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Tories, LibDems bargaining hard
Terror can come cheap
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Several injured as Maoists
lay siege to secretariat
Qaida threatens to abduct Harry
Sanskrit scholar in race for top Oxford poetry post
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Tories, LibDems bargaining hard
London, May 9 Negotiators for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will meet again for a crunch meeting to spell out their demands and a clearer picture is expected to emerge only tomorrow. Conservative emerged as the second largest party with 306 seats in the 650-member House of Commons in the General Election which has thrown up a hung parliament. Tory and LibDem leaders David Cameron and Nick Clegg spent 70 minutes last night in face-to-face talks on the neutral ground of Admiralty House in Whitehall, the seat of the government here, with both sides describing the encounter as "constructive and amicable". Clegg also spoke to Prime Minister Gordon Brown on phone at the request of the Prime Minister in a conversation, which the LibDems again described as "amicable". Brown has offered to talk to the LibDems talks if no deal is reached with the Conservatives. A spokesman for the LibDem leader indicated that Brown's overture would not deflect Clegg from pursuing his strategy of talking to the Tories first on a possible solution to the impasse caused by Thursday's general election. "The Liberal Democrats will continue with the approach which Nick Clegg has set out and which was endorsed today by the parliamentary party and the party's federal executive," said the spokesman. Tory sources said no conclusion to talks is expected until Monday at the earliest, but today's meeting at the Cabinet Office will bring a sharper focus on the issues that may make or break a Tory/LibDem deal. Cameron made clear he is willing to seek consensus with LibDems over issues like education, the green economy and taxation. But doubts remain over whether any agreement can be found on the thorny questions of Europe and electoral reform. Polls suggest widespread public support for a fairer voting system following an election in which LibDems won fewer than one-tenth of seats after securing almost a quarter of votes and Conservatives were denied a majority despite taking a greater proportion of votes than Labour in 2005. Speaking outside his London home, Clegg said: "Everyone is trying to be constructive for the good of the country". "I'm very keen that the Liberal Democrats should play a constructive role at a time of great economic uncertainty to provide a good government that this country deserve. "Throughout that we will continue to be guided by the big changes we want - tax reform, improving education for all children, sorting out the banks and building a new economy from the rubble of the old, and extensive fundamental political reform," he said. In a message to Conservative supporters, Cameron said he would "stand firm" on issues relating to immigration, defence, and the handover of further powers to the EU. Conservatives want a cap to be put on immigration. —
PTI 16,000 votes denied Tories absolute majority
David Cameroon-led Tories would have won absolute majority in the House of Commons had only 16,000 voters spread across 19 constituencies voted differently in the May 6 UK general elections, experts said today. The findings by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher claim that the Tories came tantalisingly close to securing a clean victory at the polls. “Just 16,000 extra votes for the Tories, distributed in the 19 constituencies in which the party came closest to winning, would have spared us a weekend of negotiation and speculation,” the Sunday Times quoted them as saying.
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Terror can come cheap
New York, May 9 There was his plane ticket to the US from Pakistan, as well as a return flight to the United Arab Emirates, at a cost of less than $800 each way. Add to that his living expenses, including three months rent for a Connecticut apartment at a little less than $1,200 per month. His car bomb was relatively cheap, too: $1,300 for a rusting 1993 Nissan Pathfinder and the cost of some firecrackers and tanks of gasoline and propane. Shahzad, who seemed to have paid cash for many and maybe all of his purchases, bought himself a Kel-Tec rifle, which sells for around $400, but skimped on luxuries. The 30-year-old slept on an air mattress in a sparsely furnished apartment, and, according to one account, tried to get a job at a jewellry store where he had worked as a young college student. Shahzad’s finances are under scrutiny, as authorities try to learn whether he got cash from a terror group. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that investigators had identified and were looking for a person who helped courier money to Shahzad from an overseas source. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. Matthew Levitt, a former US Treasury intelligence official, now a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the fact that Shahzad paid for the car and plane ticket in cash, sometimes using $100 bills, was a “red flag.” The money trail, he said, may provide valuable clues as to whether Shahzad had any help. Yet the bombing plan, as described by authorities, appears to have been simple enough that even a single person or a small group with limited means could stage this sort of attack. Shahzad’s rent from mid-February to the start of May, his two airline tickets, gun and vehicle purchases appear to total less than $7,000. The actual bomb components — fertilizer, propane tanks and a few boxes of cheap firecrackers — were even cheaper, maybe a few hundred dollars at most. — AP
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Several injured as Maoists
lay siege to secretariat
Kathmandu, May 9 Unified CPN-Maoist activists surrounded the Singhdurbar secretariat, the main administrative building of the government in the heart of the capital and District Administration Office (DAOs) across the country, two days after calling off their six-day-old indefinite anti-government general strike. “The prime minister must quit and a national government come in place,” the Maoists shouted as they surrounded the secretariat that houses the Prime Minister’s Office and most ministries. “Our protests will continue till there is consensus and a new constitution.” Thousands of police had been deployed to guard the complex. The police fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators who laid siege to the complex. Over 20 persons, including DSP Bhola Rawal, were injured. Some Maoist cadres were also wounded in the scuffle with the riot police. Protesters also attacked mediapersons, who have been accused by the former rebels of portraying a negative image of the Maoists cadres and the strike. Three journalists, including two cameramen, were attacked by the Maoists cadres near Singhdurbar today. Nepalese political leaders are struggling to meet a May 28 deadline to finish the drafting of a new constitution as stipulated by the 2006 peace process. The Maoists, who have around 35 per cent of the seats in parliament, want the government disbanded, followed by the formation of a new coalition government led by them to rescue the peace process and draft a new constitution. The Prime Minister today underlined his government’s determination to find a peaceful solution to the deadlock, but refused to resign under pressure from the Maoists. The Prime Minister asked the Maoists to resolve all political issues through Parliament. Major political parties have asked the Maoists to disband their paramilitary groups and turn their organisation into a civilian party and return properties seized before they could consider supporting a government led by the Maoists. Prime Minister Nepal asked the Maoists to dissolve its paramilitary organisations to forge a consensus and create an atmosphere of trust. —
PTI
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Qaida threatens to abduct Harry
London, May 9 "It will be wonderful if we capture this b*****d alive after shooting down his Apache," Sunday Express reported, citing one of the several warnings posted on an Arabic website of Al-Qaida. "Wouldn’t it be sweet if the Mujahideen could capture" the 25-year-old prince, another post said. Harry's military ambitions, who has been selected for the attack helicopter training last Friday, seem to have enraged al-Qaida supporters. The al-Qaida web forum that is popular among its British followers was the first to issue a video in which a spokesman for the Pakistan Taliban apparently claimed responsibility for the attempted car bombing of Times Square in New York. The site receives most of its posts from jihadists based in Europe and the USA, researchers believe. Harry is thought to be the brain behind the killing of about 30 Taliban fighters, when he was on his secret deployment to Afghanistan in 2008 as a forward air controller, the report said. —
PTI
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Sanskrit scholar in race for top Oxford poetry post
London, May 9 Pilikian is among 11 candidates for the post, elections for which voting will start on May 21 and will close on June 16. This year’s field is the largest in recent years and features leading poets seeking to take up the prestigious position and follow in the footsteps of Matthew Arnold, WH Auden and Seamus Heaney. Members of Convocation have to register before June 4 to vote, and all those eligible must register by the deadline in order to cast their ballot. Voting will start on May 21 and will close on June 16. — PTI
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London, May 9
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