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BAGHDAD, Dec 6: A US soldier shoots an 11-year-old boy carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. Ordinary Iraqis grab their own guns to help insurgents .....more Human
organ trafficking DURBAN, Dec 6: A 58-year-old South African man, one of three arrested in a police crackdown on an international human organ trafficking network .....more Saudi
killer saved RIYADH, Dec 6: A convicted Saudi Arabian murderer was spared execution after tribal Sheikhs persuaded his victim’s ......more British
falklands war LONDON, Dec 6: British warships during the falklands war in 1982 carried nuclear depth charges, but the weapons never entered the territorial waters .....more |
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Thai public offered BANGKOK, Dec 6: Thais buying new year cards for their troops in Iraq could win a free trip with the military to the war-torn country. ....more Australian
MPs bruised SYDNEY, Dec 6: Christmas spirit was in short supply at a late night drinks party in Canberra that ended with MPs battling over booze and chasing ....more US Defense Secretary rumsfeld flies into Iraq KIRKUK, Iraq, Dec 6: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began a first-hand appraisal of political and military conditions in Iraq today. ....more Nigerian
army LAGOS, Dec 6: The Nigerian Army raided a village in the country’s oil-rich south killing at least four people after a fresh round of clashes between rival ....more |
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BAGHDAD, Dec 6: A US soldier shoots an 11-year-old boy carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. Ordinary Iraqis grab their own guns to help insurgents fight an American convoy. Tracer fire lights up the Baghdad sky when Iraq’s football team scores a goal. Whether Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction or not, Iraq is deadly enough with just the guns kept at homes, shops or cars across the country. For many Iraqis, owning a gun is part of their tribal culture. For others, it is about protecting their families following Saddam’s chaotic downfall in April and the state of lawlessness that descended on the country under US occupation. It all adds up to another headache for US-led authorities. "You won’t find any home in Baghdad without a machine gun or a pistol," said Raghdan Thamir Abdullah, owner of a licensed Baghdad gun shop called top gun, in honour of his favourite actor tom cruise and the movie that helped cement his career. Iraq has long been awash with weapons. Saddam’s regime stockpiled huge quantities of AK-47 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and shoulder-fired missiles. Iraqis were allowed to keep guns at home, but could be jailed for up to two years for brandishing them in public. When Saddam fell, Iraqis looted abandoned military bases and bunkers. Recent incidents highlight just how armed Iraqis are. Last Friday, an American soldier on patrol in the flashpoint town of Ramadi west of Baghdad shot an 11-year child in the foot after he had walked out of a house and pointed an AK-47 at him. The US military said the soldier acted in self-defence. On Sunday, insurgents attacked a US convoy delivering new currency to banks in the town of Samarra, sparking a clash the US military said killed 54 guerrillas — an account disputed by Iraqi police who said only eight civilians were killed. There were reports ordinary residents grabbed their own guns and joined the battle. Iraqis often fire weapons during wedding celebrations and other festive occasions. Last month when Iraq beat North Korea 4-1 in a soccer match in Jordan, each goal was marked with gunfire in Baghdad. Upon the final whistle, automatic weapons and tracer fire erupted across the entire city for half an hour. For a young man in post-Saddam Iraq, guns equal masculinity. Saddam himself perpetuated the belief. In a now infamous image, the fugitive leader wears a three-piece suit and a black hat as he fires a shotgun with one hand to mark his birthday. While US soldiers closed down many open-air gun markets that sprang up after the war to topple Saddam, buying a weapon is easy. In Baghdad’s Sadr city, an impoverished suburb where few foreigners venture, all sorts of firearms are for sale. US efforts to get Iraqis to voluntarily hand in weapons —small arms can be kept at home — have been largely fruitless. "To have a weapon reflects Iraqi customs, although maybe not as much in the cities. However, most teenagers now carry weapons in their cars, they consider it a sign of their manhood," said Muhammad Ahmed, the owner of an electrical goods shop. Abdullah said that during Saddam’s rule he sold mainly hunting rifles. Now it is pistols for protection. His customers are merchants, doctors and businessmen. His own protection at home — three shotguns and a pistol. But the hunters who scour Iraq’s deserts for boar have stopped buying. "They can’t risk it. American soldiers will shoot anyone they see carrying a gun," said Abdullah. (AGENCIES) |
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Human organ trafficking network suspect in Court in South Africa DURBAN, Dec 6: A 58-year-old South African man, one of three arrested in a police crackdown on an international human organ trafficking network appeared before a Court in Durban yesterday. The suspect, described by investigators as a key player in the network that is believed to be operating between Brazil, Israel and South Africa, was arrested on Thursday. He was released on Bail of 60,000 rand (about 10,000 dollars) yesterday and ordered to appear in Court on Wednesday. Investigators closed the net on two men of Israeli descent in Durban where one of the suspects had recently undergone a kidney transplant. The men were also released on Bail and will appear in Court on February 10 on charges of contravening South Africa’s human tissue act, that outlaws trade in human organs. Eleven others were meanwhile detained in Brazil for their suspected role in the network that offers people there money in exchange for kidneys. Investigators from interpol and police in the two countries have confirmed they are cooperating in the investigation. South African police have indicated that the role of medical professionals in the network will also be probed. Media reports have presented the arrests as evidence that South Africa had become a hub for international trade in human organs, particularly kidneys. "South Africa has excellent transplant survival rates, coupled with favourable exchange rates and a pleasant climate," said Rory Passmore, the manager at the St Augustine’s clinic in Durban where the illegal operation was reportedly performed. "This attracts people requiring medical procedures from all over the world, and could make south africa vulnerable to possible illegal activities," he told the star newspaper yesterday. (DPA) |
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Saudi killer saved from sword by victim’s family RIYADH, Dec 6: A convicted Saudi Arabian murderer was spared execution after tribal Sheikhs persuaded his victim’s father to accept five million Riyals (1.33 million dollar) in return for his life, Saudi newspapers reported yesterday. Al-Watan newspaper said 22-year-old Saeed Bin Manea Al-Harith killed Abdallah Bin Jakhdab Al-Kawal after an argument at work last year. Thousands of men from the convicted murderer’s tribe besieged the Kawal family house in South Dhahran in southern Saudi Arabia at Dawn on Thursday to try to save him from his punishment. After several hours of talks Kawal’s father, overruling the wishes of his wife, agreed to spare the killer. He originally demanded 10 million Riyals compensation, along with 10 cars and 10 daggers, the paper said. Under Islamic laws, relatives of a murder victim can accept "blood money" instead of the execution of the offender. Saudi Arabia, which implements strict Islamic Sharia law, executes convicted murderers, rapists and drug traffickers —usually in a public beheading by sword. (AGENCIES) |
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British falklands war ships had nuclear weapons LONDON, Dec 6: British warships during the falklands war in 1982 carried nuclear depth charges, but the weapons never entered the territorial waters of any Latin American nation, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday. "The weapons were type we177 nuclear depth charges. They were on the task force when it sailed south but never entered the territorial waters of the Falkland islands or any south American country," a spokesman told . "The decision was taken to transfer them to other ships heading back home," he added, stressing that there had never been any intention of using the weapons. He said it was the first time the British Government had admitted that the task force assembled to retake the Falkland islands after Argentina invaded and reclaimed the islands it knows as the Malvinas was equipped with nuclear weapons. He said the information had been given to the Argentinian Government. But he stressed that it was routine practice for British Naval surface ships to carry nuclear weapons during the 1980s. The practice was finally ended in 1993. The information came to light after a reporter asked for information about nuclear incidents. Included in that information were details of several incidents involving damage to containers carrying the depth charges as they were transferred from the task force to the returning ships. None of the damage to the containers was serious and none of the weapons was damaged, the spokesman stressed. (AGENCIES) |
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Thai public offered chance of free trip to Iraq BANGKOK, Dec 6: Thais buying new year cards for their troops in Iraq could win a free trip with the military to the war-torn country. The Thai Defence Ministry has put two million happy new year postcards for its 443 medical and engineering troops in Iraq on sale to raise money for food and medicine for Iraqis. The names of people buying the cards, which cost five baht (12 US Cents) each, will go into a draw. "Winners of the draw will represent the Thai public and travel with an armed forces delegation on a C-130 plane to give moral support to our troops at Lima camp in Karbala," ministry spokesman Major General Palangkul Klahan said yesterday. Thailand insists it will keep its troops in Karbala, south of Baghdad, at least until March despite a series of attacks on foreigners. The date of the lucky draw has yet to be decided, Palangkul said. (AGENCIES) |
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Australian MPs bruised in battle over booze at late night party SYDNEY, Dec 6: Christmas spirit was in short supply at a late night drinks party in Canberra that ended with MPs battling over booze and chasing each other down the corridors of August Parliament house hurling abuse, news reports today said. The democrats’ Andrew Bartlett, leader of Australia’s third-largest political party, arrived uninvited at the ruling liberal party barbecue and made off with five bottles of wine, the Herald Sun reported. Bartlett was tackled by upper house MP Jeannie Ferris, who received a badly bruised arm in the Thursday night incident. Bartlett apologised in person and in writing for his role in the Fracas. In reply, Ferris wrote: "There is no doubt in my mind that you were seriously under the influence of alcohol and perhaps you should consider whether a treatment programme could assist you". (DPA) |
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US Defense Secretary rumsfeld flies into Iraq KIRKUK, Iraq, Dec 6: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began a first-hand appraisal of political and military conditions in Iraq today, swooping into the northern city of Kirkuk on his third visit to the country this year. Rumsfeld arrived in rainy conditions aboard a US air force C-17 cargo plane that flew from Tblisi, Georgia. He was met at the airport by Major General Ray Odierno, Commander of the 4th infantry division. (AGENCIES) |
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Nigerian army raids village after ethnic clashes LAGOS, Dec 6: The Nigerian Army raided a village in the country’s oil-rich south killing at least four people after a fresh round of clashes between rival communities, sources from the ethnic Ijaw group said. "Between two and four (in the afternoon) Itsekiri youths went in a convoy of 36 speedboats to launch an attack on the Ijaw community of Ojudorgbene," local human rights activist Joel Bisina told yesterday. "Following that attack a military helicopter went to another community known as Ububarakiu and opened fire... And killed four people." A local official from the Itsekiri ethnic group said there had been "some fighting and some killings" but could not provide further information. Military officials were not available for comment. Daniel Ekpebide, a member of the militant group federated niger delta Ijaw communities, put the death toll from the ethnic clashes and the army raid much higher, at a minimum of 50. "We are not going to fold our arms and watch the Itsekiri people kill us," he said, adding that the Itsekiris had threatened further attacks in the area. The southern Niger delta has seen an upsurge of violence since March, when Ijaws launched a rebellion against Itsekiris, the army and oil multinationals. At its height the rebellion cut off around 40 percent of oil production capacity in Nigeria, the world’s seventh largest exporter and a major supplier to the United States. Ten percent of capacity remains shut off by the unrest. (AGENCIES) |
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Kurd region offers itself as Iraq role model LONDON, Dec 6: Leaders from Kurdish northern Iraq will promote the region as a model for the nation’s future at a meeting of Iraqi civilian leaders, the interim administration and businessmen next week. As discussions get under way on the shape of a future Iraqi Government in Baghdad once the US-led civil administration hands over power next year, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is keen to head off any bid to curb its authority. "We want a rebirth of Iraq based on a market economy driven from the regions, not through a centralised Baghdad Government," Siamand Banaa, the KRG’s representative in Britain, told yesterday. "We want to show how much we have achieved in 12 years of democratic Government. We have a 12-year lead over the rest of Iraq," he added. After years of persecution under the regime of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — including the mass gassing of some 5,000 Kurds in Halabja — the region which borders Turkey and Iran was given safe-haven status in 1991. The following year it held general elections and has been growing ever since, developing a healthy economy, free health care system, infrastructure and an independent judiciary. Turkey, which has a few thousand troops in the area and a history of bloody clashes with its own separatist Kurds, is watching closely for any sign that Iraqi Kurdish leaders want to solidify the broad autonomy they have enjoyed since 1991. Banaa said the KRG — which controls about half of northern Iraq — was determined not to let a future Iraqi Government encroach on his region’s autonomy, but stressed that he saw a federal future for the war-battered country. ‘’we want our message to be very clear. This country cannot be run by a strong centralised government. Each region should be allowed to develop on its own,’’ he said. ‘’we are completely clear. We want a federal iraq.’’ KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani will host next week’s meeting near Arbil on Monday and Tuesday, which will include Iraqi Interim Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and coalition provisional Authority Director of Operations, Andy Bearpark. The leaders of the regions of Mosul, Kirkuk and Dohuk will also take part, as will the Governor of Basra Wail Abdul Latif, representatives of the powerful Shammar tribe and international businessmen. "We want international corporations to come here and establish their business bridgeheads from which they can advance into the rest of Iraq," Banaa said. "We are stable and secure. "We hope that from this meeting businesses will start moving here. They don’t have to wait for the rest of Iraq to catch up. They can start here, now." (AGENCIES) Award winning music creators in US court battle LOS ANGELES, Dec 6: Hans Zimmer and Jay Rifkin, two childhood pals who created the award-winning film score for "The Lion King" have fallen out over what Rifkin described in a 10 million dollars lawsuit as Zimmer’s plot to take over their famed Santa Monica, California music studio. In the lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles superior Court, Rifkin accused his longtime partner in media ventures entertainment group of plotting with the company’s resident composers to hijack the business "in a textbook example of breach of fiduciary duty." According to the company’s web site, media ventures is home to more than a dozen composers, a support staff of nearly 100 and a 40,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art studio campus. Zimmer, whose 100th film is "the last Samurai," allegedly encouraged the other composers through a series of "secret e-mails" to stop working with Rifkin and join him "in a new paradigm or ‘fraternity’ of composers," the lawsuit said. As a result, composers stopped honoring their contracts with media ventures and ceased cooperating in ongoing and future projects, the lawsuit said. Zimmer, who has received major awards nominations for "rain man," "The Lion King," "The Prince of Egypt," "The Thin Red Line," and "Black Hawk Down," could not immediately be reached for comment. Rifkin and zimmer met as teenagers in Brighton, England, through their guitar teachers. They performed in a rock band together and operated a music studio from the mid- to late 1970s with Rifkin acting as engineer and producer and Zimmer taking on the creative composing duties, the lawsuit said. The partners collaborated in Hollywood for the first time on the soundtrack for the 1988 film, "rainman," which was nominated for an academy award. (AGENCIES) Nobel winner Coetzee says children shun books for TV STOCKHOLM, Dec 6: South African novelist J M Coetzee, winner of this year’s nobel literature prize, believes television has replaced books as a source of imagination for many children. "I read a great deal as a child," Coetzee said in a rare interview broadcast on Swedish SBT public service television on Friday. "I did have a sense that there was a certain devotion to the book in the family. "A lot of children go through a phase of reading in a literally voracious way, it is their primary imaginative activity. Maybe that’s an experience which is not so common anymore with the presence of television in every home," he said, noting that his own childhood was in the 1940s and 1950s. Coztzee, a politically engaged anti-apartheid champion known for novels such as "disgrace" and "dusklands", will receive his 10 million crown prize together with the medicine, physics, chemistry and economics laureates in Stockholm on December 10. The nobel prizes awarded since 1901 were founded in the will of Swedish industrialist alfred nobel who invented dynamite. Coetzee described his own academic career as "haphazard" but said he was now very happy at the committee of social thought at the university of Chicago in the United States where he spends part of each year teaching. The White South African author who emigrated to Australia in 2001 declined to discuss his books. Coetzee writes in English and is fluent in Afrikaans. He said his written language "goes down very well on the page. It doesn’t go down so very well in ordinary conversation." He also revealed a youthful dream of becoming a poet. "If I had been born 20 or 30 years later, I would probably have ended up studying theoretical linguistics and perhaps artificial intelligence, something of that order, and perhaps have continued with a sideline in poetry in the evenings." Asked if he might still embark on such a career, Coetzee said: "It is much too late." (AGENCIES) Judge rules against new Oscar rules NEW YORK, Dec 6: A federal judge in New York ruled in favour of independent filmmakers, clearing the way for them to send video recordings of their movies to Oscar jurors. The ruling came in a suit filed by the independent filmmakers and studios against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Judge Michael Mukasey agreed with independent filmmakers, who argued new rules issued by the academy of motion picture arts and scientists, which awards the Oscars, put the independents at a disadvantage. The suit accused the MPAA of conspiring with the academy to hurt smaller filmmakers. The rules banned the practise of sending video cassettes or DVDs of movies to Oscar jurors so they could screen the films in their own homes. The academy said the move was necessary because of concerns that the cassettes and dvds sent to jurors could be copied easily and illegally distributed over the internet. Independent filmmakers and studios believe the real reason for the measure is the major studios have been stung by competition from small innovative independent studios. Because small independent films largely are shown only in smaller alternative cinemas, there are fewer opportunities to view them. Prominent actors, actresses, directors and filmmakers reacted in a storm of protest when the ban on sending videos and dvds of films was announced in september. Last month more than 140 top directors, including Robert Redford and Martin Scorsese, protested the new rule in a letter to variety magazine demanding the academy rescind the new rule. They also rejected the notion that the cassettes and DVDs can wind up in the hands of video pirates. (DPA) |
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