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Hundreds feared dead in Boko Haram raids
500 Qaida militants killed in five-week offensive in Yemen
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Ukraine crisis: Obama, Cameron set month’s deadline for Russia
Too boring if the world follows same political system: Xi
tackling terror First in UAE: Indian cultivates rice, wheat
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Hundreds feared dead in Boko Haram raids
Maiduguri, June 5 Gunmen in military uniform struck Goshe, Attagara, Agapalwa and Aganjara in the Gwoza district of Borno state late on Tuesday, razing homes, churches and mosques and killing residents who tried to flee the violence. Some community leaders put the death toll in the attacks as high as 400 to 500, although there was no independent verification of the claim because of poor communications and difficulties by the emergency services in accessing the area. If confirmed, the attack would be one of the deadliest in the Islamists’ five-year insurgency and top the more than 300 who were killed on May 5 when militant fighters laid siege to the nearby town of Gamboru Ngala. “The killings are massive but nobody can give a toll for now because nobody has been able to go to that place because the insurgents are still there. They have taken over the whole area,” lawmaker Peter Biye said. “There are bodies littered over the whole area and people have fled,” added Biye, who represents Gwoza in Nigeria’s lower chamber of parliament the House of Representatives. Reports from the remote region near the border with Cameroon said that the insurgents continued their attack throughout Wednesday, stealing livestock and food and burning property. “Hundreds of dead bodies are lying there... because there is nobody that will bury them,” said one community leader in Attagara, who requested anonymity. The community leader said the area was facing a grave “humanitarian crisis” while others called for relief agencies to be allowed in to enable the dead to be buried. — AFP Safe Schools Initiative attracts hefty funding
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500 Qaida militants killed in five-week offensive in Yemen
Sanaa, June 5 Forty soldiers were killed and another 100 wounded in the operation in the provinces of Shabwa and Abyan, in which 39 militants were captured, Colonel Saeed al-Fakeih told reporters. “We will press on with our war against Al-Qaida, especially in the regions that (militants) fled to,” he said. The army launched the offensive against Al-Qaida in Shabwa and neighbouring Abyan in a bid to expel its forces from smaller towns and villages that escaped a previous sweep in 2012. Troops and militia have entered a series of towns, but analysts say their advances could be the result of a tactical retreat by the militants in coordination with local tribes. Taking advantage of a collapse of central authority during a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power, Al-Qaida seized large swathes of the south and east. They remain deeply entrenched in Hadramawt province further east, where they have carried out a series of spectacular attacks in recent months. — AFP |
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Ukraine crisis: Obama, Cameron set month’s deadline for Russia
Brussels, June 5 Russian President Vladimir Putin, the focus of intensifying diplomatic activity this week, didn’t immediately respond to the new conditions. Sustained violence in eastern Ukraine is driving a frenzy of high-level meetings in Brussels, Paris and Normandy aimed at reconciling Russia and Ukraine. Obama and Cameron spelled out new demands for Russia at a joint news conference after a Group of Seven world leader summit. Putin was meant to have hosted the summit in Sochi, but the G-7 countries cancelled that after his aggressive moves in Ukraine, and met without him in Brussels. It was the group’s first summit in two decades without the participation of Russia. The US and Europe, after imposing economic sanctions on Russia in recent months, are considering toughening them. To avoid even harsher sanctions, Cameron said Putin must meet three conditions: recognise Petro Poroshenko’s election as the new leader in Kiev, stop arms from crossing the border and cease support for pro-Russian separatist groups concentrated in eastern Ukraine. Speaking after the two leaders held a meeting in Paris, Cameron said he gave Putin “a very clear and firm set of messages” that a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis was possible if Russia helped calm the situation. — AP
Obama: No apology for Bergdahl prisoner exchange
Brussels: President Barack Obama says he makes no apology for seeking the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from the Taliban in a prisoner exchange that has caused a furor in the United States and has followed the President on his European trip this week. Obama says the US has a basic principle of not leaving any service man or woman behind and said Bergdahl's health had been deteriorating. |
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Too boring if the world follows same political system: Xi
Beijing, June 5 “A person’s shoes doesn’t have to be identical to those of others but must fit the person’s feet; a country’s way of governance doesn’t have to be the same with that of others but must benefit its own people,” Xi said at the sixth ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) here. Only the citizens can tell whether the country’s path of development suits them or not, he said. “Just like we cannot turn all flowers violet, we cannot expect countries with different cultural traditions, historical experiences and national realities to follow the same mode of development. Otherwise the world will be too boring,” Xi, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), added. He, however, avoided direct reference to the international criticism of the CPC’s decision to crush the pro-democracy movement in 1989 at the Tiananmen Square with heavy-handed military crackdown. The CPC has monopolised political power in China since the the founding of the People’s republic in 1949. While denouncing the international condemnation including that of the UN Human Rights Council Chief Navi Pillay as well as the United States, Xi justified the crackdown saying China has achieved 30 years of massive development under the socialist system. Xi, 60, took over the reigns of the leadership last year in the once-in-a-decade-leadership change, and has quickly emerged as the most powerful leader of the party after Deng Xiaoping, the moderate leader who succeeded Mao in late seventies. — PTI
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12 sentenced to death in China
Beijing, June 5 While nine militants were sentenced to death, three others received death penalty with a two-year reprieve, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Besides the death penalties, local courts in six cities in Xinjiang convicted 69 others in 23 terrorism-related cases and pronounced sentences ranging from life imprisonment to fixed-term imprisonment. They were convicted for committing crimes of organising, leading or participating in terrorist organisation, intentional homicide, arson or illegal manufacture, storage and transportation of explosives. The crimes were the focus of the region's special operation to crack down on terrorism, said the regional higher people's court. China blames the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an Al-Qaeda linked outfit, to the attacks in Xinjiang and in rest of China. — PTI
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First in UAE: Indian cultivates rice, wheat Dubai, June 5 Sudhish Kumar, who created a record by growing the longest okra in 2012, is unsure about the harvest, but says, “It will be the culmination of an experiment to prove that both rice and wheat can be grown in thispart of the world.” “Rice hasn’t been grown as a crop in the UAE and there have been several failed attempts in places such as Al Ain. If and when my current crop harvests, it will be first in the country,” said the man from Kerala who claims to be an “accidental” farmer. While rice will be harvested after a 90-day cycle next month, wheat should be ready after a 100-day cycle around the same time, he was quoted as saying by Gulf News. “I do everything myself and that means spending 3-4 hours of my time every day to make up for the required man-hours. Just sowing about 1,300 seeds took me almost a day,” he said. A commerce graduate with no formal qualification in agriculture, Kumar believes organic farming must be encouraged at all levels as it is “key to healthy living.” — PTI
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Irish writer pips Jhumpa Lahiri to win top UK prize Retired Indian Army Lt General on UN panel 3 Taliban held for Indian aid worker’s abduction Burglars targeting Indian families busted in US |
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Hundreds of people may have been killed in a suspected Boko Haram attack on four villages in northeast Nigeria, a local lawmaker and residents said today.
Sanaa, June 5
US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron laid down a new deadline for Russia on Thursday, giving Moscow a month to meet their conditions in Ukraine or face further sanctions.
President Xi Jinping today defended the one-party rule in China saying the “world will be too boring” if all countries followed the same political system, a day after the world commemorated 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
“A person’s shoes doesn’t have to be identical to those of others but must fit the person’s feet; a country’s way of governance doesn’t have to be the same with that of others but must benefit its own people,” Xi said at the sixth ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) here.
