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As US hardens line on North Korea, South may pay price
Suicide attack kills 12 near US consulate
US: UN arms treaty not harmful to India’s security interests
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Bosnia’s ‘Monster of Grbavica’ gets 45-yr jail for war crimes
The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft blasts off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome on Friday. — AFP PPP’s Noor Alam Khan richest member of outgoing Pak House
Mandela in hospital for second day, making ‘steady progress’
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As US hardens line on North Korea, South may pay price
Seoul, March 29 New leaders in Seoul, Beijing and most importantly, an untested 30-year-old in Pyongyang who has to prove he is capable of facing down a perceived threat from the United States, have raised the stakes in a month-long standoff that risks flaring into a conflict. "It seems that Kim Jong-un is in the driving seat of a train that has been taken on a joyride," said Lee Min-yong, North Korea expert at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul. With the looming April 15 celebrations to commemorate the birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current ruler, and large chunks of North Korea's peasant army due to head to farms for spring planting, the crisis may have been lurching to a close before the American bombers' flights on Thursday. Instead, pictures of Kim Jong-un released by the state-owned KCNA news agency showed him sketching out a response to the stealth bomber flights and depicted the possible paths of North Korean missile attacks on US bases in the Pacific and on the United States itself. The missile threat to US bases in the Pacific and certainly to the continental United States may be overstated, given the untested nature of North Korea's longer-range missiles. But the risk to South Korea is real. Seoul is just over 40 km from the massed artillery and battle-proven short-range Scud missiles placed north of the demilitarised zone that separates the two sides. And North Korea has proved, as recently as 2010, that it is capable of launching strikes on the South. In that year, it was charged with sinking a South Korean naval vessel and shelled an island close to the maritime border. A study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies says North Korea keeps 80 per cent of its estimated firepower within 100 km of the zone. This includes approximately 7,00,000 troops, 8,000 artillery systems and 2,000 tanks, it said. — Reuters
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Suicide attack kills 12 near US consulate
Islamabad, March 29 The attacker, who was on a motorcycle, detonated his explosive vest when the convoy of Frontier Constabulary commandant Abdul Majeed Khan Marwat slowed down near a checkpost in the Sadar area within Peshawar cantonment. Marwat remained safe, though his vehicle was damaged. Six persons, including two women, were killed instantly while six others succumbed to their injuries in the Lady Reading Hospital, officials said. Two security personnel were among the dead. Officials said four Frontier Constabulary personnel were among the injured. Some of the wounded were in a serious condition, they said. Marwat said his convoy was the target of the attack and the explosion occurred a short distance from his vehicle. — PTI |
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US: UN arms treaty not harmful to India’s security interests
United Nations, March 29 "While I appreciate the concerns that has been expressed very clearly by India's representative here, my own view is that this treaty will not be harmful to India's security and certainly not in any way harm the very strong bilateral relationship between India and the US," said Tom Countryman, head of the US delegation to the Arms Trade Treaty Conference. Countryman was responding to questions on the concerns raised by India on the draft text of the treaty, which could not be adopted by the conference in the absence of consensus among its 193 nations; which was considered to be the first step towards regulating the USD 70 billion global arms trade. Iran, Syria and North Korea opposed the final draft text on the pretext that it fails to ban sales of weapons to groups that commit "acts of aggression". Now the proponents of the treaty have scheduled to put it to vote in the UN General Assembly next week. India, which had worked hard during the negotiations, had expressed its deep concerns on the final draft. In her intervention during the closing arguments, India's Permanent Representative to Conference on Disarmament, Geneva, and head of the Indian Delegation to the Arms Trade Treaty Conference Sujata Mehta said the final version fell short of India's expectations and that of other like minded countries. — PTI |
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Bosnia’s ‘Monster of Grbavica’ gets 45-yr jail for war crimes
Sarajevo, March 29 "During systematic repression against the non-Serb population, he participated in expulsion of his victims, he committed murders, he tortured, raped and imprisoned his victims," judge Zoran Bozic said at the sentencing in a packed Sarajevo courtroom. The sentence against Vlahovic, a Montenegrin, is the most severe delivered for war crimes by a Bosnian court. Dressed in a light blue shirt, Vlahovic (43) showed no reaction when the verdict was read out, drawing applause from members of victims' associations in the heavily guarded courtroom. Vlahovic, sentenced on all 60 counts in his indictment, committed the crimes between May and July 1992, in three Sarajevo neighbourhoods controlled by Serb forces during the war -- Grbavica, Kovacici and Vraca. "He killed 31 persons, took 14 persons who have still been considered missing, raped 13 women," prosecutor Behaija Krnjic said in a closing statement, having said earlier in the trial that Vlahovic's "name was the synonym for evil". Vlahovic, who had pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial in April 2011, was charged with the "executions, enslavement, rape, physical and psychological torture" of Muslim and Croat civilians, as well as looting, according to the indictment. Calling for Vlahovic to be jailed for 45 years, Krnjic said: "Such a sentence would be the most just, but even that one will still be insufficient to heal the suffering of the victims." A total of 112 prosecution witnesses were heard at the trial, including a number of women who testified behind closed doors to having been raped by Vlahovic, according to Krnjic. "Vlahovic was not even bothered with the fact that one of his victims was highly pregnant at the time of the rape," the prosecutor said. During the trial Vlahovic insulted a witness, a local journalist who reported on his crimes during the war. He also sent an intimidating letter to the family of a victim, the prosecution said. The case concerned some of the "cruelest war crimes committed during the war, including torture, rapes and executions committed before the eyes of family members of the victims," it said. — AFP
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Russian spaceship docks with orbiting station
Moscow, March 29 Chris Cassidy of the United States and Russians Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin travelled six hours in the capsule before linking up with the space station's Russian Rassvet research module over the Pacific Ocean, just off Peru, at 04.35 GMT. "It's such a beautiful sight, hard to believe my eyes," the 59-year-old Vinogradov, who had been in space in 1997 and 2006, was heard saying on NASA TV. The incoming crew will spend five months in space before returning to Earth. About two hours passed before pressure equalised between the capsule and the station, allowing safe entrance. "Hey, is anyone home?" joked Vinogradov as he floated into the station. Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin were greeted with cheers and hugs by American Tom Mashburn, Russian Roman Romanenko and Canadian Chris Hadfield, who have been at the station since December. The astronauts then had a brief session with Mission Control outside Moscow, talking with friends and relatives. "You're such a star! I'm really proud of you!" Misurkin's tearful mother said. The 35-year-old Russian is on his first flight into space. Their mission began with a late-night launch from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan. It was the first time a space crew has taken such a direct route to the orbiting lab. Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin are the first crew to reach the station after only four orbits instead of the standard 50-hour flight to reach the station. The new manoeuvre was tested successfully by three Russian Progress cargo ships, unmanned versions of the Soyuz used to ferry supplies to the space station. Vinogradov said at a pre-launch news conference that the shorter flight path would reduce the crew's fatigue and allow the astronauts to be in top shape for the docking. —AP
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PPP’s Noor Alam Khan richest member of outgoing Pak House Islamabad, March 29 Khan, who has several properties in the northwestern city of Peshawar, was declared the richest parliamentarian, thanks to his assets, including gold worth Rs 10 million and a Toyota Land Cruiser. Dasti, a PPP leader from Punjab and a fierce critic of former Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, was the poorest lawmaker with no known assets or wealth, according to figures released by the poll panel yesterday. The club of billionaire lawmakers includes Arbab Alamgir Khan and Mehboobullah Jan of the PPP and PML-N's Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who owns a private airline and has assets worth Rs 2.3 billion. Former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf has assets worth Rs 212.75 million. The Election Commission compiled the data from statements of assets and liabilities for 2011-2012 that were submitted by members of the Senate or Upper House of parliament and the recently dissolved National Assembly or Lower House. The erstwhile ruling Pakistan People's Party, registered with the Election Commission as the PPP-Parliamentarians, stated that its total assets are worth only Rs 435,397. The PML-Q said its total assets were worth Rs 51.47 million while Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf declared an income of Rs 179.25 million and expenses of Rs 136.92 million. Out of over 230 political parties registered with the poll panel, only 77 submitted details of their assets. — PTI
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Mandela in hospital for second day, making ‘steady progress’
Johannesburg, March 29 "The Presidency wishes to advise that former President Nelson Mandela is in good spirits and enjoyed a full breakfast this morning. The doctors report that he is making steady progress," President Jacob Zuma's office said in a statement as Mandela was spending a second day in a hospital. The statement said 94-year-old Mandela "remains under treatment and observation in hospital". The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was re-admitted to an undisclosed hospital in Pretoria before midnight on Wednesday for the third time in four months. Presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj thanked media and the public for their cooperation in respecting the privacy of Mandela and his family. Earlier this month, Mandela spent a night at a Pretoria hospital where he underwent a successful medical examination. Three months ago, he was admitted for 18 days for treatment of the lung infection and surgery to extract gallstones. It was his longest stint in hospital since his release from prison in 1990. Mandela had a long history of lung problems, dating back to the time when he was a political prisoner on Robben Island during apartheid. While in jail he contracted tuberculosis. Mandela, one of the world's most revered statesmen, served as South Africa's first black president from 1994 to 1999 and is widely regarded as the father of the nation for leading the struggle against apartheid and for democracy. — PTI
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Dual office: Pak Prez gets reprieve Car bombs kill 23 in Iraq Breedlove is new NATO commander
‘Harry Potter’ actor Richard Griffiths dies Bangladesh clashes leave five dead
Building collapse kills 15 in Tanzania
250 Egypt-Gaza tunnels demolished
Two students beaten to death in China
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