W O R L D

Lanka lifts harsh emergency laws
Country peaceful enough now to remove them: Prez Rajapaksa 
The Sri Lankan Government on Thursday lifted harsh wartime emergency laws that have drawn criticism from the West and India, saying the advent of peace since the end of civil war in 2009 made them unnecessary.

Libyan rebels claim they have surrounded Gaddafi 
Tripoli, August 25 
A group of rebels besieging a cluster of apartment buildings near the compound of Muammar Gaddafi said they believed the man who led Libya for four decades was hiding in the buildings with some of his sons.
Libyan rebels seize boxes of ammunition hidden by Gaddafi’s forces in the a forest near Tripoli. — AFP

• Gaddafi appears on TV channel
• Abducted Italian journalists freed

Lanka lifts harsh emergency laws
Country peaceful enough now to remove them: Prez Rajapaksa 

Chandani Kirinde in Colombo
The Sri Lankan Government on Thursday lifted harsh wartime emergency laws that have drawn criticism from the West and India, saying the advent of peace since the end of civil war in 2009 made them unnecessary.

Mahinda Rajapaksa

President Mahinda Rajapaksa made the announcement in Parliament during a special address. Opposition legislators and civil society groups welcomed the move.

Opposition parties and human rights organisations were demanding the lifting of emergency laws since the war against the LTTE ended in May 2009. The emergency laws that supersede the normal laws in the country have been blamed for excesses on the part of security forces, which were given sweeping powers to make arrests without charge or detain people.

“To carry forward the day-to-day activities in a democratic way, I propose there is no need of emergency regulations anymore,” Rajapaksa told Parliament. “There has been no terrorist activity since the end of the war in May 2009.”

The regulations, put in place off and on since a Marxist insurgency erupted in 1971, have been continuously in force since August 2005 after an LTTE sniper assassinated Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in the Capital, Colombo.

The government still has the powerful Prevention of Terrorism Act at its disposal, which allows warrant-less arrests and searches if a person is suspected of involvement in “terrorist activity.”

“We appreciate the removal of the emergency," Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesignhe said. The government said Sri Lanka needed time to catch LTTE remnants and prosecute those arrested under the emergency laws.

Rights groups and Western governments have blamed the Lankan Government for using the laws to suppress media freedom and harass political opponents. “We should also hope that the expansion of freedom and democratic rights will not be restricted by other means such as adding new provisions to the Prevention of Terrorism Act,” said Jehan Perera, head of the National Peace Council think-tank in Colombo, which has often criticised the government.

Sri Lanka is also under heavy pressure to probe alleged war crimes in the final months of the conflict in 2009.

(With inputs from Reuters)

Libyan rebels claim they have surrounded Gaddafi 

Tripoli, August 25
A group of rebels besieging a cluster of apartment buildings near the compound of Muammar Gaddafi said they believed the man who led Libya for four decades was hiding in the buildings with some of his sons.

Rebels were exchanging fire with Gaddafi loyalists inside the buildings. They did not say why they believed Gaddafi and his sons were inside.

“They are together. They are in a small hole,” said one of the fighters involved in the battle, Muhammad Gomaa. “Today we finish. Today we will end that.” 

Meanwhile, fighting broke out around a hotel in the centre of the Libyan capital today, with rebels on the hotel roof firing at snipers loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in nearby buildings. The rebels were using anti-aircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades to target the snipers. Rebel forces began to purge Tripoli’s streets of gunmen still loyal to Muammar Gaddafi today in the final phase of the battle for the Libyan capital. 

Rebels said they were confident they could mop up die-hard soldiers clinging to a leader now on the run, presumed to be in hiding in the country he ruled for four decades. “The end will only come when he’s captured, dead or alive,” said Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel National Transitional Council. — Reuters 

Gaddafi appears on TV channel CAIRO: Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi called on his supporters to march on Tripoli and “purify” the capital of rebels, who he denounced as “rats, crusaders and unbelievers” in a defiant, angry speech that betrayed no hint of despondency. In a short audio broadcast on loyalist satellite TV channels on Thursday, the fugitive leader called on all of Libya's tribes to rally and expel what he called foreign agents from the country. “Libya is for the Libyan people and not for the agents, not for imperialism, not for France, not for Sarkozy, not for Italy,” he said. “Tripoli is for you, not for those who rely on NATO.” — Reuters

Abducted Italian journalists freed Tripoli: Four Italian journalists, who were kidnapped in Libya, were freed on Thursday during a raid on the Tripoli apartment where they were being held by soldiers loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. All four were in good health, the Corriere della Sera website said. The four journalists - Elisabetta Rosapina and Giuseppe Sarcina from Corriere della Sera, Claudio Morci from Avvenire and Domenico Quirico from La Stampa - were abducted on Wednesday by gunmen, some 80 km from Tripoli. — IANS/AKI

Hurricane Irene pounds Bahamas

Nassau, August 25
Hurricane Irene washed away homes in the Bahamas today as its battering winds and rain headed toward the US eastern seaboard, including densely populated New York and New England.

US emergency officials have urged residents from the Carolina’s north to New England to watch for Irene, now a major Category 3 storm, which is forecast to rake up the coast starting Saturday. The northern part of the North Carolina coast went on a hurricane watch in anticipation of Irene’s forecast landfall on Saturday evening in the state’s eastern Outer Banks barrier islands, which are popular with vacationers in the summer.

North Carolina authorities have already started evacuations from exposed barrier islands, while along the East Coast residents rushed to stock up on food and water supplies.

Irene, which has already caused the deaths this week of at least one person in Puerto Rico and two in the Dominican Republic, with others reported missing, was lashing the Bahamas capital Nassau with heavy rains and gusting winds. — Reuters 

Karachi violence: 90 suspects held

Karachi, August 25
Launching “surgical” raids to check violence in Karachi, Pakistani security forces have arrested 90 suspects from different parts of the city, where an all-party meet has been called by Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah tomorrow to discuss the law and order situation.

A spokesman for the Sindh government said today that the conference would be held at Shah’s house and all provincial heads of different parties had been invited to attend the meet.

“The Sindh Chief Minister and Cabinet decided on having the conference as we want to take all parties who are in the government or in opposition into confidence while dealing with the situation in Karachi,” spokesman Waqar Mehdi said.

It is not clear how many parties will accept the invitation to attend the meet as the two main groups --- the Mutthaida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party --- have more or less stayed away from recent government deliberations on the law and order situation.

The Jamaat-e-Islaami also announced that it would hold a big peace rally tomorrow and appealed to citizens to participate in large numbers in it to register their concern over the recent killings.

In what is being described as the worst ethnic and criminal unrest in Pakistan’s biggest city and commercial hub in the last 16 years, more than 100 persons have been killed in the violence, prompting the government to order the crackdown. Since the crackdown was launched yesterday, there had been no reported cases of violence or target killings in the city.— PTI