The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Snowden says Western states ‘in bed with’ NSA

Berlin, July 7
Fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden said the US National Security Agency (NSA)operates broad secret spying partnerships with other Western governments now complaining about its programmes, in an interview published today.

Snowden said in comments made before his exposure of US espionage practices came to light last month and printed in German news weekly Der Spiegel that the NSA spies are "in bed together with the Germans and most other Western states".

In remarks published in German, Snowden said an NSA department known as the Foreign Affairs Directorate coordinated work with foreign secret services. The partnerships are organised so that the authorities in other countries can "insulate their political leaders from the backlash" if it becomes public "how grievously they're violating global privacy", he said.

The interview was conducted by US cryptography expert Jacob Appelbaum and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras using "encrypted emails shortly before Snowden became known globally for his whistleblowing", Spiegel said.

On cooperation with Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency, Snowden said the NSA provides "analysis tools" for data passing through Germany from regions such as the Middle East.

The US government has revoked the passport of Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is seeking to evade US justice for leaking details about a vast US electronic surveillance programme to collect phone and Internet data.

He has been stranded at a Moscow airport for two weeks but three Latin American countries have now offered him asylum. His claims about widespread US spying on Western partners have sparked uproar among European allies, in particular, and threatened to derail talks on the world's largest free-trade zone due to start tomorrow.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday and agreed to a "high-level meeting" between security officials in the coming days to address intelligence matters. — AFP

14 Afghan soldiers, 64 Taliban militants killed

Kabul, July 7
A roadside bomb seriously wounded a prominent member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council today, an official said, while the government announced that recent fighting in the country has killed 14 Afghan soldiers and 64 Taliban militants.

Fazil Ahmad, the High Peace Council's chief in Ghazni province, was in critical condition in a hospital with three others who had been travelling with him when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, said deputy provincial police chief Asadullah Ensafi. The car's driver was killed.

The High Peace Council numbers about 80 members and has been tasked by President Hamid Karzai with finding a negotiated settlement with insurgents.

In Kabul, the Defense Ministry said 14 soldiers and 27 Taliban militants had been killed in fighting and in roadside bomb attacks over the previous 24 hours.

The ministry said the casualties included 10 Taliban fighters killed in a single operation in Wardak province, west of Kabul. Three soldiers were killed in Wardak by artillery fire and roadside bombs.

Seven more soldiers were killed in Helmand province by roadside bombs, and four others were killed in other attacks across the country.

The Interior Ministry, which controls the country's police forces, reported another 37 Taliban militants killed. It announced no police casualties.

The Afghan army and police, which took over security operations from NATO-led coalition forces this year, have lost 927 troops through June. — AP

Two killed, 181 hurt in San Francisco plane crash

San Francisco/Washington, July 7
At least two persons were killed and over 180 injured when an Asiana Airlines plane with three Indians among 307 on board hit the runway and engulfed into flame while landing at a San Francisco airport.

Over 300 persons on flight OZ214, however, miraculously escaped from the burned-out wreckage of the South Korean airlines' Boeing 777, using evacuation slides.

At least two persons were killed while 181 injured, most with minor injuries, officials said. Five persons, including one child, remained in critical condition at the San Francisco General Hospital, the region's main trauma centre, they said.

Three Indians were also on board the ill-fated flight of Asiana Airlines from Seoul to San Francisco.

Indian Ambassador to South Korea Vishnu Prakash said there were three Indian passengers on board the plane and one of them suffered collar bone fracture.

"ASIANA mishap at SFO: 3 Indians on board too. 1 suffered collar bone fracture & other minor injuries. Wish ASIANA gives out complete info," he wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Authorities said one person was unaccounted for. Federal Aviation official said the tail ripped off the airplane as it was touching down on the San Francisco airport runway about 11:30 am local time after arriving from Seoul.

There were 16 crew members on the flight, in addition to 291 passengers, said Asiana Airlines sources. The manifest included 141 Chinese passengers, 77 South Koreans and 61 Americans etc, Asiana Airlines said in a statement.

"The Airlines is currently investigating the specific cause of the incident," it said, adding that the airlines will continue to cooperate with the investigation of all associated government agencies and to facilitate this an emergency response centre has been established at its headquarters.

The US National Transportation Safety Board has launched a full go-team to San Francisco to investigate the crash.

"The crash occurred while the aircraft was landing at the San Francisco International Airport," it said in a statement.

"We have not determined what the focus of this investigation is yet. Everything is on the table at this point. The team will include people focused on operations; human performance; survival factors; airport operations; and aircraft systems, structure and power," the NTSB chairwoman, Deborah Hersman, told reporters in Washington. — PTI

Islamist cleric pleads ‘not guilty’ to Jordan terror charges

Amman, July 7
Islamist cleric Abu Qatada pleaded not guilty today to terror charges pressed by Jordanian military prosecutors just hours after his deportation from Britain, his lawyer said.

Reporters were not allowed into the courtroom to hear the charges being read out despite a pledge by Information Minister Mohammad Momani of "transparency" in Jordan's handling of Abu Qatada's retrial on charges that already earned him a life sentence in his absence.

"State security court prosecutors charged Abu Qatada with conspiracy to carry our terrorist acts," a judicial official told AFP.

"He was remanded in judicial custody for 15 days in the Muwaqqar prison," in eastern Jordan, the official added without elaborating.

But Abu Qatada's lawyer Taysir Diab said he would make a bail application tomorrow in light of the not guilty plea.

"Abu Qatada pleaded not guilty. I will appeal tomorrow to the court to release him on bail," Diab told AFP.

Jordanian law gives Abu Qatada the right to a retrial with him present in the dock, following his deportation from Britain earlier today which ended a decade-long legal battle.

Abu Qatada was condemned to death in absentia in 1999 for conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, including on the American school in Amman, but the sentence was immediately commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour.

In 2000, he was sentenced in his absence to 15 years for plotting to carry out terror attacks on tourists in Jordan during millennium celebrations. — AFP

Egypt govt wrangles over PM post as rival rallies raise tension

Cairo, July 7
In another dramatic twist in the saga of political upheavals in Egypt, the new leadership wrangled over the choice of liberal leader Mohamed ElBaradei as Prime Minister, even as rallies for and against ousting of President Mohamed Mursi raised fears of violence.

The rallies raised tension as the new coalition led by interim President Adly Mansour that backed Mursi's ouster wavered over the choice of Nobel Prize laureate ElBaradei as interim prime minister to lead the country out of the bloody crisis.

ElBaradei met Mansour for two hours yesterday afternoon, and "discussions and consultations are ongoing," presidential adviser Ahmed al-Muslimani said on state-run TV.

"Tomorrow, we expect to name the prime minister and the ministers." He added that ElBaradei was "the logical choice" among a list of names being considered.

If 71-year-old ElBaradei is selected, it would signal a secular shift just days after a military coup ousted nation's first democratically elected president Mursi.

Officials had earlier named ElBaradei, a former head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, for the post of Prime Minister.

News of his appointment was criticised by the Salafist Nour Party, which said it would not work with him.

Reports of the appointment of ElBaradei caused anger among supporters of Mursi, who want to see him returned to power.

Supporters and opponents of the ousted president planned rival demonstrations today, with the former demanding Mursi's reinstatement and the latter supporting his overthrow.

Thousands of supporters of Mursi protested outside his place of detention in Cairo on Sunday. Demonstrators at the Republican Guard barracks shouted "Mursi, Mursi, God is greatest!" and "Peaceful, peaceful!" as soldiers and policemen looked on from behind barbed wire. —Agencies

Egypt approaching civil war: Putin

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday warned that the standoff in Egypt between supporters and foes of deposed President Mohamed Mursi threatened to degenerate into a civil war. — AFP

Scotland Yard rocked by graft scandal

London, July 7
Scotland Yard, one of the world's premier police forces, has been rocked by a major corruption scandal over claims that some of its most sensitive units had officers in the pay of Britain's gangsters.

Three Metropolitan police whistleblowers say David Hunt, a London businessman named by a judge last week as the head of an organised crime network, used "sleepers" inside the Yard to help him evade justice for three decades. According to an expose by 'The Sunday Times', Hunt used a network of corrupt serving and former officers and details of the claims can be revealed for the first time after the newspaper won a libel victory against Hunt last week.

"I am satisfied that it was reasonable to describe Hunt as the head of an organised crime group implicated in murder, drug trafficking and fraud," said Justice Simon in his ruling. — PTI

Prince William to break protocol for his baby

London, July 7
Breaking Britain's time-honoured convention of informing a monarch of any royal birth with an official notice, Prince William will himself call his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II when his baby is born.

"The duke intends to tell the Queen himself," a palace source told 'The Sunday Times'. After his wife Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, delivers the Queen's newest great-grandchild, the royal couple's private secretary will inform Prime Minister David Cameron and a handful of others, including the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Meanwhile, the Queen has put a high-speed helicopter on standby to take Prince William to Kate's bedside whenever she goes into labour. — PTI

Double the menace: Dennis to have a girl as sidekick!

London, July 7
Dennis joined by new menace! Dennis the Menace, the popular and naughty cartoon schoolboy, will now have a black girl as sidekick who can match him for mischief. He has been terrorising neighbours with stink bombs and catapults for 62 years, now Dennis will get a sidekick inappropriately named Angel Face, who will star alongside the spiky-haired boy in a forthcoming 52-episode television adaptation.

Mike Stirling, editor-in-chief of 'The Beano', which has been publishing Dennis' adventures since 1951, said the new character would appeal to girls, who make up more than a third of the comic's readers.

"We wanted to have a powerful female figure who shows that girls are every bit as badly behaved as boys," he was quoted by The Times as saying. "Dennis and Angel Face sometimes team up and cause mega-mischief. Unlike Dennis, Angel Face manages to get away with things because she flutters her eyelashes and is the headmaster's daughter," Stirling said.

In the 1980s, cartoonists toned down Dennis's misbehaviour and his bullying of Walter the Softy, his arch-enemy.

But in the new series, he will use modern gadgets and computer technology — as well as traditional water pistols and peashooters — to restore his former image.

"We got a lot of feedback which said Dennis should get back to his roots and be a lot more of a menace," said Stirling. Gnasher, the Abyssinian wire-haired tripe hound found by Dennis in 1968, will also appear.

Dennis, whose voice will be provided by Chris Johnson, the CBBC presenter, has previously had mainly male friends, including those in his band, the Dinmakers. Stirling insisted there would be no romance between him and Angel Face. — PTI

Special to the tribune
Indian, who killed wife, to serve 16-yr jail term in UK
Shyam Bhatia in London

A Sikh man who battered his older English wife to death is expected to be deported back home to India after serving a minimum life sentence of 16 years in the UK. Thirty three-year-old Devendra Singh met and fell in love with his English wife Charlotte Smith (known as Charlie) in Goa some four years ago where both were on holiday. They were married two years later in 2011 when Singh was given a visa to come and live in the UK.

But the relationship started to deteriorate soon afterwards when Singh could not find work, while Charlie, aged 42, had a successful and promising career as a health and safety environmental manager.

Singh had been drinking heavily for two days before the start of the last argument at their home near Leek in the country of Staffordshire.

In the course of this last argument, when Charlie asked for a divorce, Singh picked up a 2 kg wooden elephant and bludgeoned his wife to death.

During his trial late last month, prosecutor Sarah Cameron told the jury, “Charlotte Smith died as a result of the most brutal and cruelest act of domestic violence. She wanted to end her two-year marriage with Devendra Singh, but he was unable to accept this.

“He became violent and struck her with force described by the pathologist as being off the scale in its ferocity.” Pathologist Olaf Biedrzycki, who testified at the trial, told the court Charlie’s injuries were amongst the worst he had ever seen in his career. He said, “She had injuries to her neck, arms, chest and legs, but her head and face had taken the brunt of the attack. There were an awful lot of fractures to the front of the skull, and I could feel a lot of fractures to the face. The degree of force used to inflict the injuries is of an extreme nature. I would consider it beyond the scale we would normally see of mild, moderate and severe.

“It is one of the most severe head injury cases I have come across. This is not one or two impacts to the head. It is difficult to be sure how many, but if I had to estimate I suspect it would be double figures.”

For his part, Singh admitted killing his wife, but denied murder, claiming he suffered a loss of control and could not remember what happened.

Judge Simon Tonking, who sentenced Singh, said he had no doubt that the couple had been in a “deep and loving” relationship, but subsequent difficulties led to strain, stress and arguments that could not be overcome.

Informed sources say Singh - believed to be from Bihar - will have to serve out the full length of his life sentence before he is deported to India in 2029.