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Terror strikes Russia again, 12 killed ‘Emirate of the Caucasus’ claims Moscow bombings
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Hydel projects on Indus, Chenab
Pak objection to dam designs not valid: Delhi The three-day talks between Indus water panels of India and Pakistan over Indian hydroelectric projects on Indus, Chenab and Jhelum remained inconclusive. Both sides, however, decided to bridge their differences in next meeting in New Delhi in last week of May.
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Terror strikes Russia again, 12 killed
The coordinated attack in the town of Kizlyar in Dagestan, neighbouring Chechnya, was the latest outbreak in a surge of violence in the Caucasus that is challenging the Kremlin a decade after a war against Chechen separatists. The bombings in Dagestan came 48 hours after Moscow was hit by its bloodiest attack in six years, twin morning rush-hour blasts that killed 39. Authorities blamed female suicide bombers with connections to the North Caucasus. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said a single group could have been behind the bombings in Moscow and Dagestan. “Yet another terrorist act has been committed. I do not rule out that it is one and the same gang acting,” Putin told a government meeting, calling the attacks “a crime against Russia”. He ordered Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to bolster the police presence in the North Caucasus. A suicide bomber dressed in a police uniform set off the second of two blasts in Kizlyar, which killed the town’s police chief and several other officers, regional police and prosecutorial officials told Reuters. The bomber pushed his way into a crowd of police and onlookers drawn by a massive car-bomb blast, officials said, a common tactic of North Caucasus insurgents, who have been attacking law enforcement authorities almost daily. Televised footage showed two gutted cars and a deep crater on a debris-strewn street lined by bare trees, and a red brick schoolhouse with its windows blown out and roof partly ripped off. Reports said there were no children in the school. The car bomb exploded with the force of as much as 200 kg of TNT, Russian news agencies quoted prosecutorial investigators in Dagestan as saying. A police official said a black four-wheel-drive Niva vehicle had exploded after traffic police tried to stop it, indicating a suicide bomber had been behind the wheel. Russia’s federal Investigative Committee, however, said the Niva had been parked when the blast occurred. The blasts killed 12 persons, nine of them police officers, and 23 others were hospitalised, the investigative committee said. A provincial police spokesman said Kizlyar police chief Vitaly Vedernikov was among the dead. In addition to police, an investigator from the prosecutor’s office and a civilian were killed, Russian news agencies cited the police as saying. Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim province on the Caspian Sea with a patchwork of different ethnic groups, is plagued by violence stemming from the Islamic insurgency across the North Caucasus as well as criminal disputes and clan rivalries. Moscow, Dagestan attacks may be linked:
Putin
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today said the same gang which carried out the suicide blasts in Moscow metro could be behind Wednesday’s bombings in the country’s volatile North Caucasus region of
Dagestan. “One more crime has been committed in Daghestan, one more terrorist attack. I do not rule out that one and the same gang was involved,” Putin said in televised remarks at the meeting of his inner cabinet. The Premier ordered Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to send police reinforcements to Dagestan and other regions of Caucasus region.
— Agencies
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‘Emirate of the Caucasus’ claims Moscow bombings Dubai, March 31 “Umarov claimed the responsibility for the 3/29 metro bombings in Moscow in a Russian-language video released today,” SITE Intelligence Group said. It was the first claim of responsibility for Monday’s metro bombings in Moscow that killed 39 persons. The authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed. The Kavkav Centre, a media outlet for Chechen fighters, posted the video and said in an English-language post that "Umarov declared the twin suicide bombings to be retaliation for killings of Chechen and Ingush people in Arshty, a village on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia, on February 11," SITE reported. “Umarov indicated that the metro attacks were organised by his personal order, and that attacks in Russia will continue,” the US-based monitoring group added. — AFP
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Graft cases haunt Zardari again The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has sent a letter to Switzerland’s Attorney-General seeking reopening of money-laundering and kickback cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, the Supreme Court was informed by Nab lawyer Abid Zuberi told the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The NAB authorities worked overnight on Tuesday to review all cases pardoned under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), including the Swiss cases, after the Supreme Court warned NAB chairman Naveed Ahsan and other concerned officials earlier in the day that they could be sent to jail for non-compliance of its verdict. A six-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry hearing a petition accusing the NAB of being reluctant to implement it ruling for reopening all cases condoned under the NRO received a report from the NAB on actions it had taken after the judgment deliver on December 16 annulling the NRO. The report said a letter has now been sent to Swiss authorities while explaining that earlier reluctance to do that was guide by a misconception about the immunity enjoyed by the President from being proceeded against on any criminal charge in any court. The aggressive attitude adopted by the court for revival of Swiss cases look set to herald a destabilising face-off between the judiciary and the government, which some analysts and legal experts think might lead to a serious challenge to Zardari’s presidential immunity. “In light of directions of the court on the revival of the Swiss cases, the NAB has initiated the process,” Abid Zuberi told the court. Both Asif Zardari and Benazir Bhutto were convicted by a Geneva court in 2003 of laundering $13 million linked to kickbacks. But that verdict was overturned on appeal. Swiss judicial authorities in August 2008 said they had closed the money-laundering case against Zardari and had released $60 million frozen in Swiss accounts for a decade after Pakistan dropped out of all cases it had initiated there. However, the Supreme Court in December threw out a 2007 amnesty deal that shielded Zardari and others from old corruption charges and it has been pressing anti-corruption officials to revive the old cases. Zardari has had tense relations with the Supreme Court chief, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was sacked in 2007 by former President Pervez Musharraf. Zardari promised to reinstate Chaudhry after his party formed a government in 2008 but dragged his feet and only did so in March 2009 when protesting lawyers and opposition supporters were converging on the capital for a protest rally. A senior official of police’s top investigation agency, Ahmed Riaz Sheikh, who was also a close associate of Zardari, was detained on Tuesday on the orders of the court after a similar case was revived against him. Though Zardari’s aides say he is protected by presidential immunity, he is vulnerable to legal challenges to his 2008 election as president on the grounds that the old corruption charges against him made him ineligible to stand for office in the first place. Zardari spent 11 years in jail on various charges but was never convicted.
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Zardari enjoys immunity as head of state: Swiss
Geneva: Pakistan has not asked Swiss authorities to reopen a corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari, Geneva's public prosecutor said on Wednesday. In any case, Zardari enjoys immunity from prosecution as a head of state, Prosecutor-General Daniel Zappelli said. "I have not received any request," Zappelli said, commenting on news from Islamabad that Pakistan's anti-corruption agency would ask the Swiss to revive the case. Zardari and his wife, assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, were convicted by a Geneva court in 2003 of laundering $13 million linked to kickbacks, but that verdict was overturned on appeal and Swiss judicial authorities said in August 2008 they had closed the file on the case.
— Reuters
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Hydel projects on Indus, Chenab
The three-day talks between Indus water panels of India and Pakistan over Indian hydroelectric projects on Indus, Chenab and Jhelum remained inconclusive. Both sides, however, decided to bridge their differences in next meeting in New Delhi in last week of May. The talks in Lahore focused on two projects on the Chenab and Jhelum rivers in Kashmir and two other controversial hydropower projects being built by India on the Indus. India shared designs of the dams it was building and provided data on use of water from the eastern rivers for irrigation and power generation. During the three-day negotiations that ended in Lahore on Tuesday, India did not accept Pakistan’s seven objections to designs of Nimmo Bazgo and Chutak hydropower projects on Indus and insisted that these conform to the specifications laid under the Indus Basin Treaty of 1960. It, however, agreed to consult experts for further scrutiny of these objections before resuming discussions in New Delhi meeting. Meanwhile, talking to reporters after the conclusion of talks, Indian Indus Waters Commissioner Aranga Nathan once again insisted that India was not stealing Pakistan’s share of river waters and all hydropower projects being built by the country were according to the provisions of the treaty. Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters Jamaat Ali Shah said India was neither accepting Pakistan’s objection to water sector projects, nor it was willing to refer this issue to a third party. However, he made it clear that the decision to proceed further was taken on the level of the commission and India wanted to discuss this issue further in the upcoming meeting in the last week of May in New Dehli.
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Kiwis for cameras in cabs Christ's face 'recreated'
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Makhachkala, March 31
