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UK parties inch closer to deal
75 killed in attacks across Iraq |
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32 killed in Siberian coal mine blast Pak for uninterrupted dialogue with India
Maoists stage walkout from Parliament
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UK parties inch closer to deal
London, May 10 Opposition Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats appeared on the brink of signing a deal that would hand Tory leader David Cameron the key to power and finally oust Gordon Brown from 10 Downing Street. The two parties resumed talks this morning as the momentum seemed to be building behind an agreement over a belt-tightening economic plan to shore up international confidence in Britain. William Hague, the shadow Conservative foreign minister, who is leading the negotiations for his party, emerged after 90 minutes to say there had been “further progress” and headed off to report back to Cameron. Moments later, the Liberal Democrats team also left the Cabinet Office, declaring the two sides are “working well together” and rushed to meet with their leader Nick Clegg to discuss the latest developments. Europe’s bailout of Greece saw the markets soar, giving negotiations in Whitehall here valuable breathing space as they attempted to thrash out a deal that will determine Britain’s future. The fact that the latest Tory-LibDem summit ended after just an hour-and-a-half was being interpreted as a broad agreement may already be in place. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Brown held a second clandestine summit with Clegg in 24 hours in an effort to woo him for a tie up with the Labour Party. Today is the fourth day since the election, which threw up a hung parliament, giving the Conservatives 306 seats and Labour 258 in the 650-member house. Liberal Democrats got 57 seats. Cameron, as he left home and headed to Westminster, was upbeat but tight-lipped. “I am always positive”, he said. The Liberal Democrats leader Clegg, outside his home shortly afterwards stressed that both sides are working “flat out and round-the-clock” to forge a pact and get a new government in place. “I don’t think a prolonged period of uncertainty is a good thing. That’s why we want to arrive at a decision as soon as possible,” he said. Meanwhile, Shadow children’s secretary Michael Gove, one of Cameron’s closest allies, asserted it might not prove possible to form a full coalition with Liberal Democrats ministers sitting around the Cabinet table. — PTI
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75 killed in attacks across Iraq
Baghdad, May 10 At least 40 were killed and 135 wounded in the triple blasts outside the textile factory in the city of Hillah south of Baghdad, said Muthana Khalid, spokesman for the Babil provincial police. Zuhair al Khafaji, director of al-Hillah general hospital, confirmed the casualties. Khalid said the man, who had explosives strapped to his belt, detonated himself among a crowd of people who were trying to help victims of the two earlier car bombs. The bombs exploded around 1:30 pm local time as workers were leaving the factory. The police said the cars were parked outside the factory, about 25 yards apart, and were believed to be detonated by remote control. Hillah, Babil’s provincial capital, is 95 kilometers south of Baghdad. It was the latest and deadliest single attack in the spate of violence across Iraq the day that began in Baghdad with early morning drive-by shootings and bombings at security checkpoints-an apparent targeted assault on police and army forces. Overall, however, the attacks appeared to be indiscriminate. They targeted Sunni and Shiite areas alike and delivered a chilling reminder that Iraq is far from free of violence despite security gains by Iraqi and US forces to protect the country from insurgents. By mid-afternoon, at least 75 were killed across Iraq, and hundreds wounded.
— AP
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32 killed in Siberian coal mine blast
Moscow, May 10 “We are continuing the search,” Russian Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu, who arrived last night on orders of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to supervise the rescue efforts, told reporters. The explosions, one of which occurred on Saturday evening and the other last morning, took place in ‘Raspadskaya’ coal mine in the Siberian region of Kemerovo, about 3,500 kilometres east of Moscow. The toll rose after bodies of 20 people, most of them rescuers were recovered from the mine. They included bodies of 17 rescuers, who had gone inside the mine after the first blast, but were themselves trapped inside. Bodies of 12 miners had been recovered yesterday.
— PTI
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Pak for uninterrupted dialogue with India Islamabad, May 10 “While the two countries had agreed to come back to the negotiating table to discuss all the issues, in order for the peace process to achieve concrete results it was important that the dialogue between the two countries continued uninterruptedly,” Qureshi was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Foreign Office. The India-Pakistan peace process can achieve concrete results only if the dialogue between the two countries continues without interruption, Qureshi said. Qureshi made the remarks while speaking at a meeting with a group of former foreign ministers, foreign secretaries and ambassadors to consult them on the resumption of the peace process with India. Qureshi said he was “looking forward to having a telephone conversation with his Indian counterpart Krishna tomorrow” to decide the modalities for future talks between the two sides. He also said Pakistan wants to sustain the “momentum generated” during the meeting between Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the SAARC summit at Thimphu, Bhutan. He expressed the hope that a meeting between the two Foreign Ministers would take place “sooner rather than later so that the peace process could be resumed without further delay.” Briefing the group of former ministers and officials about the Thimphu meeting, Qureshi said the two Prime Ministers had agreed to take cognisance of “each other’s concerns and resume the peace process in the spirit of resolving all the issues on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect.” Gilani and Singh also agreed to take “necessary measures towards promoting mutual confidence and mutual trust,” he said. Qureshi said terrorism is a “regional issue and had to be dealt with through cooperation.” Qureshi also held an in-depth discussion with the former ministers and official on the Kashmir issue and a way forward. He said that the government had taken a “principled position on this core issue.” He also said he “strongly believed that no viable solution of the dispute could be found and implemented unless it was in accordance with the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.” It was encouraging that the Kashmiri leadership across the board had welcomed the resumption of dialogue, he added. — PTI
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Musharraf says he will return to Pak to contest elections Former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf has said he would soon return to the country and contest the elections, "mid-term or general' whenever these are held. In a videotaped message released by his legal counsel, Barrister Saif, Musharraf confirmed that he plans to set up his own political party, All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) at a convention on return to Pakistan. Barrister Saif told a news conference along with a former federal minister Dr Sher Afghan that the government had refused to allow the holding of a public meeting where Musharraf was to make a telephonic speech. The General claimed that the people of Pakistan wanted him back to help them get rid of the socio-economic problems they were facing since his departure. He said he felt obliged to respond to “my people's wishes”. He further disclosed that he has about 165,000 contacts on Facebook, which is a world record. The secretary general of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) reacted strongly to Musharraf's assertions saying that the dictator dared not face the people who had ousted him after a struggle. He would have to confront sedition and criminal cases if he does. “Musharraf has to first account for the assassination of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto," Badar said.
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Maoists stage walkout from Parliament The agitating main opposition party, Unified CPN-Maoists, which has been refraining to join the negotiating table with the coalition parties to strike a deal to resolve the current political deadlock, staged a walkout from Parliament on Monday seeking Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s resignation. The Maoist lawmakers were protesting against the police action against them during their protest programmes. Earlier this afternoon, responding to a letter sent by the Prime Minister inviting them for talks to end the political crisis, the Maoist party’s Standing Committee meeting had refused to hold dialogue with the government and ruling alliance until the PM resigns. According to Maoist spokesperson Dinanath Sharma, the party believes that it will be meaningless to hold dialogue with the government that was formed through “unnatural” and “unconstitutional” grounds comprising the anti-democratic flocks. Regarding the Maoists demand seeking his resignation, Prime Minister Nepal had said he would not step down unless the Maoists transform itself as a civilian party detaching from its combatants confined inside the UN-monitored cantonments, scrap its paramilitary youth wing-Young Communist League-and respect the peace related agreements. Meanwhile, 10 fringe political parties at the Constituent Assembly have backed the Maoists asking the PM to resign to clear the deck for the formation of national unity government.
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