W O R L D

28 killed in Sri Lanka suicide blast
Colombo, February 9
A female Tamil Tiger suicide bomber, hiding among a group of civilians fleeing Sri Lanka's war zone, blew herself up today, killing at least 28 persons and wounding 90, the military said.

56-year-old is first woman to swim Atlantic
San Juan, February 9
Jennifer Figge pressed her toes into the Caribbean sand, exhilarated and exhausted as she touched land this week for the first time in almost a month.

US to closely monitor AQ Khan’s activities
Washington, February 9
Notwithstanding Pakistan's commitment that "restrictions" had been imposed on disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan after his release from house arrest, the US has said it is “very serious” about him and will closely monitor his activities.

Pak ‘scares’ Obama
London, February 9
Pakistan is the nation that really “scares” US President Barack Obama and, it will be his administration's greatest foreign policy challenge: A nuclear-armed country hurtling towards chaos.

Crowd watch as the building that housed the to-be-opened Mandarin Oriental Hotel explodes after it caught fire in Beijing on Monday. — Reuters

Sudhir Vyas to be India’s new Pak envoy
Islamabad, February 9
Senior diplomat Sudhir Vyas is expected to take up the job of India's High Commissioner to Pakistan when incumbent Satyabrata Pal retires at the end of this month.

Pranab inks trade pacts with B’desh
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee signed two trade agreements with Bangladesh during his daylong trip on Monday, but did not commit to the Dhaka-proposed South Asian Anti-Terrorism Task Force or a possible transit deal.

Kidnapped Indian dies in Afghanistan
New Delhi/Chennai, February 9
An Indian national, kidnapped in Afghanistan four months ago, has died in captivity, family sources said. Simon Paramanathan, 38, who was working as a chef in an Italian food company 'Fiano' in Herat province, was abducted on October 13 last year by a terrorist outfit identifying itself as 'Mujahideen'.

Toll rises to 171 in Australian bush fires
Melbourne, February 9
Weary firefighters and rescuers pulled the remains of dozens of persons from charred buildings today as the toll from Australia’s deadliest bush fires rose to 171, the police said.

28 killed in Sri Lanka suicide blast

Colombo, February 9
A female Tamil Tiger suicide bomber, hiding among a group of civilians fleeing Sri Lanka's war zone, blew herself up today, killing at least 28 persons and wounding 90, the military said.

The blast happened near Vishvamadu, a town in the north of the Indian Ocean island recently captured by the military as it battles to crush the LTTE separatists and end a 25-year-old war.

Underscoring the challenge the military faces in separating combatants from civilians as the war moves to a final showdown, officials said the bomber was in a group of people being checked for weapons by soldiers when she set off the bomb.

“Twenty army personnel and eight civilians were among those killed while the count of injured was more than 90, many of them women and children,” a military spokesman said.

The rate of civilians fleeing fighting between the military and the cornered LTTE has picked up sharply this week, with at least 17,300 fleeing since Thursday -- out of at least 21,627 so far this year, according to military tallies.

More than 50,000 soldiers are converging on a sliver of jungle in the Indian Ocean island's northeast to crush the LTTE — now estimated to number no more than 2,000 hardcore fighters.

“We are trying to save Tamil people, but LTTE is not allowing us to do that and they have exploded a suicide bomb among civilians,” Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said.

The government, aid agencies and rights groups have accused the LTTE of forcibly keeping civilians in the war zone as human shields and for use as conscripts and labourers. The rebels deny that, saying Tamils there do not want to leave their side. They accuse the government of intentionally targeting civilians, which the military denies.

The former head of intelligence for India's 1987-1990 peacekeeping mission in the Sri Lankan war, Col R Hariharan, said the civilians' delayed movement to safe areas was what was holding up the military's final offensive.

Notably, the Tigers have landed on US, EU, Canadian and Indian terrorism lists, largely for their widespread use of the suicide blast as a weapon of war. The LTTE is credited with inventing the suicide jacket (a bomb-laden vest) and of creating a culture of martyrdom. All fighters on duty wear cyanide capsules around their necks to be taken in case of capture, a symbol of their no-surrender mindset. — Reuters

56-year-old is first woman to swim Atlantic

San Juan, February 9
Jennifer Figge pressed her toes into the Caribbean sand, exhilarated and exhausted as she touched land this week for the first time in almost a month.

Reaching a beach in Trinidad, she became the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, a dream she’d had since the early 1960s, when a stormy trans-Atlantic flight got her thinking she could don a life vest and swim the rest of the way if needed.

The 56-year-old left the Cape Verde Islands off Africa’s western coast on January 12, swimming about 3,380 km through strong winds and waves of up to 9 metres.

She now plans to swim from Trinidad to the British Virgin Islands, ending her odyssey at the Bitter End Yacht Club in late February.

Then it’s home to Aspen, Colorado, where she trained for months in an outdoor pool amid snowy blizzards, to reunite with her Alaskan Malamute.

“My dog doesn’t know where I am,” she told The Associated Press on Saturday by phone. “It’s time for me to get back home to Hank.” The dog swirled in her thoughts, as did family and friends, as Figge stroked through the chilly Atlantic waters escorted by a sailboat. She saw a pod of pilot whales, several turtles, dozens of dolphins, plenty of Portuguese men-of-war, but no sharks. — AP

US to closely monitor AQ Khan’s activities

Washington, February 9
Notwithstanding Pakistan's commitment that "restrictions" had been imposed on disgraced nuclear scientist AQ Khan after his release from house arrest, the US has said it is “very serious” about him and will closely monitor his activities.

“Pakistan has given us some initial commitments but we're going to be following (the situation) very closely. The important thing is that they know we are still very serious about this individual,” a US official was quoted as saying by The Washington Post.

The 72-year-old Khan, who was put under house arrest in 2004 by then President Pervez Musharraf after the scientist conceded having passed nuclear know-how to North Korea and Iran, was released by a Pakistani court on Friday.

"The proof is in the pudding," the official said.

Khan's release had resulted in sharp reaction across the world with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House expressing “concern” over it and the State Department describing him as a “serious threat” to nuclear proliferation.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had said on Saturday at the Munich security conference that all necessary steps had been taken by his government to ensure that Khan was not able to resume the spread of nuclear secrets or technology. — PTI

Pak ‘scares’ Obama

London, February 9
Pakistan is the nation that really “scares” US President Barack Obama and, it will be his administration's greatest foreign policy challenge: A nuclear-armed country hurtling towards chaos.

According to Obama's aides, Pakistan is the nation that really “scares” him. The country is threatened by a growing Islamist insurgency, economic collapse and a crisis of governance as it struggles to establish democratic rule, The Guardian reported.

The Obama administration believes Pakistan is the key to its objective of pacifying Afghanistan and going after Al-Qaida. Pakistan is the most urgent foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration, according to the US Central Command (Centcom) study. — ANI

Sudhir Vyas to be India’s new Pak envoy

Islamabad, February 9
Senior diplomat Sudhir Vyas is expected to take up the job of India's High Commissioner to Pakistan when incumbent Satyabrata Pal retires at the end of this month.

Vyas, currently India's ambassador to Bhutan, is expected to take over in Islamabad, diplomatic sources told here.

It is believed that Vyas' nomination has been cleared by Pakistan's foreign office. He earlier served as Deputy High Commissioner in Islamabad.

Vyas was expelled in 2003 by Pakistan in a tit-for-tat move after India threw out Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistani deputy high commissioner in New Delhi, accusing him of funnelling funds for separatist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. — PTI

Pranab inks trade pacts with B’desh
Ashfaq Wares Khan writes from Dhaka

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee signed two trade agreements with Bangladesh during his daylong trip on Monday, but did not commit to the Dhaka-proposed South Asian Anti-Terrorism Task Force or a possible transit deal.

Mukherjee, in his first visit since the new Awami League government took over in a landslide electoral victory six weeks ago, also met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the afternoon.

“As a friendly neighbour, India looks forward to working closely with the newly elected government under the leadership of Hasina to further strengthen the ties between both countries,” said Mukherjee.

The new deal promotes and protects mutual investment and also gives most favoured nation to each country.

He said the deal would also help Bangladesh close the yawning $2 billion trade gap in favour of India.

“I am aware of the trade imbalance. Every time we discuss, we try to explore possibilities as to how that gap can be reduced. Surely what is possible is to reduce the gap and keep it within manageable limit,” Mukherjee said.

Mukherjee, however, did not commit to a Bangladesh proposal to form a regional anti-terrorism task force, but held ‘comprehensive discussions’ on cooperation in the cross-border militancy.

But he did receive assurances from Dhaka that Bangladesh would not allow its territory to be used by militants to attack India.

Kidnapped Indian dies in Afghanistan

New Delhi/Chennai, February 9
An Indian national, kidnapped in Afghanistan four months ago, has died in captivity, family sources said.

Simon Paramanathan, 38, who was working as a chef in an Italian food company 'Fiano' in Herat province, was abducted on October 13 last year by a terrorist outfit identifying itself as 'Mujahideen'. The abductors had initially demanded a ransom of $150,000 for his release.

Afghan authorities have informed the Indian Embassy in Kabul that Paramanathan, who hails from Villupuram in Tamil Nadu, has died, sources said today. His body, however, has not been found, making it difficult to ascertain whether he died a natural death or was killed, they said. — PTI

Toll rises to 171 in Australian bush fires

Melbourne, February 9
Weary firefighters and rescuers pulled the remains of dozens of persons from charred buildings today as the toll from Australia’s deadliest bush fires rose to 171, the police said.

“Everybody’s gone. Everybody. Their houses are gone. They’re all dead in the houses there. Everybody’s dead,” cried survivor Christopher Harvey as he walked through the town of Kinglake, where most people were killed.

The police believes some of the fires, which razed rural towns near the country’s second biggest city, Melbourne, were deliberately lit and declared one devastated town a crime scene. “There are no words to describe it other than mass murder,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd earlier told a local television. — Reuters