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Reopening of graft cases against Zardari
Taliban storm police building in Lahore, kill 9
Syrian envoy defects, urges revolt
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China, US seek to calm South China Sea tensions
Indian-American woman sexually assaulted, murdered in US
Nigerian fuel tanker fire leaves 92 dead
Hubble discovers fifth and tiniest Pluto moon
US astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a fifth and tiniest moon yet orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto.
Over 100 killed in Nigerian oil tanker explosion
Over 100 persons, including women and children, were killed and 50 others injured today when an overturned petrol tanker in Nigeria's southern Rivers state exploded as people tried to scoop up fuel, officials said.
‘Urban noise killing baby sparrows’
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Reopening of graft cases against Zardari Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday set July 25 deadline for Premier Raja Pervez Ashraf to approach the Swiss authorities to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, triggering a fresh political crisis over the issue which had cost his predecessor his job. A three-judge Bench of the apex court led by Justice Nasirul Mulk in its order said it had directed the attorney general to get orders on implementation of its judgment on the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) from the Prime Minister. The response was not filed by the deadline when the court resumed hearing in the case on Thursday. Rejecting the attorney general’s arguments, the court recalled that it had initiated contempt proceedings against Yousuf Raza Ruling that the Prime Minister was bound to implement the court’s order, the Bench adjourned the hearing to July 25. Earlier during the hearing, Attorney General Irfan Qadir had told the Bench that the court’s order had been delivered to the Prime Minister. The order has also been forwarded to the federal law ministry, Qadir said. The attorney general said the federal cabinet and the Prime Minister would make a collective decision on the issue of corresponding with the Swiss authorities. The cabinet has requested the law ministry to give its recommendations on the matter and the recommendations would be presented before it, the attorney The cabinet would then make a decision on the matter in the light of the ministry’s recommendations. Justice Khosa inquired of the attorney general as to when the ministry would finalise its recommendations. Earlier on June 27, the Bench had given the new Prime Minister two weeks to indicate whether he would ask the Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. The court on June 19 dismissed Yousuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister after convicting him of contempt in April for refusing to reopen the multi-million-dollar cases against the President. Raja Pervez Ashraf was later elected as the new prime minister. The allegations against President Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his late wife, former premier Benazir Bhutto were suspected of using Swiss bank accounts to launder $60 million allegedly paid in bribes by companies seeking customs inspection contracts. The Swiss shelved the case in 2008 when then Attorney-General Malik wrote to the Swiss authorities that Gen Musharraf had pardoned all the corruption cases under NRO and the government of Pakistan was no more interested in pursuing the Swiss case against Zardari.
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Taliban storm police building in Lahore, kill 9
Masked gunmen on Thursday shot dead nine policemen and wounded three others after storming a building in Lahore’s Ichhra locality where they were sleeping, the police said. It was the second attack in three days on security personnel in the province of Punjab, raising fears of a fresh wave of violence.
The Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP) later claimed responsibility. It had earlier warned to follow up Monday’s killing of 8 soldiers in Gujrat in retaliation for reopening of NATO supply routes. The police said 10 gunmen stormed a residential property housing officers from the country's troubled northwest who were in the city for training, bore the hallmarks of a similar assault on an army camp on Monday. Punjab police chief Habibur Rehman said the attackers came on three motorcycles and one car.
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Syrian envoy defects, urges revolt Beirut, July 12 Nawaf al-Fares, who has close ties with the Syrian security services, was the first senior diplomat to desert Assad, following hard on the heels of Manaf Tlas, a brigadier general in the elite Republican Guard and a close friend of Assad. Assad's swift and bloody crackdown on what began as a broad, peaceful pro-democracy movement helped turn it into an armed rebellion. But the insurgents cannot match the army's firepower, and instead need to erode the loyalty and conviction within Assad's establishment to loosen its hold on power. Tlas, the son of a veteran former Syrian defence minister, has made no public comment since fleeing to Paris. But Fares posted a video statement on Facebook on Wednesday that repeatedly said government forces had been killing civilians. “I declare that I have joined, from this moment, the ranks of the revolution of the Syrian people," he said. "I ask the members of the military to join the revolution and to defend the country and the citizens. Turn your guns on the criminals from this regime. Every Syrian man has to join the revolution to remove this nightmare and this gang," he said, accusing the Assad family and its allies of corruption and "destroying society" for 40 years. In Damascus, a terse government statement said: "The Syrian foreign ministry declares that Nawaf al-Fares has been relieved of his duties and he no longer has any link to our embassy in Baghdad or the foreign ministry." — Reuters
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China, US seek to calm South China Sea tensions Phnom Penh, July 12 Long-simmering tensions in the waters have entered a more contentious chapter this year as the six parties who claim the territory search deeper into the disputed waters for energy supplies while building up their navies and defence alliances. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Beijing was ready to work with Washington "to expand our common ground, respect each other, properly handle differences on sensitive issues, and push forward" relations. Echoing Yang's conciliatory tone, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the importance of US-China cooperation in regional institutions. “The United States and China not only can, but will work together in Asia," she told reporters ahead of a meeting with Yang on the sidelines of a regional forum in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. —
Reuters
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Indian-American woman sexually assaulted, murdered in US Los Angeles, July 12 Lalita Patel, who ran her family's motel - the Tracy Hacienda Inn - in Tracy city, California, was found murdered on Saturday. Stephen Carreiro, who was recently discharged from the Army, was arraigned in San Joaquin Superior Court on charges that he raped and killed Patel at the motel. Carreiro (25) was naked when he was arrested around after fighting with witnesses and the police at the motel in the 600 block of West 11th Street, San Jose Mercury News reported. Prosecutors filed five special-circumstances counts in addition to charges of murder, elder abuse and resisting arrest. These counts are murder during the commission of a burglary, rape, rape with a foreign object, sodomy and mayhem, according to Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa. If convicted of murder with special circumstances, Carreiro would face either life in prison without parole or execution. Prosecutors are still deciding whether to seek the death penalty, Testa said. The police said Carreiro also attacked the victim's 82-year-old mother.— PTI
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Nigerian fuel tanker fire leaves 92 dead
Niger Delta, July 12 "Early this morning a tanker loaded with petrol fell in Okogbe and people trooped to the scene obviously to scoop the spilt fuel and suddenly there was fire resulting in casualties," Rivers State police spokesman Ben Ugwuegbulam said. Ugwuegbulam said it was too early to give a casualty figure but a Reuters witness at the scene counted 92 dead bodies of men, women and children. —
Reuters
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Hubble discovers fifth and tiniest Pluto moon Washington, July 12 The mini-moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and between 10 km and 25 km across. It is visible as a speck of light in Hubble images, NASA said. The moon, provisionally named S/2012 (134340) 1 until it gets a proper name, could help reveal more on how the Pluto system came into existence and evolved ever since. It was detected in nine separate sets of images taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 taken during June and July. The Pluto team is intrigued such a small planet can have such a complex collection of satellites. According to the favoured theory, all moons revolving around Pluto are relics of a collision between the dwarf planet and another large icy object billions of years ago. "The moons form a series of neatly nested orbits, a bit like Russian dolls," said Mark Showalter from the Seti Institute in Mountain View. — PTI
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‘Urban noise killing baby sparrows’ London: Noise in urban areas may be the key culprit behind the increasing mortality rate among young house sparrows, a study has suggested. Researchers from the University of Sheffield found that the noise affects adult birds hearing of the hunger calls from their offspring, leading to their death from starvation. — PTI
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Over 100 killed in Nigerian oil tanker explosion Abuja, July 12 "Over 100 persons were killed in the inferno from the petrol tanker," an official said. "We have recovered 93 bodies," said National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Yushua Shuaib. Officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission said the tanker loaded with petrol fell in Okogbe and exploded as people rushed to to scoop the split petrol. — PTI
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Syria's ambassador to Iraq has defected and urged the army to "turn your guns on the criminals" of President Bashar al-Assad's government, giving the anti-Assad uprising one of its biggest boosts in 16 months of bloodshed.
