|
|
|
|
|
Iran warning to US warship sends tensions soaring
Iran sentences daughter of former Prez Rafsanjani
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
India asks traders to stay away from China trade hub
US website again shows J&K as disputed territory
Hosni Mubarak a ‘tyrannical leader’
Taliban confirms ‘initial’ deal to open political office overseas
Hate
crime in New York?
|
|
Iran warning to US warship sends tensions soaring Tehran, January 3 “We advise and insist that this warship not return to its former base in the Persian Gulf,” said Brigadier General Ataollah Salehi, Iran’s armed forces chief. “We don’t have the intention of repeating our warning, and we warn only once,” he was quoted as saying by the armed forces’ official website. The defiant message came just after Iran completed 10 days of naval manoeuvres at the entrance to the Gulf to show it could close the strategic oil shipping channel in the Strait of Hormuz if it felt threatened. In the climax of the wargames yesterday, Iran test-fired three missiles, including a new cruise missile, designed to sink warships. The aircraft carrier Salehi was referring to was the USS John C Stennis, one of the US navy’s biggest warships. The massive, nuclear-powered vessel transports 90 fighter jets and helicopters and is usually escorted by around five destroyers. It is close to finishing its seven-month deployment at sea. The carrier last week passed through the Strait of Hormuz heading east across the Gulf of Oman and through the zone where the Iranian navy was holding its manoeuvres. The US Defence Department called its passage “routine”. The potential for Iran-US conflict sent a shiver through oil markets on Tuesday, helping oil prices jump more than a dollar a barrel. There was no sign of a let-up in the tensions. US President Barack Obama at the weekend signed into law new sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank, which processes most of the Islamic republic’s oil export sales. The European Union, which is mulling an embargo on Iranian oil, is expected to announce further sanctions of its own at the end of January. The Western sanctions add to four sets of UN sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear activities. The US and many Western nations believe Iran is developing an atomic arsenal. Tehran denies that, saying its nuclear programme is exclusively for energy production and medical isotopes. In a gesture calculated to underline progress it has made, Iran’s atomic energy organisation last Sunday said its scientists had made the country’s first nuclear fuel rod from indigenous uranium. Iran’s armed forces chief-of-staff, General Hassan Firouzabadi, added to the defiance by saying today that the Revolutionary Guards, an elite military force apart from the regular defence services, would soon hold its own navy manoeuvres in the Gulf.
— AFP
|
|
Iran sentences daughter of former Prez Rafsanjani
Tehran, January 3 The conservative mashreghnews.ir website reported on Tuesday that Tehran’s Revolutionary Court also banned Faezeh Hashemi from taking part in political, cultural and media activities for the next five years. Hashemi has 20 days to appeal the sentence. Her trial took place behind closed doors last month. Her lawyer, Gholam Ali Riahi, has said the charges against her are related to interviews she gave to news websites. Hashemi appeared at opposition protests after the disputed June 2009 presidential elections and was briefly detained in February.
— AP
|
|
India asks traders to stay away from China trade hub Beijing, January 3 The police in Yiwu, a trade hub in Zhejiang province close to Shanghai, shifted Shyamsunder Agrewal and Deepak Raheja to a hotel where two policemen were deployed to guard them. Raheja told PTI over phone that they still apprehend trouble as a large crowd of locals had surrounded their hotel. Indian officials said efforts were on to bring them to Shanghai. The two, who complained of ill-treatment and torture ever since they were “kidnapped” on December 15, said they were merely employees of a company that owed payments to local suppliers for the goods purchased and that their owner, whose identity has not been established, had fled. The local traders, who reportedly handed them over to the police, assert that they would let them go only after the dues amounting to several million Yuan are paid. Indian diplomat S Balachandran was “manhandled” at a court and fainted as he tried to secure the release of the two traders on December 31, prompting India to lodge a protest. He is convalescing at a hospital in Shanghai. Meanwhile, an advisory from the Indian Embassy in Beijing, cautioned Indian businessmen in dealing with traders in Yiwu, which has emerged as a major hub for commodities trading. “Indian traders and business men are hereby cautioned not to do business with Yiwu in Zhejiang province,” a trade advisory posted on the Indian Embassy website said today. “All people who have business/trade with Yiwu are cautioned against doing business there and all people who do not have business/trade with Yiwu are requested to be careful that they do not do business with
Yiwu. Indian businessmen are cautioned to stay away from Yiwu,” the advisory said. According to unofficial estimates Indian businessmen bought over several billions of dollars worth of goods last year. Over 100 Indian businessmen live in Yiwu doing thriving business there. They “should be aware that when there are trade disputes with
Yiwu, the Indian businessmen/traders can be illegally held under detention and mistreated by Chinese businessmen there,” it said. “Based on experience, there is no guarantee that legal remedies will be readily available. Furthermore, in case of disputes arising, experience suggests that there is inadequate protection for safety of persons,” it said, without directly mentioning the detention of two Indians.
— PTI
|
||
|
US website again shows J&K as disputed territory
Washington, January 3 There was no immediate response from the Indian Embassy in Washington if it was satisfied with the latest India map posted by the State Department on its website. Following strong protest from the Ministry of External Affairs, the State Department in November had removed from its website a map of India which showed a portion of J&K as part of Pakistan. A similar map from its travel website was also removed by the State Department. State
Depart-ment spokesperson Victoria Nuland had told reporters at that time that such an error was unintentional. She said that the map had “some inaccuracies which were associated with the boundaries of some geographic features.”
— PTI
|
||
|
Hosni Mubarak a ‘tyrannical leader’
Cairo, January 3 Mubarak, who was ousted in a popular uprising last year, was “a tyrannical leader who sought to hand power to his younger son Gamal, who spread corruption in the country and opened the door to his friends and relatives, ruining the country without any accountability,” chief prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman told the Cairo court. Suleiman’s comments came in the first of three days of trial, in which the prosecution will state its case against Mubarak and 10 others, including his two sons Gamal and Alaa, his security chief and a close associate, who is now a fugitive. The ailing former president Mubarak was wheeled in the courtroom on a stretcher. Suleiman delivered a scathing attack on Mubarak’s 30-year reign, describing him as a corrupt man with lust for power. “He deserves an end of humiliation and indignity from the presidential palace to the defendants’ cage and then the harshest penalty,” Suleiman said. Judge Ahmed Refaat heard from the prosecution for an hour before adjourning the hearing to Wednesday. The prosecution presented its arguments in this session that is expected to last over three days.
— PTI
|
||
|
Taliban confirms ‘initial’ deal to open political office overseas
Kabul, January 3 It is the first time the insurgent group has publicly raised the prospect of a negotiated peace after more than ten years of fighting the Kabul government, after previously stating they would not talk until all foreign troops had left Afghan soil. In a statement on their purported website “Voice of Jihad”, the Islamists said they had held “preliminary talks with relevant sides including Qatar” to open an office outside Afghanistan, without confirming where it would be. One of their demands would be for a prisoner exchange to include the release of Taliban inmates from the US-run detention facility Guantanamo Bay, they said. “We’re now prepared, while having a strong presence inside (Afghanistan), to have a political office outside (Afghanistan) for negotiations,” the statement said.
— AFP
|
||
|
Hate
crime in New York?
New York, January 3 Molotov cocktails were hurled at the four locations last night, with bombs damaging property but no serious injuries were reported. The attacks took place in Queens area in which unidentified assailants threw homemade firebombs at a house used for Hindu worship services, Islamic centre Imam Al-Khoei Foundation, a home and a convenience store. The police, who is yet to make any arrest, have released a sketch of a suspect caught on a surveillance camera at the Hindu temple. The suspect is described as a 25-30 year old black man, 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing 200 pounds and wearing a black jacket and a baseball cap. A videotape has also been released showing a suspect appearing suddenly to lift his right arm to hurl a lit objective that strikes the temple and explodes in flames. The New York Times quoted Ramesh Maharaj, 62, a Hindu priest who resides in the temple premises, as saying that he rushed from his bed to lawns to find the explosive burning harmlessly. “The intention from the behaviour of the guy was to do destruction,” Maharaj said. Later, the entrance to the globally prominent Imam Al-Khoei Foundation was also hit by molotov cocktails while 100 people were inside. Both the local Hindu and Islamic community leaders have said they were not afraid of such attacks. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the attacks unacceptable and said authorities are investigating the incidents. A Fire Department official said the attacks damaged property but no one was injured.
— PTI
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
Tehran, January 3
