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2 Sikhs
arrested for killing TORONTO, Oct 28: Canadian Police have arrested two Sikh men and charged them with killing 331 people in a pair of 1985 bombings that......more
Pakistani anti-graft ISLAMABAD, Oct 28: A Pakistani court has issued a arrest warrant against former Premier Benazir Bhutto ......more Holy sites mean unholy JERUSALEM, Oct 28: A coat of green paint left Israelis seeing red this month, when Palestinians turned the roof of a West Bank shrine sacred to both Muslims and Jews the traditional colour of Islam. ....more Kursk was hit by a MOSCOW, Oct 28: Evidence collected to determine the cause of the Kursk tragedy had shown that the stricken Russian submarine was hit by a foreign vessel, Naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov has said. . ...more |
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Sergeyev
meets chief MOSCOW, Oct 28: Upping its ante against the Taliban militia, Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev met chief of the anti-Taliban alliance Ahmed Shah Masood in the Tajik capital Dushanbe to finalise measures for ........more Killings of surrendered
COLOMBO, Oct 28: The Sinhalese right wing nationalist party, Sihala Urumaya, has been blamed by Sri Lankan official media for provoking the ....more Chinese espionage has WASHINGTON, Oct 28: Chinese espionage has obtained the secrets of not only the most advanced US nuclear weapons but also critical information about American missiles, including the heat shield that keeps.....more Japan punishes more TOKYO, Oct 27: Japan said today it had punished more than 50 military officials, including some high-ranking officers, for negligent management which may have allowed a naval officer to pass secret documents to Russia. A defence agency official said several senior officers, including Admiral Kosei Fujita, Japan’s naval chief of staff, and Ken Sato, the agency’s Vice Minister, would have their salaries cut for one month......more |
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2 Sikhs arrested for killing 331 in 1985 AI bombings TORONTO, Oct 28: Canadian Police have arrested two Sikh men and charged them with killing 331 people in a pair of 1985 bombings that targeted Air India Airlines, including one that downed a Jumbo jet off the coast of Ireland. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police yesterday announced the charges in Canada’s biggest mass-murder case after a 15-year investigation that was the nation’s largest and cost millions of dollars. Air India flight 182 from Montreal to New Delhi, with a planned stop in London, went down off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people aboard. It is believed to be the most deadly terrorist bombing of an airplane. That same day, an attempt to sabotage a separate Air India flight in Tokyo failed when a bomb exploded prematurely, killing two baggage handlers. Police identified the arrested men as Ripudaman Singh Malik, 53, and Ajaib Singh Bagri, 51. They are charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, conspiring to cause bombs to be put on aircraft and causing a bomb to be placed on an aircraft. The charges accuse them of conspiring to kill all 329 passengers on flight 182 and more than 170 on the plane in Tokyo. Canadian investigators have long said they believed Sikh terrorists seeking revenge for India’s 1984 raid on the golden temple in Amritsar planted a bomb aboard flight 182. A Sikh man is serving a 10-year sentence in Canada for his involvement in the Tokyo blast. Malik was arrested in Surrey, just outside Vancouver, while Bagri was taken into custody in Kamloops, about 120 km Northeast of Vancouver. Malik, who came to Canada from India in 1972 and built up major business holdings in Vancouver, headed a credit union and school where relatives of Sikh militant Talwinder Singh Parmar have worked. Parmar was the founder and leader of the Babbar Khalsa, a group dedicated to the creation of Khalistan. (AP) |
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Pakistani
anti-graft court issues warrant ISLAMABAD, Oct 28: A Pakistani court has issued a arrest warrant against former Premier Benazir Bhutto for failing to appear before it to answer corruption charges, court officials said today. The court, sitting in Rawalpindi, issued the arrest warrant yesterday against the former Prime Minister, who ruled from 1988 to 1990 and then again from 1993 to November 1996. The court ordered that Bhutto, currently living in self-exile abroad, be arrested and brought before it on November 10 A similar warrant against her in the past could not be implemented. She has been charged with misusing powers to acquire illegal wealth and owning undeclared assets worth around 1.5 billion dollars in foreign countries, the officials said. Bhutto and her jailed spouse, Asif Ali Zardari, were sentenced to five years in another graft case in April last year for receiving kickbacks from a Swiss firm on a pre-shipment cargo inspection contract. The couple attributed the charges to vertical rival and then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted in a miltiary coup in October last year. Zardari, who also faces other criminal charges, has been in jail since 1996 while Bhutto left Pakistan before the verdict in the kickbacks case and has been living aboard. Appeals lodged by the couple are pending at the Supreme Court. The two former Prime Ministers, who top the list of people accused of corruption, blamed the Junta for persecuting political leaders to pave the way for the continuation of dictatorial rule in the country. (AFP) |
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Holy sites mean unholy rows in Middle East JERUSALEM, Oct 28: A coat of green paint left Israelis seeing red this month, when Palestinians turned the roof of a West Bank shrine sacred to both Muslims and Jews the traditional colour of Islam. Days later, Jews attacked a mosque in Northern Israel. The shrines of the holy land have become part of the unholy conflict that erupted a month ago between Palestinians and Israelis. Although the fight is largely over land and frustration with a foundering peace process, it was a visit to a shrine that provoked much of the current friction, and a number of holy sites have been damaged or desecrated in the fighting. "There are deepening doubts, now, whether each side can control its own extremists from using holy sites to fan violence and cast a religious light on problems," said Yaron Ezrachi, a Political Science Professor at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. "It is a warning to the leaders that, if they want to avoid uncontrollable ‘holy war’, they need to maintain the integrity of holy sites and separate between religious fervour and pragmatic ways of handling conflicts along diplomatic lines." The clashes began on September 28 after right-wing Israeli politician ariel sharon visited a complex in Jerusalem known to jews as the temple mount and to Muslims as the noble sanctuary or Al-Haram Al-Sharif. The violence has hit several towns that are rich in religious traditions, such as Bethlehem, Nazareth and Nablus. In the latest desecration, a synagogue was broken into on Thursday night in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat. Its walls were defaced and religious artefacts were defiled. Such acts have left both sides doubting the feasibility of past and future commitments to guard each other’s holy sites. The issue is especially sensitive for many Jews who were denied access to their holy sites under Jordanian rule until 1967, when they captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem. "If Palestinians cannot keep their promises regarding their holy sites, how can they be given control of other things?" asked Regional Cooperation Minister Shimon Peres. Many Muslims say similar things about the Jews. Earlier this month the Israeli Army quit Joseph’s tomb in the West Bank town of Nablus. It was then set ablaze by an angry crowd, even though local security forces in the Palestinian-controlled town had vowed to protect it. Israel’s Army chief, Shaul Mofaz, had recommended leaving the site, in which orthodox Jews had studied and prayed, deciding that the risk to Israeli lives was too great after a policeman was killed in clashes there. Control of holy sites was one of the sticking points at the US-sponsored camp David Peace Summit in July. Joseph’s tomb and the Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue in Jericho are both in areas under full Palestinian control, though Israel has access to both under the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord. Israel guarantees Muslims full access to the Islamic holy sites that fall under their control, including Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which is administered by the Waqf Islamic Trust. But such understandings are Fragile when tensions rise. The dome of Joseph’s tomb — an Ottoman-era Mosque that Israel turned into a synagogue after it occupied the town in 1967 — has now been repainted white. Nablus officials are vague about why it was painted green and deny charges that they intended to "Islamicise" the site, regarded by many locals as a provocative zionist outpost. Muslims believe an Islamic cleric is buried there. Observant Jews revere it as the burial spot of the Biblical Patriarch Joseph, although many historians say he was buried in Egypt. Jewish settlers have vowed to be back at Joseph’s tomb as soon as possible, but the israeli army says it does not know when it will be able to return. For his part, Maher Hanbali, the engineer supervising repairs, said: "We will not allow any changes to stay that were made after 1967." Nobody is guessing when, or if, trust can be restored. (REUTERS) |
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Kursk was hit by a foreign submarine, asserts Kuroyedov MOSCOW, Oct 28: Evidence collected to determine the cause of the Kursk tragedy had shown that the stricken Russian submarine was hit by a foreign vessel, Naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov has said. "After the remaining evidence is collected, I will announce the name of the killer Vessel," Voice of Russia quoted him as saying yesterday. The team of divers currently operating in the Barents sea to retrieve the bodies of sailors from the Sunken submarine have so far brought out four corpses, and a letter found on one of them indicated that more than 20 sailors survived the initial flooding. Reacting to Admiral Kuroyedov’s statement, the office of US Vice-President Al Gore denied any American link to the tragedy. Talking to Itar Tass, Gore’s Naval Advisor made it clear that the US would not subject its submarines to "international inspection". In response to the US claim, Voice of Russia asked, "why should the US shy away from an inspection, if it is so sure of the innocence of its Vessels?" The operation to retrieve the bodies has currently been suspended due to fierce storms in the barents sea. When it does resume, the divers are expected to concentrate on the ninth chamber where more than 20 people are thought to have sought refuge from the rising waters. A Novosti report from the site of the tragedy quoted investigation committee chairman and Vice Premier Ilya Klebanov as saying that the truth would emerge on November eight when all documents relating to the tragedy will be submitted to him. Also, the divers would have, by then, video-filmed the wreck, he added. Refuting reports that the sailors could have been saved even after the Kursk sank to the bottom of the icy sea, he said evidence pointed out otherwise. "It would have been impossible for anyone to survive," he asserted. Meanwhile, the design bureau chief of the Kursk Igor Spassky said international cooperation would be sought to lift up the submarine, once the pride of the Russian Navy. "It will be an international alliance comprising the most experienced and time-tested firms, and of course, Russian firms and experts will be part of it, he said. (UNI) |
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Sergeyev meets chief of anti-Taliban alliance MOSCOW, Oct 28: Upping its ante against the Taliban militia, Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev met chief of the anti-Taliban alliance Ahmed Shah Masood in the Tajik capital Dushanbe to finalise measures for thwarting the Islamic militia and its brand of Islam, Novosti reports. General Masood is a legendary figure in Afghanistan who is credited with having played the key role in fighting the Russian soldiers in the Panjshir Valley, which is his stronghold. The general has successfully withstood the onslaught of the Taliban militia and has launched a major offensive against the militia. Russian Defence Ministry’s Head of International Department General Leonid Ivashov has said if the militia captured the northern parts of Afghanistan, then they would turn them into veritable bases for promoting Islamic fundamentalism. "We regard it as a threat" the general who was also a part of the delegation which met Masood on Thursday, said. It may be recalled that defence ministers of the CIS states had gathered at Dushanbe to discuss ways and means to counter Islamic fundamentalism being spread by the taliban which threatened their territorial integrity. General Ivashov warned that if the militia attacked Russia, then his country would act accordingly which however would not exceed the limits of Russian federation. Russia feared that rising Islamic funadamentalism being sponsored by the Taliban posed a severe threat to the security of the CIS states, General Ivashov said. (UNI) |
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Killings of surrendered
LTTE militants COLOMBO, Oct 28: The Sinhalese right wing nationalist party, Sihala Urumaya, has been blamed by Sri Lankan official media for provoking the October 25 massacre of 29 surrendered LTTE militants at a rehabilitation centre by a mob of villagers at Bandarawela. Police found a large stock of posters purported to have been printed by Sihala Urumaya, a right wing Sinhalese party, calling for the rehabilitation centre housing the former Tamil militants to be removed, state run ‘Daily News’ said today. The posters appeared soon after the attack at Bandrawela in Central Sri Lanka where massacre took place. Police are now looking for the source of the inflammatory posters which led to the mass attack on the rehabilitation centre, the newspaper said. Sihala Urumaya, a rabidly pro-Sinahala right wing party was formed with the support of Buddhist monks months before the October 10 elections. The party also managed to win one seat based on the preferential votes polled in its favour. State Information Department Director, Ariya Rubasinghe in a statement said that besides the involvement of right wing nationalist elements, police investigations into the attack have also revealed that an ltte militant, who surrendered recently, was the reason for instigating revolt by the ex-militants against the officials of the centre. Rubasinghe said Antony James, a staunch LTTE militant, had surrendered recently with an intention of creating havoc in the detention camp. "There was very good reason to believe that this was another LTTE conspiracy", he said, adding that James began revolting from the day he joined the centre. (PTI) |
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Chinese
espionage has obtained US heat WASHINGTON, Oct 28: Chinese espionage has obtained the secrets of not only the most advanced US nuclear weapons but also critical information about American missiles, including the heat shield that keeps its most advanced missiles from burning up as they reenter the atmosphere to hit the target, defence experts have revealed to a Congressional Committee. In a belated move to stanch the flow of America’s defence secrets, the pentagon announced yesterday that it is hiring 450 counterintelligence speciaists to protect the remaining defence secrets. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon, however, said in response to inquiries from the Washington Post that it will not be until 2002 that all 450 counterintelligence specialists will be in position. He also revealed that the 450 to be hired is the same number eliminated since the end of the cold war for budgetary reasons. Senator Richard C Shelby, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Post that his committee staff has been urging the pentagon to add counterintelligence positions since 1997. Shelby said that the Pentagon’s failure to investigate the loss of missile technology (as the Energy Department investigated the loss of nuclear secrets) is a "big concern." China’s apparent theft of America’s missile secrets from the Defence Department or its contractors, he said, is at least as troubling as the Energy Department’s alleged loss of nuclear warhead secrets. Congressman Peter J Goss, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said that the slow response of the Pentagon to the loss of missile secrets reflects broader security problems at the Pentagon, including a backlog of about one million people awaiting routine re-investigations of their security clearances. Most of the approximately 160 espionage cases in the defence department over the past 20 years, officials revealed, have included people who had been cleared to handle classified documents. "Top secret" clearances are required to be reinvestigated every five years, "secret" clearances every 10 years and "confidential" clearances every 15 years. Congressman Christopher Cox, Chairman of a House Select Committee that investigated Chinese espionage at the National Nuclear Laboratories, said that the US intelligence community shares responsibility for the Defence Department’s failure to conduct a prompt probe of the loss of missile technology. "The problem," said Cox, "could have been alleviated if any member of the intelligence community had shown special initiative." (PTI) |
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Japan punishes more than 50 officials in spy case TOKYO, Oct 27: Japan said today it had punished more than 50 military officials, including some high-ranking officers, for negligent management which may have allowed a naval officer to pass secret documents to Russia. A defence agency official said several senior officers, including Admiral Kosei Fujita, Japan’s naval chief of staff, and Ken Sato, the agency’s Vice Minister, would have their salaries cut for one month. "They were punished for the mismanagement of their subordinate," the official said. In the country’s biggest spy scandal in 20 years, Shigehiro Hagisaki, a 38-year-old Lieutenant Commander in the Maritime self-defence force was arrested on September 8 on suspicion of giving military secrets to a russian military attache. The official said Hagisaki had been given a dishonourable discharge and added that 51 other defence agency and military officials had been given disciplinary punishment such as pay cuts. Agency chief Kazuo Torashima had voluntarily cut 20 per cent from his salary for one month to take responsibility for the incident, the official said. Japanese media said Hagisaki received money in addition to being wined and dined at Swanky Tokyo restaurants by Russian Military Attache captain Victor Bogatenkov. The Russian returned to Moscow one day after the arrest, claiming diplomatic immunity and refusing to answer police questions. Investigation sources have said police had found a pile of military documents in Hagisaki’s home, some of which were related to the U.S. navy’s operations in the far east. In September, the defence agency said it was considering revising the law against military spies because it was currently among the most lenient in the world. (REUTERS) |
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