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Gunmen raise Russian flag in Ukrainian city
Obama targets Republicans, says right to vote under threat in US
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Bharara takes on NY Governor
Pak court drops attempted murder case against infant
Signals rapidly fading: Oz PM Sujatha Singh in Beijing for strategic dialogue At $70 billion, India leads global remittances in 2013 Want a Nobel Prize? Wait for 20 years
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Gunmen raise Russian flag in Ukrainian city
Kiev, April 12 At least 20 men armed with pistols and rifles took over the police and security services headquarters in Slaviansk, about 150 km from the border with Russia. Officials said the men had seized hundreds of pistols from arsenals in the buildings. The militants replaced the Ukrainian flag on one of the buildings with the red, white and blue Russian flag. Some local residents helped the militants build barricades out of tyres in anticipation that police would try to force them out, a Reuters photographer at the scene said. But there was no sign that any police action was imminent. The occupation is a potential flashpoint because if the militants are killed or hurt by Ukrainian forces, that could prompt the Kremlin to intervene to protect the local Russian-speaking population, a repeat of the scenario in the Crimea region when Russian troops were sent in. Russia denies any plan to send in forces or split Ukraine, but the Western-leaning authorities in Kiev believe Russia is trying to create a pretext to interfere again. NATO says Russia's armed forces are massing on Ukraine's eastern border, while Moscow says they are on normal manoeuvres. Ukraine's acting foreign minister Andrii Deshchytsia said he had spoken in a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and demanded Moscow stop what he called "provocative actions" by its agents in eastern Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine have been locked in confrontation since protests in Kiev forced the Moscow-backed president from office, and the Kremlin sent troops into Crimea. While the crisis within Ukraine itself is still unresolved, the gas dispute threatens to spread the impact of the row to millions of people across Europe. A large proportion of the natural gas which EU states buy from Russia is pumped via Ukrainian territory, so if Russia makes good on a threat to cut off Ukraine for non-payment of its bills, customers further west will have supplies disrupted. Russia is demanding Kiev pay a much higher price for its gas, and settle unpaid bills. Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom and its Ukrainian counterpart, Naftogaz, are in talks, but the chances of an agreement are slim. "I would say we are coming nearer to a solution of the situation, but one in the direction that is bad for Ukraine," Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan said in an interview with the German newspaper, Boersenzeitung "We are probably steering towards Russia turning off its gas provision," he was quoted as saying. That raised the spectre of a repeat of past "gas wars", when Ukraine's gas was cut off, with a knock-on effect on supplies to EU states. The scope for compromise narrowed after the Naftogaz chief executive told a Ukrainian newspaper that Kiev was suspending payments to Gazprom for gas supplies pending a conclusion of the talks over a new deal. In fact, Ukraine has de facto stopped payments already because it failed to make an instalment of over $500 million due earlier this month to Russian state gas giant Gazprom.
— Reuters French leader Le Pen backs Russia’s stance
Moscow: The leader of France's far-right National Front voiced her support for the federalisation of Ukraine during a visit to Moscow today, Russian news agencies reported. Marine Le Pen, who is also a European Parliament lawmaker, told the speaker of Russia's lower house Sergei Naryshkin she backed Moscow's call for Ukraine to devolve greater powers to its regions. The National Front leader also criticised European Union sanctions against Russians including Naryshkin, a member of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party
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Obama targets Republicans, says right to vote under threat in US
New York, April 12 Obama's critique of Republicans came as he seeks to mobilise voters ahead of the November midterm congressional elections, when Democratic control of the Senate is at stake. Many in Obama's party fear state voting requirements and early balloting restrictions will curb turnout that is critical to Democratic hopes of prevailing. "The stark, simple truth is this: The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago," Obama said in a fiery speech at civil rights activist and television talk host Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference. It was the second day in a row that America's first black president has delivered a speech about race, an issue that has not often been at the forefront of his agenda. Obama has faced criticism from some African-Americans for doing too little to help minorities, but he has focused more acutely on inequality in his second term. On Thursday, Obama marked the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, the landmark law that ended racial discrimination in public spaces. At the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, he praised President Lyndon Johnson for his understanding of presidential power and his use of it to create new opportunities for millions of Americans.
— AP
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Bharara takes on NY Governor
New York, April 12 Bharara criticised Cuomo for dissolving the commission in exchange for new laws, which were approved as part of a broader deal on the new state budget. The top Manhattan federal attorney is now taking possession of all the case files that belonged to the commission that had been formed to Investigate Public Corruption in the state. "If you begin investigations and you begin them with great fanfare, you don't, I think, unceremoniously take them off the table without causing questions to be asked," Bharara said in an interview to a radio show. When asked if he would be opening a formal investigation into the Governor's actions, Bharara said: "I'm not going to prejudge what we'll be looking at, what we'll be investigating and where the facts will lead." The unusual public confrontation between two of the state's most powerful officials broke out two weeks after Cuomo decided to dissolve the anti-corruption panel. The Governor had appointed the panel last year to develop reforms to state law that would protect against corruption in Albany, the capital city of New York. Bharara had this week written to 24 members of the commission and said that the panel's chairmen William J Fitzpatrick and former state and federal prosecutor in Manhattan Milton Williams had agreed to turn over the files. Cuomo tried to play down the dissolution of the panel, also known as the Moreland Commission, as an expected and inconsequential step. He said he never intended to create what he called "a perpetual bureaucracy" to investigate wrongdoing. The New York Times said the confrontation followed a request from Bharara's office to top commission officials asking them to refrain from destroying investigative files. Bharara's comments were unusual given that the US attorneys rarely speak out so forcefully about an elected official who is not a defendant in a pending case.
— PTI Open confrontation
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Pak court drops attempted murder case against infant
The police told Additional District and Sessions Judge Lahore Rafaqat Ali that Mohammad Musa's name had been struck off from the FIR. A police official said the nomination of Musa in the case of attacking police and gas company officials here was a "human error". nThe court issued a show cause notice to a policeman for implicating the minor in the FIR. The judge during the last hearing had granted interim bail to the minor till April 12 and directed the police to "record his statement". After the media raised the issue, senior police officials sought an apology and ordered striking off Musa's name from the case. Sub-Inspector Kashif Ahmed, who registered the case against the toddler, had since been suspended. — PTI
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Missing Malaysian jet co-pilot made mid-air phone call
Kuala Lumpur, April 12 The call was made as the jet was flying low near Penang island on Malaysia's west coast, the morning it went missing. "The telco's (telecommunications company's) tower established the call that he was trying to make. On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one,” the paper said, citing unnamed sources. The paper said it was unable to ascertain who Fariq was trying to call as sources chose not to divulge details of the investigation. The links that police are trying to establish are also unclear, said the report. Investigators are poring over this discovery as they try to piece together what had happened moments before the Boeing 777 Flight MH370 went off the radar, some 200 nautical miles northwest of Penang, the paper said. Fariq's last communication through the WhatsApp Messenger application was about 11.30pm on March 7, just before he boarded the jet for his six-hour flight to Beijing. The Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 - carrying 239 people, including five Indians, an Indo-Canadian and 154 Chinese nationals - had mysteriously vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. The paper said checks on Fariq's phone history showed the last person he spoke to was "one of his regular contacts (a number that frequently appears on his outgoing phone logs)". This call was made no more than two hours before the flight took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. — PTI
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“Given that the signal from the black box is rapidly fading, what we are now doing is trying to get as many detections as we can so that we can narrow the search area down to as small an area as possible,” Abbott said. “Yes we have very considerably narrowed down the search area but trying to locate anything 4.5 km beneath the surface of the ocean about a thousand kilometres from land is a massive, massive task and it is likely to continue for a long time to come," he said in Beijing on the last day of his China visit. Abbott said a submersible drone would be sent to conduct a sonar search of the seabed once search teams were confident with the area identified - but he refused to say when that might be. “We do have a high degree of confidence the transmissions we have been picking up are from flight MH370,” Abbott said, adding that “no one should under-estimate the difficulties of the task ahead of us.” Abbott appeared to be taking a cautious approach after voicing confidence yesterday that signals from the black box had been detected which triggered speculation that a breakthrough was imminent. Angus Houston, the Head of the agency coordinating the search, had sounded a note of caution yesterday itself, saying there had been “no major breakthrough”. The Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 - carrying 239 people, including five Indians, an Indo-Canadian and 154 Chinese nationals - had mysteriously vanished on March 8 after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. Meanwhile, a media report today said the co-pilot of missing plane made a desperate call from his mobile phone moments before the jet went off the radar. The call from co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's phone, however, ended abruptly, but not before contact was established with a telecommunications sub-station in Penang state, the New Straits Times reported. The call was made as the jet was flying low near Penang island on Malaysia's west coast, the morning it went missing. — PTI
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Sujatha Singh in Beijing for strategic dialogue
Singh will co-chair - along with her counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin - the annual dialogue to be held on April 14. The two sides will review the entire range of bilateral relations, including plans for leadership-level visits in the second half of this Year of India-China Friendly Exchanges, India's External Affairs Ministry said ahead of her visit. She would also call on Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi after the talks during her two-day visit. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said early this week that the two sides will have in-depth exchanges on bilateral ties, high-level exchanges, practical cooperation, international and regional issues of mutual concern. "This dialogue is an important activity under the China- India friendly exchanges of the year 2014. We believe it will enhance our strategic communication, friendly exchanges and practical cooperation and provide a strong boost to stable and sound relationship between the two countries," Hong said. — PTI Talks on April 14
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At $70 billion, India leads global remittances in 2013
Washington, April 12 India's neighbour China follows second with $60 billion, said the World Bank report, according to which international migrants from developing countries are expected to send S436 billion in remittances to their home countries this year, despite more deportations from some host countries. In its latest issue of the Migration and Development Brief, the World Bank said this year's remittance flows to developing countries will be an increase of 7.8 per cent over the 2013 volume of $404 billion, rising to $516 billion in 2016. Global remittances, including those to high-income countries, are estimated at $581 billion this year, from $542 billion in 2013, rising to $681 billion in 2016, the report said. "Remittances have become a major component of the balance of payments of nations. India led the chart of remittance flows, receiving $70 billion last year, followed by China with $60 billion and the Philippines with $25 billion," said Kaushik Basu, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. — PTI
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Want a Nobel Prize? Wait for 20 years
London, April 12 Given that the Nobel prize cannot be awarded posthumously, this lag threatens to undermine science's most venerable institution, says Professor Santo Fortunato of Aalto University in Finland, who conducted the study. Many aspiring laureates may themselves have died by the time the medal is due to be presented, the study found. Before 1940, Nobel prizes were awarded more than 20 years after the original discovery for only about 11 per cent, 15 per cent and 24 per cent of physics, chemistry and physiology, and medicine prizes, respectively. But by 1985, delays of this order were featuring in 60 per cent, 52 per cent and 45 per cent of the awards in these respective fields. And the wait could be much longer in some cases. Take, for instance, noted Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who shared the 1983 Nobel prize in physics for his work on stellar structure and evolution that was done in the 1930s. As the wait lengthens, the average age at which laureates are awarded the prize also goes up. The average age for all the physics laureates between 1901 and 2013 (when awarded) is 55. The youngest physics Nobel laureate Lawrence Bragg was 25 years old when he was awarded the Nobel Prize with his father in 1915. The oldest Nobel laureate in physics to date is Raymond Davis Jr., who was 88 years old when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002. By the end of this century the predicted average age among prize-winners for receiving the award could even exceed his or her life expectancy, said the study. The findings of the study appeared in the journal Nature. — IANS The time lag
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The unusual public confrontation between two of the state's most powerful officials, top US attorney
Preet Bharara (pic) and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, broke out two weeks after Cuomo decided to dissolve the anti-corruption panel.
Lahore, April 12
Perth/Beijing, April 12
Beijing, April 12
