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Tearful adieu to Kim Jong-il
Mubarak trial starts again
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Iran threatens to block Gulf route for oil tankers
Probe into Bhutto’s killing almost complete, says Gilani
Pak military blamed for 1971 rout, Kargil
Indian student in UK killed for failing to tell the time?
‘Nothing frightening’ seen in Homs: Arab League monitors
‘Kolaveri Di’ makes inroads into Pakistan
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Tearful adieu to Kim Jong-il
Seoul, December 28 Bleak pictures from the state television showed a funeral cortege led by a limousine carrying a huge picture of the 69-year old, who died on December 17, passing serried ranks of olive green-clad soldiers whose bare heads were bowed in homage in the main square of the snow-covered capital. A hearse carrying the coffin was led by a weeping Kim Jong-un, the son and heir, accompanied by Jang Song-thaek, his uncle and a key power-broker in the transition, and Ri Yong-ho, the army chief of staff. "Seeing this white snow fall has made me think of the general's efforts and this brings tears to my eyes," Seo Ju-rim, a red-cheeked, weeping female soldier, told North Korean television, referring to the late Kim. One of the myths surrounding Kim Jong-il was that he could control the weather and state media has reported unusually cold and wild weather accompanying his death. Video showed weeping civilians who swayed with grief and shouted "father, father" as black Lincoln and Mercedes limousines and army trucks streamed past the crowds. It was not clear whether the pictures were live or recorded, although a state television announcer said it had been carried live. "I wished it was a dream, how can this be true," sobbed one middle-aged woman named Kim. "How can anything like this ever happen in the world?" At one stage, weeping women were held back by men who linked arms to prevent them surging towards the cortege. The procession ended after about three hours with 21 guns fired in salute as the top leadership looked on from a podium. Kim Jong-un will become the third member of the family to run the unpredictable North Asian country as it enters 2012, the year that was supposed to mark its self-proclaimed transformation into a "strong and prosperous" nation. The North has conducted two nuclear tests and Larry Niksch, who has tracked North Korea for the nonpartisan US Congressional Research Service for 43 years, believes it could take as little as one to two years to have a working nuclear missile once it produced enough highly enriched uranium for the warhead's core fuel. The prospect of an untested leader, believed to be in his late 20s, having nuclear capacity has alarmed many. "Yes, we are watching and will be analysing how any changes can be reflected in our policy," a South Korean government official said. State television showed Jang Song-thaek walking directly behind Kim Jong-un alongside the limousine carrying the coffin. Jang ranked a lowly 19th in the list of names on the state funeral committee but his public elevation confirmed that he will play a key role in shaping policies.
— Reuters
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Mubarak trial starts again
Cairo, December 28 Many Egyptians hope the trial will heal some of the scars of his autocratic rule and help the country find stability after nearly a year of political turmoil under the military generals who replaced him in power. But the multitude of witnesses and the complexity of the charges mean the case could drag on for months, perhaps years. Mubarak, his two sons, the former interior minister and senior police officers face charges ranging from corruption to involvement in the deaths of hundreds of protesters in the uprising that unseated him. The former leader, who is being held under guard at a military hospital near Cairo as doctors say he has a heart condition, was brought into the court on a hospital trolley, covering his eyes with his arm and surrounded by the police. Previous sessions were marred by clashes outside the Cairo court building between Mubarak supporters and Egyptians demanding the death penalty for him, but there were no scuffles as Mubarak arrived today. He was widely believed to be grooming his son Gamal to succeed him, but any such plan was overturned when disgust at poverty, corruption and the brutality of Egypt's security forces boiled over and millions took to the streets in January. Around 850 people were killed in the 18-day uprising that overthrew him, with the police accused of shooting live rounds at unarmed demonstrators. Much of the trial centres on who gave the order to fire.
— Reuters
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Iran threatens to block Gulf route for oil tankers
"Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy or as Iranians say it will be easier than drinking a glass of water," Iran's navy chief Habibollah Sayyari told Iran's English language Press TV. "But right now, we don't need to shut it as we have the Sea of Oman under control and we can control the transit," said Sayyari, who is leading 10 days of exercises in the Strait. Tension has increased between Iran and the West after EU foreign ministers decided three weeks ago to tighten sanctions on the world's No. 5 crude exporter over what the UN nuclear watchdog says is an attempt to design an atomic bomb, but left open the idea of an embargo on Iranian oil. Iran, which says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, warned on Tuesday it would stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports. The announcement over the possible closure of the only access channel for eight US-aligned, Gulf Arab states to foreign markets, pushed up international oil prices on Tuesday although they slipped back on Wednesday in thin trade and as the market dismissed it as rhetoric. "The threat by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz supported the oil market yesterday, but the effect is fading today as it will probably be empty threats," said Thorbjoern bak Jensen, an oil analyst with Global Risk
Management. — Reuters
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Probe into Bhutto’s killing almost complete, says Gilani
Islamabad, December 28 "(Bhutto's) killing was not only of national importance, but it was an international issue. The investigation has been almost completed and the matter is sub-judice," Gilani told reporters at the Bhutto family's mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Baksh yesterday. Speaking after he offered prayers at Benazir Bhutto's grave, Gilani said the central executive committee of the PPP would decide whether any aspect of the investigation’s findings could be made public. If such a decision is made, the Interior Minister will share the details with the people, he said. Responding to a volley of questions on the government's perceived failure to prosecute those responsible for Bhutto's assassination, Gilani said, "I don't want the inquiry to be affected in any manner." Benazir Bhutto twice served as the Prime Minister in the late 1980s and 1990s. After being removed on charges of corruption during her second term, she went into self-exile in 1998. She returned to Pakistan in late 2007. Weeks after her homecoming, she was killed by a suicide bomber shortly after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. — PTI
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Pak military blamed for 1971 rout, Kargil Islamabad, December 28 The last thing Pakistan needs now "is institutional infighting", said an editorial in the News International. It said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's remarks about a "state within a state" had caused a sensation in political circles. "It looked as if the premier's indirect reference to the military and the ISI was a challenge to the establishment," it said. After Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani clarified that the army was cognisant of its constitutional obligations, Gilani ruled there was no clash between the government and the military. "It is important to read between the lines... Tensions may have been defused but there are some questions that were left unanswered," the daily said. "In Pakistan, 'national security' has always been defined by the military even though in any modern democratic state, it is defined by the government in consultation with its subservient military. "The military in Pakistan considers itself a state within a state and uses the jehadist networks to defend its national security paradigm," it said. The editorial reminded the military that its definition of national security had led to the breakup of Pakistan in 1971 and Bangladesh's birth and "to a disaster called Kargil". — IANS
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Indian student in UK killed for failing to tell the time?
London, December 28 The 23-year-old, from Pune, was killed on Monday and the police, which has not ruled out a racist angle, has arrested four persons in connection to the case. Bidve, who was studying at Lancaster University, was killed in the early hours of Boxing Day as he and a group of friends made their way through Salford towards the Manchester city centre. Quoting friends of Bidve, a media report described how two men approached him and asked for time. After speaking to Bidve for a moment, one of the men was seen to pull out a handgun and shoot the student in the side of the head at point blank range, the Daily Telegraph reported. A senior police source confirmed that Bidve had responded "politely" to the question and there was no apparent reason for
the shooting. Sheetal Patel (25), a cake maker who went to Bidve's aid after being flagged down by his friends, said it took 25 minutes for the emergency services to arrive. "When we arrived, he was still alive and I thought he was going to survive," she told the newspaper. "He was breathing and I was holding his hand. His hand was very warm. He kept on trying to breathe. It is really weird that he is not with us any more,” she said.
— PTI two more arrested London: The British police has arrested a fourth person in connection with the killing of Indian student Anuj Bidve, who died following an "unprovoked" attack on Monday. The unnamed man is the fourth arrest after another man and two teenagers were arrested in the last 24 hours. No further details were released about the three arrests.
— PTI
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‘Nothing frightening’ seen in Homs: Arab League monitors
Beirut, December 28 Given the brief and limited nature of the monitors' tour on Tuesday, the comment by their chief may alarm opposition activists who fear the mission could end up cloaking Damascus in respectability, whitewashing President Bashar al-Assad's record. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed 15 people across the country on Tuesday, six of them in Homs. It said 34 were killed the day before. "Some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening," Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, chief of the monitoring contingent, said. "The situation seemed reassuring so far," he said today after his team's foray into the city of one million people, the epicentre of anti-Assad upheaval inspired by the fall of several other Arab autocrats in uprisings this year.
— Reuters
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‘Kolaveri Di’ makes inroads into Pakistan
Islamabad, December 28 'Where is democracy, democracy, democracy ji' is how the 'slap song' begins. The lyrics, like the original, are hilarious and take pot-shots at the government and the security establishment. The Pakistani version that was uploaded on the Youtube on December 17 comes at a time when talks of confrontation between the government and the powerful security establishment are at a high. The video features five middle-aged men who seem disgruntled with the system in Pakistan. It points fingers at corruption and political system. In a very funny manner, the parody also shows how the governments are changed at the whims and fancy of certain people. Some of the hilarious lyrics are, 'Your palace, Palace, light, light... My home black', 'Rise-u, rise-u... cheat-u cheat-u, 'empty jaib, missile come, life reverse gear'. — PTI
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Tehran, December 28