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Thai tension rises as protester shot dead
Egypt cracks down on Muslim Brotherhood
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S Sudan to attack rebels if ceasefire offer rejected
Suu Kyi's party to fight 2015 Myanmar polls
China eases one-child policy, abolishes labour camps
‘Queen Elizabeth planned to hit ex-Ugandan dictator’
Iraq forces arrest Sunni MP, kill brother, 5 guards
2 Indians among 3 dead as Saudi oil rig sinks
550 Chinese lawmakers disqualified for graft
Lanka to deport Indian journalist
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Thai tension rises as protester shot dead
Bangkok, December 28 The pre-dawn attack follows weeks of protests demanding resignation of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, triggering bloody clashes between police and opposition demonstrators. "All of them were shot around 03.30 a.m. near the gate number 4 of Government House," the Bangkok Administration's Erawan Emergency Medical Services Centre said. "The dead man is in his 30s. He was shot in the torso," a spokesman for the centre said. It was unclear who fired the shots. The attacks came a day after an injured anti-government protester succumbed to gunshot wounds yesterday. A police officer was killed and 143 people including protesters, journalists and policemen were injured after violence erupted at the Thai-Japanese Stadium on Thursday. With one more death today, the toll has now rose to three in the latest bout of political violence in Thailand. The protesters have been demanding Yingluck's resignation since mid-October. The protests began after her government tried to introduce an amnesty bill that would have paved the way for the return of her brother, controversial former premier Thaksin Shinawatra currently in self-exile in Dubai. A rattled Yingluck called the snap polls, scheduled for February 2, after weeks of protests. But the demonstrators have dismissed the election, and the official opposition has refused to field candidates. Protesters have further rejected another offer by Yingluck to form a national reform council intended to run alongside her government. The Election Commission and the caretaker government are bracing for further violence during registration for constituency candidates which started today.
— PTI EC braces for more violence
The Election Commission and the caretaker government are bracing for further violence during registration for constituency candidates which started nationwide on Saturday as people are against elections
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Egypt cracks down on Muslim Brotherhood
Cairo, December 28 The clashes broke out when students who support former president Mohammed Morsi refused to allow other students on campus to take exams. Media advisor to the Ministry of Health, Ahmed Kamal, said the clashes had left one person dead and four injured, Al-Ahram online reported. Pro-Muslim Brotherhood students raided and set fire to buildings of the commerce and agriculture faculties and police fired teargas to disperse the mob. The Interior Ministry said the protesting students had molotov cocktails and fireworks. Around 60 students were arrested. Authorities have cracked down on the Brotherhood since July, when Islamist president Morsi, who belongs to the group, was deposed by the army. The Brotherhood, who activities were completely banned in September, was declared a terrorist group on Wednesday after the suicide bombing of police headquarters in Nile Delta. The government said the movement was behind the attack - a charge it strongly denied. This is the latest measure against the group, which is being targeted by the military-backed interim government. Thousands of Brotherhood members, including its top leaders, have been arrested and many put on trial.
— PTI
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S Sudan to attack rebels if ceasefire offer rejected
Juba, December 28 More than 1,000 people have been killed in two weeks of ethnic clashes that threaten to turn into a full-blown civil war in the world's youngest country. Refugees sheltering in UN camps spoke of atrocities committed by both main ethnic groups. President Salva Kiir's government offered an olive branch to the rebels on Friday, proposing a ceasefire and saying it would release eight of 11 senior politicians, widely seen to be Machar allies, arrested over an alleged coup plot against Kiir. But Kiir's former deputy Machar reacted coolly to the truce offer, telling the BBC that any ceasefire needed to be properly enforced for him to take it seriously. "Until mechanisms for monitoring are established, when one says there is a unilateral ceasefire, there is no way the other person would be confident this is a commitment," Machar said.
— Reuters Offer has to be credible: Rebels
Former vice-president Riek Machar has said that any ceasefire needed to be credible and properly enforced for him to take it seriously. "Until mechanisms for monitoring are established, when one says there is a unilateral ceasefire, there is no way the other person would be confident,” Machar said.
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Suu Kyi's party to fight 2015 Myanmar polls
It was the first time the National League for Democracy party announced it would take part in the polls, which Suu Kyi had said cannot be fair unless the constitution is changed. "I want to say that the NLD will contest the 2015 elections," National League for Democracy spokesman Nyan Win said at a news conference. Myanmar is a republic where the president is chosen by Parliament rather than directly elected. The NLD expects to do well enough in the 2015 polls to offer its own presidential candidate, and Suu Kyi has expressed an interest in running. The president is usually elected during the first session of Parliament following the general election. The 2008 constitution was drawn up under Myanmar's previous military regime to ensure its continuing influence in government. The NLD considers it undemocratic because of clauses giving the military a mandatory allocation of 25 per cent of parliamentary seats and disqualifying Suu Kyi from running for
president. — AP
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China eases one-child policy, abolishes labour camps
Both were among a sweeping raft of reforms announced last month after a meeting of the ruling Communist Party that mapped out policy for the next decade. Under the new policy, couples will be allowed to have two children if one of the parents is an only child. Previously, a couple could generally only have a second child if both parents were only children. The plan was envisioned by the government about five years ago, with officials worried that the strict controls were undermining economic growth and contributing to a rapidly ageing population China had no hope of supporting financially. The resolution, formally approved by China's largely rubber-stamp parliament on Saturday, will allow local legislatures to decide when to implement the policies, Xinhua said. The Parliament also approved the abolition of the "re-education through labour” system, in place since 1957, which allows police to sentence petty criminals to up to four years' confinement in labour camps without going through the courts. Established to punish early critics of the Communist Party, the penal system was retooled to focus on petty criminals. In recent years, however, it had been used by local officials to deal with people challenging their authority on issues including land rights and corruption. "It has become a tool of revenge and retaliation," Wang Gongyi, a former director of a research institute under the Chinese Ministry of Justice, said earlier this year. The country's senior leadership signaled its intention to end the system in January, and labor camps throughout China stopped admitting people since March, legislative official Lei Jianbin told CCTV today. Chinese officials, however, remained coy about their plans to dismantle the penal system until November, when the party announced that it would abolish the camps.
— Agencies Drastic reforms
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B'desh under siege ahead of Oppn stir
Dhaka, December 28 The country was under virtual siege as transport services shut down overnight following a government advisory and paramilitary troops patrolled city streets amidst a face-off between the Awami League and the BNP-led 18-party opposition alliance. Hundreds of Bangladeshis returning from India were stranded at the western land port of Benapole, with no buses to carry them home. All Dhaka-bound trains from northern districts were halted at Tangail in central Bangladesh. "Fear of sabotage after the recent distasteful experience forced us to take some precautions causing schedule disruptions...Train services between Dhaka and Chittagong, however, are running," a railway spokesman said.
— PTI
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‘Queen Elizabeth planned to hit ex-Ugandan dictator’
London, December 28 The little-known anecdote was revealed by the last Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, in his diary. It is among archive materials disclosed in "Monarchy and the End of Empire", which details the Queen's role in the Commonwealth. According to the Daily Telegraph, the archives seen by Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and author of the book, describe government plans to minimise disruption if Amin made an uninvited appearance in Britain. In 1977, when it was feared that Amin would attempt to travel to join the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), documents show Britain "drew up elaborate contingency plans, involving the anti-terrorist squad and police marksmen, to detain Amin on his arrival in the UK and to eject him from the country". Despite his failure to appear, the book claims the Queen remained concerned about the possibility he would try to attend the Jubilee Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral on June
7. — PTI
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Iraq forces arrest Sunni MP, kill brother, 5 guards
Ramadi, December 28 "Security forces attacked the residence of MP Ahmed al-Alwani in central Ramadi to arrest him this morning, sparking a battle with his guards with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades," a police major told AFP, referring to a city west of Baghdad. "Five of Alwani's guards and his brother were killed and eight others wounded, while 10 security forces members were also wounded," the major said. A police captain confirmed the raid, while a doctor at the Ramadi hospital confirmed the toll. It was not clear why Alwani was arrested, though he is a well-known supporter of Sunni Arab anti-government protesters camped on a highway near
Ramadi, and has frequently spoken at the site. — AFP
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2 Indians among 3 dead as Saudi oil rig sinks
Dubai, December 28 Aramco had earlier said the two Indian and a Bangladeshi workers were missing following yesterday's accident in the waters off the coast of al-Safaniya region, the site of the world's largest offshore oil field. The remaining 24 crew suffered "limited injuries" but were rescued, Aramco said. "They (bodies) were all found. We found two of them late yesterday and another one this morning," Eastern Province Coastguard spokesman Col Khaled al-Arqubi said. Saudi Arabia is the world's top oil producer. Discovered in 1951, al-Safaniya oil field has a capacity of more than 1.2 million barrels per day. — PTI
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550 Chinese lawmakers disqualified for graft
Beijing, December 28 The Hunan provincial legislature said 56 elected deputies of the provincial people's congress had offered bribes to 518 lawmakers of Hengyang municipal people's congress and another 68 staff to gain entry to the body. The total amount of money involved exceeded 110 million yuan (about USD 18.14 million).
— PTI
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Lanka to deport Indian journalist
Colombo, December 28 Thamil Prabakaran, a 24-year-old Tamil Nadu resident, was handed over to immigration authorities after being quizzed by the police's Terrorism Investigation Division, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said today. "With his (Prabakaran) arrest, we were able to thwart a plot to carry out disinformation against the country,"
Rohana claimed. — PTI
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Yangon, December 28
Shanghai, December 28
