Musharraf seeks lifting of travel ban 
Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf on Monday filed a petition in the Sindh High Court seeking lifting of a travel ban on him so that he can go abroad to meet his ailing mother.

Jindo (South Korea), April 21
The captain and crew of a South Korean ferry that capsized with hundreds of children on board acted in a way "tantamount to murder," President Park Geun-Hye said today, as four more crew members were arrested and the death toll rose to 80.

Park's denunciation, in which she vowed to hold all those responsible for the disaster "criminally accountable", followed the release of a transcript showing the panic and indecision that paralysed decision-making on the bridge as the ship listed and sank Wednesday morning.

The confirmed death toll jumped to 80 as divers stepped up the recovery of bodies from inside the 6,825-tonne Sewol, but 222 people remained unaccounted for.

"The actions of the captain and some crew members were utterly incomprehensible, unacceptable and tantamount to murder," Park said at a meeting with senior aides.

"Not only my heart, but the hearts of all South Koreans have been broken and filled with shock and anger," said Park, who was heckled Thursday when she met relatives of the hundreds of passengers still missing, most of them schoolchildren.

The families have criticised the official response to the disaster, saying the initial rescue effort was inadequate and mismanaged.

The president said it was increasingly clear that Captain Lee Joon-Seok had unnecessarily delayed the evacuation of passengers as the ferry started sinking, and then "deserted them" by escaping with most of his crew members. "This is utterly unimaginable, legally and ethically," she said.

Lee was arrested on Saturday along with a helmsman and the ship's relatively inexperienced third officer, who was in charge of the bridge when the ship first ran into trouble.

Three more officers and an engineer were detained by police today and prosecutors said they could face similar charges of criminal negligence and deserting passengers.

A transcript of the final radio communications between the Sewol and marine traffic control suggested a scene of total confusion as the vessel listed sharply to one side.

In the end, the evacuation order was only given around 40 minutes after the ship ran into trouble, by which time it was listing so heavily that escape was almost impossible.

"Precious minutes just wasted," was the front page verdict of the Dong-A Ilbo daily today.

Lee has insisted he had acted in the passengers' best interest, delaying the order to abandon ship because he feared people would be swept away and drowned. — AFP

Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf on Monday filed a petition in the Sindh High Court seeking lifting of a travel ban on him so that he can go abroad to meet his ailing mother.

The petition was filed by Musharraf's lawyer Farogh Nasim in the Sindh High Court here which issued notices to the federal government and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to respond to his plea.

Nasim filed the application seeking the removal of his name from the Interior Ministry's Exit Control List (ECL) and requested for an early hearing which was granted.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif early this month turned down Musharraf's plea for removing his name from ECL citing court's direction and "national interests" as reasons for rejection amid wide speculations that he had reneged from earlier understanding given to army chief Gen Raheel Sharif that Musharraf would be allowed to leave the country once he appeared for indictment on treason charges before the special court constituted for this purpose. It triggered reports of simmering civil-military tensions.

Musharraf had flown out to Karachi on Saturday night in a chartered plane, ostensibly for medical treatment in Pakistan Navy's Shifa hospital but has been staying in his daughter's heavily guarded house in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA ). Latest reports say a team of doctors examined him at home and advised him to have angiography in Shifa. 

Kathmandu, April 21
Nepalese Sherpa guides today warned of an agitation if their demand of Rs 1 million in compensation for the families of their 13 colleagues killed in the deadliest accident on Mount Everest last week is not met.

The climbers and mountain guides held a meeting at the Everest Base Camp at 5,300-metre altitude and demanded that the government should provide Nepali Rs 1 million compensation for each climber killed in an avalanche last week.

The Sherpas also asked the government to bear all expenses for treatment of those injured during the avalanche, provide compensation to all the climbers who were rescued from the mountain and double their current insurance amount. At present each climber is insured for $10,000.

A massive avalanche struck Mount Everest on Friday killing at least 13 Nepalese Sherpa guides and injuring several others in the deadliest mountaineering accident on the the 8,848-metre-high peak.

The services of Sherpa guides are considered to be important for climbing mountains. "We will halt all mountaineering expeditions for a week to mourn the deceased climbers," Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), said.

"We are also asking the government to set up a Mountaineering Relief Fund by allocating 30 per cent of the royalty received from the climbers," he said.

The Sherpas demanded that statues of all the deceased climbers should be installed in Kathmandu for their recognition.

"We will launch an agitation, if these demands are not met," the Sherpas said.

Meanwhile, six bodies were brought to Shahid Park in Kathmandu today for a funeral procession where Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Development Prakash Man Singh and other senior government officials paid homage to the Sherpas by garlanding their dead bodies.

If the Sherpa guides go on strike it could seriously disrupt the rest of the climbing season, a mountaineering official said.— PTI

London, April 21
British Prime Minister David Cameron has come under fire after he branded the UK a "Christian country".

A group of public figures in Britain including scientists, novelists and politicians have accused Cameron of "fostering division" within the country with his remarks.

"Apart from in the narrow constitutional sense that we continue to have an established Church, Britain is not a 'Christian country'," write the authors in the letter published in 'The Daily Telegraph'.

"Repeated surveys, polls and studies show that most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities. At a social level, Britain has been shaped for the better by many pre-Christian, non-Christian, and post-Christian forces.

"We are a plural society with citizens with a range of perspectives, and we are a largely non-religious society," they add.

Signatories to the letter include novelists Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman, philosopher AC Grayling, and prominent scientists including Alice Roberts, Simon Singh and the Nobel-prize winning Harry Kroto.

Cameron's increased religious rhetoric in recent weeks has included an article written in the 'Church Times' in which he said Britain should be "evangelical" about its Christianity and a separate claim made earlier this month that the Conservative party's "Big Society" initiative was continuing Jesus' work.

"It is the case that Christians are now the most persecuted religion around the world," he said most recently at an Easter reception in Downing Street. — PTI

Kiev/Slaviansk, April 21
An agreement reached last week to avert wider conflict in Ukraine was faltering as the new week began, with pro-Moscow separatist gunmen showing no sign of surrendering government buildings they have seized.

Washington says it will hold Moscow responsible and impose new economic sanctions if the separatists do not clear out of government buildings they have occupied across swathes of eastern Ukraine over the past two weeks. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was due in Kiev later on Monday.

Kiev and Moscow traded accusations over a deadly shooting on Easter Sunday morning, when at least three people were killed at a checkpoint manned by armed separatists. Moscow and its separatist allies accused Ukrainian nationalists of attacking the checkpoint; Kiev said Russia had provoked the violence.

In a later incident, the Ukrainian defence ministry said gunmen on motorcycles fired on an army checkpoint between Donetsk and Slaviansk shortly after dark on Sunday. The troops opened fire, wounding one attacker and capturing two, it said.

Russia, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States signed off on an agreement in Geneva on Thursday, designed to lower tension in the worst confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War. The agreement calls for occupied buildings to be vacated under the auspices of envoys from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a security body.

All sides are meant to refrain from force. But no sooner had the accord been signed than both sides accused the other of breaking it, while the pro-Moscow rebels said the pledge to withdraw from occupied buildings was not binding on them. "Steps are being taken - above all by those who seized power in Kiev, not only that do not fulfil, but that crudely violate the Geneva agreement," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday, describing the attack on the separatist checkpoint as a crime.

President Vladimir Putin overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy by announcing last month that Russia has the right to intervene on the territory of its neighbours to protect Russian speakers. He then seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.

Moscow has since massed tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border, and Kiev and its Western allies say Russian agents are directing the uprising in the east, including the "green men" — heavily armed, masked gunmen in unmarked uniforms. — Reuters

Kuala Lumpur, April 21
The Malaysian police today said a probe would be conducted to ascertain if there was any sabotage behind the emergency landing of a Bangalore-bound flight carrying 166 persons on board.

The Malaysia Airlines Flight MH192 turned back early this morning following a tyre burst and faulty landing gear.

Investigations would be carried out to see if there were elements of sabotage on the plane, Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said while responding to Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein's call for the police to conduct an investigation.

The Boeing 737-800, carrying 159 passengers and seven crew members, was en route to Bangalore from Kuala Lumpur when it made the emergency landing.

The Malaysia Airlines said in a statement: "One of the tyres on the right hand main landing gear burst during takeoff. The Captain was alerted by Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control that tyre debris was found on the runway. It immediately contacted Malaysia Airlines Operations Control Centre (OCC) at 10.25pm." "As safety is of utmost priority to Malaysia Airlines, the aircraft was required to turn back to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA)," it said.

Airport Fire Rescue Services (AFRS) personnel were deployed as soon as the pilot was instructed to return to the airport by Operations Control Centre (OCC).

"All 159 passengers and seven crew members on board have disembarked from the aircraft. MH192 will be re-timed to depart KLIA at 3.30pm on April 21 and arrive Bangalore at 5 pm the same day," the statement said.

The people on board the plane were unharmed as the plane landed safely at the KLIA around 1.56 am (local time). The flight had departed at 10.09 pm (local time) last night and the jet was scheduled to arrive in Bangalore at 11.35 pm IST yesterday. Hishammuddin praised the pilot of the plane for his "skillful" handling of the aircraft.

Malaysian PM Najib Razak said the quick action of Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control in notifying the Malaysia Airlines OCC of the tyre debris found on the runway was commendable. "Good work. Well done to Captain Nor Adam Azmi and his co-pilot Prakash Kumar," he said in a Facebook post. — PTI

Houston, April 21
Thirty seven Indian youths have called off a hunger strike over their detention by US authorities for allegedly entering the country illegally to seek asylum.

A total of 100 men, hailing from Punjab and Haryana, have been languishing in El Paso Processing Centre in Texas in miserable condition since last year, a non-profit group that has been providing the detainees with legal support told PTI in an email.

North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) said only 37 detainees were on hunger strike and few of them called off their hunger strike on April 14 on our intervention and advise while others called off their hunger strike on April 16. At present no detainee is on hunger strike and there is no issue of their health at this time, it said.

North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) said it has urged Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) authorities to immediately release the youths.

In a statement, the group urged ICE Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas S Winkowski to release the men, said Satnam Singh Chahal, executive director, NAPA. Chahal said the ICE is legally bound to release detainees as soon as they proved their true identities and reasons for seeking asylum in the US. There is no evidence against any of the detainees held since last year, he said. — PTI