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UK court okays Assange’s extradition to Sweden
Tripoli: A city in the shadow of death
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NZ quake toll 98; 226 still missing
US says Davis has diplomatic immunity, tells Pak to free him
Raymond Davis
Indian jailed for ‘illegally’ living in Pakistan
Britain demands probe into Libya ‘atrocities’
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Sex Crime Charges
London, February 24 Delivering verdict in a packed Belmarsh Magistrate’s court, Judge Howard Riddle said: "I must order that Assange be extradited to Sweden." "Swedish prosecutors' request that Assange be handed over was valid and reasonable for their investigation into allegations that he sexually abused two women last August," the judge said as 39-year-old Assange, wearing a dark suit and tie, sat stony-faced in the dock. Assange, who denies the charges, will appeal against the ruling, delivered following a hearing two weeks ago. His supporters stood outside the courthouse, waving signs proclaiming his innocence. Assange has been in the international spotlight for months, since his whistle-blowing website released thousands of US government documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and on American diplomatic communications around the world. He maintains that the sex-crimes allegations against him are part of a politically motivated smear campaign. His lawyers also contend that extraditing him to Sweden would merely be a prelude to sending him to the US, where government prosecutors are investigating the possibility of espionage charges. The accusations against him stem from separate encounters with two women in Stockholm last summer. They alleged that he refused to wear a condom during sex despite their requests; one of the women also said he began having sex with her while she was still asleep. — PTI
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Tripoli: A city in the shadow of death
Up to 15,000 men, women and children besieged Tripoli's international airport last night, shouting and screaming for seats on the few airliners still prepared to fly to Muammar Gaddafi's rump state, paying Libyan police bribe after bribe to reach the ticket desks in a rain-soaked mob of hungry, desperate families. Many were trampled as Libyan security men savagely beat those who pushed their way to the front. Among them were Gaddafi's fellow Arabs, thousands of them Egyptians, some of whom had been living at the airport for two days without food or sanitation. The place stank of faeces and urine and fear. Yet a 45-minute visit into the city for a new airline ticket to another destination is the only chance to see Gaddafi's capital if you are a "dog" of the international press. There was little sign of opposition to the Great Leader. Squads of young men with Kalashnikov rifles stood on the side roads next to barricades of upturned chairs and wooden doors. But these were pro-Gaddafi vigilantes – a faint echo of the armed Egyptian "neighbourhood guard" I saw in Cairo a month ago – and had pinned photographs of their leader's infamous Green Book to their checkpoint signs. There is little food in Tripoli, and over the city there fell a blanket of drab, sullen rain. It guttered onto an empty Green Square and down the Italianate streets of the old capital of Tripolitania. But there were no tanks, no armoured personnel carriers, no soldiers, not a fighter plane in the air; just a few police and elderly men and women walking the pavements – a numbed populace. Sadly for the West and for the people of the free city of Benghazi, Libya's capital appeared as quiet as any dictator would wish. But this is an illusion. Petrol and food prices have trebled; entire towns outside Tripoli have been torn apart by fighting between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces. In the suburbs of the city, especially in the Noufreen district, militias fought for 24 hours on Sunday with machine guns and pistols, a battle the Gadaffi forces won. In the end, the exodus of expatriates will do far more than street warfare to bring down the regime. I was told that at least 30,000 Turks, who make up the bulk of the Libyan construction and engineering industry, have now fled the capital, along with tens of thousands of other foreign workers. On my own aircraft out of Tripoli, an evacuation flight to Europe, there were Polish, German, Japanese and Italian businessmen, all of whom told me they had closed down major companies in the past week. Worse still for Gaddafi, the oil, chemical and uranium fields of Libya lie to the south of "liberated" Benghazi. Gaddafi's hungry capital controls only water resources, so a temporary division of Libya, which may have entered Gaddafi's mind, would not be sustainable. Libyans and expatriates I spoke to yesterday said they thought he was clinically insane, but they expressed more anger at his son, Saif al-Islam. "We thought Saif was the new light, the 'liberal'", a Libyan businessman sad to me. "Now we realise he is crazier and more cruel than his father." — By arrangement with The Independent
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NZ quake toll 98; 226 still missing
Melbourne, February 24 Police Superintendent Dave Cliff said 98 bodies had been received so far and 226 persons were reported missing and expressed apprehension that the death toll may go up. “We're gravely concerned about those (missing) individuals,” he said. He said the list was made up of people reported missing by loved ones and nothing had been heard from them since Tuesday's earthquake. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key also voiced fears and said, “It can be weeks before families have the bodies of their loved ones returned.” “We are very fearful tonight that the death toll could be much greater than any of us ever feared,” he said. — PTI
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US says Davis has diplomatic immunity, tells Pak to free him
Washington, February 24 “We believe that the principle that every country in the world that participates in the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations has a responsibility to honour the provisions of that treaty. And that’s our starting point in dealing with this issue of Raymond Davis, who was arrested in Lahore last month,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. “We continue to be focused on a resolution that results in Pakistan honouring the diplomatic immunity status of the individual and his return home,” he said at his daily news briefing last evening. His remarks came despite Pakistani leaders’ assertion that Davis’ case would be decided by the courts in their country. In Islamabad, diplomatic sources said that the US has informed Pakistan that Davis has diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention and Pakistani courts do not have the jurisdiction to hear his case. Davis could not be arrested by Pakistani authorities or tried by any Pakistani court, the sources said, adding he was notified as a member of the administrative and technical staff of the US embassy in Islamabad on January 20 and, therefore, had diplomatic immunity. — PTI
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Indian jailed for ‘illegally’ living in Pakistan
Islamabad, February 24 The additional district and sessions court in Karachi sentenced Dinesh Kumar, son of Narain Das, after finding him guilty of living in Pakistan without valid documents. Judge J Khan pronounced the verdict after recording the testimonies of prosecution witnesses and hearing final arguments by the defence and prosecution lawyers. — PTI
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Britain demands probe into Libya ‘atrocities’
London, February 24 Cameron said Gaddafi's violent attempts to cling to power were "utterly unacceptable" as Foreign Secretary William Hague said the world would be looking for ways to hold to account those responsible. "The behaviour of this dictator cannot be allowed to stand," Cameron told BBC television in the Omani capital Muscat, where he is wrapping up a tour of Gulf states. He stressed that he had never supported Gaddafi or his regime and said he did not oppose further sanctions. — AFP
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London, February 24
Notwithstanding Pakistan’s stand that courts will decide the fate of an American arrested for double murder, the US has insisted that he enjoys diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention and asked Islamabad to honour the international treaty and release him immediately.
“We believe that the principle that every country in the world that participates in the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations has a responsibility to honour the provisions of that treaty.
