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Obama signs order on spending cuts worth $85 billion
Jolt to Al-Qaida: Top commander killed in Mali
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Rebels, troops die in fierce battle in Syria
4 more killed in B’desh war-crime protests
The five students arrested in connection with the murder of a blogger in Dhaka on Saturday. AFP Mumbai terror trial in Pak adjourned till March 16
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Obama signs order on spending cuts worth $85 billion Washington, March 2 Obama singed the order late yesterday night reluctantly after he and the Congressional leadership - those from the Republican party - failed to arrive at a consensus on budgetary cuts and how to address the issue of deficit. The sequester is "dumb" but is "not going to be an apocalypse", Obama said after his nearly hour-long meeting with the Congressional leaders. "At a time when our businesses have finally begun to get some traction -- hiring new workers, bringing jobs back to America -- we shouldn't be making a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things that businesses depend on and workers depend on, like education, and research, and infrastructure and defence. "It's unnecessary. And at a time when too many Americans are still looking for work, it's inexcusable," Obama said. All of this will cause a ripple effect throughout the economy, he said adding that layoffs and pay cuts means that people have less money in their pockets, and that means that they have less money to spend at local businesses. "That means lower profits. That means fewer hires. The longer these cuts remain in place, the greater the damage to our economy -- a slow grind that will intensify with each passing day," he said. "So economists are estimating that as a consequence of this sequester, that we could see growth cut by over one-half of 1 per cent. It will cost about 7,50,000 jobs at a time when we should be growing jobs more quickly. "So every time that we get a piece of economic news, over the next month, next two months, next six months, as long as the sequester is in place, we'll know that that economic news could have been better if the Congress had not failed to act," Obama said. And this is happening because of the Republicans, he alleged. "None of this is necessary. It's happening because of a choice that Republicans in the Congress have made. They've allowed these cuts to happen because they refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," he said. "As recently as yesterday, they decided to protect special interest tax breaks for the well-off and well-connected, and they think that that's apparently more important than protecting our military or middle-class families from the pain of these cuts," he said.— PTI Obamaspeak
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Jolt to Al-Qaida: Top commander killed in Mali Several newspapers in Abou Zeid's native Algeria had reported his death and Washington had described the reports as "very credible". Deby yesterday said Abou Zeid, the Mali-based operative of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was killed in fighting between Chadian troops and Islamist fighters on February 22. "On February 22, we lost several soldiers in the Ifogha mountains after destroying the jihadis' base. This was the first time there was a direct confrontation with the jihadis," he said. "Our soldiers killed two jihadi chiefs, including Zeid," said Deby, whose elite forces are among the best desert troops on the continent and have played a key role in the offensive to liberate northern Mali. Algeria's Ennahar TV reported earlier this week that Zeid was killed in Mali along with 40 other militants. In Washington, a US official said reports of Zeid’s death seemed "very credible" and that if Zeid was indeed slain, "it would be a significant blow to the Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb". — AFP
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Rebels, troops die in fierce battle in Syria Damascus, March 2 "Fierce clashes pitting rebel fighters from several battalions against regular troops have raged since dawn on the outskirts of Raqa city," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "Army troops shelled several city neighbourhoods, as well as the outskirts, while the clashes left many troops and rebels dead," the Britain-based group said without giving exact numbers. "Explosions could be heard in the city, and towers of smoke could be seen rising into the sky,” it said. Both the Observatory and activists in Raqa said the army was using helicopters to strafe rebels in some parts of the city, in a rare escalation of violence in the provincial capital. Raqa is located near Syria's northern border with Turkey and Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said it has become home to 800,000 people who were forced to flee other war-torn parts of Syria. Dawn mortar attacks today on Raqa's Masaken Shuhada area forced many people to flee, Rahman said. "Because of the large number of civilians who have sought shelter in Raqa from other parts of Syria, the rebel Free Syrian Army had an agreement not to assault the city," he said. "Saturday's battle was a rare but intense escalation." Fresh battles also rocked Daraya, a key rebel enclave south-west of Damascus which the army has fought to take back from insurgents for several weeks, said the watchdog. — AFP Syria flays US aid to anti-govt forces Damascus: Syrian state media has criticised the Obama administration's decision to provide aid to rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, warning that the move could harm US interests in the Middle East.
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4 more killed in B’desh war-crime protests Dhaka, March 2 The Bangladesh police opened fire at JI protesters, killing three persons outside the port city of Chittagong. Two persons, including a teenage boy, were killed in a gunfight between Jamaat and Shibir activists and law enforcers in the Satkania area in the morning, the Daily Star reported. In the Jaldhaka area, the police opened fire to disperse unruly protesters leading to the death of 15-year-old Atiqul Islam. With violence showing no signs of abating, paramilitary border guards have been deployed across the country to beef up security and ease tension that has gripped the nation. Violence broke out after 73-year-old Delwar Hossain Sayedee, vice-president of the JI, was sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal on Thursday. Meanwhile, five students of North South University were arrested last night in connection with the killing of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haidar. Rajib, a blogger and activist of Shahbagh movement, was brutally killed by miscreants in the capital's Mirpur area on February 15. — PTI
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Mumbai terror trial in Pak adjourned till March 16 Islamabad, March 2 Anti-terrorism court Judge Chaudhry Habib-ur-Rehman, who is conducting proceedings behind closed doors at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, put off the case till March 16 after prosecutors failed to submit an undertaking from Indian authorities that the Pakistani commission would be allowed to cross-examine four key witnesses in Mumbai. Chief prosecutor Chaudhry Zulifqar Ali told the court that the Indian government was yet to respond to Pakistan's request for a written assurance regarding the cross-examination of witnesses in Mumbai. "We are awaiting the Indian government's response," he said. Defence lawyer Riaz Cheema told PTI after the proceedings that the ball was now in the Indian Government's court. "It (the Indian government) accuses us of delaying the case but now it is taking too much time to entertain the Pakistani request," he said. "We don't want to repeat this exercise (of visiting India) if we are not given the statements of the witnesses and allowed to cross-examine them," Cheema said. The Pakistani judicial commission's visit to India has already been delayed by several weeks over the issue of the assurance that members of the panel would be allowed to cross-examine the Indian witnesses. — PTI
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Dhaka, March 2
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