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35 killed as Syrian forces renew Homs assault
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Lab-grown bones could replace damaged ones
Al-Qaida group says Obama, Clinton worth only chickens
Balochistan
unrest
Contempt petition filed against Zardari
5 killed in Nigerian church attacks
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35 killed as Syrian forces renew Homs assault Amman, June 10 The army bombarded opposition strongholds in the city of Homs and the towns of Qusair, Talbiseh and Rastan. Free Syrian Army rebels had been intensifying attacks on army patrols, roadblocks and missile batteries in the area, the Syrian Network for Human Rights and other opposition campaigners said. Abu Qassem, an activist in Rastan, 25 km north of Homs, said at least 500 rockets and shells had fallen on the town since Saturday, and army helicopters were firing machine guns into the area. "The Free Syrian Army is far outgunned, but it is responding by mounting guerrilla attacks while trying to avoid direct exchange of fire," he said. He said among the rebels' targets had been an army missile battery in the area of Ghanto near Rastan. Most members of the missile squadron defected and the battery fell under rebel control. Rastan was once a reservoir of Sunni Muslim recruits for the military, whose senior ranks are dominated by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. After Syria's revolt broke out in March last year and pro-democracy demonstrators in Rastan were killed, Sunni officers from the town began defecting. Talbiseh to the south came under shelling and heavy mortar fire from loyalist troops after some soldiers from surrounding roadblocks defected on Saturday and drove two armoured personnel carriers into the town, according to opposition sources there. "Five persons have been killed, including a woman and her one-year-old daughter. They were among the few civilians who had not fled Talbiseh," activist Abu Mohammad said by satellite phone. In Homs, the army shelling was concentrated on the neighbourhood of al Khalidiya, inhabited mostly by Sunni tribal families from the desert to the southeast of Homs, activists said. — Reuters
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The Tribune The business partner of the UK's only Pakistani-origin cabinet minister has connections with a radical Islamic party that the ruling Conservatives had pledged to ban.
Abid Hussain has admitted his involvement with Hizb ut Tahrir, the radical Islamist party that was formerly led by one Omar Bakri Mohammed who has now been banned form the UK. Hizb ut Tahrir has previously been accused of promoting racism and anti-Semitism by praising suicide bombers and urging Muslims to kill Jews. The significance of Hussain's connection with this group is that he is a relative by marriage to Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, currently co-chair of the Conservatives and the only Pakistani-origin member of the British cabinet. He also accompanied her last year on an official trip to Pakistan. Both Hussain and Yorkshire-born Warsi were also previously registered as joint shareholders of a spice company called Rupert's Recipes. Although Warsi was the majority shareholder in the company, she failed to register her holding as required by the rules of the House of Lords. It was this failure to register her holding that has prompted an investigation into whether Warsi has broken the British Government's ministerial code. The minister has been separately reported to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner for allegedly claiming overnight subsistence expenses from the House of Lords while staying rent free at the London home of an Egyptian doctor who was a friend of one of her party aides. Warsi insisted that she did make appropriate payments, but that has been denied by her former host, Dr Wafik Moustafa, who said in a statement, "She never paid me any money and I never asked for any. I let her stay here because I'm a hospitable person. She never contributed to the bills. It’s part of my nature to give. I give more than I take." The latest question mark over Warsi's judgment follows revelations that business partner Hussain lived in one of the London houses of Hizb ut Tahrir and was filmed attending a party rally. In a statement issued through his lawyer, Hussain says "He has never been a member of Hizb ut Tahrir. In his mid-20s, which is to say more than 20 years ago, Hussain attended Hizbut-Tahrir meetings. However, he often debated against their views and never became a member." However, a former Hizb ut-Tahrir member, Ghaffar Hussain, has been quoted by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper as explaining that Hussain had closer ties to the party and "acted as a key recruiter and propagandist for the groups in the late 90s".
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Lab-grown bones could replace damaged ones
London, June 10 The researchers started with stem cells taken from fat tissue. It took around a month to grow them into sections of fully-formed living human bone up to a couple of inches long. The first trial in patients is on course to be conducted later this year, by an Israeli biotechnology company that has been working with academics on the technology, the Daily Telegraph reported. Professor Avinoam Kadouri, head of the scientific advisory board for Bonus BioGroup, said: "There is a need for artificial bones for injuries
and in operations. We use three dimensional structures to fabricate the bone in the right shape
and geometry. We can grow these bones outside the body and then transplant it to the patient at the right time." "By scanning the damaged bone area, the implant should fit perfectly and merge with the surrounding tissue. There are no problems with rejection as the cells come from the patient's own body," he added. The technology, which has been developed along with researchers at the Technion Institute of Research in Israel, uses three dimensional scans of the damaged bone to build a gel-like scaffold that matches the shape. — PTI
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Al-Qaida group says Obama, Clinton worth only chickens
Washington, June 10 Fuad Muhammad Khalaf of the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement in Somalia made the offer after Friday prayers, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant organisations. "Whoever reveals the hideout of the idiot Obama will be rewarded with 10 camels, and whoever reveals the hideout of the old woman Hillary Clinton will be rewarded 10 chickens and 10 roosters," he said, according to SITE. On Thursday, the US State Department offered a reward of $5 million each for the whereabouts of Khalaf and three associates, as well as $7 million for information about al Shabaab founder and commander Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamed. A bounty of $3 million was offered for the location of two other officials of the organisation. The Al-Qaida said in February the al Shabaab group, which was branded a terrorist organisation by the US government in 2008, had joined its ranks. Al Shabaab, which has controlled large parts of Somalia, faces pressure from Kenyan troops in the south, Ethiopian troops in central Somalia and African Union forces near the capital, Mogadishu. — Reuters
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Balochistan
unrest The judicial commission formed by the government to investigate the festering issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan has concluded that foreign spy agencies are stoking unrest in Balochistan. “Foreign intelligence agencies want to worsen the situation in Balochistan and elsewhere in order to destabilise Pakistan,” Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, head of the judicial commission, told a news conference at the Civil Secretariat in Quetta. “There is concrete evidence of their involvement,” he added. Justice Iqbal admitted that no state institution has precise statistics on missing persons. “There is a baseless propaganda about the number of missing persons,” he said and put the number at 460. “As many as 44 persons were recovered over the past three months through the commission’s efforts,” he said. At the same time, Justice Iqbal regretted that the authorities have not been able to compile details of those listed as missing. According to the break-up, 18 missing persons are listed missing from Islamabad, 117 from Punjab, 174 from Sindh, 170 from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 57 from Balochistan and 12 each from Azad Kashmir and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The bodies of 42 missing persons were found in Balochistan, Justice Iqbal said and added that in the past week alone, 12 missing persons were recovered from the province.
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Pak CJ’s son denies ties with tycoon Malik Riaz
Arsalan Iftikhar, son of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, has denied the charges of financial wrong doing and that he ever had intimacy or relationship with real estate tycoon Malik Riaz. Arsalan filed his preliminary statement as directed by the Supreme Court, but Malik sought more time after the court turned down request by his counsel Zahid Bukhari for formation of a larger Bench to hear the case. The Chief Justice found no tenable reason to grant the request. He ordered that remaining two Judges Jawwad Khawaja and Arif Khilji would continue hearing the case following his decision to pull out of it. The order also cited as example the case of a fraud in payment for rental power plants, which was decided recently by a Bench comprising two judges. Arsalan, in his brief statement, dubbed allegations as frivolous and unfounded. He refuted any business relationship, intimacy or acquaintance whatsoever with Malik Riaz, his daughter or son-in-law, whose names were also not known to him and that he had never met them in relation to any business deal or for any purpose in or outside Pakistan. He said these allegations had been spread in the electronic and print media in the absence of any cogent and logical evidence acceptable under the law of evidence. Therefore, Malik Riaz was liable to be dealt with strictly for dragging him to the court and maligning the august institution of judiciary. Arsalan argued that the statements of TV anchors brought to court record were nothing but hearsay as they were allegedly based on the statement of Malik Riaz and thus were inadmissible unless the property tycoon himself appeared before the court and produced admissible evidence.
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Contempt petition filed against Zardari
Lahore, June 10 Lawyer Muhammad Azhar Siddique said in his petition filed in the Lahore HC that Zardari had not disassociated himself from the political office as soon as possible. — PTI
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5 killed in Nigerian church attacks Maiduguri/Jos, June 10 No one was killed by the car bombing in the central city of Jos, but mobs of youths attacked bystanders in retaliation, killing two persons, the police said. There was no claim of responsibility. Attacks on churches have become a trademark tactic of the Islamist group Boko Haram, which says it is fighting to reinstate an ancient Muslim caliphate in northern Nigeria. Hamidu Wakawa was at the church in Biu Town in northeastern Borno state when it was attacked. "Three gunmen came to the premises of the church and started firing at people outside the church before going into the main building to carry on their killings," he said. "Many people have been killed and wounded." To the southwest, in the city of Jos, a man drove a car to the entrance of the Christ Chosen Church and then blew it up, said Emmanuel Davou (53), who lives nearby. Emmanuel Ayeni, Police Commissioner for Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital, told journalists 48 persons were being treated in a local hospital. — Agencies
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25 held in Canada’s student unrest Montreal, June 10 The march began peacefully yesterday, with some of the 500 protesters banging pots and pans and some wearing carnival masks. But when the marchers neared Crescent Street and its Formula One stands, they were blocked by police who used tear gas to disperse the crowd. A young man dressed in black was handcuffed by the police and subjected to a body search. The press service of the Montreal police said the arrests were targeted and more could be expected during the night. Three police cars with broken windows and covered with graffiti were seen in the streets. Earlier in the day, three protesters were arrested outside Grand Prix events. A man and a woman who, according to the police, carried "pyrotechnical devices", were seized at Jean-Drapeau Park, while another person was detained near a downtown metro station with a can of spray paint. Students see today's Grand Prix race as an "elitist event". But they also want to take advantage of the media presence and international visitors to publicise their fight against proposed tuition hikes. However, La Classe, the student union considered to be the most radical, reiterated yesterday that it had no intention of disrupting the Grand Prix. Its spokesman Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois noted though that the organisation was not able to control the behaviour of all the groups affiliated with it. — AFP
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