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Chinese, Oz naval ships verifying potential ‘pings’
Pro-Russia protesters storm regional govt
building in Ukraine
Smooth Afghan Prez poll raises
questions about Taliban power
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Bomb destroys Afghan election truck, kills 3
‘Artist’ George Bush paints
Manmohan, world leaders
Boko Haram attack kills
17 in Nigeria
Qaida chief's brother stands trial in Egypt
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Chinese, Oz naval ships verifying potential ‘pings’
Perth, April 6 New satellite calculations have put the likely location of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the same spot where Chinese patrol vessel Haixun 01 detected deep water acoustic sounds on Friday and Saturday. In the strongest lead to date, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, the head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre, said the Haixun 01 picked up sounds coming from about 4,500m down, in two locations just 2 km apart. The searchers are seeking the jet's two black boxes, the Cockpit Voice Recorder and the Flight Data Recorder. Finding black the black box is crucial to know what happened on March 8 before the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 people, including five Indians, crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. Search teams are running against time as the batteries of the black box flight recorders have a life of about 30 days, meaning they will shut down in the next two days. Two naval ships carrying sophisticated deep-sea black box detectors are being sent to the area off western Australia where the pulses were reported to try to confirm or rule out whether they were from the missing plane's flight recorders, Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston told reporters. "This is an important and encouraging lead," said Houston, the head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) which is leading the search. The electronic pulses were consistent with those emitted by the pingers on an aircraft's flight data and voice recorders, he said, but haven't been verified as coming from Flight MH370. "Sounds also travel long distances underwater," Houston said, making it difficult to ascertain their sources. If detectors were near a pinger, it would also pick up the signal for a more sustained period. Houston also said that search authorities were informed today that Ocean Shield, an Australian naval vessel equipped with sophisticated listening equipment, has detected "an acoustic noise" in another area of the ocean. The search co-ordinator insisted the latest developments should be treated as unverified "until such time as we can provide an unequivocal determination". "We are working in a very big ocean and within a very large search area, and so far since the aircraft went missing we have had very few leads which allow us to narrow the search area," he said. HMS Echo, a British navy ship equipped with advanced detection gear, is on its way to the area where the Chinese ship picked up the signals, Houston said. It is likely to arrive tonight. Australian planes are also headed to the area. — PTI MH370 skirted Indonesia to avoid radar: Report
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 flew around Indonesian airspace apparently to avoid detection after vanishing from radar screens on March 8, a media report said, suggesting the possibility of a more sinister reason behind the jet's disappearance. After reviewing radar data provided by neighbouring countries, investigators have now found that the jetliner curved north of Indonesia before turning south toward the southern Indian Ocean, CNN quoted a Malaysian official as saying. |
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Pro-Russia protesters storm regional govt
building in Ukraine
Donetsk, April 6 The hometown of pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovich, Donetsk has seen tensions rise, as they have across mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, since his ouster and the installation of a pro-European government in Kiev. The east has remained a touchpoint for tensions between Ukraine and Russia, after Yanukovich fled from power and Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean territory. Tensions have spilled over into the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold war. Pro-Russia protesters, who had been protesting on Sunday stormed the administrative building in Donetsk, hung a Russian flag over a second-floor balcony. Around 1,500 protesters who had surrounded the building cheered, chanting "Russia!". A Reuters reporter said around 500 police stood by without interfering. In the nearby city of Lugansk, protesters also stormed the offices of the state security services. No injuries were reported at either location. — Reuters |
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Smooth Afghan Prez poll raises
questions about Taliban power
Kabul, April 6 The Taliban claimed that they staged more than 1,000 attacks and killed dozens during Saturday's election, which they have branded a US-backed deception of the Afghan people, though security officials said it was a gross exaggeration. There were dozens of minor roadside bombs, and attacks on polling stations, police and voters during the day. But the overall level of violence was much lower than the Taliban had threatened to unleash on the country. And, despite the dangers they faced at polling stations, nearly 60 per cent of the 12 million people eligible to vote turned out, a measure of the determination for a say in their country's first-ever democratic transfer of power, as President Hamid Karzai prepares to stand down after 12 years in power. "This is how people vote to say death to the Taliban," said one Afghan on Twitter, posting a photograph that showed his friends holding up one finger, stained with ink to show they had voted, in a gesture of defiance. There was a palpable sense in Kabul, the capital, on Sunday that perhaps greater stability is within reach after 13 years of strife since the ouster of the Taliban's hardline Islamist regime in late 2001. The insurgency has claimed the lives of at least 16,000 Afghans civilians and thousands more security forces. "It was my dream come true," said Shukria Barakzai, a member of Afghanistan's parliament. "That was a fantastic slap on the face of the enemy of Afghanistan, a big punch in the face of those who believe Afghanistan is not ready for democracy."
Too soon to write off Taliban
It may be too early, however, to conclude from the Taliban's failure to trip up the election that it is now on a backfoot. More than 350,000 security forces were deployed for the vote, and rings of checkpoints and roadblocks around the capital, Kabul, may well have thwarted Taliban plans to hit voters and polling stations. It is possible that the Taliban deliberately lay low to give the impression of improving security in order to hasten the exit of US troops and gain more ground later. After all, they managed to launch a wave of spectacular attacks in the run-up to the vote. Indeed, they remain a formidable force: estimates of the number of Taliban fighters, who are mostly based in lawless southern and eastern areas of the country, range up to 30,000. Borhan Osman of the independent Afghan Analysts Network argues that for now the insurgency does not appear to be winning, though the Taliban might argue it has already exhausted the United States' will to fight. — Reuters |
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Bomb destroys Afghan election truck, kills 3
Kunduz, April 6 Around seven million people turned out to vote, according to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), a turnout of over 50 per cent despite poor weather and Taliban threats to target the election. Sayed Sarwar Hossaini, police spokesman for the province of Kunduz, said the truck was hit as it carried ballot boxes from polling stations to Kunduz city. "The blast killed three people, including an IEC member, a policeman and a driver. The truck and eight ballot boxes were destroyed," Hossaini said. Amir Amza Ahmadzai, the head of the IEC in Kunduz, confirmed the incident. Roadside bombs have been a key weapon for the Taliban in the bloody insurgency they have waged against Karzai's government and its Western backers since being ousted from power in 2001. — PTI
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‘Artist’ George Bush paints
Manmohan, world leaders
Houston, April 6 After graduating from dogs and cats and landscapes, Bush has produced a collection of never-before-seen portraits of foreign leaders he met as the 43rd President from 2001 to 2009 and put them on display at his presidential library in Dallas. The exhibit is titled "The Art of Leadership: A President's Personal Diplomacy" and also include photographs and artifacts of his interactions with these leaders. Bush (67) picked up painting two years ago after the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis suggested he read an essay by late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 'Painting as a Pastime.' After experimenting with an iPad sketch application, he began lessons with Gail Norfleet, a noted Dallas painter. He started by painting his pets, producing scores of works. "I spent a lot of time on personal diplomacy and I befriended leaders," Bush says in a seven-minute video produced by the History Channel that greets visitors to the George W. Bush Presidential Center, on the campus of Southern Methodist University. "I learned about their families and their likes and dislikes, to the point where I felt comfortable painting them," he says. The Bush Presidential Center is using these paintings to help broaden the image of Bush and is hoping to show "what it takes to be a personal diplomat," said Margaret Spellings, president of the center, emphasizing one-on-one relationships with his fellow heads of state were very important to him. Apart from Prime Minister Singh, world leaders whose portraits painted by Bush include those of Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Japanese premier Junichiro Koizumi, ex-Chinese president Jiang Zemin, former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. — PTI
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Boko Haram attack kills
17 in Nigeria
Kano, April 6 Among the dead were Muslim worshippers shot as they prayed in the village mosque, said Abdullahi Bego, spokesman for the governor of the troubled state of Yobe. "The gunmen are Boko Haram people, it was the same pattern of attacks they are known for," he told AFP. "They also burnt several houses and many vehicles before fleeing," he said. Yobe and neighbouring Borno states are in the grip of an almost five-year-old Boko Haram insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. — AFP |
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Qaida chief's brother stands trial in Egypt Cairo, April 6 Mohamed al-Zawahiri was arrested last August for supporting Islamist president Mohamed Morsi who was ousted by the army in July and has now been refered to trial by the state prosecutor. Zawahiri and the other suspects are accused of having set up an "Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group" that plotted attacks against government installations, security personnel and members of Egypt's Christian minority, state news agency MENA said. They group was seeking to "spread chaos and undermine security" across Egypt, it said. — AFP
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32 Lankans living in India on list of banned LTTE remnants Indian found hanging in Bahrain Now predict which photos will go viral on Facebook Honeymoon murder suspect to be extradited today 17 killed as Boko Haram attacks village in Nigeria 10 killed in nursing home fire in Chile Orban party wins Hungary election: Exit polls
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