Dhaka, January 3
Bangladesh's envoy to India has sought immediate steps for upgrading the New Delhi mission's security fearing retaliation by ULFA in the wake of BSF arresting two top militant leaders, who were reportedly earlier detained in his country.

Bangladeshi High Commissioner to India, Tariq A Karim, in a recent letter to Dhaka, said a possible backlash from ULFA and religious extremists in Bangladesh has made the mission's compound at the Chanakyapuri diplomatic enclave in New Delhi extremely vulnerable, 'The New Age' reported.

"These developments have meant that the High Commission and its personnel have become extremely vulnerable as targets for retaliatory attacks in India aimed at humiliating the government of Bangladesh," it quoted the letter as saying.

The letter sought immediate government steps to upgrade the High Commission's security apparatus calling it the "most pressing problem" and suggested installation of closed-circuit television cameras along its boundary wall, besides security barriers and fire-fighting equipment.

According to the report, Karim has already approached the Indian government for enhancing security for the mission while sending details of its requirements for the security equipment to the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka.

Foreign ministry officials here were not available for immediate comments on the report, which came a week ahead of Premier Sheikh Hasina's three-day visit to New Delhi, the first since her Awami League party came to power after the landmark December 29, 2008 polls.

Earlier reports had said that ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa was detained in Bangladesh in December along with the group's deputy military chief Raju Baruah, a bodyguard and seven members of the outfit, before their arrest by BSF.

Several reports said the development exposed Bangladesh to wrath of ULFA which promised to retaliate.

Today's 'New Age' report came a week after papers reported an Indian plan to engage its own security forces for the security of its High Commission in Dhaka sparking a political debate, with main opposition BNP of ex-premier Khaleda Zia calling it a move to undermine Bangladesh's "sovereignty".

The Foreign Ministry in Dhaka, however, brushed aside the concern saying the foreign embassy or High Commission compounds are the sovereign area of the respective countries and "the security arrangement inside the embassy is an internal matter of theirs."

Bangladesh police two months ago arrested four suspected Pakistani and Bangladeshi operatives of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) who allegedly planned to carry out an attack on the Indian High Commission and US embassy in Dhaka.

A subsequent e-mail threat by unidentified senders prompted Bangladeshi authorities to intensify further the security of the Indian envoy in Dhaka and the High Commission here. — PTI 

New York, January 3
In its latest bid to press Iran to halt its uranium production, the US is planning to impose strong and immediate new sanctions against Teharan that will target its elite Revolutionary Guards, the military force believed to run the clandestine nuclear weapons effort.

The Obama administration, which has completed a fresh review of Iran's nuclear progress, said current troubles "give us a window to impose the first sanctions that may make the Iranians think the nuclear programme isn't worth the price tag."

"The long-discussed sanctions would initiate the latest phase in a strategy to force Iran to comply with UN demands to halt production of nuclear fuel," The New York Times today reported citing unnamed officials.

This time, the White House wants to focus the new sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps because it wants to avoid angering Iranians protesting in the streets by depriving them of Western goods, the report said.

The US is planning to go ahead with the new sanctions despite acknowledging that three previous rounds of restrictions have failed to deter Iran.

The administration also aims to get Arab and Asian nations to join Europe in cutting off financial transactions with front companies for the Revolutionary Guards.

Iran dismissed an end-of-2009 deadline imposed by the US and the West to accept a UN-drafted deal to swap most of its enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

It came up with a counterproposal, asking the West either sell nuclear fuel to Iran, or swap its nuclear fuel for Iran's enriched uranium in smaller batches instead of at once as the UN plan calls for.

The White House has said Iran was "standing in its own way" by imposing an ultimatum on world powers to accept its version of a deal to defuse the building nuclear showdown.

"The IAEA has a balanced proposal on the table that would fulfill Iran's own request for fuel, and has the backing of the international community," Hammer said.

"If getting access to fuel is Iran's objective, then there is absolutely no reason why the existing proposal, which Iran accepted in principle at Geneva, is insufficient. The Iranian government is standing in its own way, he added. — PTI

Dubai, January 3
The US today closed its embassy in Yemen citing “ongoing threats” by Al-Qaida and asked its citizens to “maintain a high level of vigilance” following the botched attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day.

“The US Embassy in San’a is closed today, January 3, 2010, in response to ongoing threats by Al-Qaida in the Arabain Peninsula (AQAP) to attack American interests in Yemen,” the embassy posted the message on its website.

The closure of the embassy follows an warden message sent on Thursday to the US citizens staying in Yemen reminding them of persisting threat to their lives after the failed December 25 bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound US airliner by a 23-year old Nigerian who received training and instructions from Al-Qaida operatives in the country.“The US embassy reminds US citizens to maintain a high level of vigilance and to practice enhanced security awareness”, the website posted, without any mention of the date to re-open.The US President Barack Obama sent his top Middle East general David Petraeus yesterday to meet Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“We call upon every Muslim who cares about his religion and doctrine to assist in expelling the apostasies from the Arabian Peninsula, by killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places, declare it an all-out war against every crusader on Mohammad’s peninsula on land, air and sea,” said an AQAP statement on Monday. — PTI 

Chicago, January 3
US authorities are probing the operations of Pakistani-Canadian terror suspect Tahawwur Rana’s consultancy firm, for possible acts of immigration fraud as part of wider investigation into an international terror plot.

Federal authorities are working to determine the immigration status of people who entered the US with the help of First World Immigration Services, located in the city’s predominantly Indian-Pakistani area Devon Avenue.

“As part of a widening probe into an international terror plot rooted in the city, US authorities are sharpening their sights on First World Immigration in search of possible acts of immigration fraud,” the Chicago Tribune quoted sources familiar with the probe as saying.

Prosecutors charge that the immigration centre served as a front in the Chicago-based terror plot to bomb a Danish newspaper that had published caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.

They also allege that Rana knew in advance of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 166 persons.

According to court filings, Rana allegedly conspired to bring foreigners to the US under false pretenses.

In e-mail conversations, Rana advised an alleged member of the militant Pakistani organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba about “loopholes” to get individuals into the US. “Whenever you find easy way to come to US, immediately think there is a catch to it,” Rana allegedly wrote in an e-mail, warning against using student visas.

In another message, Rana allegedly suggested that one individual be brought in under a false occupation. — PTI

Angra Dos Reis (Brazil), January 3
Rescuers pulled more bodies from an avalanche of thick mud and rock that buried a luxury Brazilian hotel filled with New Year's revellers, as the death toll from heavy rains in the south of the country rose to 63.

Twenty-eight people were killed and six persons injured in the tragedy at the hotel on Ilha Grande a resort island southwest of Rio. State officials said another landslide in the nearby city of Angra dos Reis, south of Rio, left at least 13 persons dead, part of a series of mudslides brought on by incessant rains that have killed at least 63 persons across the state of Rio de Janeiro since Wednesday and left dozens missing. Authorities said the Hotel Sankay was full to capacity with about 40 guests, including children, ringing in the New Year at the idyllic seaside getaway on Bananal beach.

The complex is nestled at the bottom of a jungle-covered hillside which gave way before dawn on New Year's Day, transforming the tourist paradise into a hell. "It was a deafening noise, I've never heard anything like it, a loud thunder that wouldn't stop," Felipe Gomes Martins, a hotel neighbour, told Brazil news website G1. "There was a lot of earth, mud, trees -- trees falling and taking away everything," said Martins, 32, who described how he and his father helped rescue some 60 persons as the landslide swamped the area. — AFP