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Ethnic Indian sentenced SINGAPORE, Nov 29: A Singapore court has sentenced an ethnic Indian to a maximum imprisonment term of 26 years as well as.....more Quake causes heavy damages in southern Iran TEHERAN, Nov 29: An earthquake shook the southern Iranian province of fars today, causing heavy damages, the news network Khabar reported. ...more Cambodian political crisis deepens as talks fail PHNOM PENH, Nov 29: Cambodia’s post-election political crisis entered its fifth month today after emergency talks .....more China runs first officially backed condom ADs on TV BEIJING, Nov 29: Communist China is running its first officially backed condom commercials on tv to try to slow the .....more |
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Vietnam, America to sign HANOI, Nov 29: Vietnam and the United States are scheduled to finalise next month an air services agreement that . .....more Ammunition
was source WASHINGTON, Nov 29: The soldiers of the US army’s 3rd infantry division charged into Iraq in April well short of the ....more Talks
could fail if no TOKYO, Nov 29: Multilateral negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea ....more N
Ireland poll winners BELFAST, Nov 29: "Keep it in the family" could well be the motto of the democratic unionist party, main winner in the bitterly contested northern ...more |
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Ethnic Indian sentenced to 26 years for raping air hostess SINGAPORE, Nov 29: A Singapore court has sentenced an ethnic Indian to a maximum imprisonment term of 26 years as well as 24 strokes of the cane for raping a flight Stewardess and molesting another at the posh grand Hyatt hotel here on April 8 this year, local media reported today. Suresh Nair Vellayutham, the 28-year old Malaysian national of Indian origin, admitted to raping the Stewardess once, an offence he pleaded guilty to, at the end of the hearing. But he denied a second rape charge on the same woman, and molesting another stewardess. After hearing oral submissions from both sides yesterday, Justice Tay Kwong Yong also convicted Suresh of the second rape charge and of aggravated molestation. Summing up the four-day trial, the prosecution urged the Court to impose a long custodial sentence on Suresh so as to uphold the principles of prevention, retribution and deterrence. The prosecutor also argued that such a sentence would go a long way in assuring the victims that Singapore’s criminal justice system has not failed them. Suresh, unemployed with an advanced diploma in computer studies, admitted that he had been planning the deed since March. Defense lawyer Subhas Anandan, however, urged the Court not to jail Suresh for a longer period as it would be "too crushing on him." Mr Anandan said Suresh was also sorry for what he had done, and apologised to his victims and their families. The victims recounted to the Court the psychological ordeal they were still undergoing as a result of the incident, and their fear of staying in hotels. Suresh’s rape victim told the Court that some time after the incident, her gynaecologist told her she was five weeks pregnant. Though she had been married for nine months and was planning a family, she had an abortion, as she was not sure who the child’s father was. The 31-year old victim said she took five drugs to prevent pregnancy, calling aborting the five-week old foetus a "painful and agonising" decision. She is still being counselled and has yet to get over the trauma of repeated rape as well as being forced to pose for lewd pictures, which Suresh had threatened to post on the internet. The Stewardess said she would not be able to carry on with her duties as a flight attendant as she has developed phobias and felt uncomfortable in a lift and was very nervous about staying in hotels. Her 30-year old colleague, who was molested, said she felt "very nervous and scared" whenever she saw dark skinned men and experienced discomfort when her husband wanted to get initimate with her. Justice Tay handed down the maximum sentence allowed by the laws for two rapes, aggravated molestation and the arms offences act as Suresh had modified a toy gun and used a knife to threaten the victims. He also used digital camera to take their photos in order to blackmail them. Suresh had earlier thanked Justice Tay when he was acquitted of three other counts — one of oral sex and two of aggravated molestation. (UNI) |
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Quake causes heavy damages in southern Iran TEHERAN, Nov 29: An earthquake shook the southern Iranian province of fars today, causing heavy damages, the news network Khabar reported. There were no deaths or injuries reported, but the quake, measured 5.1 on the richter scale, damaged more than 4,000 residential and commercial buildings in the town of Jahrom and nearby villages. (DPA) |
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Cambodian political crisis deepens as talks fail PHNOM PENH, Nov 29: Cambodia’s post-election political crisis entered its fifth month today after emergency talks between the three feuding parties and ageing, revered King Sihanouk failed to provide a breakthrough. The Octogenarian Monarch summoned representatives of the three factions to the royal palace last evening to try and pressure them into forming a coalition Government following the impoverished southeast Asian nation’s July general elections. However, the talks failed to find a way out of the crisis, which has exposed the continued animosity and mistrust between the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and its rivals. "The meeting has not solved any issues, but at least we have all agreed to hold another round of talks," Sihanouk said at the conclusion of the meeting late last night. The sides would meet again on December 4 to discuss the make-up of a new national assembly, and then again on December 6 to outline policy priorities for the coming five years, he said. Even if they can agree on these vexed issues, the allocation of ministries to the various factions probably remains weeks off. Some analysts have said the mutual loathing laid bare in the last four months could undermine any future coalition. The CPP, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has been in power for nearly 20 years, came first in the elections, but failed to secure the two-thirds Parliamentary majority needed to govern alone. However, the royalist or funcinpec party, led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and the opposition Sam Rainsy party have vowed never to join a coalition led by hun sen, their sworn political enemy. Hun Sen, who has publicly declared his desire to remain as premier for another 10 years at least, is continuing to run the country day-to-day in what are uncharted constitutional waters. (AGENCIES) |
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China runs first officially backed condom ADs on TV BEIJING, Nov 29: Communist China is running its first officially backed condom commercials on tv to try to slow the spread of AIDS, state media reported. Images of a woman saying she feels safer using condoms with her boyfriend were being screened in a 30-second advert on China’s main television network ahead of world aids day on December 1, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Condom ADs appeared on the backs of buses and briefly on television in the late 1990s but were then pulled. "Both were removed after they attracted criticism from residents and were deemed in breach of regulations," Xinhua said. "According to these regulations, advertisements related to sex or obscenity are banned or restricted." Unsafe sex is now believed to account for some 10 percent of HIV cases in a country where the sex industry has exploded alongside economic reforms introduced since the late 1970s. China, which only faced up to its AIDS epidemic a couple of years ago, has stepped up its battle against the disease in recent months by pledging free drugs to poor people suffering from HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. But many questions remain over whether the Government’s campaign is translating into real aid for China’s official tally of 840,000 HIV sufferers and 80,000 AIDS victims — many of whom were infected by blood-selling schemes in the central regions. Beijing has long been under fire for disguising the scale of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and rounding up AIDS activists. Experts estimate the real number of Chinese HIV sufferers could be closer to 1-1.5 million and say that could easily jump to 10 million or more by 2010. (AGENCIES) |
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Vietnam, America to sign air agreement next month HANOI, Nov 29: Vietnam and the United States are scheduled to finalise next month an air services agreement that would allow direct passenger and cargo flights, state media said today. The official Vvietnam news agency said both Ggovernments would sign the agreement, which was initialled in Hanoi in early October, in Washington during a 10-day visit by Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister V U Khoan starting on December 2. The pact is expected to take effect within a few months. Several US carriers have said they expected the first direct flights from America to begin in March. The five-year pact allows two passenger carriers on each side to operate directly for the first two years, with another permitted in the third year. The five years start after the pact is signed. Vietnam airlines has said it was unsure when its jets would land in the United States but that the pact should double its current annual growth of between five and seven percent in the next few years. Khoan, then the trade minister, represented Vietnam to sign with the United States a bilateral trade pact that went into effect in December 2001. The pact resulted in a 128 percent surge in exports from Vietnam to the United States in 2002. American exports to Vietnam grew 26 percent last year. Two-way trade this year is expected to jump to 4.8 billion from 3 billion in 2002, according to the planning and investment ministry. (AGENCIES) |
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Ammunition was source of concern during US invasion of Iraq WASHINGTON, Nov 29: The soldiers of the US army’s 3rd infantry division charged into Iraq in April well short of the ammunition their commanders had said was necessary to invade. It was one of the supply problems encountered by the 3rd infantry before and during its 21-day dash to Baghdad from Kuwait, according to an internal review, a 293-page report by the division’s senior officers and troops. During the run-up to the war, division commanders requested additional ammunition be delivered to front-line units. The request was approved, but the troops could not obtain all the ordnance despite months of war preparations, english daily USA today was reported. "Every attempt to gain the ammunition assets resulted in some agency or another denying requests, short-loading trucks or turning away soldiers," the report said, adding that the entire situation became utter chaos. ... The division crossed (into Iraq) short of the ammunition it had declared necessary to commit to combat." The report, whose authors were not identified by name, catalogued serious problems with supply, security and the handling of prisoners of war. It blamed many problems on higher headquarters or other parts of the military, although it did point out some places where the division could train its own soldiers better. A spokesman for the division, Maj Darryl Wright, characterized the report as a candid effort to pinpoint problems and refine tactics so the division fights better next time. During the Iraq invasion, more than 12,000 troops of the 3rd infantry division (mechanized) joined thousands of marines and other soldiers in the northward thrust to Baghdad. The first US infantry and armored units entered Iraq on March 20 and took Baghdad within three weeks. (UNI) |
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Talks could fail if no N korea pledge to scrap nukes TOKYO, Nov 29: Multilateral negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme might collapse if pyongyang refuses to renounce its aims at the next round of talks, a leading Japanese daily said today. Quoting US Government and other sources in Washington, the Mainichi Shimbun said that the United States was considering insisting on Pyongyang expressing its concrete intentions to put a verifiable and irreversible end to the weapons project. Should this prove impossible, a talks breakdown might be unavoidable, Mainichi said. It gave no further details. Yesterday, a South Korean Government spokesman said that North Korea was showing signs of abandoning its nuclear ambitions amid a flurry of diplomatic activity from the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia to try and kick-start a fresh round of six-way talks on ending the crisis. "It is very fortunate for the future of the Korean peninsula that North Korea shows signs of giving up its nuclear programme and that the United States has indicated its intention to provide North Korea with security assurances," visiting South Korean Government spokesman Cho Young-Dong told reporters in Tokyo. The next round of six-party talks is likely to be held in Beijing next month. Media reports say the talks will take place from December 17-19. In an attempt to defuse the crisis, Washington said last month it was willing to give Pyongyang unspecified security assurances in exchange for the north ending its nuclear ambitions. (AGENCIES) |
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N Ireland poll winners keep it in the family BELFAST, Nov 29: "Keep it in the family" could well be the motto of the democratic unionist party, main winner in the bitterly contested northern Ireland assembly elections. The party’s 30 elected representatives include a father and son team as well as two married couples, an unusually large proportion of related parliamentarians. Both party leader Ian Paisley and his son Ian Paisley junior were re-elected in the north Antrim constituency, while Deputy Leader Peter Robinson and his wife Iris Will once more represent neighbouring political patches in east Belfast and Strangford. Diane Dodds, a 45-year-old mother of two, is the latest addition to the protestant party’s family fold, joining husband Nigel as a Belfast representative to the British province’s power-sharing assembly after honing her political skills working in his constituency office. Political analyst Paul Bew from Queen’s university, Belfast, said the dup could be copying Irish political trends. "The dail (Irish Parliament) has more politicians related to a previous member than most other European Parliaments," he said. This would be anathema for the hardline dup, which wants northern Ireland to remain tied to Britain and is extremely suspicious of the Irish republic to the south. (AGENCIES) |
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US soldier shoots 7-year-old in leg BAGHDAD, Nov 29: A US soldier shot a a 7-year-old child in the leg while pursuing two armed men about 100 kilometres west of Baghdad, the US military said today. A US patrol spotted the two armed men and followed them to a house. As the soldiers approached the house, the child pointed an AK-47 rifle at them, and they responded by shooting the child in the leg. The child was taken to a hospital for treatment. (DPA) Inspections will prove Iran’s nuclear projects peaceful - Official TEHERAN, Nov 29: Inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will further prove the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear projects, an Iranian official said today. "We have just followed a peaceful nuclear programme and will do so in the future and the upcoming inspections will further prove the peaceful nature of our nuclear projects," Hassan Rowhani, the chief negotiator in the nuclear dispute, told reporters in Teheran. Rowhani, also Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, categorically rejected any claims that Iran was trying to manufacture atomic weapons as "sheer lies" and said that Iran’s nuclear programmes have always been transparent and will remain so in the future. The IAEA council of Governors unanimously passed last Wednesday a resolution deploring past Iranian violations but praising its new willingness to cooperate with the agency. Iran considered the resolution as a victory for Iran and a defeat for US plans to isolate iran by taking the dispute to the United Nations Security Council. Rowhani had said that those countries which had been on Iran’s side in the nuclear dispute, namely Britain, France and Germany should be distinguished from those states such as Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea which, according to Iran, have sided with the US. (DPA) Four inmates, including Indian, on death row in Sumatra JAKARTA, Nov 29: There are four prisoners on death row, including two Thai nationals and an Indian, in Indonesia’s north Sumatra province, news reports said today. The inmates facing death by firing squad include Indian national Ayoda Prasad Chaubey Ahmad Suradji, an Indonesian faith Healer found guilty of murdering 42 women and Thai nationals sae low prasert and Namsong Sirilak — a woman, said the state-run Antara News Agency. The three foreign nationals were sentenced to death for trying to smuggle heroin into the country in 1995 through the Palonia airport in Medan, north Sumatra, 1,395 kilometres northwest of Jakarta. "Some of them have asked for the Supreme Court to review their sentences or asked for a pardon from the President," said Lukas Tarigan, an official of the justice and human rights ministry’s office for north Sumtra. (DPA) China severs diplomatic ties with Kiribati BEIJING, Nov 29: China broke diplomatic relations with Kiribati today, about three weeks after the tiny South Pacific island nation recognised Taiwan, an island Beijing considers a breakaway province. China decided to sever ties with Kiribati and cease all bilateral agreements after Chinese Ambassador Na Shuxue lodged a strong protest over its recognition of Taiwan, the foreign ministry said on its web site, www.Fmprc.Gov.Cn. Beijing and Taipei have been bitter diplomatic rivals since their split at the end of a civil war in 1949, accusing each other of using money — or so-called "dollar diplomacy" — to swap potential allies back and forth. The switch, which was inevitable after Kiribati established relations with Taiwan, brought the number of countries recognising the self-ruled island to 27. China has tried to push Taiwan into diplomatic isolation and threatened to attack if the wealthy democratic island of 23 million declared independence. Kiribati is a group of small islands in the Pacific with a population of 90,000. Taiwan’s parliament passed on Thursday a watered-down referendum bill that fell short of allowing a vote on independence, backing away from an immediate showdown with China. (AGENCIES) |
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