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Obama's visit very important: Krishna
Iran hints at stopping uranium enrichment
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Miliband is Labour Party’s new leader
Her last words: I am sorry
China rebuilds Dalai Lama’s village
China typhoon toll touches 70
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Obama's visit very important: Krishna
New York, September 25 Krishna said at a reception hosted by Obama for world leaders, who are here for the UN General Assembly session, he told the President that his visit to India was going to be “very important”. “Obama mentioned to me that he was looking forward to his visit to India and I conveyed to him that Dr Manmohan Singh and his government and the people of India are looking forward to welcoming him in India and it's going to be a very important visit,” the minister said. “Michelle Obama is excited about her visit,” he said. Reacting to the turnout of the foreign ministers and envoys at a reception hosted for him by the Indian mission to the United Nations last night, Krishna noted that this was indicative of India's prominence on the international stage. “This is India's growth speaking up,” he said following the event, which was attended by the 30 foreign ministers and 50 ambassadors as well as the top United Nations diplomats. Krishna has also been busy meeting his counterparts in bilateral and plurilateral sessions discussing several foreign policy issues ranging from disarmament to the peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. On September 22, Krishna had addressed the UN General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals, and said India was focusing on “inclusive growth.”
— PTI
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US to press for access to AQ Khan
The US plans to renew a demand for direct access to Dr AQ Khan as Washington tries to prevent China from building two new nuclear reactors at Chashma, says a report from Washington quoting a senior American diplomat.
“I intend to raise the question again of our repeated requests to have our people be able to interview Khan,” Cameron Munter, the Obama administration’s ambassador-designate for Pakistan, told his confirmation hearing on Thursday afternoon. The US believes that Khan ran a ring of nuclear proliferators and supplied nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Diplomatic observers in Washington see America’s renewed interest in Khan against the backdrop of China’s plan to build new reactors in Pakistan. However, in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations’ Committee, Munter acknowledged that it would be difficult to receive Pakistan’s permission to interrogate Khan. Meanwhile, US Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer said earlier that he believed that the Pak-China nuclear deal might not get the approval of the 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group given Islamabad’s track record. “I am not sure it will happen in Pakistan, given their track record. This is a very important issue in respect to China,” Roemer said in New Delhi. “One of the fundamental important issues for the US is not only India’s flawless track record and high-trust, but also the US efforts to try … to provide more inclusive growth to Indians,” he added.
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Iran hints at stopping uranium enrichment
New York, September 25 Addressing a press conference in a New York hotel yesterday, Ahmadinejad also said Iran was prepared to set a date for resumption of talks with six world powers to discuss Tehran's nuclear programme, saying October would be the likely time for the two sides to meet. Ahmadinejad also defended his remarks at the UN in which he claimed most people in the world believed the US was behind the September 11 terror attacks and again challenged the UN to set up a commission to probe the attacks. “I did not pass judgment, but don't you feel that the time has come to have a fact finding committee?” he added. He said Iran had no interest in enriching uranium from around 3.5 per cent to 20 per cent purity but was forced to do so after the world powers refused to provide nuclear fuel that is needed for a Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes for patients.
— AP
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Miliband is Labour Party’s new leader
Manchester, September 25 He succeeds former Prime Minister Gordon Brown who resigned after the party lost the May election, ending 13 years in power. David Miliband was favoured by centrists in the party whereas Ed has slightly more left-leaning views and won the backing of major trade unions who help finance the party. Miliband won in the fourth round of the vote count, by a margin of a little over one percent, to steal the prize that had seemed within the grasp of his older brother for much of the leadership campaign. “David, I love you so much as a brother and I have such extraordinary respect for the campaign that you ran -- the strength and eloquence that you showed,” Miliband said in a heartfelt message to his brother. “I have to unify this party and I will,” the winner, who was propelled to victory by strong union backing, told party activists gathered for their annual conference in the northwestern city of Manchester. “Today the work of the new generation begins,” he said. — Reuters
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Her last words: I am sorry
Los Angeles, September 25 Teresa Lewis, a 41 year-old former drug addict with an IQ that puts her on the verge of being mentally disabled, became the first woman to be executed in the United States for five years when she was put to death at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia. Supporters of Lewis, who was convicted of hiring two hit-men to kill her husband, Julian, and his son, Charles, in 2002, watched silently through one-way glass as she was tied down with leather straps securing her legs, wrists and chest, before intravenous lines were inserted into each arm. Also looking on, in the other familiar ritual of American capital punishment, were friends and relatives of Lewis's victims, who were killed as part of a macabre plot to secure a life insurance payout. They saw her feet twitch slightly as the lethal injection was administered and she slipped into death. Of the more than 1,200 people who have been executed since the US Supreme Court voted to reinstate the death penalty in 1976, only 11 have been women - a statistic which, together with the circumstances of Lewis's original murder conviction, helped turn her case into a global cause celebre. More than 7,300 appeals were lodged with the Governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell, calling for him to stop her killing, including one by the thriller writer John Grisham. Even the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, got in on the act. He used a speech in New York this week to argue that the case typified Western double standards: Americans expressed outrage at the stoning of women in Islamic countries, he argued, yet sanctioned the lethal injection of a mentally challenged woman in their own backyard. At her original trial, the prosecution portrayed Lewis as an appalling criminal mastermind who hoped to make $250,000 from the death of her stepson Charles, an Army reservist who had a standard military life insurance policy which named Lewis's husband, Julian, as its chief beneficiary. The court heard how Lewis, a serial adultress, met two young men, Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller, at a branch of Walmart. She began a sexual relationship with both men, before plotting with them to kill both Charles and Julian. Although Lewis later admitted her guilt, her alleged role as mastermind seems at odds with her IQ, which puts her on the verge of being mentally disabled. — The Independent
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China rebuilds Dalai Lama’s village
Beijing, September 25 All the 54 houses of Hong'Ai, the birth place of Dalai Lama in Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau has been renovated and rebuilt at the state cost, including that of Gongpo Tashi, the stocky Tibetan whose prime job is to maintain the birthplace of his uncle, Tenzin Gyatso, (the real name of Dalai Lama) state run Xinhua news agency said in a report. Gongpo, 63, who has visited the Dalai Lama twice in India, says he has not contacted his uncle for a while. “If I call him some day, I will definitely tell him of the changes at home.” He built the new home with the government subsidy even though he is among the wealthier villagers, the report said. “Am I waiting for his return? Well, if he is back, all problems will be solved,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. The news item of renovation of his village laced with remarks of his nephew came just days after the Tibetan leader said in Budapest that he would return to Tibet with a Chinese passport. “I'm an optimist, I think I will return to Tibet with a Chinese passport.
— PTI
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China typhoon toll touches 70
Beijing, September 25 The bodies were recovered after rescue crews entered towns cut off by mudslides such as Magui Township in Maoming City, the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the officials as saying. Yesterday, helicopters were dispatched to send relief goods to the floods-isolated areas in the hardest-hit counties of Gaozhou, Xinyi and
Yangchun. — PTI
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Facebook founder unveils $ 100-mn school gift World's largest man-made waterfall to open at UAE on Sept 29 3 mn men in Britain wear make-up 
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New York, September 25
Her last meal was fried chicken and green peas, washed down with a can of Dr Pepper.
Her last outfit was a blue prison uniform and a pair of flip-flops and her last words before she was taken away to administer the lethal injection, were: “I'm very sorry.”
Teresa Lewis, a 41 year-old former drug addict with an IQ that puts her on the verge of being mentally disabled, became the first woman to be executed in the United States for five years when she was put to death at Greensville Correctional Center in
Jarratt, Virginia.
