Tunis, January 23
Pressure was rising on Tunisian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi to quit as the main trade union targeted his transitional government and the US called for democratic reforms to stem turmoil.

Thousands rallied in Tunis and other cities yesterday, while hundreds of protesters backed by the UGTT union launched a march on the capital from the impoverished region where an uprising began last month, ending strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year rule.

Participants at the march called their protest a “caravan of liberation”. “The aim of this caravan is to make the government fall,” said Rabia Slimane, 40, a teacher from Menzel Bouzaiane.

The peaceful anti-government demonstrators in Tunis were joined by hundreds of police officers, some of whom briefly blocked a car carrying interim president Foued Mebazaa, the speaker of parliament. — AFP

Islamabad, January 23
A 20-year-old girl in Pakistan’s Sindh province was electrocuted to death as punishment for eloping with a man, the police said. The incident took place in a village near Musafirkhana town in Sindh province. The police said Saima of Basti Hakra allegedly eloped with a man, Dilawar, who works in Karachi.

Her parents brought her back from Karachi on Friday morning and electrocuted her at night after the village council, which mostly comprised of their relatives, ordered that she be executed, Express Tribune reported today.

The police got to know about the incident yesterday when the woman’s body was about to be buried. A police team reached the place and seized the body. Saima’s relatives claimed that she had committed suicide by ingesting pesticides.

However, police officials said Saima’s parents had claimed that she had committed suicide by consuming poison as she was unhappy over plans for her arranged marriage.

Police officer Babar Bakht Qureshi said the initial autopsy carried out by a doctor suggests that the victim had either been electrocuted or burnt through boiling water or both. The police has arrested Saima’s father Abdul Majeed and members of the local panchayat which allegedly passed the death decree against Saima.

Afzal Lodhi, SHO of Musafirkhana town which is 25 km from Bahawalpur in southern Punjab, said seven persons including the parents and maternal uncle of the girl and four members of a panchayat were arrested. — Agencies

Jerusalem, January 23
Israel's deadly commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that sparked global condemnation and its naval blockade of the coastal strip were today described as legal under international law by an Israeli probe and cleared the soldiers involved in the operation.

The Turkel Committee report said Israel's actions had "the regrettable consequences of the loss of human life and physical injuries". Nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists were killed in the deadly Israeli raid in May 2010.

A separate UN inquiry last year said the Israeli Navy had shown an "unacceptable level of brutality".

"Nonetheless the actions taken were found to be legal pursuant to the rules of international law." The commission also cleared the soldiers of any use of unnecessary violence.

"It is possible to determine that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers acted professionally and with great presence of mind in light of the extreme violence which they hadn't expected", the report said.

"This professionalism was evident in the fact that they continued to exchange their lethal weapons for the less lethal option and visa versa in order to give a response that was appropriate to the nature of the violence directed at them," it added.

The raid attracted widespread international condemnation and severely strained Israel's relations with long time ally, Turkey.

According to the commission, the soldiers were surprised by the violence when they boarded the Marmara. "The decision-makers didn't have any prior knowledge of the violent reception planned by the IHH members and their inability to identify the intentions of the IHH directly affected the planning and execution of the operation," it said. — PTI

London, January 23
Beatles legend John Lennon's widow, artist Yoko Ono, has sold the publishing rights to a collection of his personal letters for $800,000. Ono, has sold the publishing rights to a singular collection with more than 150 letters including notes Lennon wrote to newspapers and record companies and a missive he wrote to an eight-year-old boy, reported The Guardian online.

The letters give an unrivalled insight into his daily life, character, concerns and hopes and run to hundreds of pages.

Ono owns the intellectual property rights to the letters, but was persuaded to sell them by the Beatles' biographer, Hunter Davies. — PTI

BRIEFLY

18th century Mughal emerald seal to go under hammer
London: An important inscribed Mughal emerald personal seal set in a diamond encrusted gold bangle and bearing the name of an East India Company officer will be sold at an auction here in April and is estimated to fetch £50,000. Auctioneers Bonhmas said that the rectangular table-cut emerald has a lower price estimate of £30,000 at the April 5 sale of Indian and Islamic Art. The three-line Persian inscription on the face of the emerald is in Nasta'liq script and reads, "Amin al-Mulk Ashraf al-Dawla Alexander Hannay Bahadur Arsalan Jang AH 1185/AD 1774-5". — PTI

SAARC telemedicine centre launched
Kathmandu: Nepal's Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal on Friday inaugurated the rural telemedicine and SAARC telemedicine Centre at Patan Hospital, Lalitpur, in the presence of Indian Ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood. The centre will enable the host institution to receive telemedicine consultation and CME services in select hospitals in SAARC counties. Two super-specialty hospitals, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, and PGI, Chandigarh, would provide such services. — TNS

Fresh debate on Lenin’s burial
Moscow: Russia’s ruling party's online poll on the burial of revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin has sparked a fresh debate on the future of the embalmed body of the Bolshevik leader. The poll of the 'goodbyelenin.ru' website of the United Russia party has only one question "Do you back the idea of burying the body of Vladimir Lenin?" The question requires a "Yes" or "No" as answer. So far over 70 thousand people have expressed their opinion on the website, with over 70 per cent supporting the idea of burying Lenin. — PTI