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Terrorists and disease DUBAI, Jan 26: With more than two million Muslim faithful expected to descend on the holy city of Mecca Friday for the annual Haj pilgrimage,.....more Former
Israel PM’s JERUSALEM, Jan 26: Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, has formally submitted a request to the prison authorities to be.....more Thailand
expands BANGKOK, Jan 26: Thailand’s bird flu crisis zone has been expanded to ten provinces from two, Agriculture Minister . ....more Libyan PM says foreign investment a priority LONDON, Jan 26: Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem said today attracting ....more |
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Singapore fund raising SINGAPORE, Jan 26: A fund-raising drive spearheaded by six religious groups in Singapore has raised 147,000 US dollars for the victims of the ......more No
bad hair days WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND, Jan 26: A New Zealand high school has banned boy students from using hair gel, dubbing it a "fashion accessory" ....more Bill
Gates to be knighted LONDON, Jan 26: Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates will be awarded........more Palestinians unify security bodies, tackle crime RAMALLAH, WEST BANK, Jan 26: Palestinian leaders said they would crack down on crime by unifying security bodies into one organisation and ....more |
Terrorists and disease top risks as Saudi prepares for Haj DUBAI, Jan 26: With more than two million Muslim faithful expected to descend on the holy city of Mecca Friday for the annual Haj pilgrimage, authorities in Saudi Arabia are preparing for the risks of terrorist attacks, accidents and epidemics. Saudi religious authorities have called on Muslims performing the pilgrimage to follow the moderate line of Islam and keep away from actions that would violate the sanctity of Haj. Authorities have good reason to worry as terrorist attacks on four residential compounds in Riyadh last year killed more than 50 people and injured scores more. Over the past few months security forces have confiscated 300 explosives belts and nearly 24 tons of explosive material. The seizures included more than 300 rocket propelled grenades and launchers and more than 430 hand grenades. In Mecca last year several terrorists were killed or arrested while plotting to strike against Saudi and foreign interests in the kingdom. To coincide with Haj, the Saudi Interior Ministry is distributing booklets in several languages with pictures of the most-wanted terrorist suspects. With pilgrims travelling from 160 countries, the risk of contagious disease also poses a huge challenge for Saudi authorities. To deal with sick pilgrims, the Government has arranged 20 hospitals, 188 health centres, 155 ambulances and 9,500 doctors, nurses paramedics and administrative officers. Some 115 medical specialists from the US, Britain and Malaysia have been recruited to work in emergency, intensive care and anaesthesia units. Food poisoning, influenza and meningitis are the most common health problems among pilgrims, said the director of infectious diseases at the Ministry of Heatlh, Amin Mishkas. All pilgrims must be vaccinated against meningitis. A ban on congolese pilgrims was lifted recently after the World Health Organization declared the African country to be free of the Ebola virus. Following reports of a resurgence of SARS in Asia, pilgrims from SARS-affected areas will for the first time be scanned with electronic thermal cameras to measure body temperature as they arrive. With two million people assembling in one area, stampedes are a risk. The worst stampede occurred in 1990 and left 1,400 people dead. Floods are also a cause of concern during Haj. A flash flood which hit parts of Mecca last Friday injured at least 66 pilgrims. The greatest number of pilgrims will be travelling from Indonesia which is the world’s most populous Muslim country with about 400 million Muslims. About 200,000 Indonesians will make the pilgrimage this year. Some 30,000 are expected to travel from iraq this year compared to totals of 15,000 in previous years. Mecca is Islam’s holiest shrine. The Haj starts in the grand Mosque with the circling of the Kaaba, the large cubic stone structure that Muslims face during their five days of prayer. The climax of Haj is on the second day of the event at Mount Arafat. The pilgrims assemble on the plain of Arafat some 20 kilometres from Mecca, to seek the blessings of God. After Arafat, the pilgrims throw pebbles against three pillars, symbolizing the devil. They then slaughter an animal which marks the start of a three-day holiday in the Muslim world called Eid-al-Adha or feast of sacrifice. Haj is mandatory for every able-bodied Muslim at least once in their lifetime if they can afford it. (DPA) |
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Former Israel PM’s assassin requests to marry JERUSALEM, Jan 26: Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, has formally submitted a request to the prison authorities to be granted permission to marry and start a family. The Israel prisons authority said Amir’s request would be handed over to the appropriate professional authorities. Last week the head of the prisons authority, Lieutenant General Yaakov Ganot, said he would turn down any request by Amir to marry. If the prisons authority rejects Amir’s request and he submits a petition against the decision, the High Court would have to rule on the matter. The would-be-bride, Larisa Trimbobler, is an ultra-orthodox new immigrant from the former Soviet Union, a doctor of philosophy and the mother of four children. The two began exchanging letters and speaking on the phone one year ago, based on Trimbobler’s ideological support for the convicted murderer. Trimbobler was married when she first met Amir, and subsequently divorced so she would be able to marry him. According to Trimbobler, the media demonizes Amir. The two discuss politics in their conversations, and Trimbobler updates Amir on current events. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said last week that Amir has the right to get married and that it objects to the prisons authority decision. Amidst heated debate on the issue countrywide, Labour Party member of Knesset Eitan Cabel last week submitted a bill proposal that would prevent prisoners serving life sentences from getting married. (UNI) |
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Thailand expands bird flu crisis zone BANGKOK, Jan 26: Thailand’s bird flu crisis zone has been expanded to ten provinces from two, Agriculture Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said today. "The names of these provinces will be announced at a news conference," Somsak said. The news conference will be held at 1000 Hrs local time, 0300 GMT, he said. (AGENCIES) |
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Libyan PM says foreign investment a priority LONDON, Jan 26: Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem said today attracting foreign and domestic private investment is a priority as the country emerges from international isolation and decades of economic mismanagement. "Our real challenge is how to mobilise our resources — so many are untapped — and make everyone take part in the development of the economy," Ghanem said in an interview with Britain’s Financial Times. His comments were published a day after a delegation of US lawmakers arrived in Tripoli to see Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and said they were confident the United States would eventually restore relations and end economic sanctions. The trip was prompted by Libya’s announcement last month that it would abandon Weapons of Mass Destruction programmes in an effort to shed its Pariah status. Libya has started to privatise more than 350 companies and Ghanem has unified the country’s exchange rates. "The mission (of transforming Libya’s economy) is not easy. Hopefully, it is not mission impossible," said Ghanem. He said the Government’s past practices had shown that "whatever it touches it spoils". "We ended up with a number of white elephants in the country. It’s a problem of lack of decision, of coordination, of firmness of Government," said Ghanem. "There are only a few private companies in Libya now big enough to go public. You can’t own more than your own house so you have to start with property laws," he said. (AGENCIES) |
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Singapore fund raising for quake victims hits 147,000 dollars SINGAPORE, Jan 26: A fund-raising drive spearheaded by six religious groups in Singapore has raised 147,000 US dollars for the victims of the recent earthquake in Iran, organizers said today. Members of the Iranian community in the city-state also participated in the island-wide collection, in which more than 300 volunteers hit the streets with donation tins. A separate fund raiser coordinated by the Singapore red cross has collected another 150,000 US dollars. The December 26 earthquake in the southeastern city of Bam killed more than 40,000 people and left thousands more injured and homeless. The contributions will go toward buying and delivering emergency items for families who lost their homes and belongings. (DPA) |
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No bad hair days for schoolboys WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND, Jan 26: A New Zealand high school has banned boy students from using hair gel, dubbing it a "fashion accessory" and making offenders have a shower to wash it off, a newspaper reported today. "It’s all about pride of appearance," Tim o’Connor, rector of Palmerston North High School, told Wellington’s Dominion Post. "We’re saying when you come to school you are here for one key reason, and that’s to get educated," he added. But boys at the school, 140 kilometres north of Wellington, are not impressed with the ban, which is enforced, one pupil said, by teachers who "if they suspect you’ve got something in it, they might put their fingers in your hair to see if it’s sticky." "Everyone thinks it’s really stupid," he said. "We don’t know why it’s banned because it’s not as if it affects our education." (DPA) |
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Bill Gates to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth LONDON, Jan 26: Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates will be awarded an honorary knighthood by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth for an outstanding contribution to enterprise, officials said today. Gates, the world’s wealthiest man, will receive the award from the Queen at Buckingham palace, but no date has been set. "(Gates) is one of the most important business leaders of his age," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement. "Microsoft MSFT.O technology has transformed business practices and his company has had a profound impact on the British economy," said Straw. Gates will be made a Knight Commander of the most excellent order of the British empire, an honour that dates back to 1917. But only British and common wealth citizens winning the honour are entitled to add sir in front of their names. (AGENCIES) |
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Palestinians unify security bodies, tackle crime RAMALLAH, WEST BANK, Jan 26: Palestinian leaders said they would crack down on crime by unifying security bodies into one organisation and deploying more police on city streets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Officials said the steps were designed as an anti-crime measure rather than addressing the demands of a US-backed peace "road map" for Palestinians to rein in militants. But the decision by the Palestinian Authority’s National Security Council, headed by President Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, was made in a week in which US peace envoys John Wolf and David satterfield were due in the region. "These decisions were announced to all Palestinian factions because nobody is above the law," said Abbas Zaki, a senior official of Arafat’s Fatah movement. The meeting at Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah decided to form a "central operation room" in each city that would unite all security services under one command. Officials said the council wanted to reduce a rising rate of crime, notably thefts and assaults. Palestinian Cabinet Minister and Peace Negotiator Saeb Erekat said the steps were "part of our efforts to maintain the rule of law and one authority". Israel has repeatedly warned of signs of growing anarchy and lawlessness in Palestinian-ruled areas and has said this could harm the chances of advancing peace efforts. Palestinian security services had previously kept a low profile after being battered when Israeli forces made a series of raids in West Bank cities to hunt down militants blamed for suicide bomb attacks against the Jewish state. The road map has been stalled by Israeli-Palestinian violence. (AGENCIES) |
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UN seeks funds to rebuild wrecked Gaza homes KHAN YUNIS, GAZA, Jan 26: The United Nations refugee works agency urged donors to provide another 25 million dollars to rebuild Palestinian homes wrecked in three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip. "We are appealing to the donors to allow us to do a little more," Peter Hansen, head of the UN relief and works agency serving Palestinian refugees, said at the opening of a housing project in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis. The orange-painted homes were built at a cost of some 2.7 million dollars for 474 Palestinians whose houses have been wrecked in Israeli military raids in the Khan Yunis refugee camp since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000. Hansen singled out the latest destruction of homes in Rafah, on the Gaza border with Egypt, where the Israeli military has razed buildings it says are used to hide gunmen or tunnels used to smuggle weapons into Gaza. "From a narrow security point of view they (Israel) might have a point, but from a humanitarian point of view, one has to ask whether whatever security is gained by this kind of destruction is in any proportion to the human suffering," Hansen said. Captain Jacob Dallal, an Israeli Army Spokesman, told "We are sorry for the difficulties that civilians living in Rafah encounter." Dallal said that suspected tunnels and militant hideouts were destroyed to prevent palestinians from smuggling in weapons such as anti-aircraft rockets that they could shoot at cities inside Israel. A statement from the UN agency released during Hansen’s visit said that it has built some 1,838 shelters for some 14,000 Palestinians left homeless throughout the Gaza strip since the violence began. But the agency needs 25 million dollars to build 1,139 more homes for other Palestinians left homeless, the statement added. (AGENCIES) Redford shows Che Guevara film in Cuba HAVANA, Jan 26: Robert Redford showed his new film about Che Guevara, "the motorcycle diaries," to the widow and children of the legendary guerrilla fighter. "I came to present the film that I produced on Che Guevara and I am very happy to be in Cuba," redford told before the private screening at Havana’s Charles Chaplin cinema theater. He watched the film with Guevara’s widow Aleida, daughter Aleidita and son Camilo, as well as Ramiro Valdes, a top military commander in Cuba’s Communist Government who fought with Guevara and Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra mountains. The film, directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, is based on the diaries that Guevara wrote on a nine-month bike trip through south America in 1952 when he was an Asthmatic 23-year-old medical student. The trip opened his eyes to poverty in Latin American and he later joined Castro in Mexico where the Cuban leader was organizing a landing party to launch a guerrilla movement in Cuba that triumphed in 1959. Guevara was executed by Army troops after his capture in 1967 in the Bolivian jungle, where he had tried to start another revolution. Redford flew to Cuba on Friday from the Sundance film festival, of which he is a backer and where "the motorcycle diaries" received a standing ovation at its debut a week ago. (AGENCIES) Female brothel owner executed in Iran TEHERAN, Jan 26: A woman brothel owner was executed by hanging in the Iranian city of Qazvin, west of Teheran, the daily Iran reported. The executed woman had turned her house in Qazvin into a Bordello and deceived young girls to work there as prostitutes, the daily said. The house was identified last year and the woman owner, her husband and seven other persons were arrested by the police. The initial trial ended with a death sentence imposed last year for the woman for having forced young girls into prostitution, and the Supreme Court confirmed this earlier this month. The woman was hanged in the Qazvin prison last Thursday, the report said. According to unconfirmed reports, Iran has over 500,000 prostitutes nationwide although prostitution is harshly prohibited in the Islamic state. Many girls - usually with drug and unemployment problems in their families - have no option other than to resort to prostitution. Despite constant closures of bordellos and arrests of their owners, prostitution has become a major problem for the Iranian Government. Women activists have long been campaigning and trying to find suitable alternative jobs for the mainly young prostitutes. (DPA) Missing chickens clash leaves two dead on Indonesian island JAKARTA, Jan 26: An alleged chicken theft sparked a violent clash on the weekend between two villages in central Sulawesi, Indonesia, that left at least two people dead and 39 houses burned to the ground, news reports here said. Hundreds of police were dispatched to Uso and Lamon villages on Banggai island, 1,845 kilometres northeast of Jakarta, to restore order to the district where a row between rival groups broke out on Saturday, said the state-run Antara News Agency. The village feud was reportedly sparked when Fs, a resident of Umo, accused Iwan Sunang, 30, from nearby Lamon, of stealing his chickens. Iwan’s father Yafet Sunang, 50, picked a fight with Fs on Saturday over his chicken-theft slur, but was laid low by Fs’s Machete, said Antara, quoting villagers. The chicken-bereft Fs then attacked the suspected thief Iwan, who died of his wounds en route to hospital. Relatives of the two victims retaliated Saturday night, when they came searching for Fs, but failing to find the culprit decided to burn down 39 houses in Umo village instead. Banggai police refused to comment on the situation. (DPA) |
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