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Arrests
made BEIJING, Dec 27: Arrests have been made in connection with the Christmas night fire at a disco in Central China that killed more than 300 ....more Gospel music strikes a TOKYO, Dec 27: Packed department stores, coloured lights and the ubiquitous strains of "jingle bells" give the impression that celebrating....more Kathmandu calm after police kill four protesting students KATHMANDU, Dec 27: The Nepalese capital was calm today after police bullets killed four people Tuesday as students protested all over Nepal ...more Half of Japan public TOKYO, Dec 27: More than two-thirds of female public servants in Japan suffer from some form of sexual harassment, although serious acts such as ......more Sharif coming back ISLAMABAD, Dec 27: Deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was exiled to Saudi Arabia on December ten by the country’s military .......more |
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Bush takes brief break AUSTIN (TEXAS), Dec 27: Taking a brief break from casting about for a cabinet, US President-elect George W Bush put out the "gone fishing" sign .......more 55-km rail tunnel to relieve Brenner Pass bottleneck MUNICH, Dec 27: It’s one of the busiest roads in the alps and every day more than 5,000 crawling heavy goods vehicles are joined by 35,000 cars on .......more
Barak, Arafat to hold JERUSALEM, Dec 27: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat are to meet in Egypt tomorrow on US peace.......more |
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Arrests
made BEIJING, Dec 27: Arrests have been made in connection with the Christmas night fire at a disco in Central China that killed more than 300 people, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported today. "The suspects responsible for the fire have been detained," the news agency said, without providing further details. It said most of the 309 victims were "in an illegally operated song and dance hall" when the smoky fire started ripping through the six-storey shopping and complex around 9:30 p.m. on Monday. Sources attributed the blaze to a defective electric cable in the basement that they said had sparked flammable construction materials intended for renovation work on the lower floors of the building. An unconfirmed report said the construction workers had seen the sparks too late to halt the fire from spreading quickly through the building. The fire was extinguished early tuesday about 45 minutes after midnight. Although the state media put the death toll at 309, sources said the figure was higher. They said authorities were under orders to provide no further details about the number of people who were killed. Meanwhile, the Ministry for Public Security ordered a nationwide investigation of "potential fire dangers in hotels, shopping malls, hospitals and schools" in order to improve inadequate fire protection and alarm systems. It said dance clubs and discos without licences and fire protection systems "must be closed immediately," the official media said. Local authorities throughout China were ordered to spare no efforts to ensure safe new year’s celebrations. The Xinhua news agency said Li Peng, China’s top legislative leader and the number two man in the political structure, had travelled to Louyang, in Henan province, to meet with Shi Wanpeng, the Vice Minister of Central Development and Trade Commission. More than 400 people were trapped in the upper floors of the building by flames and dense smoke as escape route became blocked, journalists at the scene had reported. Xinhua reported that a total of 800 police and firefighters as well as 26 fire trucks were at the scene during the three-hour fire. (DPA) |
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Gospel music strikes a chord in Japan TOKYO, Dec 27: Packed department stores, coloured lights and the ubiquitous strains of "jingle bells" give the impression that celebrating Christmas is as much a part of life in Japan as in many other parts of the world. But in a country where only one percent of the population is believed to be Christian, the year-end is still much more likely to involve paying respects at a shinto shrine than singing carols. So who are the people to be found belting out harmonies from the packed pews of a church in the Tokyo suburb of Chofu before Christmas? one thing’s for sure — most of them are not Christian. This is gospel music teacher Ronnie Rucker’s Tuesday night rehearsal with the La Praise Choir, just one of 15 singing groups he has established from the northern island of Hokkaido to Kyushu in the south. A 49-year-old former disco musician from the United States, Rucker is now riding a wave of enthusiasm for the music of black American Christians. Films such as "sister act" sparked off an interest that was then fuelled by coverage of gospel choirs in the media. Public Broadcaster NHK ran a gospel course on television this year, and a commercial television network broadcast a popular drama series about a gospel fanatic. Even Japan’s fashion-conscious wedding industry has jumped onto the Bandwagon, offering gospel-style nuptials. All this has helped to build up demand to such an extent that Yamaha Corporation, which runs a nationwide chain of music schools, now boasts 5,000 students of the gospel style. Yamaha’s 100 gospel teachers are all Japanese, but some enthusiasts insist on more authenticity. That’s why Rucker is such a hot property that he spends every weekend travelling the country to give workshops, and some of his students regularly commute up to two hours each way just to study with him. As an evangelising Christian, Rucker insists on prayers and Bible study before each singing session. But he says the initial appeal of gospel music for most Japanese is not its spiritual depth, but its vivacity, something most people must suppress in their everyday lives. "They don’t get much chance to be free and really sing... They just want to let it all out," he said. Yamaha music schools vocal instructor Mayumi Takeyama agrees. She has been teaching gospel-style singing for five years, in which time her student numbers have grown from five to about 160. "Even when the japanese go to a live concert, they don’t tend to clap along and get into the atmosphere. So they don’t have much chance to sing out loud, clap and dance," she said. "This is something that provides a release in stressful times." Takeyama says she is not worried by the idea of adapting religious music as a secular pastime. "It seemed a bit strange at first. But when I looked into it, I found out that even in America, the people singing gospel are not necessarily Christians these days," she said. "My students look happy and refreshed while they’re singing, so I think that’s great." Most of the rising tide of amateur gospel singers consists of female office workers in their 20s and early 30s, who see it as a stress-busting way to spend time with friends, or even a trendy new way of brushing up their Karaoke skills. But rucker is battling to ensure gospel music is not treated merely as a musical fashion. His efforts seem to be paying off. One la praise member, 16-year-old Asami Matsumoto, was baptised earlier in the year, and two others were due to follow suit on Christmas day. Another member commented, "I wouldn’t like to think of gospel as just a way of relieving stress - that would be an insult to Jesus." (REUTERS) |
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Kathmandu calm after police kill four protesting students KATHMANDU, Dec 27: The Nepalese capital was calm today after police bullets killed four people Tuesday as students protested all over Nepal against an Indian actor who allegedly made derogatory remarks against Nepal. Nepalese newspapers This Morning said four persons were killed in police firing as students protested against the alleged remarks about Nepal made by the popular Indian actor, Hrithik Roshan. The newspapers quoting the police in the capital as saying one of the four killed was a 13-year old girl who was hit by a stray bullet as she was studying in her room preparing for her exam. The Indian teenage heart throb, Hrithik Roshan, was alleged to have said in a television interview that he disliked Nepal and its people. The Indian actor, according to Indian news agencies, has denied ever having said such a thing. But the protest which began on Sunday in the eastern Nepal industrial town of Biratnagar snowballed into a nationwide protest and newspapers today reported that there were student protests in at least a dozen towns across Nepal Tuesday. In the Nepalese capital, cable television operators stopped distributing all Indian and Hindi channels from last afternoon. Asked if they had stopped distributing the channel under Government instructions, the head of a popular cable TV, Neer Shah, said, "we were not forced by anyone to stop the transmission. We did on our own. We protest the comment made by Hrithik Roshan." (DPA) |
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Half of Japan public
servants get TOKYO, Dec 27: More than two-thirds of female public servants in Japan suffer from some form of sexual harassment, although serious acts such as stalking and body touching have become rare, a new Government survey shows. More than half of Japanese bureaucrats of both sexes have experienced some form of sexual harassment and the figure rises to 69.2 percent for women, according to the poll conducted by the national personnel authority between July and September and released this week. The introduction last year of laws prohibiting sexual harassment has helped dramatically reduce serious cases such as touching the body and stalking since the last survey in 1997, the agency said. But many women working for the Government ministries still suffer from questions about their age and appearance and also sex jokes in the office, the survey showed. A separate Government survey in may showed that complaints about sexual harassment had jumped 35 percent last year, about half of which were filed by women workers. In about 10 percent of cases, women workers said they had been treated unfairly in their jobs by their male superiors after refusing to have sex with them, the report said. A prevailing complaint among women was that their companies did nothing to address their claims. Anger over sexual harassment has been rising in recent years in Japan, where women travelling on the subways are frequently groped by male passengers and sexual harassment in the workplace is commonplace but rarely reported because of a sense of shame. But the idea that such harassment should no longer be tolerated is spreading, and more women are reporting the cases and taking action. In the most high profile recent case, well-known Governor "knock" Yokoyama of Japan’s second city, osaka, was forced to resign after sexually harassing a university student, who subsequently filed a law suit. Attitudes among men may also be changing. The national personnel authority’s survey showed that among male bureaucrats, 36.9 percent said they have been sexually harassed in some way. Many of those said they felt upset at their colleagues being harassed, the agency said. (REUTERS) |
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Bush takes brief break from cabinet search AUSTIN (TEXAS), Dec 27: Taking a brief break from casting about for a cabinet, US President-elect George W Bush put out the "gone fishing" sign yesterday and left for a post-Christmas family reunion on Florida’s gulf coast. "A little relaxation, a lot of phone calls, there’s still a lot of transition work to be done," Bush told reporters as he boarded his plane in Austin. Aides said Bush would spend most of the time relaxing, boating and fishing in Boca Grande on Florida’s gulf coast, before heading to Washington on Thursday to interview potential cabinet members. He has chosen seven of those he expects to have in his cabinet, a group he said would be politically and ethnically diverse. There are 14 statutory cabinet members, but every President can elevate any number of agencies to that level during his term. All of them must be confirmed by the senate. Bush said he had spoken to his White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card yesterday about personnel and cabinet matters and added: "We’re making great progress." Bush, who will be sworn in as the 43rd US President on January 20, hopes to spend some quality time with his parents, former President George Bush and first lady Barbara Bush, as well as his three brothers, Jeb, Marvin and Neil, his sister Doro and their families. One of Bush’s 19-year-old twin daughters, Jenna, was "doing fine" after undergoing an appendectomy late on Christmas Day and would likely join them on Wednesday, a spokesman said. Bush said the family was visiting friends in Austin when Jenna experienced "abdominal pains." She was rushed to the hospital and had an emergency appendectomy before her appendix ruptured. "She was feeling pretty good last night, great this morning," Bush told reporters. (REUTERS) |
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55-km rail tunnel to relieve Brenner Pass bottleneck MUNICH, Dec 27: It’s one of the busiest roads in the alps and every day more than 5,000 crawling heavy goods vehicles are joined by 35,000 cars on the brenner pass motorway between Austria and Italy. The noise and pollution is tremendous, much to the dismay of local inhabitants and environmental activists who are well aware that worse is on the way. According to experts, trans-alpine traffic is set to double by 2015. The forecast has united politicians, at both a national and local level, in countries served by the brenner route in calling for a shift of traffic to the alternative rail system: "The railways are the future," they chime. However, when it comes to devising a concrete rail strategy capable of eliminating the alpine bottleneck, opinion is divided. One thing is certain - solutions to the problem will not come cheap. Authorities in Bavaria (Germany), Tyrol (Austria), South Tyrol, Trento and Verona (Italy) are prepared to invest some eight billion marks (3.66 billion dollars) in the construction of a rail tunnel thorough the mountains, the so-called brenner base tunnel. The tunnel is expected to form only part of a huge project which envisages these provinces ploughing another 16 billion marks into improvements to existing road links to and from the rail terminals. Only investment of this magnitude - a total of 25 billion marks -it is argued, can guarantee reductions in journey time from the present 12 hours to as little as five hours in the future. Experts also predict the scheme would increase the capacity of the route several times over. Government representatives do not foresee difficulties in raising the money for the project, with the tunnel financed at least in part by profits from motorway toll charges. Indeed, only last week they resolved to put their joint weight behind this financing strategy in Brussels. In support of the plan, the head of the provincial Government of Tyrol pointed to binding agreements with the Brenner provinces, signed in 1994 and guaranteeing funds for feeder roads. The underground link would number among the longest in Europe, with two single-track tunnels stretching 55 kilometres from Fortezza in Italy to Innsbruck in Austria. But construction would be far from simple. Innsbruck Tunnelling Professor Dimitiri Kolymbas says the ground is soft and difficult to support and flooding could well be a problem. Bavarian Economics Minister Otto Wiesheu says initial exploratory excavation is already underway. Hans Lindenberg, head of the joint Austrian and Italian Railway Planning Company (EWIV) responsible for this stage of the project also hopes to gain planning permission for the whole route by the end of next year. The earliest possible date for completion of the tunnel is 2012. Despite the groundswell of political support, the tunnel proposal has drawn criticism. "The Brenner pass is not the bottleneck," argues environmentalist Richard Mergner. He thinks it is absurd to invest billions in a new rail link when current rail facilities are running only at half capacity. He believes the real problem lies in the low cost of road-based freight transport, which remains affordable because haulage companies are not required to pay for the damage they inflict on alpine infrastructure, environment and the health of the region’s residents. One German haulage firm has shown the pass can be negotiated in eight instead of the usual 12 hours cited as standard by the pro-tunnel lobby. That is if the "623 components" of trans-alpine rail transit are well co-ordinated, claims Managing Director Karl Fischer. In support of his claim, he points to his company’s own goods train which since October has been crossing the alps twice a day. Fischer believes total transit times of six hours will be possible in the near future. This will depend on the introduction of new locomotives to save time. In both Germany and Austria, trains run on alternating current, whereas the Italian rail network uses direct current. Until now, trains using the Brenner pass have had to change locomotive at the border. (DPA) |
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Barak, Arafat to hold summit on US peace ideas JERUSALEM, Dec 27: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat are to meet in Egypt tomorrow on US peace proposals that have drawn reservations from both warring sides. Barak convened his security cabinet today to formulate a response to US President Bill Clinton’s ideas on a framework for an elusive final peace agreement. Arafat was to consult with the PLO’s executive committee later in the day. "Arafat is going to Sharm El-Sheikh tomorrow," a senior Palestinian official told Reuters. An Israeli official had said on Tuesday Arafat and Barak would meet at the Egyptian Red Sea Resort but Palestinian officials had spoken only of the possibility of a summit. As both sides pondered Clinton’s last-ditch bid to cap his presidency with a peace deal, Palestinians and Israeli soldiers exchanged fire overnight in the West Bank. No deaths have been reported over the last three days — a rarity in a three-month-old Palestinian uprising in which at least 343 people, mainly Palestinians, have been killed. The dead include 52 Israelis, 13 of whom were Arabs. "My main mission is keep to a minimum the number of military cemeteries," Israel radio quoted Barak as telling the security cabinet. Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel’s Foreign Minister and chief peace negotiator, said the security cabinet meeting was likely to be lengthy. "I estimate these deliberations will continue into the night — we will have recess — and in the wake of this discussion, we will decide what israel’s answer will be," he told army radio. Clinton’s proposals for a final peace deal, both sides said, tackled issues at the heart of the 52-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict such as the future of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and final borders. Acceptance by both sides of Clinton’s proposals, raised after five days of Israeli-Palestinian talks in Washington last week, was likely to bring Barak and Arafat to the US capital for an intensive push towards a final deal. "We also have many reservations. They (the Palestinians) will present reservations, we will present reservations and on this basis, the President will decide if there is a platform for a summit," Ben-Ami said. (REUTERS) |
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Sharif coming back to Pak soon: PML ISLAMABAD, Dec 27: Deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was exiled to Saudi Arabia on December ten by the country’s military regime, is coming back soon to Pakistan, a senior Pakistan Muslim League (PML) leader has claimed. "The Government is saying that Sharif would not be allowed to come back at least for 10 years. But in actuality, the deposed Premier would not stay in the kingdom even for 10 months and he would come back soon," Syed Zafar Ali Shah said at a party meeting yesterday. Shah said "Pakistan had been achieved through ballot and it could not be kept together with the power of the gun." He told the party workers to prepare for a "rousing welcome" to Sharif. Sharif was sent into exile in Saudi Arabia more than a year after he was toppled in a military coup, along with his family after receiving a Presidential pardon apparently under a deal brokered by Riyadh. Under the deal, Sharif (51), who was serving jail sentence for plane hijacking and some corruption charges, would not return to Pakistan for 10 years. (PTI) |
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