Blunkett
wants baby with new girlfriend: Report
LONDON,
Oct 2:
David Blunkett, Britain’s Secretary of State
for work and pension, reportedly told a woman
half his age he wants to have children with her.
Weeks after
meeting Sally Anderson on a date, Blunkett told
her she had not yet been "blessed with
children" because she hadn’t found the
right person, a media report said here.
"May be
that’s where I might come in,"
‘The Sunday Times’ quoted Blunkett, who
previously resigned as Home Secretary amid a row
over his love child, as telling the 29-year-old.
According to the
newspaper, friends of Anderson, an estate agent
from Ascot in Berkshire, revealed this weekend
the extent of her relationship with the
58-year-old Blunkett.
They said it had
become "intimate" rather than
"platonic" as the minister had implied.
Sources close to Blunkett had insisted last week
he had "eaten dinner with her - that’s
the top and bottom of it."
However,
Anderson’s friends give a different account.
They believe she and Blunkett are victims of a
political set up and that the disclosure of their
relationship on the eve of Labour’s
conference was no coincidence.
The couple’s
first meeting was a blind date over dinner at
Annabel’s - an exclusive nightclub in
Mayfair. According to her friends, the
Yorkshire-born Anderson and Blunkett hit it off
immediately with their mutual love of opera and
poetry.
Blunkett
reportedly told her only two women had ever been
able to guide him satisfactorily - and one was
his mother. "I’m astounded. You are the
third. Excuse the pun, but it’s love at
first sight," he was quoted as saying.
Anderson, who told
friends she found Blunkett "utterly
charming" if "perhaps a little too
flirtatious," met him on six or seven
occasions, the newspaper said. (PTI)
Post
9/11 better understanding of Islam and Muslims in
US
WASHINGTON,
Oct 2:
Post 9/11, there is a greater understanding and
acceptance of Islam in the American society,
though discrimination against Muslims in matters
of job and immigration etc and their harassment
continues in some form, an interaction with US
establishment, leaders of the community and NGOs
has revealed.
‘’After
the initial ‘backlash’ against the
community in the wake of the attack, Americans
have made efforts to understand Islam and its
followers and now they know most of their Muslim
neighbours they earlier hardly cared
for,’’ said a very senior State
Department official here.
Moreover, the US
Government has made concerted efforts to check
harassment of Muslims in offices, schools and
public places, he said.
Mr Timothy Samule
of the PEW Forum on Religion and Public life says
that in a recent survey, rating of the Muslims as
a community has gone up. ‘’The US has
now a more favourable view of Islam after
9/11,’’ he said.
According to a
Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) survey,
after a sharp rise in hate crimes against
Muslims, there has been a marked fall in such
crimes in the subsequent years.
The survey found
that anti-Islamic incidents shot up to 481 in
2001 from 28 in 2000, but in 2002 the number of
such criminal incidents fell to 155 and it went
down further to 149 in 2003. The figure 481 was
26 per cent of all the incidents of hate crime in
the US in 2001.
Mr Zahid H
Bukhari, Director American Muslim Studies
Programme of George Town University says though
post 9/11 Muslims went through a very challenging
time in US, the incident started a churning
within the community and Islam came in for a lot
of attention in the country. The religion which
was so far shrouded in mystery for the common
American was now, exposed to them in its aspects.
Though, he was not
satisfied with the role of the establishment, he
said Muslims received a lot of support from their
American friends and colleagues.
Mr Bukhari said
what happened to Muslims in the wake of terror
attacks was not something unique to the
community. It happened with all ethnic minorities
whenever America faced a crisis. In the World War
one, it was German Americans, in the World War
two it was Japanese and earlier Jews and
Catholics.
9/11 also started
a debate in the Muslim society as to what should
be done to marginalise the extremist elements in
it, he said.
Mr Michael
Lieberman of the Anti-Defamation League, an NGO
which fights against injustice on the basis of
religion, says that in most cases of
discrimination in public life brought to courts,
the American judiciary had ruled in favour of the
petitioners.
Asked about the
alleged discrimination of Muslims in immigration,
he admitted that ‘’these were
challenging times for Muslim youth but America
has to go by its international security
considerations, which were however not meant to
specifically harass any particular
community.’’
Director of the
youth affairs of All Dulles Area Muslim Society
(ADAMS) Washington Hudd Williams says it was a
fact there were many cases of harassment of
Muslims reported, but it was also a fact the
government was responsive whenever any such
incidents have happened and it had come down
heavily against elements that created hate
against Muslims.’’
Echoing the same
views, director of the Indo-American Centre in
Chicago Chris Zala, who is an immigrant from
Gujarat in India, says that incidents of
harassment and discrimination are still reported
but the authorities have been very firm in
dealing with such cases.
ADAMS director
Margaret Frahnahz Ellis says they had launched an
awareness programme to teach Muslim youth that
Islam was against all forms of terror and added
the programme was getting a very good response.
Moreover, Muslim
religious leaders and scholars are now being
invited to centres of different faiths for
interaction and discussion, which was not the
case earlier, she said. (UNI)
Iraqi
foreign minister says Arabs should help crush
insurgency
CAIRO,
Oct 2:
Arabs should help Iraq to crush its insurgency if
they want to stop Iran from interfering in the
country, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
said today.
In an interview on
the eve of an Arab meeting on Iraq, Zebari also
called on Arab newspapers to stop describing the
insurgents as "resistance fighters,"
saying such terms amounted to incitement.
He criticised
neighboring Arab states for failing to seal their
borders against people crossing into Iraq to join
the insurgency against the US-backed Government.
"The absence
of an effective Arab role is increasingly
allowing other regional countries, including
Iran, to step in" to the situation, Zebari
told the Associated Press in a phone call from
London.
"They (Arab
states) should end their negativity and
indifference," he said.
Foreign ministers
of eight Arab countries and Arab League
Secretary-General Amr Moussa are due to meet
tomorrow in the Saudi port city of Jiddah to
discuss plans to help Iraq to restore its
stability and security.
Saudi Arabia and
Jordan, who will attend the meeting, have
expressed disquiet over Iran’s apparent
growing influence in Iraqi politics through its
links with the Shiite Muslim majority. (AP)
Schroeder,
Merkel hope for lift from Dresden vote
DRESDEN,
GERMANY, Oct 2: Germans in a late-voting district
cast their ballots today two weeks after the
country’s most inconclusive election since
World War Two leff both sides hoping to bolster
their claims to power.
Polls in the
eastern city of Dresden opened at 1130hrs ist and
close at 2130 hrs ist. There are about 219,000
eligible voters in the district, where the
September 18 general election was postponed due
to the death of a local candidate.
Angela
Merkel’s conservatives won three seats more
than Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social
Democrats in last month’s national vote, but
neither side won a majority in the 613-seat
parliament.
Even though the
outcome in Dresden is not expected to change the
preliminary September 18 result significantly,
Germany’s voting system means
Schroeder’s SPD could gain a seat or two and
strengthen his hand in negotiations with Merkel.
The hung
Parliament has pushed the two main parties to
explore joining forces in a ‘’grand
coalition’’ and financial markets have
warmed to the prospect, believing it well suited
to mastering the country’s various economic
woes. Share prices have climbed to 3-1/2 year
highs this week.
But the
negotiations could take months and may never get
off the ground because both Merkel and Schroeder
are insisting they should lead the next
government. The CDU and SPD could, in theory,
form separate three-way alliances with smaller
parties.
Because of
Germany’s complex system, the Dresden vote
could wipe out the CDU’s parliament lead
only if the SPD wins 140,000 votes more than the
CDU. The district has only 219,000 voters and a
140,000-vote margin of victory is seen as
virtually impossible.
That has not
stopped both Schroeder and Merkel from
campaigning in the district in Dresden, 200 km
south of Berlin. The rest of the 299 districts
voted two weeks ago.
Schroeder and
Merkel attacked each other as unqualified to lead
Germany at separate campaign rallies in Dresden
on Friday.
Both the CDU and
SPD are hoping for a strong result in Dresden
today for a psychological boost to reinforce
their negotiating positions in forging a
‘’grand coalition’’ to
implement vital economic reforms. (AGENCIES)
Farmer
awaiting Govt clearance for flying self-made
plane
BEIJING,
Oct 2:
Liu Yibing, an enterprising Chinese farmer who is
contemplating flying in his new self-made
aircraft, is awaiting Governmental clearance to
realise his dream soon, the state media reported
today.
The 33-year-old is
waiting for permission from aviation authorities
to fly his new self-made aircraft, Xinhua said
adding that he had to postpone his flight due to
problems with Government permission and weather
impediments.
The Department of
Publicity with the regional committee of the
Communist Party of China (CPC) had decided in
April to stage a range of activities with the
highlight being Liu’s flying of his new
plane between September 25 and 30.
The publicity
department, one of the seven organisers of the
flight, said the postponement was necessary
because Liu’s permit to fly the plane was
only valid between November this year and next
May.
But, the report
said, Liu’s self-made light plane could not
sustain the cold weather in November in north
China and the Department is actively considering
the rescheduling of the flight.
Liu, who is from
Beita Village in suburban Yinchuan of northwest
China, became a farmer at his hometown after
completing his studies from a junior middle
school in 1989.
By chance, Liu
read a article on super-light plane and decided
to make one of his own. The first plane was made
in 1991 after a year’s hard work, the report
said.
By 2004, Liu had
designed and assembled nine planes and made
various successful flights. He has the title of
‘No 1 farmer-turned pilot in China.’
The new aircraft
made by Liu has a fully-sealed double-seat cabin,
with reference to GT500 planes made in the United
States.
Liu’s new
plane, which cost him about USD 40691, also has a
ROTAX582 engine and a wingspan of nine meters,
with a 6.2-meter-long fuselage.
It is equipped
with advanced satellite navigating equipment and
ejection parachutes. Its speed ranges from 65 km
to 160 km and it can fly non-stop for five hours.
According to the
original plan, Liu will take off from Guyuan, a
city in southern Ningxia, and fly over Zhongwei,
Wuzhong and Yinchuan, all in Ningxia, at a height
of between 400 meters and 600 meters, landing in
Shizuishan in the northern part of Ningxia. (PTI)
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