and killed his neighbour, told a court that he was only trying to kill himself because he was lovesick. The 22-year-old man on trial in Moenchengladbach, western Germany on Thursday, said he had opened the natural gas taps in his apartment intending to commit suicide after his girlfriend broke up with him. When the 17-year-old later arrived to pick her belongings up from his flat, she unwittingly lit a cigarette which ignited the gas and blew up half of the building, injuring 15 persons and killing one. The man and his ex-girlfriend survived the blast. — Reuters

Obama boom in publishing
NEW YORK: Between the books already out there and those signed up for the future, it’s boom time for President-elect Barack Obama in the publishing world. According to Nielsen Bookscan, more than 100,000 copies of his books sold November 3-9, including 50,000 copies each of “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams from My Father” and 19,000 copies of “Change We Can Believe In,” a collection of speeches and policy papers. Bids on eBay for a signed first edition of “The Audacity of Hope,” a million-seller published in 2006, have topped $1,000. — AP