Athens, December 9
The situation in the Greek capital Athens calmed down early today after three days of heavy rioting, triggered by the fatal police shooting of a teenager, media reports said, but the unrest continued.

Violence was concentrated in the area around Polytechnic University, where several dozen hooded youths were still holding out, but police remained on high alert.

A government spokesperson denied reports that a country-wide state of emergency was to be declared.

Late Monday, Athens was ablaze and gripped by chaos while dozens of other cities were crippled for a third straight day by arson and looting in the worst riots in decades.

Hooded protesters, mostly in their teens, clearly had control of the city by late Monday and were looting stores and taking anything that could be used as a weapon.

The police arrested more than 50 rioters, while over 100 people were injured in the violence, media reports said. — IANS

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba), December 9
The five men charged with coordinating the September 11 attacks are in a hurry to enter guilty pleas on their apparent quest for martyrdom, with only six weeks remaining before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

The war-crimes detainees said they decided on November 4, the day Obama was elected, to abandon their defenses against the capital charges. Obama opposes the military trials and has pledged to close Guantanamo’s detention centre, which holds some 250 men.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed yesterday told a military judge he would confess to masterminding the attacks that killed 2,975 people, shocking victims’ relatives who watched from behind a glass partition. Four other men also abandoned their defenses, daring the Pentagon to grant their wish for martyrdom. The judge ordered lawyers to advise him by January 4 whether the Pentagon could apply the death penalty, which military prosecutors were seeking, without a jury trial.

“They were proud to be guilty and that says a lot about them,” said Maureen Santora, of Long Island City, New York, whose firefighter son Christopher died responding to the World Trade Center attacks.

At a press conference after the hearing, her husband Alexander held up photos of firefighters, his eyes brimming with tears. “I know my son is with us,” he said with a choked throat. He wore a New York fire department cap.

The Santoras were among nine victims’ relatives who watched the proceedings, the first time family members have been allowed to observe the war-crimes trials. Maureen Santora watched from the back of the courtroom, wearing black and clutching a photo of her son in uniform. — AP

Reaffirming his pledge to take action against the non-state actors involved in the recent attacks in Mumbai, President Asif Ali Zardari has called for a coordinated response by India, Pakistan and the United States in countering the scourge of terrorism.

“Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks,” Zardari wrote in an article appearing in The New York Times on Tuesday, in which he expressed his grief over the death and destruction in India’s commercial capital. At the same time, .

“As was demonstrated in Sunday’s raids, which resulted in the arrest of militants, Pakistan will take action against the non-state actors found within our territory, treating them as criminals, terrorists and murderers,” he wrote in his op-ed piece: ‘The Terrorists Want to Destroy Pakistan, Too.’

“Not only are the terrorists not linked to the government of Pakistan in any way, we are their targets and we continue to be their victims,” the president added. “Terrorism is a regional as well as a global threat, and it needs to be battled collectively,” Zardari said.

The Mumbai attacks, the president said, were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan’s new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated.

“Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and non-state actors with a vested interest in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root.”

Zardari said the Mumbai attacks reminded him of the death and destruction in Karachi on October 18, 2007, when terrorists attacked a festive home-coming rally for his wife, Benazir Bhutto, killing nearly 150 Pakistanis and injuring 450. “The terrorist attacks in Mumbai may be a news story for most of the world, for me it is a painful reality of shared experience. Having seen my wife escape death by a hairbreadth on that day in Karachi, I lost her in a second, unfortunately successful, attempt two months later.”

Urging the Indians to pause and take a breath in the aftermath of the tragedy, the President said: “India, Pakistan and the rest of the world” must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilisation.”

Accusing the world for giving rise to the present menace, Zardari said, “These militants did not arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the cold war. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists. Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism and the dismemberment of civil society. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood.”

“The challenge of confronting terrorists who have a vast support network is huge… We have 150,000 soldiers fighting Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan far more troops than NATO has in Afghanistan,” he added.

Referring to Bhutto, Zardari said, “Benazir Bhutto once said that democracy is the best revenge against the abuses of dictatorship. In the current environment, reconciliation and rapprochement is the best revenge against the dark forces.”