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| Humbled Blair faces party anguish over poll defeat LONDON, June 12: A humbled Tony Blair returns to Britain today to answer critics in his own party after voter backlash...........more Coup bid
deals fresh KINSHASA, June 12: The shaky peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the vast central African country.......more Iraqi
diplomat killed BAGHDAD, June 12: Gunmen killed a top Iraqi diplomat today in the first high-profile assassination in Iraq since an......more Reagan
laid to rest at SIMI VALLRY (CALIFORNIA), June 12: In an emotionally-charged sunset burial ceremony, Ronald Reagan was laid to.........more |
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North and South Korea agree to prevent sea skirmishes SEOUL, June 12: Military officials in North and South Korea today signed an agreement to take.......more New mammal
discovered HAMBURG, June 12: A new species of mammal has been discovered in South America but was promptly converted into.....more Humbled
Blair faces LONDON, June 12: A humbled Tony Blair returns to Britain today to answer critics in his.....more Spacecraft
begins WASHINGTON, June 12: The Cassini spacecraft began sending back images of Saturn’s......more |
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Humbled Blair faces party anguish over poll defeat LONDON, June 12: A humbled Tony Blair returns to Britain today to answer critics in his own party after voter backlash against his support for war in Iraq brought an unprecedented trouncing in local elections. Blair’s aides tried to put the best possible spin on the election defeat while the Prime Minister attended the funeral of former US President Ronald Reagan in Washington. But more than 460 Labour officials were voted out of local Government, and Blair will have to convince party members with seats in national Parliament that they will not suffer the same fate in a general election likely next year. "I’d like to say I’m sorry to the (local) Councillors who’ve lost their seats," Blair told reporters in Washington before heading home. "I think Iraq has been a shadow over our support." But he said he was as determined as ever to stay on, and expected Iraq would become less of a liability as news improved with a UN-endorsed plan to restore sovereignty. Blair supported the US drive to invade Iraq despite strong opposition within his own party. Ruling parties in Britain often do poorly in local elections only to bounce back and win in national polls. But for the first time Blair’s Labour party did not even manage to come second. Its 26 per cent left it behind both the main opposition conservatives and the strongly anti-war liberal democrats, traditionally the smaller third party. Labour’s majority in Parliament under Blair has been so big he would still control the chamber even if scores of his party colleagues were to lose their seats in next year’s election. Party rules make it difficult to remove him as leader, but as more Labour lawmakers fear for their own jobs, there have been growing calls for a new party leader — and hence Prime Minister —to fight the election. Blair’s ambitious Chancellor of the exchequer (Finance Minister) gordon brown has been waiting in the wings. Most Labour figures, while acknowledging a need to learn from what Blair’s deputy John Prescott called a "kicking", fell well shy of calling for Blair’s scalp. But former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit the cabinet in protest at the plans for war, said voters who deserted Labour over Iraq would stay away as long as blair led it. Clare Short, another outspoken Labour rebel, said voters were punishing Blair because his party couldn’t. "What we did in Iraq has brought disgrace and dishonour on Britain around the world. As Tony Blair won’t change the policy, the only way to make a correction is for him to step aside from the leadership," she told the evening standard newspaper. The one bright spot for Labour in this week’s election was the reelection of its popular candidate Ken Livingstone as London’s Mayor, announced late yesterday. But even that was a dubious endorsement for Blair, since the Maverick livingstone led massive street protests against the Iraq war. Blair faces more expected bad news tomorrow when delayed results for Thursday’s vote for the European Parliament are released. Opinion polls suggest fringe parties opposed to deeper integration with the European union will do well. That may hurt the opposition conservatives more than Blair in the short term, but it bodes ill for him in the year ahead. The Prime Minister has pledged to sign a new Constitution for the European union, and then lobby voters to support it in a referendum, even though most britons disapprove of the idea. (AGENCIES) |
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fragile Congo peace process KINSHASA, June 12: The shaky peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the vast central African country emerging from a war that left 2.5 million dead, looked even more fragile after a failed coup against President Joseph Kabila. Kabila appeared yesterday on national television after a night of gun battles in the capital Kinshasa to announce that the coup attempt had been put down and a dozen would-be putschists arrested. The Putschists’ leader, Major Eric Lenge of the Presidential guard, was still on the run, the youthful President said. "The security forces, the army, are hunting for the Major," said Kabila, who was dressed in military uniform. He vowed he would allow no-one to derail the transition process that aims to lead the DRC out of its devastating 1998-2003 war to a democratic future. Kabila came to power after his father, laurent, was assassinated in January 2001 by a member of his Presidential guard. Yesterday’s coup bid came two days after the DRC army recaptured the strategic eastern town of Bukavu, on the border with Rwanda, after it was held for a week by Renegade soldiers. Theseizure of Bukavu triggered street protests in Kinshasa and other cities against the United Nations Peacekeeping Force (MONUC), which many congolese accused of failing to prevent the fall of the town. At least 12 people dead in the protests. A small group of soldiers, reportedly from the Presidential guard, who were led by Lenge, briefly seized the state radio station in the early hours of Friday. They announced that the transitional Government had failed and that they had seized power. The men then headed to the national electricity company, where they caused a power cut in Kinshasa that lasted around three hours. Electricity was restored at around 6:00 am (1030 ist), according to Information Minister Vital Kamerhe. At 9:00 am the soldiers were seen fleeing Kinshasa in four vehicles, sources said. The security forces were hot on their heels and a military helicopter was flying over the city, the sources added. Officials said several hours later that the coup bid had been thwarted, Kabila was safe, and those behind the revolt were surrounded in a military camp. Residents living near the camp reported hearing outbursts of heavy weapons fire. Automatic weapons fire was also heard in Kinshasa’s Gombe neighbourhood, where Kabila’s residence and office are located. "It was a new attempt at destabilisation, which is never good for the country," a diplomat in Kinshasa said. (AFP) |
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Iraqi diplomat killed in blow to new Govt BAGHDAD, June 12: Gunmen killed a top Iraqi diplomat today in the first high-profile assassination in Iraq since an interim Government took over on June 1. Attackers fatally wounded Bassam Qubba, the Foreign Ministry’s Director-General, as he was on his way to work from his home in Baghdad’s mainly Sunni Muslim Adhamiya district. US officials say insurgents, who often target Iraqis seen as cooperating with the Americans, are likely to step up attacks before Iraq’s occupation formally ends on June 30. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Thamer-al-Adhami said the assailants had overtaken Qubba’s car and fired as they drove past, wounding him in the waist. His driver took him to hospital, where he died soon after arrival. Qubba, a Shi’ite Muslim, was appointed to his post two months ago. He was a veteran career diplomat who served as Ambassador to China during Saddam Hussein’s Baathist rule. Gunmen killed another career diplomat, Aqila-al-Hashemi, in September, just weeks after she became a member of Iraq’s US-appointed governing council, which is now defunct. US and British leaders see the formal transition to self-rule as a change that could help staunch the political haemorrhage their venture in Iraq is inflicting on them. Most Americans now say the Iraq war was not worth it, a new opinion poll showed, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair linked the conflict to his party’s drubbing in local elections. In a blow for President George W Bush’s re-election chances in November, 53 percent of Americans said the war had not been worthwhile, against 43 percent who believed it had been, according to the Los Angeles times poll yesterday. The newspaper said it was the first time one of its surveys had found a majority saying the war was not worthwhile. Blair, Bush’s closest ally over Iraq, saw his Labour party relegated to an unprecedented third place in local elections. "Iraq has been a shadow over our support," he said in Washington, after attending former President Ronald Reagan’s funeral. He urged his jittery followers to stay firm. Last year’s controversial invasion, its violent aftermath and the scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners have fuelled disquiet among voters in the United States and its war allies. Casting new light on procedures at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib jail, the Washington post reported today that the US military commander in Iraq had approved subjecting detainees to temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and diets of bread and water at the discretion of officers at the prison. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez borrowed heavily from a list of high-pressure tactics used at the US detention centre in Guantanamo bay when he granted wide latitude to officers at Abu Ghraib, the post reported, citing newly obtained documents. The documents spell out the interrogation tactics Sanchez authorised in early September 2003, and make clear for the first time that, until October, these tactics could be imposed without seeking the approval of anyone outside Abu Ghraib. Six US soldiers face possible courts martial and one has already been jailed for a year over abuses at the jail, where photographs have shown detainees being sexually humiliated, physically abused and threatened with dogs. US officials said this week Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld plans to widen investigations into the atrocities to include Sanchez and other top officers, without suggesting that they had done wrong. While domestic opposition to involvement in Iraq has prompted Spain and some other nations to withdraw their troops, South Korea plans to deploy more forces in the country in late July and August, a South Korean newspaper said today. The Government has pledged to send 3,000 troops to northern Iraq, in addition to the 650 South Korean army medics and engineers already serving in the country for a year. The Dutch Government said yesterday its 1,300 troops in Iraq would stay until March as part of a multinational force mandated by a UN Security Council resolution this week. (AGENCIES) |
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Reagan laid to rest at his Presidential library in California SIMI VALLRY (CALIFORNIA), June 12: In an emotionally-charged sunset burial ceremony, Ronald Reagan was laid to rest at his Presidential library here following a stately service in Washington at which the Americans and the world leaders bade a lingering goodbye to him in funeral rites shaped by the 40th President of the United States himself. After the final playing of the "hail to the Chief" in a funeral service in Washington’s national Cathedral, Reagan’s flag-draped casket, accompanied by his widow Nancy Reagan, was today carried by a military honour guard into his Presidential library for an internment service. About 720 of Reagan’s family and friends, including former British Premier Margaret Thatcher, attended the burial ceremony which took place in the grounds of the late President’s library, where he had chosen to be buried During the internment ceremony, Reagan’s son Ron said that after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for a decade, his father, who died on Saturday last at the age of 93, was now at peace. "He is home now, he is free. In his final letter to the American people, dad wrote `I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life’, this evening he has arrived," he said. When the casket was handed to Nancy, she slowly approached the coffin. First she rubbed the casket, then gently lay her cheek on it. Eighty-two-year-old Nancy, a picture of dignity and stoic calmness, broke down at the ceremony held on a hilltop overlooking the Simi Valley and Pacific ocean, as her children rushed to comfort her. Nancy received the flag that had been atop Reagan’s casket and clutched it to her chest. She then said her final goodbye to the man she called "Ronnie". The ceremony, where final prayers were offered, an artllery battery and riflemen fired salutes and a bugler played "taps", marked the end of a week of nation-wide mourning for the late President. Earlier in Washington, President George W Bush said Reagan was an "enduring symbol" of the US. "Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now," Bush said in his eulogy, "but we preferred it when he belonged to US." Thatcher, in taped remarks presented at the funeral, said "his politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire." Four surviving former US Presidents — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H W Bush and Bill Clinton — attended the funeral ceremony in Washington yesterday as did leading figures from abroad, including External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The celebrity guests at the burial service in California included actor Tom Selleck, singer Wayne Newton and Arnold Schwarneneggaer, who like Reagan became California Governor after an acting career in Hollywood. At the ceremony’s end, US Navy jets flew overhead as a military band played "America the beautiful". (PTI) |
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North and South Korea agree to prevent sea skirmishes SEOUL, June 12: Military officials in North and South Korea today signed an agreement to take a series of measures to prevent unintended skirmishes along the western sea border. Under the agreement, the two countries will equip their naval guard fleet with a common network that enables them to instantly exchange information, a South Korean Defence Ministry officer said. The military talks opened last Thursday in Gaesung in North Korea, 70 kilometres north of Seoul, as a follow-up working group meeting for inter-Korean high-ranking military talks. The officials also agreed to exchange information daily on fishing vessels that may cross the maritime border. A simulation drill will take place on June 14 to see whether communication is possible between South and North Korean islands, the South Korean Defence Ministry officer said. There have been deadly sea skirmishes along the western sea border as North Korean fishermen at times cross the border to catch expensive blue crabs. The agreement also includes a stop in disseminating propaganda along the border. The agreement came a day after South Korea’s Defence Ministry called for a 13 per cent increase in its budget next year to cope with the upcoming cutback in US troops in South Korea. The call for the increase follows the US proposal last Sunday to reduce a third of the 37,000-strong us force stationed in South Korea. (DPA) |
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New mammal discovered in South America - and eaten HAMBURG, June 12: A new species of mammal has been discovered in South America but was promptly converted into roast pork and eaten by Brazilian villagers, the German natural-science cinematographer Lothar Frenz said yesterday. The animal was the fourth known species of Peccary, a piglike mammal found between the southern deserts of the United States and Patagonia. Resembling a wild pig, the Peccary has dark, coarse hair and a large head with a circular snout and small ears. News of the discovery of the giant Peccary was held back till shortly before the airing next Wednesday in Germany of the latest documentary by Frenz, who accompanied a Dutch naturalist, Marc Van Roosmalen, on an expedition to the Amazon region of Rio Aripuana. The most common species are the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu Pecari) and the Collared Peccary (Pecari Tajacu). A third sort, the Gran Chaco Peccary, was discovered in Argentina in 1974. Frenz said, the new species’ behaviour and colouring were different, along with its size whic is 40 kilogrammes and 1.30 metres long. A report appeared today in the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quoting Frenz that he saw the first discovered giant Peccary struggling valiantly before villagers killed it, flayed it and roasted it on a spit. Frenz said he and Van Roosmalen abstained from trying the meat, but collected some of the remains for a genetic study. (DPA) |
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Humbled Blair faces party anguish over poll defeat LONDON, June 12: A humbled Tony Blair returns to Britain today to answer critics in his own party after voter backlash against his support for war in Iraq brought an unprecedented trouncing in local elections. Blair’s aides tried to put the best possible spin on the election defeat while the Prime Minister attended the funeral of former US President Ronald Reagan in Washington. But more than 460 labour officials were voted out of local Government, and Blair will have to convince party members with seats in national Parliament that they will not suffer the same fate in a general election likely next year. "I’d like to say I’m sorry to the (local) Councillors who’ve lost their seats," Blair told reporters in Washington before heading home. "I think Iraq has been a shadow over our support." But he said he was as determined as ever to stay on, and expected Iraq would become less of a liability as news improved with a UN-endorsed plan to restore sovereignty. Blair supported the US drive to invade Iraq despite strong opposition within his own party. Ruling parties in Britain often do poorly in local elections only to bounce back and win in national polls. But for the first time Blair’s Labour party did not even manage to come second. Its 26 per cent left it behind both the main opposition conservatives and the strongly anti-war liberal democrats, traditionally the smaller third party. Labour’s majority in Parliament under Blair has been so big he would still control the chamber even if scores of his party colleagues were to lose their seats in next year’s election. Party rules make it difficult to remove him as leader, but as more Labour lawmakers fear for their own jobs, there have been growing calls for a new party leader — and hence Prime Minister —to fight the election. (AGENCIES) |
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Spacecraft begins transmitting photos of Saturn Moon WASHINGTON, June 12: The Cassini spacecraft began sending back images of Saturn’s largest outer Moon yesterday as it neared what scientists say is one of the solar system’s most enigmatic Moons, NASA said at its website. Cassini, which is on a mission to orbit Saturn, will make its closest-ever approach to the Moon, named Phoebe, at 0226 hrs ist yesterday. Phoebe’s orbit is almost 13 million kilometres from Saturn. The last photos taken of the Moon came from the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1981, which shot them from 2.2 million kilometres away. This time Cassini will be vastly closer - a mere 2,000 kilometres away - the national aeronautics and space administration said. Scientists hope, the new pictures will provide clues about the composition and properties of the icy Moon’s surface. Photos sent back show the 220-kilometre wide Moon’s surface is pock-marked with craters. The fly-by will last 30 hours and document two-and-a-half turns of phoebe. It will take 83 minutes to transmit the photos 1.5 billion kilometres back to earth. Cassini is also expected to collect spectroscopic and radar data, which could help deciphering the composition and origin of the distant Moon, NASA said. On June 30, the spacecraft will become the first to orbit Saturn, the second-largest planet in our solar system after Jupiter. It will spend four years touring Saturn, including its rings and 31 known Moons, NASA said. (DPA) |
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US panel to review electric device for depression WASHINGTON, June 12: Chronically depressed US adults who find no relief with drugs or psychotherapy could soon be able to try an implanted pacemaker-like device that sends electrical pulses to the brain. The stopwatch-sized device by cyberonics, is surgically inserted in the chest, where a wire runs up to wrap around a nerve in the neck. On Tuesday a US Food and Drug Administration panel of outside experts will meet to discuss whether to recommend the agency approve the device — already cleared for epilepsy — for patients with stubborn depression. Analysts say FDA approval of VNS therapy for depression is key for future growth of the company, which posted a 1.25 million dollars loss last quarter. The agency usually follows the advice of its outside experts. Alexander arrow, an analyst for Lazard Freres, said approval would boost the company’s sales market "at least threefold." while some of the company’s statistical data is weak, the panel is likely to recommend approval, arrow said. Shares of Houston, Texas-based Cyberonics closed up 66 cents, or 3.72 per cent, to 18.39 dollars on the Nasdaq on Thursday, a day after hitting a 14-month low. Cyberonics officials declined to comment before the FDA panel meeting, but have said depression is an "enormous market opportunity." VNS therapy, which is already approved for depression in Europe and Canada, could reach 1 billion dollars in US sales in 2010, company officials said last year. (AGENCIES) Blast kills Philippine soldier, wounds two MANILA, June 12: A Philippine soldier was killed and two were wounded today when a bomb exploded outside a restaurant on the southern island of Jolo as they were searching for explosives after a bomb threat, the military said. Jolo has long been a stronghold of Muslim rebel factions seeking an Islamic state in the largely Catholic country, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group. "We are still investigating to determine who may be behind the attack," regional military chief Lieutenant-General Roy Kyamko told reporters. The bomb was made from an 81mm mortar bomb. It went off while security forces were searching the commercial district of Jolo town after a bomb threat, he said. Two weeks ago, security forces seized a cache of explosives in Jolo and said they had prevented an attack on a ferry bound for Zamboanga city on Mindanao island. Muslims in the southern Philippines have been fighting for a separate state for decades. The Government is involved in peace talks with some of the rebels but has vowed to wipe out the small Abu Sayyaf group that the Philippines and the United States say is linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. (AGENCIES) Maoists abduct over 150 students in Nepal KATHMANDU, June 12: Suspected Maoist rebels have abducted over 150 students from at least six schools in Udayapur district in north west Nepal, according to media reports today. The Kantipur daily reported today that the students, studying in lower secondary and secondary levels, were in their teens. Human rights organisations in Nepal have urged the rebels to release all the students and respect the human rights of the students. The Maoists are believed to have abducted 114 students from Rasuwa high school, 16 from Naulo-Kurkushe intermediate school, 16 from Sidhawati high school, 11 from Janata intermediate school, 17 from Namitar intermediate school and five from Murkuche high school. The rebels have been fighting to establish a constitutional republic in the Himalayan kingdom since 1996. More than 9,500 persons have been killed in the insurgent violence. (UNI) Turtles kept lost Peruvian fishermen alive LIMA, PERU, June 12: Three Peruvian shark fishermen lost at sea for 59 days survived by eating turtle meat and drinking the reptiles’ blood, a newspaper has reported. The men set out on march 25 in the Pacific ocean in a fishing boat without radio equipment. They soon ran out of food and turned to eating turtles caught from the boat, El Comercio reported. The sailors tried drinking the water in the radiator of the ship’s engine but quickly realized it was toxic and turned to turtle blood instead. "Thanks to training on a survival course, we also knew how to heat salt water to give us half a liter of drinking water every day," fisherman Manuel Ramirez told El Comercio. An Ecuadorean ship rescued the men some 1,125 from the Peruvian coast on May 23. Each had lost 10 kg, the paper said. (AGENCIES) |
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