Moscow, May 13
Russia will bar the United States from using Russian-made rocket engines for military satellite launches, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Tuesday, retaliating for sanctions on high-tech equipment which Washington has imposed over the Ukraine crisis.

He also said Russia would reject a US request to prolong the use of the International Space Station beyond 2020. Russia pledged to respond in kind when the United States said last month that it would deny export licences for any high-technology items that could aid Russian military capabilities and would revoke existing licences.

Moscow's measures would affect MK-33 and RD-180 engines which Russia supplies to the United States, Rogozin told a news conference. "We are ready to deliver these engines but on one condition that they will not be used to launch military satellites," he said.

Washington wants to keep the International Space Station, a $100 billion orbital outpost that is a project of 15 nations and a showcase of Russian-U.S. cooperation, flying until at least 2024, four years beyond the previous target. In spite of differences on foreign policy and security matters, Washington and Moscow have cooperated extensively on space exploration.

Russian Soyuz spacecraft are the only way astronauts can get to the space station, whose crews include both Americans and Russians. Rogozin also said Russia will suspend the operation of GPS satellite navigation system sites in Russia from June and seek talks with Washington on opening similar sites in the United States for Russia's own system, Glonass. — Reuters

BRUSSELS: Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk urged Russia on Tuesday not to use natural gas as a "weapon" against his country, and accused Moscow of seizing tens of billions of dollars' worth of its assets and energy resources in Crimea. Russian energy giant Gazprom earlier demanded a $1.66 billion pre-payment from Kiev for June gas deliveries, saying Ukraine had only half its requirements in storage to ensure a trouble-free winter. "We are ready for a market-based approach and Russia is to stop using natural gas as another, or a new type of Russian weapon," Yatseniuk told a news conference with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels. Ukraine wants to change the conditions of a 2009 contract that locked Kiev into buying a set volume of gas, whether it needs it or not, at $485 per 1,000 cubic metres.

Washington, May 13
The US has deployed surveillance aircraft over a remote area of Nigeria as part of a mounting international effort to find over 200 schoolgirls abducted by the dreaded Boko Haram Islamist militants nearly a month ago.

“We have shared commercial satellite imagery with the Nigerians and are flying manned ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets over Nigeria with the government’s permission,” a senior US official said yesterday.

Though the types of aircraft deployed have not been released, the US has sophisticated planes that can listen into a wide range of mobile phone and telecommunications traffic.

A team of about 30 US experts, members of the FBI and defence and state departments, is already in Nigeria to help with the search. The plight of the schoolgirls and the desperation of their families has captured world’s attention, with abhorrence focused on Boko Haram, the violent jihadist group that is holding the girls.

More than 270 girls were snatched by militants from their boarding school in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria, on April 14. Some managed to escape, but most were taken into the remote Sambisa forest.

Boko Haram yesterday released a 27-minute video, showing about 130 girls in Muslim dress and reading from the Koran. Most of the seized girls are Christians. Two were singled out to tell the camera they had converted to Islam. — PTI

A Hindu member of the ruling PML-N , Romesh Kumar, has alleged that holy books of minorities were being burned in several Sindh towns.

Speaking in the National Assembly, Kumar protested against what he called the burning of the copies of the Hindu holy book Gita and the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib in the Shikarpur district of Sindh three days ago.

He said it was the sixth such incident in Sindh over the past six months. He also complained of alleged forced conversions of young Hindu girls to be married off to Muslims.

Excesses had forced about 5,000 Hindus to leave Pakistan every year, he added. Recently Hindu temples were burned in some Sindh towns in protest against allegation of burning of pages of the Quran by a Hindu who had rented a house and torched books left by his landowner in Khairpur.

Pakhtunkhawa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a government ally, lent strong support to Kumar’s demand for a debate on the matter as he also proposed that the House passes joint resolutions to condemn activities against minority communities.

He also called for a probe into the May 12, 2007, massacre of more than 40 people in shootouts in Karachi during a visit by the then suspended chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Last evening Senate members of all opposition parties including the PML-N, PPP , ANP and others staged a token walk out from the house to mark the day. Mushahidullah Khan of the PML-N blamed the MQM for the carnage while PPP’s Raza Rabbani made an oblique reference to the MQM without naming it.

The British auctioneers holding Mahatma Gandhi's controversial letters to his son, Harilal, say the letters are expected to fetch a minimum of Rs 60 lakhs ($60,000) when these come up for sale in the English town of Ludlow, Shropshire, later this month.

Mullock's Auctioneers were provided the letters by a member of the Gandhi family settled in South Africa. A spokesman for Mullock's said, "We believe these revealing letters have never been seen before in public, and, as such, these will provide scholars with new insight into the troubled relationship that Gandhi had with his eldest son."

Mullock's say they also have a collection of 27 original letters that Gandhi wrote to Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, who served as India's envoy to the Soviet Union, the US and the UK. She was Governor of Maharashtra when Nehru died in 1964.

The earliest letter to Ms Pandit goes back to 1920, but most were written in the crucial period between 1938 and 1944. In one of the letters to her, Gandhi writes, "Your vessel will also be filled. Women have done more work than us. Even so much remains to be done. The modern world has as yet seen like of India's woman power. I am convinced they will go much further ahead and I will be very surprised if you do not play a very big part in this."

Baghdad, May 13
Militants unleashed a wave of car bombings in Iraq today, killing at least 34 persons and sending thick, black smoke into the Baghdad skies in a show of force meant to intimidate the majority Shiites as they marked what is meant to be a joyous holiday for their sect.

The attacks came nearly two weeks after Iraqis cast ballots in the country's first parliamentary election since the US military withdrawal in 2011. No preliminary results have yet been released, deepening a sense of uncertainty in a country strained by a resurgence of violence.

It was the deadliest day in Iraq since April 28, when militant strikes on polling stations and other targets killed 46. No group immediately claimed responsibility for today's attacks, most of which hit Baghdad during rush hour, but they were most likely the work of the Al-Qaida offshoot known as the Islamic state in Iraq and the Levant.

All of today's blasts were caused by explosives-laden vehicles parked in public areas. They coincided with the Shiite communities' celebration of the birthday of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law and the sect's most sacred martyr.

Two blasts hit Baghdad's poor Shiite district of Sadr City, killing six people and wounding 13, according to police. Associated Press journalists on the scene shortly after one of the bombings saw black smoke rising as ambulances rushed to the scene, sirens wailing. Firefighters struggled to extinguish the fire as security forces sealed off the area. — AP