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58 killed in Iraq blasts
Mass protest in Japan against deployment of US aircraft Death sentence awarded to fugitive Iraqi Vice-President |
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Ephedrine Case
Provincial Elections
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58 killed in Iraq blasts Baghdad, September 9 Iraq's conflict has eased since its height in 2006-2007 when sectarian slaughter killed thousands. But Sunni Islamists and an Al-Qaida affiliate still launch about one major attack a month in an effort to reignite tensions between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims following the US military withdrawal in December. The most serious of the bombings, blasts and shootings on Sunday happened near the city of Amara, 300 km south of Baghdad, when two car bombs exploded outside a Shi'ite shrine and a market place, killing at least 16 persons, officials said. "So far 16 corpses were brought to the hospital, and more than 100 persons were wounded," said Sayid Hasanain, a local health official. With its main hospital overflowing with injured from the attacks, mosques in Amara used prayer loudspeakers to call for blood donations. Overnight in Dujail, 50 km north of Baghdad, gunmen and a suicide bomber driving a car attacked a military base, killing 11 soldiers and injuring seven, the police said. Later on Sunday, a car bomb killed eight persons queuing for jobs as police guards for the Iraqi North Oil Company in the flashpoint city of Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad, the police said. Kirkuk was hit by several other blasts. A car bomb and a bomb packed into a motorcycle detonated outside a crime investigation office, killing seven and wounding 40. More people were killed in several other blasts across the country, including in the towns of Baquba, Samarra, Basra and Tuz Khurmato. The car bomb that exploded outside the French consular building in the usually stable city of Nassiriya, 300 km south of Baghdad, killed a police guard and wounded four other guards, authorities said. The consul, an Iraqi citizen, was not at the office at the time of the attack. Two other persons were killed and three wounded by a separate car bomb in the city. French diplomats have been hit before by violence in Iraq. In June last year, a French embassy convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad that wounded seven local Iraqi guards, one month after another embassy convoy was hit by an explosive device. Since the last US troops left , insurgents have often hit high-profile targets, including Shi'ite religious sites or local military or government offices, to show they can still carry out coordinated attacks and undermine the government's claim to provide security. Iraq's local Al-Qaida wing, Islamic State of Iraq, has claimed responsibility for other major attacks on security forces and Shi'ite neighbourhoods. But former members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baathist party and other Sunni Islamist groups are also fighting the government. Infighting in Iraq's delicate cross-sectarian government, and a resurgence of the al Qaeda wing, have raised fears of a return to widespread violence, especially as Iraq struggles to contain spillover from the growing conflict in Syria. — Reuters
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Mass protest in Japan against deployment of US aircraft Tokyo, September 9
Protesters demanded the United States and Japan immediately scrap plans to deploy 12 MV-22 Ospreys at the Futenma US base on Okinawa and shut down the Futenma base in the crowded city of Ginowan. The turnout at the main rally was estimated by organisers at more than 1,00,000. Okinawan media put the number at "tens of thousands". "We don't want the Osprey, the world's most dangerous aircraft" read a placard at the mass rally at a seaside park near the base, according to television footage. "Osprey. No!" said another. Similar rallies were staged on two smaller islands in the Okinawa island chain and in Tokyo several thousand people circled the Japanese parliament building. The Osprey has rotors that allow it to take off like a helicopter. It can refuel in the air, allowing it to cover big distances in a region where concerns have mounted over the rise of China. Ginowan mayor Atsushi Sakima told the rally that the safety of the hybrid transport aircraft "has not been guaranteed". In April, an MV-22 Osprey crashed in Morocco, killing two Marines. Another variant of the aircraft crashed in June in Florida, injuring five crew members, although US officials said the accident was not due to mechanical problems. Concerns heightened further when an MV-22 made an emergency landing in a residential area outside a Marine base in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on Thursday. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of Japan's concerns over the Osprey's safety on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Russia yesterday, according to Japanese media. The US and Japan have been bogged down for years in talks to relocate the Futenma base, which locals want to see moved away from the island chain. — AFP
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Death sentence awarded to fugitive Iraqi Vice-President Baghdad, September 9 Hashemi, a Sunni, fled the country earlier this year after authorities accused him of running a death squad. His case triggered a crisis in the power-sharing government among Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish political blocs. "The high criminal court issued a death sentence by hanging against Tareq al-Hashemi after he was convicted," Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, a spokesman for the judiciary council said. Hashemi and his son-in-law were both found guilty of two murders. Under Iraqi law, a conviction is followed immediately by sentencing. The death sentence can be appealed. Since the last American troops left in December, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government has been hamstrung by political deadlock among the Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs. Hashemi, who is in Turkey, has accused Maliki of conducting a political witch-hunt against Sunni opponents, but the government said it was a judicial case. After the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of Iraq's Shi'ite majority to power, many Iraqi Sunnis feel they have been sidelined. — PTI
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Ephedrine Case The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) on Saturday declared Federal Textile Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin, former PM Yousuf Raza Gilani's son Ali Musa Gilani, and former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Khushnood Akhtar Lashari as absconders in its challan submitted in connection with the ephedrine case before the Special Narcotics Substances Court. The challan submitted to the court by ANF Deputy Director Abid Zulfiqar concerned the force's investigation of former Director General, Health, Dr Asad Hafeez, the successor to Dr Rasheed Juma. According to the challan, Dr Hafeez misused his authority in the allocation and local sale conversion of 2,500 kg ephedrine to two pharmaceutical companies — Berlex Lab International and Danas Pharmaceutical. Former Director-General of Health, Dr Rasheed Juma, who turned approver, said Musa Gilani and Khushnood Lashari had pressurised him to allocate 6,000 kg ephedrine to Berlex Lab. Dr Juma said Sheikh Ansar was an accomplice of Shahabuddin, Musa and Lashari who were behind the allocation and local sale conversion of the controlled chemicals. The ANF alleged that the ephedrine quota had been sold to smugglers who sent it to Iran via Quetta and Taftan.
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Provincial Elections Colombo, September 9 While UPFA won comfortable majorities in the north central province and south central Sabaragamuva provincial councils, it also managed to emerge as the single largest party in the multi-ethnic eastern province, above the ethnic Tamil party. The results were a setback to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), once a proxy of LTTE, that was banking on Tamil support to be voted to power in the former battleground state where the Tamil Tigers were defeated in 2007. President Mahinda Rajapaksa had called snap elections to win public approval of his development agenda and to answer the international critics of his campaign against the LTTE's separatist war. In the Sinhalese-dominated north central and south western provincial council, the ruling party won a total of 49 out of 77 seats. However, the more keenly watched fight was in the multi- ethnic eastern provincial council, where the election had been billed as a test of the political inclination of the Tamils in the aftermath of a military end to their demand for self rule. In the eastern provincial council, the UPFA emerged as the single largest party winning 14 seats in the 37-member council, while the TNA won 11 seats, and the UNP won 4 seats. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, that is in alliance with the rulian coalition at the Centre but fought the provincial election independently, won seven seats. — PTI
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Baghdad, September 9
Baghdad, September 9
