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| Suspected suicide bomb kills at least six in Iraq BAGHDAD, Nov 22: A suspected suicide car bomb attack on the main police station in the restive Iraqi town of Baquba....more India
elected vice WASHINGTON, Nov 22: India has been elected vice chairman of the International Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy...more Saudi
scholars debate RIYADH, Nov 22: Though no one has announced anything publicly, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family seems to have recognised......more Tension
mounts in Dhaka DHAKA, Nov 22: Tension has been mounting in a semi-industrial suburb of the capital Dhaka today after militant Sunni......more |
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S Korea LG card cuts services due to cash crunch SEOUL, Nov 22: South Korea’s biggest card issuer, LG card Co, has halted cash provision services at several branches on....more Sudanese
rebel sees WASHINGTON, Nov 22: Sudanese rebel leader John Garang said he saw a good chance of reaching a peace agreement....more Malaysian
wildlife officers KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22: Malaysian wildlife officers have trapped a male clouded leopard after it was sighted wandering....more Biased EU LONDON, Nov 22: A report on anti-semitism in Europe has been shelved by the EU’s racism...more |
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Suspected suicide bomb kills at least six in Iraq BAGHDAD, Nov 22: A suspected suicide car bomb attack on the main police station in the restive Iraqi town of Baquba killed at least six people today, police said. They said a car packed with explosives detonated at around 8 AM 1030 Hrs (IST) in the town, 65 Km north of Baghdad. The blast was the latest of a series of attacks targeting Iraqi police. (AGENCIES) |
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India elected vice chairman of IPHE WASHINGTON, Nov 22: India has been elected vice chairman of the International Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy (IPHE), which aims at promoting energy security, collaborative research, code harmonisation and globally focused national hydrogen road maps. Welcoming the move, India’s representative in the partnership, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission K C Pant told reporters that "India’s inclusion in the partnership is a recognition of the changed perception of India in terms of its capacity for research in the areas of advanced science and technology". Chaired by the US, the partnership comprises 14 countries, mostly industrialised countries and the EU. India, said pant, has signed the IPHE partnership agreement to leverage faster and implement an agreed agenda of international research, development and commercialisation of new technologies. IPHE is a significant initiative of the US Government to bring together major energy-consuming countries and those that have the necessary infrastructure and R&D strengths to set up a major global partnership to move quickly towards a hydrogen-based economy. Speaking at the Indian embassy, Pant observed that there has been a sea change in Indo-US relationship since he came here as Defence Minister 14 years ago. "There is not only an improvement in the bilateral relations but there is an element of warmth which has come into it". Pant said today there is Indo-US cooperation in security, defence, space and technical sectors which suggests it is a long-term engagement. "We have our strength and that certainly makes it easier for others to cooperate with us." He said India already has a national consultation process for developing a hydrogen road map and the planning commission and concerned ministries are working towards the goal. The map would help ensure distributed power generation, portable power systems and public and private transport vehicles research and application over the next few decades so that within the next generation India will be able to do away with reliance on imported crude and provide low cost energy across the country to her citizens. "Our endeavour in this field is extremely important because we are net importers of crude. Our per capita energy requirements will rapidly escalate as we move up the growth curve and become the third largst economy in the world. "The hydrogen economy, as it develops, will be a buffer against oil price vulnerabilities and geo-political constraints, and will mitigate environmental degradation". In addition to providing energy security, Pant said it has the potential of providing energy security and providing renewable energy supply to the rural areas while ensuring a clean environment. (PTI) |
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Saudi scholars debate when it is necessary to kill infidels RIYADH, Nov 22: Though no one has announced anything publicly, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family seems to have recognised that the religious fanaticism of self-proclaimed holy warriors cannot be fought with imprisonment and secret service intelligence alone. After the November 9 suicide bombing that killed 18 people in Riyadh, help is now coming from of all people the clerics. It was radical Sheikhs and Imams who started the terrorist problem with their preaching of hatred against everyone who - according to them - wandered from the "pure teachings" of Islam. Now on Saudi television pious men in long beards appear daily telling young people that it is a sin to give vent to their intolerance against non-Muslims and liberal muslims by setting off car bombs. Under the heading of "I didn’t mean it that way" appears Sheikh Ali Al-Khodeir, who once was known for fatwas (Islamic legal rulings) allowing the elimination of "infidels". Almost no one in Saudi Arabia doubts that Jihad (holy war) can be carried out in the 21st century with weapons. And it is difficult to find a Saudi who does not hold the opinion that the "true Islam" is the missionary branch called Wahabi - the country’s state religion which rejects music as reprehensible and forbids all contact between men and women. Thus it is natural for Hoda Al-Jeraisy, daughter of Riyadh’s Chamber of Commerce president, to hand out tracts with the titles "Islam - the way to happiness" or "how do I become a Muslim?" to non-muslim visitors to their computer education centre for women. For Saleh al-Woheibi, the general secretary of the influential World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), spreading Wahabi Islam is not only an avocation but a profession. To Al-Woheibi and his co-workers in the wamy centre located in a box-shaped building in Riyadh, the men who kill US soldiers in Kabul and Baghdad are holy warriors. "This idea of liberating the Islamic world from western control is widespread, not only among US in Saudi Arabia," he says. "In this, Muslims agree. There are only differences over the methods with which this goal should be attained." His organization rejects for example the recent suicide bomb attacks on Arab and western foreigners in Riyadh, Al-Woheibi says. "Different from Iraq where US soldiers are occupiers, the American civilian comes to Saudi Arabia with a visa. He is therefore a guest and must not be killed," he reasons. Yet it is not only the foreigners but the Saudis who are given a fright when five sinister-looking Mutawas storm loudly into a shopping centre to do their official duties of preventing un-Islamic public behaviour and leading people into the Mosques at prayer times. Women check that their veils are in the correct position over their faces, and young men in western dress hide in the shops. "The Mutawas are terrible. They even struck my mother in the street," says one indignant political science professor. Even the missionary daughter of the Chamber of Commerce president was once told impolitely that her veil was not only to cover her face but her eyes. "The Mutawas have a function in Islam," Al-Jeraisy says. "But their exhortations must be sensible and friendly." Khalil Al-Khalil, who teaches at the Islamic Imam Mohammed Bin Saud university in Riyadh, would prefer to see a shake up of all the religious institutions. They, in their ineffectiveness, he says, have driven Saudi youth into the arms of fundamentalist Sheikhs. "It is long overdue that the important positions should be occupied by learned and moderate religious scholars and not always with members of the same families," Al-Khalil says. It is this close alliance with these families however on which the kingdom of Saudi was founded. (DPA) |
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Tension mounts in Dhaka suburb
after assault DHAKA, Nov 22: Tension has been mounting in a semi-industrial suburb of the capital Dhaka today after militant Sunni Muslims attacked a Mosque of a minority sect, local police said. About 150 people were injured in the overnight assault on the Mosque belonging to the Ahmediya sect who are labelled non-Muslims by a section of the overwhelming majority of Sunni Muslims. Riot police and paramilitary border guards ringed the Mosque in the tejgaon industrial suburb 10 kilometres north of Dhaka amidst fears of militant Sunnis regrouping to launch further attacks on the Ahmediya’s place of worship. Violence flared up after the prayers on Jummat Ul Wida, the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as Sunni mobs calling for a ban on the Ahmediyas, also popularly known as Qadiyanis, stormed the Mosque, witnesses said. Police fired rubber bullets and lobbed teargas shells to keep the extremist mobs from advancing towards the Ahmediya mosque. The authorities have blamed the sectarian violence on the local Imam Sanghati Parishad of the council for solidarity of Islamic clerics, led by Sunni Muslim cleric Mahmudul Hassan Momtazi. More than 20 policemen were among the injured in the clashes yesterday between stone throwing Sunni demonstrators and the security forces, said a police officer who requested anonymity. The Sunnis constitute the overriding majority of Muslims in Bangladesh. (DPA) |
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S Korea LG card cuts services due to cash crunch SEOUL, Nov 22: South Korea’s biggest card issuer, LG card Co, has halted cash provision services at several branches on saturday for a second day due to liquidity problems, a company spokesman said. On Friday, LG card cited computer problems as the reason for the suspension. "The service was halted at several branches because of cash shortages," park Hee-Chul, an LG spokesman, told , without providing more details. LG card is on the verge of bankruptcy due to mounting household insolvencies. Creditors of LG card co agreed late on Thursday to provide fresh loans of two trillion won ( 1.7 billion), but the actual bailout has been delayed because creditors are divided over the scope of collaterals LG group chairman Koo Bon-Moo had offered. (AGENCIES) |
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Sudanese rebel sees chance of peace by year-end WASHINGTON, Nov 22: Sudanese rebel leader John Garang said he saw a good chance of reaching a peace agreement with the Government by the end of the year but did not see the target favored by the United States as a deadline. "There are good chances we can do that," he told reporters after talks in Washington with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said in October he had an assurance that the two sides would complete a deal by the end of December. But he added: "There is really not a deadline as such. There is an expression of hope." The US state department said Garang had given Powell a fresh undertaking to tie up a deal this year. "Dr Garang committed to the Secretary to reaching a finalcomprehensive agreement by the end of December. He’s reiterated that commitment that was made in October when the Secretary was in Kenya," said State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli. Both sides — the Government and Garang’s Sudan people’s liberation movement — have played down the importance of meeting the target in peace talks which resume in Kenya on Nov. 30 after a break for the fasting month of Ramadan. Garang said that he and Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha would join the talks on or around Dec 5. The negotiators, seeking to end a civil war which resumed in 1983, have three main points to settle — the status of three disputed areas and how to share power and wealth. More than 2 million people have died as a direct or indirect result of the war, launched by Garang’s movement to claim greater autonomy for the non-Arab southerners. Garang said Powell had offered US assistance with the negotiations. "I did tell him that we are hopeful that we will reach a political settlement," he added. Earlier this month, the deputy leader of the rebel movement told in Cairo that the peace talks were very unlikely to reach agreement by the end of the year. "We start on November 30 and one month cannot really resolve these issues, but if you push it down to early next year it could be possible in January or the end of February," said Salva Kiir Mayardit. (AGENCIES) |
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Malaysian wildlife officers
catch rare leopard KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22: Malaysian wildlife officers have trapped a male clouded leopard after it was sighted wandering in a residential area in search for food, reports said today. Five wildlife department officials from the northern Perak state were called in to catch the spotted great cat, said to be "extremely rare", after residents saw it fighting with street dogs, said the Department Director Jasmi Abdul. "We feel very lucky to catch one alive because it’s a beautiful animal and there are fewer clouded leopards than tigers in the Malaysian wild as they do not breed very easily," Jasmi was quoted as saying by the star daily. The animal, which weighs 30 kilogrammes and measures 1.7 metres long, will be sent to the southern Malacca Zoo, as officials fear it would otherwise come into further contact with humans, he said. The clouded leopard is the smallest of Malaysia’s great cats and is listed as one of the endangered and heavily protected animal species in the country, along with the tiger, panther, Asian rhinoceros and elephant. (DPA) |
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Biased EU anti-semitism study shelved-Paper LONDON, Nov 22: A report on anti-semitism in Europe has been shelved by the EU’s racism watchdog after it found that Muslims and pro-Palestinian groups were behind many of the incidents, the Financial Times reported today. The European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia (EUMC) decided not to publish the research after clashing with its authors over their definition of anti-semitism, which included anti-Israel acts, the paper said. "The decision not to publish was a political decision," a source familiar with the report told the Financial Times. He said the report had uncovered a "trend towards Muslim anti-semitism, while on the left there is also mobilisation against Israel that is not always free of prejudice". The report was commissioned by the EUMC following a peak in anti-semitic activity in early 2002. Its leaked findings come just a week after the bombing of a Jewish school near Paris and suicide attacks on two Istanbul synagogues. A deputy board member not named by the paper confirmed the directors of the EUMC had regarded the study as biased, adding that they had judged the focus on Muslim and pro-Palestinian perpetrators to be inflammatory. An extract from the report obtained by the Financial Times stated: ‘’...It can be concluded that the anti-semitic incidents in the monitoring period were committed above all by rightwing extremists and radical islamists or young Muslims.’’ Beate Winkler, EUMC director, told the paper the report was shelved because of problems with time scales but also due to the overly complicated definition of anti-semitism. "Of course there are people of Arab descent committing such acts. This will be represented in our next report," she added. (AGENCIES) |
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Bush lifts aid restrictions for Iraq allies WASHINGTON, Nov 22: President George W Bush partially lifted restrictions on US military aid to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia, rewarding key European allies in the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq. Washington suspended military assistance in July to the six countries and many others for failing to shield Americans from the international criminal court. It was set up last year to try war crimes and acts of genocide. But in a memorandum issued by the White House, Bush said it was "important to the national interest of the United States" to waive the aid restrictions "for only certain specific projects that I have decided are needed" to support NATO’s expansion as well as US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia have either deployed forces to Iraq or have committed to do so. The United States say it fears its nationals overseas could be vulnerable to politically motivated charges. The United States signed the 1998 treaty creating the court, but the Bush administration later rescinded US backing. (AGENCIES) WASHINGTON, Nov 22: The US senate voted to block energy legislation on Friday, handing a setback to President George W Bush and US oil companies and utilities that lobbied for it, bloomberg financial news reported. The bill includes regulatory changes and 23.5 billion dollars in tax breaks for energy companies. Supporters say the bill is designed to reduce US dependence on oil from the west Asia. opponents call it a giveaway to energy companies and said it threatened the environment. Specifically, the oppose a liability waiver included in the bill for makers of MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether). The petroleum derivative is suspected of polluting groundwater. Senate republican leader bill frist said he would schedule another vote on the bill next week. Two more senators must vote for the bill to get it over the senate’s procedural hurdles. The house passed the bill on Tuesday. (DPA) Glowing fish to be first genetically changed pet WASHINGTON, Nov 22: A little tropical fish that glows fluorescent red will be the first genetically engineered pet, a Texas-based company said. The Zebra fish were originally developed to detect environmental toxins, but Alan Blake and colleagues at Yorktown technologies, lP Licensed them to sell as pets. "These fish were bred to help fight environmental pollution," Blake said in a telephone interview. "They were bred to fluoresce in the presence of toxins." Scientists have for decades used a gene called green fluorescent protein, taken from jellyfish, to help in research. The fish, sold under the trademarked name glofish, carry a similar gene taken from a sea coral that makes it glow all the time. Blake said there is no evidence the fish will pose any threat to the environment. Normal Zebra fish are commonly used in aquariums and cannot survive in non-tropical waters. "They are very bright under any type of light," Blake said. "under ultraviolet light in a dark room they will appear to be glowing in the dark." Blake, who before he set up the new business ran an internet company, says he did not have a particular interest in fish before. "I had an aquarium when I was about 10," he said. The fish, developed at the national university of Singapore by researcher Zhiyuan Gong, are also available as pets in Taiwan, the company said. They will sell for about 5 apiece at pet stores in January. (AGENCIES) US court rejects Glaxo’s Augmentin patent appeal WASHINGTON, Nov 22: A federal appeals court on Friday rejected Glaxosmithkline PLC’s bid to savage patent protection for its antibiotic augmentin, once its second-biggest selling product. The US court of appeals for the federal circuit said a lower court had been correct when it decided early last year that the company’s patents were invalid. "Because the district court correctly found that these patents are invalid, this court affirms," the appeals court wrote in its decision. Invalidation of the Augmentin patent has already paved the way for cheaper copycat versions of the drug that have dented sales for glaxo, the world’s no. 2 drug maker. Glaxo said the court ruled in favor of generic drug makers Geneva pharmaceuticals, Teva pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. And Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. Geneva, the generics unit of Swiss-based Novartis AG was the first to launch a cheaper form of Augmentin in July 2002. Israel’s Teva, India’s Ranbaxy and Lek of Slovenia, which is now also part of Novartis, followed. Augmentin is a combination of two medicines, a penicillin called amoxicillin and a chemical called Clavulanic acid that prevents bacteria from becoming resistant to the drug. It once enjoyed global annual sales of 2 billion. When drugs go off patent, US law typically guarantees an 180-day monopoly on generic sales to the the first company that seeks permission to sell a copycat. But the 180-day monopoly does not apply to antibiotics. Glaxo said its newer Augmentin antibiotic medicines —Augmentin ES and XR — now represent nearly 35 percent of the total number of prescriptions being written for branded and generic Augmentin. (AGENCIES) |
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