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Deadly Monday in Pakistan, Iraq
Wave of attacks claims 48 lives in Iraq
Pak may disintegrate again: AQ Khan
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Landslide victory for Japan’s Oppn LDP
Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Monday. Abe’s LDP and its ally won the elections with a 2/3rd majority. — AFP
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Deadly Monday in Pakistan, Iraq
At least 20 persons were killed when a car bomb went off in a busy bazaar of Jamrud near Peshawar on Monday morning. Over 40 persons were wounded, some critically. The explosives-laden car, parked at Fauji Market in the Jamrud area of Khyber Agency, went off with a loud bang. The dead and injured included women and children. More than 10 cars were destroyed and several shops damaged by the explosion. Security forces cordoned off the area as traders closed their shops. Troops conducted a search operation as officials scoured the site for clues. The bomb exploded when scores of people were waiting for buses to take them across the northwest and to other parts of the country. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Several militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam, are active in Khyber Agency. The explosion occurred within 24 hours of an audacious attack on Peshawar airfield which is used for civilian flights and also by the Pakistan Air Force. All the 10 militants, one soldier and two policemen were killed during about 16 hours of operation by the army and police force that concluded on Sunday afternoon. (With PTI inputs)
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Wave of attacks claims 48 lives in Iraq Baghdad, December 17 Today was the deadliest day in Iraq since November 29, when 50 persons were killed, and the latest violence comes after attacks killed 19 persons and wounded 77 yesterday. In the deadliest attack today, a car bomb exploded at a car dealership in north Baghdad, killing at least 11 persons and wounding at least 40 others, security and medical officials said. Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint on the highway west of Tikrit, killing one policeman and wounding three others, a senior police officer said. A police patrol chased the gunmen, who abandoned their car and then detonated explosives in it, killing four more policemen and wounding two others, the officer said. In the village of Al-Buslaibi, north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting an army patrol killed three soldiers, army and police officers said. And gunmen attacked an army checkpoint in the north Iraqi city of Mosul, killing one soldier, an army officer and a doctor said. A car bomb in Khaznah killed seven persons and wounded 12 others, while two car bombs near a Shiite place of worship killed five and wounded 26 in the northern flashpoint town of Tuz Khurmatu, security and medical sources said. Three roadside bombs exploded near Baquba, killing one person and wounding four others, while a magnetic "sticky bomb" and a shooting in the city killed two persons, the police and medics said. In Diyala province, gunmen wounded three Kurds in Jalawla, while a sticky bomb killed two Kurds in Baladruz. A salvo of 10 mortar rounds slammed into Rutba town in Anbar province, killing two and wounding nine, officials said, and a car bomb near Dujail north of Baghdad killed one Iraqi and wounded at least 10 Iranian pilgrims. — AFP
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Pak may disintegrate again: AQ Khan Islamabad, December 17 "The country is at present in a worse situation than it was in 1971. It is plagued with all kinds of social evils. If we don't rectify this soon, the day will not be far off when we disintegrate again. In order to rectify the situation, the first and foremost necessity is to disengage ourselves from the foreign war and put our own house in order," Khan wrote in an article "Events of 1971" in the opinion section of a newspaper. Khan was referring to the war of the India-Pakistan war of 1971, which led to the birth of Bangladesh. He observed that all nations go through ups and downs - they have glorious periods and tragic ones. People usually ignore and forget the tragic ones while celebrating the good events with great pomp. "It is most unfortunate that we in Pakistan have also not learnt any lessons from our past tragic mistakes," he wrote. — IANS
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Landslide victory for Japan’s Oppn LDP Tokyo, December 17 Abe said once he formed his Cabinet on December 26, he would instruct ministers to produce a joint statement with the Bank of Japan (BOJ) that will give it a 2 per cent inflation target, double the current goal. The ex-premier, who won a second chance to lead the nation when his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) surged back to power in a Sunday election, also vowed to improve what he called strategic relations with China while standing firm on the sovereignty of islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China. The NHK public broadcaster said the LDP had won 294 seats in the 480-member lower house. Its ally, the New Komeito party, won 31 seats, giving the two the two-thirds majority needed to over-rule most matters in the upper house, where no party has a majority. Turnout was a post-war low of just above 59 per cent, according to media estimates. Abe campaigned with a call for "unlimited" monetary easing by the BOJ and promising a surge in public spending to snap the world's third-biggest economy out of its fourth recession since 2000, and persistent low-grade deflation. "It was very rare for monetary policy to be the focus of attention in an election, but there was strong public support to our view," Abe, wearing a black suit and a pink tie, told his first post-election news conference. —
Reuters
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At least 20 persons were killed when a car bomb went off in a busy bazaar of Jamrud near Peshawar on Monday morning. Over 40 persons were wounded, some critically.
Pakistan is at present in a worse situation than it was in 1971, said disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, warning that "the day will not be far off when we disintegrate again" if social evils are not rectified soon.
Japan's next Prime Minister, buoyed by a landslide election victory, piled pressure on the central bank today as it prepared for a policy meeting, saying voters had overwhelmingly backed his call for aggressive monetary stimulus.
