W O R L D

Reformist leader Li Keqiang is China’s new Premier 
Beijing, March 15
China's reformist leader Li Keqiang was today chosen as the new Premier of the world's second largest economy as the Communist giant gears up to revive growth and grapple growing corruption, completing a well-choreographed once-in-a-decade leadership change.
Newly elected Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) shakes hands with former Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing on Friday. — AFP

Syria’s conflict enters 3rd year; France, UK willing to arm rebels 
Damascus, March 15
France has joined Britain in voicing its willingness to supply weapons to Syria's rebels if it cannot convince its European partners to lift an arms embargo as the conflict enters its third year.

Violin played on Titanic found 
London, March 15
The violin played on board the Titanic, as the doomed liner sank in the north Atlantic, has been found in an attic in the UK, and is set to fetch more than £4,00,000 at an auction.

Truck bomb plot foiled in Kabul
Kabul, March 15
Afghanistan's intelligence agency said today that it had foiled a massive truck bomb plot in which 7,800 kg of explosives could have wiped out an area of Kabul.

The truck carrying 7,800 kg of explosives could have wiped out an area of Kabul

Reformist leader Li Keqiang is China’s new Premier 

Beijing, March 15
China's reformist leader Li Keqiang was today chosen as the new Premier of the world's second largest economy as the Communist giant gears up to revive growth and grapple growing corruption, completing a well-choreographed once-in-a-decade leadership change.

With the election of 57-year-old Li, an English-speaking bureaucrat, the country has replaced old guards at all levels in the government.

Li, the Vice-Premier in the old administration headed by outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao, was elected by about 3,000 deputies of the National People's Congress (NPC), known as the rubber-stamp Parliament for routinely endorsing the decisions of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

Together with new President Xi Jinping, Li, ranked No. 2 in the CPC hierachy, is expected to steer the party and the country for the next ten years just the way outgoing leaders Hu Jintao and Wen did for a decade.

Li's name was proposed by Xi, who is also the General Secretary of the CPC besides the chief of military and who succeeded Hu as President yesterday.

Li won 99.7 per cent of the 2,949 votes counted, with just three votes against him and six abstentions, officials said.

Like yesterday's election of Xi, Li's nomination too was foregone conclusion as he was part of the all-powerful seven member Standing Committee of the CPC which was elected in November last year.

Unlike his predecessor, Li is ranked higher in the CPC which gives him far more political clout than Wen, who was ranked third in the party after Wu Bangguo, the outgoing head of the NPC. — PTI 

Change of guard

Li Keqiang was elected the Premier by about 3,000 deputies of the National People's Congress

Li won 99.7 per cent of the 2,949 votes counted, with just three votes against him and six abstentions

With the election of Li, the country has replaced old guards at all levels in the government

Syria’s conflict enters 3rd year; France, UK willing to arm rebels 

Damascus, March 15
France has joined Britain in voicing its willingness to supply weapons to Syria's rebels if it cannot convince its European partners to lift an arms embargo as the conflict enters its third year.

"Our goal is to convince our partners at the end of May, and if possible before. If by chance there is a blockage by one or two countries, then France will take its responsibilities," President Francois Hollande said yesterday after talks on the first day of a European Union summit in Brussels.

"Political solutions have now failed (in Syria), despite every pressure," Hollande said, on the eve of Friday's second anniversary of the start of the bloody conflict between the Syrian regime and the rebels seeking to topple it.

The United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising erupted in mid-March 2011.

"We must go further because for two years, there has been a clear willingness by (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad to use every means to hit at his own people," he added.

France said earlier that Paris and London were pushing for the EU to drop the arms ban -- a move opposed by some European governments, who fear a flood of weapons into Syria will only escalate the conflict.

Syrian opposition activists have called on London and Paris to provide heavy weaponry to tilt the balance in the two-year uprising. The Assad government, like its key foreign ally Russia, said any such arms shipments would be a "flagrant violation" of international law.

The US may look favourably on the French and British moves to give more aid to Syrian rebel forces, the State Department had said. —AFP

Violin played on Titanic found 

London, March 15
The violin played on board the Titanic, as the doomed liner sank in the north Atlantic, has been found in an attic in the UK, and is set to fetch more than £4,00,000 at an auction.

The wooden instrument, now unplayable, was used by leader of the band Wallace Hartley as it famously played on while the liner sank. It was thought to have been lost in the Atlantic in the 1912 disaster.

It wasn't until 2006 when the son of an amateur musician, who had been casually given the instrument by her violin teacher, unearthed it in the attic of her home in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

After seven years of testing by experts, the water-stained violin proved to be the one played by Hartley on the night of the tragedy, The Telegraph reported. There are two long cracks on its body that are said to have been opened up by moisture damage.

The corroded engraved silver plate screwed onto the base of the fiddle provided scientists with the key proof of its authenticity. The historic violin will go on public display at the Belfast City Hall, where Titanic was built, at the end of this month. — PTI

Musical relief

Within minutes of Titanic striking an iceberg on April 14, 1912, Hartley was instructed to assemble the band and play music in order to maintain calm

The eight musicians gallantly performed on the chilly boat deck of the Titanic while the passengers lined up for lifeboats

The band carried on until the bitter end, famously playing a final hymn of 'Nearer, My God, To Thee'

Truck bomb plot foiled in Kabul

Kabul, March 15
Afghanistan's intelligence agency said today that it had foiled a massive truck bomb plot in which 7,800 kg of explosives could have wiped out an area of Kabul.

The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the attack had been planned by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network and the Taliban leadership, though it offered no concrete evidence of the plot.

Shafiqullah Tahiri, spokesman for the spy agency, said the explosives had been found on Tuesday, hidden in cement bags in a truck on the eastern outskirts of the capital.

"Based on an investigation by the NDS, these explosives would have destroyed everything within 1,500 metres," Tahiri told reporters.

"It would have been a catastrophe for people living in the city if it had been detonated. The NDS forces discovered it due to prior information that the terrorists were organising this attack in a crowded part of Kabul," he said.

During the NDS raid early on Tuesday, five suspected plotters were killed in an exchange of fire, Tahiri added. Two other persons were arrested.

Kabul has been hit by a series of bomb and suicide attacks in recent years as Taliban insurgents battle against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

The most recent deadly attack was on last Saturday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the defence ministry, killing nine persons while US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagle was visiting a US base nearby in the city. — AFP

BRIEFLY

Pak Opposition rejects govt’s list for caretaker PM
Islamabad: Pakistan's main opposition PML-N party on Friday stepped up the ante in negotiations for choosing a caretaker Prime Minister to oversee the upcoming polls by rejecting all three candidates proposed by the government. Leader of Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, a senior leader of the PML-N, said his party had reservations about all three candidates proposed on Thursday by Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. — PTI

snowy Spring: People walk past traditional Maslenitsa spring festival decorations during a snowstorm in Moscow on Friday. — Reuters

Rapid HIV treatment ‘functional cure’ for AIDS
LONDON: Treating people with HIV rapidly after they have become infected with the virus that causes AIDS may be enough to achieve a "functional cure" in a small proportion of patients diagnosed early, according to a new research. Scientists in France, who followed 14 patients who were treated very swiftly with HIV drugs but then stopped treatment, found that even when they had been off therapy for more than seven years, they still showed no signs of the virus rebounding. — Reuters

Sri Lanka releases 34 Indian fishermen
Colombo: Sri Lanka on Friday released 34 of the 53 Indian fishermen who were taken into custody by its navy since Wednesday. The fishermen were handed over to Indian officials in Delft from where they will be brought to Jaffna. The released fishermen would stay in Jaffna pending repatriation. — PTI

Don’t give into pessimism: Pope to Church
Vatican City: Pope Francis on Friday urged the troubled Catholic Church not to give in to "pessimism" and to find new ways of spreading the faith "to the ends of the earth". "Let us not give in to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day," the 76-year-old Argentinian told an audience of the world's cardinals on his third day in office. — AFP