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26/11 might have led to Indo-Pak nuke war: Roemer
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Highest number of newborn deaths in India: WHO study
Obama avoids political showdown, reschedules Congress speech
Businessman, wife held for ‘blackmailing’ Berlusconi
NRI first to be charged under new UK Bribery Act
Floods claim 102 lives in Nigeria
30 Qaida suspects die in US airstrikes
Gorkhas take brunt of UK defence cuts
Facebook plans to add music services: Report
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Gaddafi planning fightback, claims Libyan military
Tripoli, September 1 The ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), trying to mop up pro-Gaddafi forces, extended by a week the deadline for the surrender of the coastal city of Sirte, a spokesman said. The council had given Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace and other areas still loyal to him, until Saturday to surrender or face a military assault. The extension of the ultimatum follows a peace feeler from one of Gaddafi's sons, Saadi. "We were talking about negotiations based on ending bloodshed,” Saadi, whose whereabouts are not clear, said on al-Arabiya television on Wednesday, adding his father had authorised him to parley with the NTC. The head of Tripoli's military council, Abdul Hakim Belhadj, told Reuters the same day he had spoken to Saadi by telephone and promised him decent treatment if he surrenders. But Gaddafi's better-known son Saif al-Islam, in a statement on a Syrian-owned TV channel, promised a war of attrition until Libya was cleansed from "gangs and traitors". Mystery still surrounds Gaddafi's whereabouts, with an NTC commander saying he is in Bani Walid and an Algerian newspaper reporting him in the border town of Ghadamis. Abdel Majid Mlegta, coordinator of the Tripoli military operations room, said "someone we trust" had said Gaddafi fled to Bani Walid, 150 km southeast of the capital, with his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi three days after Tripoli fell last week. All three fugitives are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity. "They wanted to set up an operations room there and conduct aggressive operations against us," Mlegta said. "We have talked to notables from Bani Walid to arrest him and hand him over. They haven't responded. We are assessing our position." He said Ali al-Ahwal, Gaddafi's coordinator for tribes, was also in Bani Walid, a stronghold of the powerful Warfalla tribe, Libya's biggest at about a million strong among a population of six million, but by no means solidly pro-Gaddafi. "We are capable of ending the crisis but military action is out of the question right now," Mlegta said. "We cannot attack this tribe because many of our brigades in Benghazi and Zintan are from Bani Walid. The sons of Bani Walid hold the key." Libyan foreign minister arrested
Libyan rebels have arrested foreign minister Abdelati al-Obeidi, a key figure of Muammar Gaddafi's regime, a senior rebel commander said. "Yes, Abdelati al-Obeidi was arrested," Mahdi al-Harati, vice chairman of the rebel military council, told journalists in the capital yesterday without giving further details. "We've heard that he was arrested today, near Janzur," a suburb west of Tripoli, Mohammed Elkish, a media liaison official for the National Transitional Council, told AFP. Obeidi became foreign minister following the defection of Mussa Kussa on March 31. Many high-ranking officials turned their backs on Gaddafi's regime after demonstrations that erupted in mid-February escalated into all-out war. Seif al-Islam, the fugitive son of Gaddafi, said yesterday in an audio tape on Damascus-based Arabic-language channel Al-Rai that he was still in Tripoli and the fight against rebels goes on. "I am talking to you from a suburb of Tripoli," he said. "We want to reassure the Libyan people that we are still here. The resistance continues and victory is near."
— Agencies
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26/11 might have led to Indo-Pak nuke war: Roemer
Roemer, who served as the 22nd US Ambassador to India from July 2009 to June 2011, however, did not divulge any further details of his conclusion that the 26/11 could have led to a nuclear war between the two South Asian neighbours. “Those attacks killed 177 people in Mumbai two years ago, including six Americans. And they almost started a war between Pakistan and India that might have resulted in some kind of a nuclear war. So this self-radicalisation issue is a critically important one,” Roemer said yesterday at a discussion on national security and the implementation of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations. The former US envoy, a member of the 9/11 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, set up in 2002, said he feared a scenario in which a terrorist group gets hold of a nuclear weapon and an undetected self-radicalised or a cell in the United States. “Now, several months ago we had something that almost combined both. There was a person called David Headley, who was a terrorist living in Chicago, who could travel between India, Pakistan and the United States seamlessly. And he was the guy that planned and helped plan the attacks on Mumbai,” he said in response to a question. Roemer expressed concern that self-radicalised people could train themselves on the internet and the time frame was shrinking. “The five-year time frame is now down to sometimes months before they can be radicalised. It is really shrinking,” he said. He referred to his conversation with a high-level Indian official, a day after the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a secret raid in Pakistan’s Abbottabad town. According to the former US envoy, the Indian official pointed to the secret operation saying “this is precisely why the United States of America needs to be involved and active in the world, because you have the tenacity to keep going after people, the training of your joint operations to do it better than anybody else and the moral courage to do it the right way,” he said. — PTI NIA to chargesheet Headley soon: PC New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) will soon file a chargesheet against Lashkar-e-Toiba operative David Headley who had conducted surveillance of the 26/11 targets for the Pakistan-based militant group. "As far as the chargesheet is concerned, I think the NIA is waiting for more information. I think they are nearly ready. When they will get the last bit of information, the charge sheet will be filed,” Home Minister P Chidambaram said. — PTI
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Highest number of newborn deaths in India: WHO study
United Nations, September 1 New born deaths decreased from 4.6 million in 1990 to 3.3 million in 2009, and fell slightly faster in the years since 2000, according to the study led by researchers from WHO, Save the Children and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The study, which covers a 20-year-period and all the 193 WHO member states, found that new born deaths - characterised as deaths in the first four weeks of life (neonatal period) - account for 41 per cent of all
child deaths before the age of five. Almost 99 per cent of the newborn deaths occur in the developing world, with more than half taking place in the five large countries of India, Nigeria, Pakistan, China and Congo. "India alone has more than 900,000 newborn deaths per year, nearly 28 per cent of the global total," the WHO said, adding that India had
the largest number of neonatal deaths throughout the study. Nigeria, the world's seventh most populous country, ranked second in newborn deaths - up from fifth in 1990. Three quarters of neonatal deaths around the world are caused by pre-term delivery, asphyxia and severe infections, such as sepsis and pneumonia. The WHO pointed out that two thirds or more of these deaths can be
prevented with existing interventions. The study, however, found that while fewer new borns are dying worldwide, the progress in child care is too slow and Africa in
particular is being left further behind. "The first week of life is the riskiest week for newborns, and yet many countries are only just beginning post-natal care programmes to reach mothers and babies at this critical time," the WHO said in
a statement. At the current rate of progress, it would take the African continent more than 150 years to reach US or UK newborn survival levels, according to WHO. WHO said that an increase in investment in health care for women and children in the last decade - when the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals were set - contributed to more rapid progress for the survival of mothers and children under the age of five than for newborns.
— PTI
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Obama avoids political showdown, reschedules Congress speech
Obama, who wanted to outline his much-anticipated jobs creation plan next Wednesday evening, has now agreed to reschedule the Congressional speech on the economy after the Speaker proposed an alternative date, September 8. “The President is focused on the urgent need to create jobs and grow our economy, so he welcomes the opportunity to address a Joint Session of the Congress on Thursday, September 8th and challenge our nation’s leaders to start focusing 100 per cent of their attention on doing whatever they can to help the American people,” said Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary in a statement yesterday. “The President wanted to address the Congress on September 7, but the Speaker determined Thursday would work better,” Carney said after Boehner wrote to Obama that September 7 was not possible due to parliamentary and logistical problem. Major media outlets termed Boehner’s response as unprecedented snub to the US President. Congressional historians say that Boehner’s move was unprecedented, The New York Times reported. “The Senate Historical Office knows of no instance in which the Congress refused the President, permission to speak before a joint Session of the Congress,” Betty K Koed, associate historian with the Senate, was quoted as saying by The Times. Koed said the permission to speak in a joint Session was given by resolution of the House and Senate and arrangements were made through the leadership offices of each chamber. “Though Obama would need both chambers of the Congress to adopt a concurrent resolution in order to be allowed to speak, it is highly unusual for the Congress to reject a President’s request,” The Washington Post reported. It said the political maneuvring injected still more ill will into the ongoing fight between the White House and Congressional Republicans in their attempts to gain an upper hand in the debate over “how to solve the nation’s ongoing economic problems”. “And both sides quickly pointed fingers at one another for the scheduling problem,” the daily said. Earlier, Obama said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Boehner that he wanted to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress could take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy, by strengthening small businesses and help Americans get back to work. Boehner said with the significant amount of time that was required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a President, “it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.” “As such, on behalf of the bipartisan leadership and membership of both the House and the Senate, I respectfully invite you to address a Joint Session of the Congress on Thursday, September 8, 2011, in the House Chamber, at a time that works best for your schedule,” Boehner said.
— PTI
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Businessman, wife held for ‘blackmailing’ Berlusconi
Giampaolo Tarantini, an entrepreneur from the southern city of Bari, and his wife Angela Devenuto were arrested after payments from Berlusconi totalling as much as half a million euros were uncovered by investigators, prosecutors said. A warrant was also issued for another man, Valter Lavitola, who prosecutors said was a consultant linked to defence and aerospace group Finmeccanica. The arrests return the spotlight to a prostitution scandal which dominated headlines in 2009 when Patrizia D'Addario, an escort connected with Tarantini, claimed to have been paid to attend parties at Berlusconi's private residence in Rome. They come at a time when Berlusconi's
centre-right government is struggling to tie up a revised 45.5 billion euro austerity package designed to reassure anxious markets about the solidity of Italy's strained public finances. Naples prosecutors said that the three arrests had been made after extensive investigations that included wiretap evidence. "Serious and consistent indications were found of repeated payments to the Tarantini couple of sums in cash and other benefits of a financial nature by Silvio Berlusconi," the Naples prosecutors' office said
in statement. The payments used "hidden or at least untransparent means" and involved
the intervention of Lavitola, it added. The latest case is unrelated to the so-called "Ruby affair" in which Berlusconi is on trial in Milan accused of paying for sex with teenaged nightclub
dancer Karima El Mahroug, known as "Ruby Heartstealer", when she was a minor. However, it highlights the scandals still hanging over the government as it battles to prevent Italy being dragged back into the centre of the euro zone debt crisis.
— Reuters
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NRI first to be charged under new UK Bribery Act
London, September 1 He is also accused of misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice at Redbridge Magistrates’ Court in Ilford, according to a BBC report. He was arrested after The Sun filmed a man apparently accepting £500 to keep a traffic penalty off a legal database. He will appear at Southwark Crown Court in south London on October 14. “I am satisfied there is sufficient evidence to charge Munir Patel with requesting and receiving a bribe on August 1 intending to improperly perform his functions,” said Gaon Hart, a lawyer at the
Crown Prosecution Service. He said: “Patel has already been charged with misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice. He still faces these charges, which
relate to other alleged misconduct during his employment.” The Bribery Act, which came into force on July 1, made it illegal to offer or receive bribes, and to fail to prevent bribery.
— PTI
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Floods claim 102 lives in Nigeria
Meanwhile, the National Emergency Management Agency
(NEMA) has delivered relief assistance to victims displaced by the flooding with
the organistion’s Director-General Muhammad Sani Sidi describing it as one of the worst in recent times
in Nigeria. Rainy season in the oil-rich African country often lasts for four months beginning from May. The downpour this year has been unusually
heavy causing an unprecedented loss of lives. — PTI
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30 Qaida suspects die in US airstrikes
Sanaa, September 1 Yemen has seen mass protests against longtime President Ali
Abdullah Saleh. The airstrikes freed a Yemeni military unit besieged in southeast Abyan for several weeks by
al-Qaida militants. A medical official says four Yemeni military officers were also killed in the clashes yesterday and today. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the press.
— PTI
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Gorkhas take brunt of UK defence cuts
London, September 1 The British Defence Ministry announced today that it was pruning the armed forces by another 7,000 men to retain only a force of 95,000 men in battle fatigues by 2015 and the first cuts are to be in its famous Gorkha regiment, Daily Mail reported. The paper said a total of 920 troopers and another 930 air force personnel were being made redundant. It quoted a senior army officer Brig Richard Nugee as saying that the cuts to the 3,500-strong Brigade of Gorkhas was necessary following recent changes in the terms of services which has placed them on the same footing as the rest of the Army. —
PTI
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Facebook plans to add music services: Report
New York, September 1 "Facebook Inc is preparing changes designed to make the site a hub for listening to music, watching movies and playing videogames," the 'Wall Street Journal' reported citing a source. — PTI
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