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Briton recounts his escape |
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Nine Qaida men killed in US drone strikes on Yemen
Cameron to deliver EU speech this week
3 Britons dead, 4 feared killed
in Algeria hostage crisis
Airstrike kills 7 near Damascus
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25 hostage bodies found after Algeria bloodbath In Amenas (Algeria), January 20 Citing security sources, Anis Rahmani of private television channel Ennahar said the army discovered “the bodies of 25 hostages” as they secured the sprawling In Amenas Sahara site. Communications Minister Mohamed Said earlier told a radio station: "I fear that it (the toll) may be revised upward," after at least 23 foreigners and Algerians, mostly hostages, were killed since Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if the 23 were included in today’s 25 toll. “In all, nine Japanese were killed,” one Algerian witness identified as Brahim said a day after special forces swooped on the gas plant run by Britain’s BP, Norway's Statoil and Sonatrach of Algeria to end the siege. The first three were killed as they tried to escape from a bus taking them to the airport as the militant attack unfolded, witnesses said. "We were all afraid when we heard bursts of gunfire on Wednesday, after we realised that they had just killed our Japanese colleagues who tried to flee from the bus," said Riad, who works for Japan's JGC Corp engineering firm. The gunmen then took the others to the residential compound, where they had seized hundreds of hostages, he said. "A terrorist shouted 'open the door!' with a strong north American accent, and opened fire. Two other Japanese died then and we found four other Japanese bodies" in the compound, he added, choking with emotion. In Tokyo, a foreign ministry official said: "We are in a position not to comment on this kind of information at all. Please understand." Governments scrambled to track down their missing citizens as more details emerged of the deadly showdown after Islamists of the "Signatories in Blood" group raided the plant, demanding an end to French military intervention in Mali. — AFP
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London, January 20 Hundreds of Algerian workers and scores of foreigners escaped. Alan Wright, now safe at home in Aberdeenshire in northern Scotland, told Sky News television he hid in an office block within the In Amenas complex for a day and a night with three other expatriate workers and a group of Algerian colleagues. Cut off from the world, the men could hear sporadic gunfire throughout the first day of the crisis. During the night, which was quieter, he briefly called his wife who was desperately waiting for news at home with the couple's two daughters. Early the next morning, hours before the Algerian army began storming the compound, the Algerian workers hiding in Wright’s block decided to try and escape. "The national employees had convinced themselves that there was nobody going to come and get us, we weren't going to be rescued because they didn't know where we were. So they decided that they were going to cut the fence and make a break for it. "When you don't know what's out there and you know the terrorists are dressed the same as the security forces, it was a huge decision, do you stay or do you go?" Wright said he wanted to stay at first, but in the heat of the moment he and the other expatriates decided to follow. The men cut through two wire fences. Within 30 seconds they were out in the desert and running away. Wright said the group of about 30 men got about a km away when they saw a group of uniformed men in arms coming towards them. — Reuters
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Obama sworn in for second term
Washington, January 20 Gathered with his family in the Blue Room on the White House's ceremonial main floor, Obama put his hand on a Bible and recited the 35-word oath that was read to him by US Chief Justice John Roberts. Obama hugged his wife Michelle and said, "Thank you," after she congratulated him at the swearing-in. Obama, who became the first African-American US President four years ago, will be sworn in publicly for his second term on Monday in a much bigger ceremony before an audience of as many as 800,000 people outside the US Capitol. Sunday's ceremony was needed because the US Constitution mandates that the president take office on Jan. 20. Planners opted to go with a private ceremony on the actual date and then hold the symbolic inaugural activities the next day. Obama will have been sworn in four times, two for each term, putting him equal to Franklin Roosevelt, who served four terms. A second swearing-in was needed in 2009 when Roberts flubbed the first one. Obama, who won a second term on November 7 by defeating Republican Mitt Romney, opens round two facing many of the same problems that dogged his first term: persistently high unemployment, crushing debt and a deep partisan divide over how to solve the issues. This has taken some of the euphoria out of Obama's second inauguration, but he got a boost at a rousing service at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Washington where he and his wife Michelle, who is sporting a new hair style featuring bangs, clapped and swayed to gospel music. "Forward, forward," shouted Pastor Ronald Braxton to his congregation, echoing an Obama election campaign slogan. Early Sunday morning, Vice-President Joe Biden was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, making her the first Hispanic judge to administer an oath of office for one of the nation's two highest offices. — Reuters
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Syria oppn, backers to meet in Paris
Paris, January 20 "The situation is horrific and Bashar must go as fast as possible," Fabius said. "There will be a meeting of the coalition in Paris in a few days - on the 28th. It's a coalition recognised by more than 100 countries, led by extremely respectable people who simply want to restore democracy in Syria," he said. Syria's opposition leaders met in Istanbul on Saturday to launch their second bid to form a transitional government. Agreement among the National Coalition, a grouping formed last November, could help address international concern about the risk of Syria disintegrating along ethnic and sectarian lines if Assad falls. Failure would highlight the divisions in the coalition, formed with Western and Gulf backing in Qatar, and undermine that support. Fabius, interviewed on radio station Europe 1, said that the Paris meeting later this month would involve the "main backers" of the opposition coalition. France has been pressing hard for an end to a 22-month conflict in which 60,000 persons have been killed, according to United Nations estimates. “This is an abominable situation, with sadly around 100 people killed a day,” Fabius said.
— Reuters 'talks on Assad’s future unacceptable'
Syria’s Foreign Minister said any discussion on Assad’s future was “unacceptable”, a week after an international envoy said the President Bashar al-Assad should not be part of a transitional government
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Nine Qaida men killed in US drone strikes on Yemen
Sanaa, January 20 Another raid struck a vehicle in the same area killing five persons including Hamad Hassan Ghreib, a member of Al-Qaeda, the tribal source later said, adding that all five belonged to the extremist group. Local sources said that two of the passengers were Saudi Qaida militants. A raid earlier in the evening targeted another vehicle transporting four persons, but a rocket missed the car allowing the passengers time to flee, a witness said. The latest raids bring to at least 23 the number of people killed in US drone strikes since attacks were intensified on December 24.
— AFP
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Cameron to deliver EU speech this week
After months of speculation, Cameron had been scheduled to deliver the speech on Friday in the Netherlands, but it was postponed because of a hostage crisis involving Britons at a gas plant in Algeria. “It will happen in the coming week. We will make an announcement about exactly when and where tomorrow," Hague told the BBC. In the speech, Cameron is expected to spell out his plans for Britain's membership of the 27-nation bloc and to promise to put any deal he struck to the British people in a referendum. According to excerpts of the planned speech that were released before the decision to postpone it, Cameron will say that Britain will drift out of the EU and the European project will fail unless the bloc tackles three major problems. The excerpts identified these as the Euro zone debt crisis, faltering competitiveness and declining public support. Some critics said a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU would be a reckless gamble with the country's future economic prospects and place in the world. They accuse Cameron of taking a huge risk in order to placate hardline Euro-sceptics in his Conservative Party who are worried about an electoral threat from the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which campaigns for an exit from the bloc. Appearing on a BBC television political programme on Sunday morning alongside UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Hague rejected the suggestion that Cameron's speech was all about Conservatives “running scared” from the UKIP threat. "No, it's about doing what is best in the interests of this country and of course also about democracy in this country," Hague
said. — Reuters To stay or not
Cameron (in pic) is expected to spell out his plans for Britain’s membership of the 27-nation bloc and to promise to put any deal he struck to the British people in a referendum
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China opposes Clinton’s island remarks
Beijing, January 20 Strongly reacting to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s comments that the US is opposed to any “unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that China is “strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposes” the remarks. China expressed strong discontentment on and firmly opposed the comment that the US side made about the Diaoyu Islands, Qin said in a statement here. China yesterday also sent a fleet of three Chinese marine surveillance ships which continued to patrol territorial waters of the islands in East China Sea. “We urged the US side to adopt a responsible attitude in regard to the issue of Diaoyu Islands,” Qin said, referring to the comments made by Clinton. In her media interaction with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida
in Washington yesterday, Clinton said that the US wants China and Japan to settle the issue peacefully.
— PTI
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Beijing plans emergency measures to control air pollution
Beijing, January 20 The rules will formalise previous ad-hoc measures, including shutting down factories, cutting back on burning coal and taking certain vehicle classes off the roads on days when pollution hits unacceptable levels. Air quality in Beijing, on many days degrees of magnitude below minimum international health standards for breathability, is of increasing concern to China's leadership because it plays into popular resentment over political privilege and rising inequality in the world's second-largest economy. Domestic media have run stories describing the expensive air purifiers government officials enjoy in their homes and offices, alongside reports of special organic farms so cadres need not risk suffering from recurring food safety scandals. Smog blanketed most of the city from late on Friday, prompting the government to warn people to reduce outdoor activities. On Saturday, an index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), rose as high as 400 in some parts in the city. A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20. The reading was still lower than last weekend, when it hit a staggering 755. Lung cancer rates in the city have shot upward by 60 percent in the last decade, according to a report by the state-run China Daily in 2011, even as smoking rates have flattened
out. — Reuters
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3 Britons dead, 4 feared killed
in Algeria hostage crisis
London, January 20 Three Britons are confirmed to have been killed and three more are believed to be dead. Another UK resident is also thought to be dead, Cameron said. The 22 other Britons caught up in the crisis are now back in the country, Foreign Secretary William Hague said. A raid by Algerian troops ended a four-day siege at the In Amenas gas facility yesterday. Algeria says at least 23 hostages and 32 militants died. Algeria's minister of communications said the final death toll might rise. The Foreign Office said the three confirmed dead included a Briton killed on Wednesday in the initial raid by militants.
— PTI
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Airstrike kills 7 near Damascus Beirut, January 20 Rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad have seized swaths of territory in northern Syria but have become bogged down in their push for Damascus, where government troops are still firmly in control. While the opposition fighters have established footholds in suburbs east and south of the capital, Assad's forces have kept them from advancing into the heart of the city. — AP Oppn leaders to meet in Paris Paris: Syrian opposition leaders will meet in Paris this month, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday, decrying an “abominable” situation in which he said 100 persons a day were being killed in an uprising against President Assad. — Reuters
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Indian-origin candidate contests key poll in German state Indian subway victim had put up a fight Imran threatens ‘tsunami march’ Six killed in Lahore plaza fire 
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London, January 20
