Kazan, July 11
Russia said there was little hope of finding any more people alive on Monday after an overloaded tourist boat sank in the Volga River, killing as many as 128 persons in Russia's worst river accident in three decades.

Eighty persons were rescued on Sunday after the Bulgaria, a double-decked river cruiser built in 1955, sank 3 km from shore in a broad stretch of the river in Tatarstan. Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Dmitry Medvedev that there was little hope of finding more survivors as divers brought up dozens of bodies from the vessel.

Rescuers said they had raised 48 bodies to the surface but added that divers had seen more bodies trapped in the restaurant cabin of the Bulgaria, a 78-metre craft the Emergency Situations Ministry said was designed for up to 140 passengers. It had 208 people on board including 25 unregistered passengers, Shoigu said.

As many as 60 of the passengers may have been children, Russian media reported, and survivors said some 30 children had gathered in a room near the stern of the ship to play just minutes before it sank. "Practically no children made it out. There were many children on the boat, very many," survivor Natalya Makarova said on state television. She said she had lost her grip on her daughter as they struggled to escape.

Medvedev said the sinking would not have happened if safety rules had been observed. "According to the information we have today, the vessel was in poor condition," Medvedev told a hastily convened meeting of senior ministers at his Gorki residence outside Moscow.

Seeking to deflect possible criticism of the authorities ahead of the March presidential election, he called for a "total examination" of passenger transport vehicles in Russia and announced a nationwide day of mourning on Tuesday. — Reuters

Dhaka, July 11
In a tragic accident, at least 43 school children were killed and over 30 others missing after a overcrowded truck carrying them plunged into a canal near Bangladesh's southeastern port city of Chittagong today.

The police and witnesses said the truck carrying an estimated 75 primary schoolchildren, aged between nine to 14, was returning home after a football match at a local stadium when it skidded off the road and landed into the canal at Mirresarai area, 240 km southeast of the capital.

"We have counted so far 43 bodies...several more were still missing and the real casualty figure can be higher," Mirersarai police station chief Iftekhar Hossain said while unconfirmed reports put the figure at 50.

At least 15 of the students managed to jump out of the truck and swam ashore and several of them told reporters at a local hospital that they were in a happy mood, singing and dancing as it fell into the ditch, believed to be caused by rough drive by the driver on the narrow country road.

Witnesses said army and navy divers were called out to join brigade rescuers as several of the bodies were missing even after the truck was salvaged from the waters. "The rescuers and local residents retrieved 43 bodies but several more could still be under the water," a television channel reported quoting a police official at the scene.

Chittagong's police chief ZA Morshed said fire service personnel pulled the truck out of the ditch around 4:45pm and no more bodies were found inside the wreckage.

Witnesses said most of the victims died because of drowning in water while television reports said at least six of the 13 children were critically wounded as they were being treated at three separate facilities. — PTI 

Islamabad, July 11
A Pakistani soldier was today killed and three others injured in an “accidental” blast at a Pakistan army arms depot on the outskirts of the federal capital where facilities linked to the country’s nuclear programme are also located.

“Due to an accidental blast in a unit ammunition store near Sihala, one soldier was killed and three others were injured,” a military spokesman said in a statement. Earlier, witnesses and police officials had said at least three blasts ripped through the arms depot in Sihala, located about 20 km from the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The military spokesman did not give details about the exact cause of the incident though TV news channels reported the blasts were caused by an electrical short circuit.

The blasts damaged a building and triggered a blaze that was later extinguished by army fire fighters. Police officials also told the media that the blasts were accidental and not an act of terrorism.

Army troops and policemen cordoned off the area and prevented people and media from approaching the arms depot. Witnesses said they had seen several ambulances leaving the depot and going to a nearby military hospital.

Several government buildings, including a police training centre and facilities linked to Pakistan’s nuclear programme, are located in the Sihala area, which is heavily guarded.

Footage on television showed a plume of smoke rising into the sky over the arms depot. The footage also showed army fire brigade vehicles and ambulances driving into the depot. — PTI 

London, July 11
Britain was looking for a way out of approving media baron Rupert Murdoch's multi-billion dollar deal to buy broadcaster BSkyB amid a phone-hacking scandal that has damaged the prime minister and raised broader questions about politicians' relations with the media.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, from the junior coalition partner the Liberal Democrats, urged Murdoch to reconsider the bid after revelations one of his newspapers hacked into the phones of murder victims and relatives of Britain's war dead.

New allegations on Monday included reports it had bought contact details for the British royal family from a policeman and tried to buy private phone records of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. "Do the decent thing, and reconsider, think again about your bid for BSkyB," Clegg told BBC News after meeting relatives of one of the victims of phone-hacking, a murdered schoolgirl.

The government, which faces a stormy parliamentary debate on Wednesday, earlier asked media regulator Ofcom and the consumer watchdog to reassess the bid in the light of the scandal, a move that could provide a basis to block the buyout.

The new request to Ofcom, which is already assessing whether News Corp is a 'fit and proper' holder of a broadcast licence, and the Office of Fair Trading follows a report in the Independent newspaper that government lawyers were drawing up plans to block the BSkyB bid.

Eight people, almost all journalists, have been arrested so far in a police inquiry into the allegations, which include that the police may have been paid for information and a company executive may have destroyed evidence. News Corp's British media arm firmly denies any obstruction of justice.

"You wouldn't be human if you weren't totally appalled by the revelations that have come to light, they're just stomach churning and I think everyone feels totally shaken," Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a television interview.

Hunt's strong comments, and the approach to the regulators, may have been designed to give the government some political cover ahead of Wednesday's debate, lawyers said. Labour party leader Ed Miliband said on Sunday he would force Parliament to vote this week if Cameron did not take steps to halt News Corp's $14-billion bid for the 61 per cent of BskyB that it does not already own. — Reuters 

Beijing, July 11
Weighed down by ever increasing population, China and India — the most populous nations — today observed World Population Day together for the first time to step up campaign to stabilise global population.

Addressing an India-China joint ministerial meeting on population at the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said as two countries together had over one third of global population, it was apt for both to observe it together to learn from their experiences.

This is the first-time ever Ministers from the two most populous countries came together to observe the World Population Day and share common experiences, Azad said.

“On this momentous occasion, let us call upon the entire world to work jointly to achieve population stabilisation for the overall sustainable development of the entire planet,” he said.

“China and India together have to provide global leadership in this area and I am glad that the increasing cooperation between our two countries, bilaterally and through multi-lateral fora, augurs well for the future,” he said.

“While we fully acknowledge that large populations are assets in terms of human resource and to a great extent stimulate economic growth, but rate at which the population of entire world is multiplying, poses several challenges on economic, environmental and development fronts”.

Encouraged by steady decline of fertility rates over the years, the family planning campaign in India is now being focused on high fertility areas for population stabilisation, Azad said.

As per the recent census, India’s population stands at 1.21 billion. According to projections, it would touch 1.40 billion by 2026.

“A positive sign emerging from the census shows that the decadal growth rate has come down sharply to 17.64 (in 2011) from 21.54 (in 2001),” Azad said.

“With only 2.4 per cent of the entire world’s landmass to support 17 per cent of the world population; India's need for population stabilisation can hardly be overemphasised,” he said.

The steady decline in Total Fertility Rate over a period of time is encouraging and it is currently at 2.6 (in 2009), a 42 per cent decline from mid-1960s. — PTI 

Toronto, July 11
Families of the 329 victims of the 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing have rejected the Canadian Government’s one-time compensation offer of $24,000 for each person killed in the country’s worst terror attack, saying it was “insulting”.

The offer of a one-time ex-gratia payment was made at a meeting in Toronto last week attended in person and via teleconference by about 40 family members of the victims.

The Canadian Government announced the $24,000-ex-gratia as recommended by the Air India inquiry commission, headed by former Canadian Chief Justice John Major.

Kanishka Flight 182 from Montreal to Delhi was blown off near Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 persons on board, mostly of Indian origin. This was the worst terror case in the country’s history.

“We are just seething,” Anil Singh Hanse, an Australian whose father Narendra piloted the flight, was quoted as saying by the Vancouver Sun.

“This is insulting. Where the hell did they pull this figure from?” Major suggested some form of payment be made to families in his massive Air India inquiry report in June 2010, although he made no official recommendation.

The $32-million inquiry showed that numerous warning signs of the pending terrorist attack were missed by Canada’s security agency and that missteps hampered the subsequent Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation. — PTI