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Thousands of Kuwaitis storm Parliament
Greek police uses tear gas on anti-austerity
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China warns OZ against military pact with US
Airline fiasco
Russia stands by Assad as pressure mounts on Syria
Huge drug tunnel unearthed near US-Mexico border
Ex-banker turned Hindu monk urges Wall Street protesters to
UK docs implant cells to create temporary liver
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Thousands of Kuwaitis storm Parliament Kuwait City, November 17 "Now, we have entered the house of the people," said Mussallam al-Barrak, who led the protest along with several other lawmakers yesterday and youth activists also calling for the dissolution of Parliament over alleged corruption. The demonstrators broke open parliament's gates and entered the main chamber, where they sang the national anthem and then left after a few minutes. The police had used batons to prevent protesters from marching to the residence of Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, a senior member of the ruling family, after staging a rally outside Parliament. Witnesses said at least five demonstrators were injured and treated on the site. Some activists said they will continue to camp outside parliament until the premier is sacked. Chanting "the people want to remove the prime minister," the protesters started to march to the nearby premier's residence when police blocked their way. This was the first political violence in the oil-rich Gulf state since December, when elite forces beat up protesters and MPs at a public rally, though activists have been holding protests since March. Tension has been building in Kuwait over the past three months after it was alleged that about 16 MPs in the 50-member Parliament received about $350 million in bribes. The opposition has been leading a campaign to oust the premier, whom they accuse of failing to run the wealthy nation and fight corruption, which has become widespread. Earlier yesterday, about 20 opposition lawmakers boycotted a parliamentary session, a day after the government and its supporters succeeded in rejecting a bid by the opposition to quiz the premier over allegations of corruption. After the rejection, three opposition MPs filed a fresh request to question Sheikh Nasser over allegations of graft involving MPs and illegal overseas money transfers. The premier, 71, has been a target of opposition criticism since he was appointed to the job in February 2006, forcing him to resign six times. Parliament has also been dissolved three times in the same period. — AFP
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Greek police uses tear gas on anti-austerity protesters Athens, November 17 More than 30,000 people marched past shuttered shops in central Athens beating drums, waving red flags and chanting "EU, IMF out!" in the first public test for technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and his quarrelsome, three-party coalition. The annual November 17 march commemorates a bloody student uprising against Greece's military junta in 1973 but often becomes a focal point for anti-government protesters. Unions have said they would use this year's rally to send a warning to Papademos, a former vice-president of the European Central Bank with no political experience, to reverse policies they say have sent Greece into a "death spiral". "They have cut my pension twice. This man Papademos is worse than the previous leader. He is a banker. If he dares to take any more austerity measures, we will throw them out," said pensioner Xeni Kolen, 64. Three in four Greeks back Papademos, opinion polls say. But he faces an arduous task keeping his coalition united behind reforms required under a 130-billion-euro bailout aimed at preventing a disastrous default. "Greek people and above all the young can overcome the crisis and achieve national targets if they are united and act decisively," Papademos told parliament earlier today. — Reuters
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China warns OZ against military pact with US
Beijing, November 17 US President Barack Obama, who is currently on his first official visit to Australia, yesterday met Australian prime Minister Julia Gillard and unveiled plans to station 2,500 US marines in the Northern Territory within five years. He confirmed Australia's strategic importance in an Asia-Pacific century dominated by the growing power of China and India. China's state-run People's Daily in an editorial said that the new Australia-US defence pact posed a security threat to Australia. "Australia surely cannot play China for a fool. It is impossible for China to remain detached, no matter what Australia does to undermine its security," it said. "If Australia uses its military bases to help the US harm Chinese interests, then Australia itself will be caught in the crossfire. There is real worry in the Chinese society concerning Australia's acceptance of an increased US military presence. Such psychology will influence the long-term development of the Australia-China relationship," the editorial said. "Gillard may be ignoring something - their economic co-operation with China does not pose any threat to the US, whereas the Australia-US military alliance serves to counter China," it further said. Chinese Foreign Ministry also dubbed the alliance as counter to the peaceful development of the region. — PTI
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Airline fiasco London, November 17 Comtel Air, which ran chartered flights on the lucrative Birmingham-Amritsar sector, today cancelled more flights until November 20. The four more flights cancelled on the route are: the COE732 Birmingham-Amritsar at 4.15 pm on November 18; COE702C Amritsar-Birmingham at 4:30 am and COE732 Birmingham-Amritsar at 6.15 pm -- both on on November 19; and COE702C Amritsar-Birmingham at 5.30 am local time on November 20. Many passengers flying from Amritsar had a harrowing time over the last weekend when they were forced to cough up money totalling 23,000 pounds mid-way into their journey at Vienna before they could continue on the onward journey to Birmingham. A furious Keith Vaz, senior Labour MP, called for intervention by the David Cameron government, and said it was "outrageous that consumers who in good faith purchase tickets are left stranded for days and then asked to pay additional money these actions can only be said to amount to air piracy". He said he had asked the Transport Minister to intervene immediately to help the British citizens. Bhupinder Kandra, Comtel majority shareholder, said money paid to travel agents had not been passed on to the airline, which led to the situation at Vienna airport. — PTI |
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Russia stands by Assad as pressure mounts on Syria Amman, November 17 The Arab League has suspended Syria and given it until the end of the week to comply with an Arab peace plan to end bloodshed that has cost more than 3,500 lives, by a U.N. count. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country is one of Syria's few remaining foreign friends, said demands for Assad's removal would destroy the initiative, which calls for dialogue between the Syrian government and its foes. "If some opposition representatives, with support from some foreign countries, declare that dialogue can begin only after President Assad goes, then the Arab League initiative becomes worthless and meaningless," Lavrov said. He was speaking after talks with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who said the world must bring all the influence it can bear on Syria to change course. "The future of Syria now depends on the ability of all of us to keep pressure on them to see that there is a need to stop this violence, to listen to the people, and to find a way to move forward," Ashton told a joint news conference in Moscow. Lavrov said earlier a raid on Wednesday by the Free Syrian Army on an Airforce Intelligence complex on the outskirts of Damascus was "already completely similar to real civil war". Opposition sources said Syrian army defectors had killed or wounded 20 security police in the early-morning attack, the first of its kind in an eight-month revolt against Assad. —Reuters
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Huge drug tunnel unearthed near US-Mexico border San Diego, November 17 The tunnel discovered on Tuesday stretched about 400 m and linked warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana, the authorities said yesterday. The US authorities seized about nine tonnes of marijuana inside a truck and at the warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa area, said Derek Benner, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of investigations in San Diego. Mexican authorities recovered about eight tonnes south of the border. Authorities spoke at a news conference near packages of seized dope festooned with labels of Captain America, Sprite and Bud Light. The markings are codes to identify the owners. Photos taken by Mexican authorities show an entry blocked by bundles that were likely stuffed with marijuana, said Paul Beeson, chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector. Tunnel walls were lined with wood supports. The passage was equipped with lighting and ventilation systems. — AP
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Ex-banker turned Hindu monk urges Wall Street protesters to meditate
New York, November 17 The 32-year-old monk isn't sure now where his next session will be. He'll keep following the protesters to lead meditation, though, convinced they will only roll back the inequality around them if they find equanimity deep inside. "Anger won't solve anything," he told Reuters. "We have to work from the heart ... there is so much distrust now." Das has been a discreet presence at the protests, leading short sessions before making way for other religious leaders to preach at a weekly interfaith service. What he doesn't tell is the unlikely story of how he ended up in Lower Manhattan. A native of Mumbai, Das studied at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and moved to the United States in 2000 to work as a consultant with the accounting firm Deloitte. After earning a masters of business administration (MBA) at Cornell, he started at Bank of America in 2006. His specialty was the technology, media and telecoms sector and he dealt in so-called structured products, including mortgage-backed securities -- "the things that blew up, the toxic products" as he put it in a telephone interview. Das had studied this market but remained baffled by it even after he began trading. "I saw people I considered much smarter than I was, and they really believed in them, so I didn't open my mouth," he said. As world markets began to crumble in 2007, a superior told him: "You have to realise this is a game of musical chairs when the music stops, the person or bank that has the assets sitting on his books loses." "The far-reaching consequences for the economy were not something he would foresee," Das said. His doubts grew until the following year, he found himself working on a merger and acquisition project for Playboy magazine. It struck him as absurd trying to sell sex when the economy was collapsing and people were losing their jobs. "It was not that I hated the industry or the people I worked with," he said. "But I began to see the shallowness in that world. I wanted to be part of something authentic and deep." In fact, Das was already linked to that something. Since 2007, he had been living in a Hindu monastery in Manhattan's East Village. "I was living out of a large closet, with four suits and button-down shirts," he said. "I slept on the floor and lived the life of a monk." Das had been practicing karma yoga, the Hindu path of selfless service to the divine, for a decade before moving into the monastery in 2007. As part of this active service, he used his $170,000 annual salary to help finance the monastery. "Living in a monastery was a very strong safety belt to make sure I kept my inner core," he explained. — Reuters
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UK docs implant cells to create temporary liver London, November 17 In their ground-breaking treatment, doctors at King's College Hospital here implanted cells in Iyaad Syed’s abdomen. These acted like a temporary liver and allowed the damaged organ to recover. Iyaad was close to death as a virus had damaged his liver causing it to fail and was severely in need of a liver transplant. Instead of going on a waiting list for a transplant, the doctors, led by Prof Anil Dhawan, injected donor liver cells into his abdomen that processed toxins and produced vital proteins -- acting rather like a temporary liver. The cells were coated with a chemical found in algae which prevented them from being attacked by the immune system.
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