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Obama’s message to Muslims
US cuts terror aid to Pak
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Mumbai Heat
When White House e-mails didn’t work
8th wonder in US: 6 boys, 2 girls
Gaza truce breached, Israeli forces kill one
Honour-killing accused faces $15m lawsuit
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Obama’s message to Muslims
Washington, January 27 Reaching out to the Muslims, Obama said he was taking a number of initiatives to bring America’s relations with the Islamic world as they were 20-30 years ago. “We sometimes make mistakes, we have not been perfect,” Obama said, exuding confidence that Americans would restore the same respect and partnership they had with Muslim world years ago. Choosing an Arabic satellite TV network to send his first formal message to Muslims worldwide, he said, “My message to the Muslim world is to communicate that Americans are not your enemy.” “I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries... My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that Americans are not your enemy,” Obama told the Dubai-based Al Arabiya television network, in a move that the mainstream US media quickly termed as his public diplomacy. Obama’s comments reflected the new administration’s resolve to repair relations with the Muslim world that received a setback during the previous Bush administration. He called for a “new partnership with the Muslim world based on mutual respect and mutual interest” and to press his point, Obama in the interview, talked about his growing up in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Expressing his determination to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, Obama said it is time for the US to listen and not dictate things. Obama said he will also address the Muslim world directly in his first 100 days in office from the capital of an Islamic nation. However, he did not divulge the place or the time. Obama said the ideas of Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who now seem to be nervous, are bankrupt. Obama attempted to present a humble and conciliatory face of the US to the Muslim world, where there is much resentment and animosity against America. “What I’ve said, and I think Hillary Clinton has expressed this in her confirmation, is that if we are looking at the region as a whole and communicating a message to the Arab and the Muslim world, that we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress,” Obama said.
— PTI
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US cuts terror aid to Pak
Islamabad, January 27 US authorities deducted the amount while releasing only $ 101 million out of Pakistan's claim of $156 million for expenses incurred on the campaign against terrorism till April 2008, said Shaukat Tarin, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance. The move was the outcome of objections from American auditors as well as a change in the US format for releasing such funds, he said. “The Pakistan government will re-submit a case for the release of the amount, which has already been spent from its resources (on) the war on terror,” Tarin told reporters here yesterday. Tarin said increased defence spending due to tensions with India in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks had put pressure on the national exchequer. Pakistan's balance of payment position will improve after a loan of $ 700 million from donors is received by the end of March. The country will get $ 500 million from the World Bank in February and another $ 200 million from the Asian Development Bank. The country recently received a loan of $ 500 million from China and $ 100 million from the ADB. Tarin said under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan was bound to eliminate subsidy on electricity by the end of June. The government will submit to the Friends of Pakistan group technical reports on areas needing financing in February. A ministerial-level meeting of the Friends of Pakistan is scheduled for mid-March.
— PTI
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Mumbai Heat Islamabad, January 27 With a 10-day deadline for the completion of a preliminary probe expiring today, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik held a meeting to review progress made so far in the investigation. There was no official word on the meeting though Dawn News channel quoted an official source as saying that Malik had extended the deadline for completing the probe till January 29. The source said the deadline was extended as a review of “some aspects” of the Indian dossier had not been completed. Malik had told a news conference on January 17 that he had given a three-member team set up to probe the Mumbai attacks and examine the Indian dossier 10 days to submit its preliminary findings. The official source told Dawn News that the Pakistan government is also expected to give a response to the dossier to India on January 29. The source said a large part of the investigation had been completed and only a few aspects and angles remained to be probed. India handed over its dossier on the Mumbai attacks to Pakistan on January 5. Pakistan subsequently acknowledged that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks, was a Pakistani national. — PTI
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When White House e-mails didn’t work
Washington, January 27 They could neither receive nor sent e-mail, thus making them almost dysfunctional. The Obama Team has been used to doing most of its work through e-mails and blackberries. "There's only one e-mail system at the White House at a time, and unfortunately, it's not working," White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs told reporters during the course of his daily press briefing. And as he started his press conference Gibbs said: "Let me just get organised here and bring you up to date on a couple of announcements, the first of which, our apologies if you've e-mailed any of us in the last two and a half hours." "Our e-mail system is not working so well. So our apologies on that, and we'll endeavour to get you information from earlier in the day, hopefully in a little bit more of a timely manner, if we can get the e-mail to work," Gibbs said. Reports said that the e-mail system could not be fixed till late in the evening.
— PTI
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8th wonder in US: 6 boys, 2 girls
Los Angeles, January 27 The babies, who weighed between 0.69 kg and 1.47 kg, were delivered by caesarean section at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Bellflower, 30 km south of Los Angeles, yesterday. The “very vigorous” babies, born in the space of five minutes, were nine weeks premature and all of them were generally doing well in incubators, doctors said. The doctors and the mother, who requested anonymity, had expected seven babies, but were surprised when an eighth came out. “After we got to Baby G, which is what we expected, we were surprised by Baby H,” Karen Maples, the chief of the hospital’s obstetrics and gynaecology department, said. The first live-born set of octuplets in the US was delivered in Houston, Texas, in 1998. One baby died about a week later, but the surviving children celebrated their 10th birthday in December. About the infants born yesterday, Harold Henry, the hospital’s chief of foetal medicine, said getting the number correct with ultrasounds before delivery is difficult with so many babies. “It is quite easy to miss a baby when you’re expecting seven,” Henry was quoted as saying by CNN. Three of the babies needed breathing assistance, but otherwise none of them appeared to have serious problems, doctors said. “It was a truly amazing delivery,” Maples was quoted as saying. The woman was 23 weeks pregnant when she was hospitalised seven weeks ago. Before the deliveries, a team of 46 physicians, nurses and other staff prepared for the births. The hospital said it would not answer questions about whether the woman had fertility treatments. The first three to seven days would be critical for the California babies, Mandhir Gupta, one of the doctors at the news conference, said, adding the infants could be in incubators for six to eight weeks and in the hospital for 10 weeks.
— PTI
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Gaza truce breached, Israeli forces kill one Gaza, January 27 It was the bloodiest exchange since a 22-day Israeli offensive in the coastal enclave ended in ceasefire declarations and took place on the eve of a first visit to the region by US President Barack Obama’s new West Asia envoy George Mitchell. Obama said yesterday the “moment is ripe” for renewed peace negotiations to end decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The Israeli military said a bomb was detonated against its forces on the Israeli side of the border fence near the Kissufim crossing in the central Gaza Strip, killing one soldier and wounding another three. Israeli fire later in the same area killed a Palestinian who medics said was a 27-year-old farmer. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said: “This was a grave and unacceptable incident and we will respond.” After a war that left 1,300 Palestinians dead, Israel vowed to hit hard if militants resumed rocket fire on its border towns or attacked troops patrolling the frontier. Israel said in response to the attack it shut down the crossing points through which flow the humanitarian aid and other supplies on which the 1.5 million people of Gaza depend. — Reuters
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Honour-killing accused faces $15m lawsuit
Silicon Valley, January 27 Gurparkash Khalsa (56) is in jail charged with killing Ajmer Hothi (23), the ex-boyfriend of his daughter, on March 27, 2007 after he married another woman. Hothi's family seeks the money to compensate for their loss and to send a message, their attorney Steven Brown said. "They want to make it clear that he needs to be held accountable," Brown was quoted as saying by recordnet.com. The wrongful death lawsuit was filed last week in San Joaquin County Superior Court on behalf of Jasvir Kaur, Hothi's widow, Avtar Hothi, his father and mother Manjit Kaur Hothi. According to prosecutors, Khalsa, who owned Pacific Coast Intermodal, a trucking firm based in French Camp, refused to allow Hothi marry his daughter, because he was just a trucker. Later, he learned that his daughter had aborted Hothi's child and demanded the couple marry but Hothi's parents had sent their son to India for an arranged marriage, according to court papers. Prosecutors accuse Khalsa of tracking down Hothi and killing him in a cab. Hothi was shot nine times with a handgun similar to the one Khalsa had registered years ago, according to a police report. The
gun was, however, never recovered. San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau plans to seek a life sentence for Khalsa in the jury trial
set for May, the website said. — PTI
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