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First ‘made in India’ exhibition opens in Myanmar YANGIN, Feb 19: The first ever "made in India" exhibition showcasing the country’s modern products and .....more China
communists BEIJING, Feb 19: China’s Communist Party yesterday unveiled new rules to stamp .....more US soldier told Al-Qaeda what to target -charge SEATTLE, Feb 19: A member of A US national guard armored unit in Washington state sent details of military ....more Taiwan’s
Chen says TAIPEI, Feb 19: Taiwan will press ahead with plans to buy anti-missile patriot Pac-3 systems from the United States even if ......more |
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Jewish leaders urge end LOS ANGELES, Feb 19: Two prominent Jewish leaders in a newspaper article to be published today say a European Commission seminar in ......more Aspirin may help prevent Hodgkin’s disease- study WASHINGTON, Feb 19: Regular aspirin users may be protecting themselves against .....more US
captures 7 with BAGHDAD, Feb 19: US soldiers captured seven insurgents with possible links to Al-Qaeda during a raid in ....more Faithhealer
Milingo VATICAN CITY, Feb 19: Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the African faith healer and exorcist who shocked catholics....more |
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First ‘made in India’ exhibition opens in Myanmar YANGIN, Feb 19: The first ever "made in India" exhibition showcasing the country’s modern products and technologies opened in the Myanmar capital today with the two countries hailng it as another step towards strengthening the growing ties between the Asian neighbours. Inaugurating the exhibition at the Yangon trade centre, Myanmar’s Commerce Minister Brig Gen Pyl Sone said "holding trade fairs was an effective way of trade promotion". He also noted that India and Myanmar were part of the Bimst-EC economic grouping. Commenting on the fast growing relations between the two countries, Brig Sone said "besides promoting normal trade it is imperative to promote border trade between India and Myanmar". India’s envoy to Myanmar R K Bhatia said the fair was aimed at showcasing India’s products, technologies and capabilities to sensitise those interested about the possibilities of further cooperation between India and Myanmar and to strengthen existing business relationships and create new ones. He said the growing ties between two neighbours was evident by the conclusion of seven new agreements along with several ministerial visits between them. "There is not only compatibility but considerable synergy between India’s `look east policy’ and Myanmar’s `look around policy’, as put by its Foriegn Minister Win Aung, meaning a special focus on strengthening relations with its neighbours," he said. Bilateral trade between Myanmar and India has significantly gone up from 12.4 million dollars in 1980-81 to 427.9 million dollars in 2001-2002. Both the countries have pledged to increase the annual trade over to one billion dollars by 2006. "There are many potential areas to be exploited between the two countries and if these can be channeled directly without involving any other third country, the target of one billion dollars can be reached easily," Pyi Sone told over 200 people who came to see the trade fair. The fair would bring together private sectors of both countries to promote bilateral economic cooperation, he said adding India was one of Myanmar’s major trading partners. Noting that ties between the two countries was steadily growing since the signing of treaties and agreements in 1959, Secretary in the Indian Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Commerce and Industry Ministry, Lakshmi Chand, said the Indian economy had made rapid strides. A 30-member business delegation led by Rajive Kaul, president of CII is here networking and exhibiting at the four-day fair. Seventy companies are displaying their products including Usha, Rites, GAIL and Atlas Cycles. Kaul said CII’s aim was to showcase the changing face of India and said the show was an ideal forum for developing new linkages and associations. One of the fair’s unique features was the participation by 20 companies from north eastern India, he said adding "Myanmar and India are on the verge of a new era of economic cooperation". (PTI) |
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China communists try new system to snare corrupt cadres BEIJING, Feb 19: China’s Communist Party yesterday unveiled new rules to stamp out corruption that would spare not even its top leaders and could see officials kicked out for transgressions such as adultery or polygamy. The broad measures are the party’s first specifically to target senior officials after years of crackdowns and purges — and even the use on occasion of the death penalty — that have so far failed to stop a social ill from growing. The people’s daily, the newspaper that delivers the party’s message to its more than 66 million members, published the new rules on internal supervision yesterday. Xinhua News Agency carried corollary rules prescribing punishments for wrongdoings. The rules reflect an eagerness by the party to shore up its legitimacy in the first year since party leader Hu Jintao inherited the reins of power from Jiang Zemin, analysts say. But doubts remain over how the party can root out chronic bribe-taking, cronyism and collusion with entrepreneurial interests as long as its authority is unchallenged, they say. The internal supervision rule — while vague — says underlings can report superiors on even the highest rungs of the party ladder, including the nine-member all-powerful politburo standing committee. "These are the first party rules aimed at controlling the behaviour of cadres with rankings as high as the Politburo standing committee," Li Junwei, a professor with the Central Party School, told . "A previous regulation did not stipulate the punishment for provincial level leaders and above." Lengthy rules on punishment delve into cadres’ personal lives. Those engaging in adultery or polygamy may even be expelled from the party. "Power without limits leads to corruption," said Li. "It shows that the party wants to control corruption at its source." In an analytical breakdown of the measures, embellished with cheery cartoons, the people’s daily highlighted the aims of promoting "inner party democracy" and scrutinising the activities of senior officials. They took effect on Tuesday on a trial basis, it said. Top leaders in recent years have called corruption a cancer that could bring the party to its knees but have tackled it with only marginal success. However, in the last year alone, 13 officials at the provincial and ministerial levels have been disciplined for graft — including Land Minister Tian Fengshan, sacked for offences while Governor of Heilongjiang province in the late 1990s. In an increasingly free-wheeling era, officials take salaries of thousands of yuan but make decisions worth millions. Publicly, the party has insisted the crux of the problem is the quality of officials, not the system. The measures appeared to be another feather in the cap of Wu Guanzheng, the Puritan head of the disciplinary commission and considered an ally of Hu, who is still trying to emerge from Jiang’s shadow. Wu’s name translates as "upright official". But in an editorial, the people’s daily said the rules were the culmination of work begun 13 years ago, in the first year of Jiang’s administration, which saw anti-graft dragnets capture key rivals such as Beijing party chief Chen Xitong. The scandals have, however, come close to implicating some of Jiang’s key allies as well. (AGENCIES) |
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US soldier told Al-Qaeda what to target -charge SEATTLE, Feb 19: A member of A US national guard armored unit in Washington state sent details of military weak points to what he thought were Al-Qaeda operatives in an effort to help them kill American troops, according to Army charges disclosed. Army specialist Ryan Anderson, 26, who had been slated for deployment to Iraq with his unit based at Ft Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington, is being held there on three charges of attempting to aid the enemy. Anderson, who was arrested on Feb 12, faces a possible death penalty if convicted of the charges by a military Court. US officials have said Al-Qaeda, accused of the Sept 11, 2001 hijacks and other attacks on US facilities around the world, is also active in Iraq. The charge sheet against Anderson said he told undercover military officers posing as Al-Qaeda operatives, "I wish to meet with you I share your cause I wish to continue contact through conversations and personal meetings." The charges accused him of sending the officers, among other things, sketches of the M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams main battle tank. In Oral, written and electronic communications, Anderson, also known as Amir Abdul Rashid, provided information on "US Army troop strength, movements, equipment, tactics, identification and weapons systems," the charges said. They said he outlined "methods and means of killing US Army personnel and destroying US Army weapon systems and equipment", pointing out "specific vulnerabilities". The alleged communications took place between January 17 and February 10. Anderson was due to be mobilized as part of a rotation of troops in the Iraq occupation force. A converted Muslim who grew up in everett, Washington, and graduated from Washington State University in 2002, Anderson was a vocal gun advocate who was once arrested for approaching an elementary school armed with a military rifle. The charge sheet disclosed Anderson’s basic pay was 18,700 a year. (AGENCIES) |
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Taiwan’s Chen says ballot won’t affect missil TAIPEI, Feb 19: Taiwan will press ahead with plans to buy anti-missile patriot Pac-3 systems from the United States even if a referendum on boosting defence capabilities is rejected next month, President Chen Shui-Bian said today. Facing a rapid arms build-up by rival China, Chen said in an interview with local radio that the Government would not cancel an arms package offered by US President George W Bush three years ago that was largest for the island in a decade. The referendum to coincide with Presidential elections on March 20 would ask voters if Taiwan should buy more anti-missile equipment if China does not withdraw nearly 500 missiles pointed at the island that Beijing views as a renegade province. (AGENCIES) |
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Jewish leaders urge end of Israel’s demonization LOS ANGELES, Feb 19: Two prominent Jewish leaders in a newspaper article to be published today say a European Commission seminar in Brussels on anti-semitism would be a success if it led to an end to what they termed "the demonization of Israel." In an article in London’s Financial Times, world Jewish Congress president Edgar Bronfman and European Jewish Congress leader Cobi Benatoff said, "the most important achievement that can emerge from this conference is recognition of an emerging truth: No longer is violent anti-semitism the exclusive domain of extreme right-wing forces today’s anti-semitic agitators are largely those who would import the west Asia conflict to Europe." The two Jewish leaders added, "we do not come to silence those who would criticize the policies of the Israeli Government. Criticism of Israel is not the issue. Rather, it is demonization of Israel as a Jewish state and as the state of the Jews. "Political expediency cannot be substituted for moral rectitude. European leaders cannot allow criticism of Israel to serve as a fig leaf that covers and excuses anti-semitic rhetoric as a prelude to violence. Make no mistake about it, words can do harm.’’ Benatoff and Bronfman added, "it is a moment for Governments to stand up and be counted. To do so, their condemnation of anti-semitism must be unambiguous, public and universal." (AGENCIES) |
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Aspirin may help prevent Hodgkin’s disease- study WASHINGTON, Feb 19: Regular aspirin users may be protecting themselves against a form of cancer called Hodgkin’s Lymphoma as well as against Colon cancer and heart disease, US researchers have reported. In the latest report to suggest that aspirin has effects that could prevent cancer, a team at the Harvard School of Public Health found that patients who took two or more aspirins a week over five years reduced their risk of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of immune system cancer. Ellen Chang and colleagues questioned 565 patients with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and 679 healthy people about their use of aspirin and related drugs called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, or nsaids. They found the regular aspirin users were only 60 percent as likely as non users to be in the cancer group. To their surprise, they found that regular users of acetaminophen, a non-aspirin pain reliever, nearly doubled their risk of the cancer — but said it may have been because patients started taking the drug to control their as-yet undiagnosed cancer symptoms. Chang’s team said the findings must be confirmed in bigger studies but said it could be aspirin actively prevents the immune disruption involved in Hodgkin’s disease. "Given the extensive inflammation and immune dysregulation accompanying Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, an attractive hypothesis is that anti-inflammatory drugs guard against the onset of disease," they wrote in their report, published in the journal of the national cancer institute. "If aspirin use is indeed found to protect against Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, this relationship could afford insight into the pathogenesis of the disease and offer possible clues toward its prevention," they added. (AGENCIES) |
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US captures 7 with possible Al-Qaeda ties in Iraq BAGHDAD, Feb 19: US soldiers captured seven insurgents with possible links to Al-Qaeda during a raid in central Iraq, the US military said. The seven men were targets of a raid carried out by the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division in Baquba, 65 Km north of Baghdad. "The seven targets may have links to Al-Qaeda," a military spokesman said. They were suspected of being part of a cell that launched attacks against US-led occupation forces, he said. Another 15 people were also arrested in the same raid. The US has frequently suggested Al-Qaeda is attempting to infiltrate Iraq and undertake attacks against their forces. Baquba is part of the so-called "sunni triangle", an area of strong resistance to the US, located north and west of Baghdad. (AGENCIES) |
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Faithhealer Milingo attends papal audience VATICAN CITY, Feb 19: Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the African faith healer and exorcist who shocked catholics by marrying in the reverend Sun Myung Moon’s unification Church in 2001, has returned to the Vatican. Milingo, who has been living quietly in a 13th century Monastery south of Rome in the last two years since he returned to the Catholic Church, attended Pope John Paul’s general audience with Bishops from an ecumenical group of which he is a member. It was the first time he had been seen in public in the Vatican in nearly three years. The former archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia, disappeared from the Vatican in spring of 2001 to marry Maria Sung, a 43-year-old Korean woman whom moon, the controversial South Korean-born Evangelist, had chosen for him. Milingo shocked the Vatican by attending a mass wedding in a Tuxedo and kissing his white-gowned wife for the cameras in a ceremony in a New York hotel. The Vatican, which never recognised the marriage, threatened him with excommunication. In the summer of 2001, Milingo and Sung came to Italy separately. He said he wanted to return to the Church. She went on a hunger strike, gave bedside interviews in her hotel room and claimed the Vatican had kidnapped her husband. He left sung, rejoined the Church and went into seclusion for rehabilitation. (AGENCIES) |
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Singapore cuts sentence in oral sex case SINGAPORE, Feb 19: A Singapore Judge reduced the sentence of a policeman charged with receiving oral sex after his case provoked a storm of protest, but he told the Court that such a sex act did not conform to Asian values. Police coast guard sergeant Annis Abdullah’s sentence was halved to a year in jail after the 27-year-old received consensual oral sex from a teenage girl in April. "In the Asian culture, certain offences are still not talked about though in some cultures you can go sucking away, and some important people had gotten away with it," 77-year-old Chief Justice Yong Pung how was quoted by state media as telling the Court at Tuesday’s sentencing. The man’s case sparked a rare public outcry against a notorious local law that says "whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animals can be fined and jailed up to 10 years, or even for life". Letters defending Abdullah filled newspapers after media reported the girl’s age as 16, above the legal age of consent. After days of furious correspondence in the press deriding the oral sex ban as antiquated and out of step, the Government announced that her age at the time of the incident was 15. Still, Singaporeans, known for quietly acquiescing to tough laws, appeared shocked such a ban even existed, and the Government announced last month it may decriminalise oral sex between men and women following a review of the penal code. Awaiting a ruling on Abdullah, several Judges postponed sentencing of at least three men convicted recently of oral sex, the Straits Times newspaper reported yesterday. Critics have pointed out the irony of the law in a country where prostitution remains legal and where the Government is relaxing other famously strict laws such as bans on chewing gum and bar-top dancing in a bid to shake off its stuffy image. (AGENCIES) Ecuador Indians want probe of fatal protest QUITO, ECUADOR, Feb 19: Ecuador’s powerful Indian movement has demanded an investigation into how a demonstrator was killed during two days of anti-Government protests, and threatened to take the case to international courts. "We are going to file a suit in the appropriate forum against this terrible Government," said Guilberto Talahua, coordinator for the movement’s political party Pachakutik, referring to the organization of American States and other human rights tribunals. The Indians want an official investigation of the death of a 65-year-old old woman who was shot during clashes with security forces on Monday in a rural Andean community 350 Km south of Quito. Her death came as Indians led protests throughout the highlands to oppose the economic policies of President Lucio Gutierrez under a 205 million dollar International Monetary Fund loan and his plans for free trade with the United States. But the protests failed to attract much support and the demonstrations mostly ended on Tuesday. Indians led a 2000 revolt that toppled then-President Jamil Mahuad. They backed Gutierrez for President in 2002 but split with him a year later over his economic policies. (AGENCIES) Pentagon intelligence offices on Iraq scrutinized WASHINGTON, Feb 19: Two Pentagon offices that critics say twisted intelligence to bolster the case for war with Iraq are facing fresh scrutiny, but the defense department defended the groups as completely benign. At issue are the activities of the office of special plans and the counter terrorism evaluation group, which operated under the auspices of Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for policy and a leading Pentagon hawk. The senate intelligence committee this month said it would investigate the actions of these offices as part of its broader examination of Prewar US intelligence on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. Critics of the Bush administration argue that these two offices, driven by ideology and a predisposition for war, operated outside normal intelligence channels to manipulate and politicize data to portray Saddam Hussein’s Government in the most threatening light. "What is deeply troubling is that this was an administration that was hell-bent on using force," said Rep Ellen Tauscher, a California democrat who says these Pentagon operations "Cherry picked" intelligence to amplify bad news and nullify caveats. Tauscher has introduced a bill to create a special House of Representatives panel to examine Iraq intelligence, including whether the office of special plans competed with or undercut established intelligence agencies. Feith and other Pentagon officials defended the two offices and dismissed what they said were "urban legends" about shadowy intelligence cells. "It is appalling the conspiracy theories that have sprung up around the office of special plans," said a defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "This was prudent policy planning based on intelligence that’s produced and shared throughout the federal Government. These critics have twisted this into something it isn’t." Pentagon officials said the counter terrorism evaluation group was created in October 2001, weeks after the Sept 11 attacks on America, to study relationships among terrorist organizations and state sponsors. (AGENCIES) Baghdad security not as bad as feared -China UNITAD NATIONS, Feb 19: Chinese diplomats returning to Baghdad this week to reopen their long-shuttered embassy found the security situation was not as bad as they had feared, Beijing’s UN Ambassador said. A delegation of 13 embassy staffers returned to Baghdad on Monday and "they say that the security situation is bad but not as bad as people expected," Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters yesterday. China shut down its Baghdad Embassy and its envoys fled the Iraqi capital just days before the start of the US-led invasion last March. The diplomats found upon their return that looting sprees following the war did serious damage to the embassy compound. Reopening the embassy "shows once again that China has the intention of improving and restoring its good relations with Iraq," Wang said. (AGENCIES) |
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