BEIJING, Mar 12: Adding to the woes of China’s beleaguered railway sector, a section of a new high-speed rail track in central China’s Hubei province collapsed possibly due to persistent rains, prompting authorities to rush hundreds of workers for its repair.
The Hanyi High-speed Railway, which links the provincial capital Wuhan and Yichang city, is expected to open in May. But part of it has already collapsed after test runs, amid persistent rains.
The roadbed of a 300-metre section rail in Qianjiang city collapsed on Friday.
Workers said that heavy rains in the past few days may have caused the problem, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.
The 291-km Hanyi railway, constructed by the China Railway’s 12th Bureau Group Co., will be a major high-speed rail in central China.
The Railways Ministry, which has been under fire for lax safety standards, has said it remained committed to high-speed rail. (PTI)
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN, Mar 12: US officials today warned of possible reprisal attacks after 16 Afghan villagers, mostly children and women, were killed in a likely ‘rogue’ shooting by a US soldier that weakens the West’s tenuous grip on a decade-old war.
Washington has rushed to distance the shootings, blamed on a lone US soldier, from the efforts of the 90,000-strong US force in Afghanistan, but the rampage in southern Kandahar province is certain to inflame anti-Western anger once again.
It comes less than three weeks after US troops inadvertently burned copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, at the main NATO base in Afghanistan, sparking widespread protests in which 30 people were killed.
‘The US Embassy in Kabul alerts US citizens in Afghanistan that as a result of a tragic shooting incident in Kandahar province involving a US service member, there is a risk of anti-American feelings and protests in coming days, especially in the eastern and southern provinces,’ the embassy said in an emergency statement on its website.
Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban, toppled by US-backed forces in late 2001. Southern and eastern provinces have seen some of the fiercest fighting of the war, increasingly unpopular among Americans and their European allies.
Early today, the embassy said on its Twitter feed restrictions had been placed on the movements of all embassy personnel in the south.
A sharp increase in attacks on US troops by Afghan forces followed the Koran burning. Sunday’s incident in Kandahar was one of the worst of its kind, witnesses describing it as a ‘night-time massacre’ that killed nine children and three women.
Villagers in three houses were attacked and many civilians were wounded, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
Officials from the US Embassy, ISAF and from Washington said it appeared there was only one. An ISAF spokesman said the lone US soldier ‘walked back to the base and turned himself in to US forces this morning’, adding there had been no military operations in the area.
The soldier in custody was described by one US official in Washington as a staff sergeant who was married with three children. The sergeant had served three tours in Iraq but was on his first deployment in Afghanistan, the official said.
Neighbours and relatives of the dead said they saw a group of US soldiers arrive at their village in Panjwai district, about 35 km from the provincial capital Kandahar City, at about 2 a.M. They said the soldiers entered homes and opened fire.
However, Afghan Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid said a US soldier burst into three homes near his base in the middle of the night, killing a total of 16 people, including 11 people in the first house.
Villager Haji Samad said his children and grandchildren were among 11 relatives killed.
‘They (Americans) poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them,’ a weeping Samad told Reuters at the scene, with blood splattered on the walls of his home.
Neighbours said they had awoken to crackling gunfire from American soldiers, who they described as laughing and drunk.
‘Their bodies were riddled with bullets,’ said Agha Lala, who visited one of the homes where the killings took place.
A senior US defence official in Washington rejected such accounts. ‘Based on the preliminary information we have this account is flatly wrong,’ the official said. ‘We believe one US service member acted alone, not a group of US soldiers.’
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also called Karzai to offer his condolences. ‘I condemn such violence and am shocked and saddened that a US service member is alleged to be involved, clearly acting outside his chain of command,’ Panetta said.
BEIJING, Mar 12: China, which is yet to take a decision on a three-member crew for its first manned space docking mission this year, today said that it may include a woman astronaut in the team.
Authorities have completed the initial selection of crew members for China’s first manned space docking mission and the roster includes woman astronauts, an official with the country’s manned space programme said.
But the final three-person crew will be decided “on the very last condition” of the team of astronauts of both sexes currently undergoing training, Niu Hongguang, deputy commander -in-chief of the country’s manned space programme and deputy head of General Armament Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.
The manned spacecraft Shenzhou-9 will take its crew members to board the Tiangong-1 space module lab, which was launched in September last year and completed the country’s first space docking with the unmanned Shenzhou-8 spacecraft in November.
The selected astronauts are in training at the moment, Niu said on the sidelines of the annual Parliamentary session.
Assembly on the Shenzhou-9 and its carrier rocket, the Long March-2F, has been completed, and the manned space docking is due between June and August this year, he said.
“The perfect docking between Shenzhou-8 and Tiangong-1 has laid the perfect foundation for the manned docking this year,” Niu said, noting that the manned docking will feature brand new technology.
Tiangong-1, or Heavenly Palace-1, has been orbiting normally for more than 160 days, and is capable of docking with Shenzhou-9 and accommodating astronauts, he said. (PTI)
TOKYO, Mar 12: The yen remains overvalued despite its recent steep fall from historic peaks versus the US dollar, Japan’s prime minister said today, while the country’s finance minister kept up a warning against speculative currency moves.
‘Compared to record highs seen last October the yen has weakened but as a trend it is still somewhat overvalued … The yen is valued highly in relative terms when considering fundamentals,’ Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in parliament.
Finance Minister Jun Azumi added there was no change in Japan’s stance of taking steps against speculative moves in currency markets, though he declined to say whether the yen is correctly valued at present.
‘As I’ve said before, we will take firm action against excessive and speculative moves,’ Azumi said at the same parliamentary committee meeting. He acknowledged that a strong yen damages the global competitiveness of Japanese firms.
When urged by an opposition lawmaker to step into forex markets more frequently, Azumi said there were no constraints on intervention by Japan, though the fact it regularly discloses intervention amounts makes it different from emerging economies that heavily intervene to weaken their currencies.
The yen in early February advanced towards a record high against the dollar, but it has retreated nearly 10 percent after monetary easing from the Bank of Japan and brighter prospects for the US economy.
The dollar was down 0.3 percent at 82.16 yen, hovering below a 10-1/2 month high above 82.60 yen hit on Friday. (Agencies)
LOS ANGELES, Mar 12: Whitney Houston’s daughter said she still hears her mom encouraging her ‘keep moving, keep going,’ and the pop star’s sister-in-law revealed new details of the day Houston died in their first public interviews since the singer’s death.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, yesterday told talk show host Oprah Winfrey that she was ‘doing okay … I’m doing as good as I possibly can’ since her mother was found lifeless in the bathtub of her room at the Beverly Hills Hilton hotel on February 11, the eve of the music industry’s Grammy Awards.
‘I can hear her voice, you know, and spirit talking to me, telling me, you know, ‘keep moving baby. I’m right here. I got you’ … She’s always with me. I can always feel her,’ Bobbi Kristina Brown told Winfrey.
‘I feel her pass through me all the time,’ said Brown, whose father is singer Bobby Brown.
Houston and Brown’s only daughter said she feels her mom’s presence in the house they shared in Atlanta. The ‘lights turn on and off, and I go ‘mom, what’re you doing?’ … I can still laugh with her. I can sit there and I can still talk with her.’
Houston was 48-years-old when she died. She rose to fame in the 1980s and enjoyed a long career that peaked with her 1992 hit ‘I Will Always Love You’ from the movie ‘The Bodyguard.’
But her life was plagued by a troubled marriage to singer Brown, and she had previously admitted to heavy use of cocaine, marijuana, alcohol and prescription pills.
Officials have said prescription drugs were found in the hotel room where she died, but a cause of death is still pending toxicology tests which are expected later this month.
The interview, which took place at the Atlanta home of Houston’s brother Gary and sister-in-law and manager Patricia, revealed new details of the day the singer died.
FACE DOWN IN BATHTUB
Oprah opened the broadcast by saying ‘members of the family told me she (Houston) was face down and naked’ in the bathtub, and Patricia revealed that Houston’s assistant, Mary, discovered the singer’s body in the hotel room bathtub.
A security guard who is Patricia Houston’s brother tried in vain to resuscitate Houston in the room but was unsuccessful.
He was ‘trying to revive her to the point of exhaustion,’ Patricia Houston said, ‘and I called his name. I said, ‘Ray … Let it go.’ They (paramedics) asked him to move. He was on his knees. He said, ‘I tried.’ He was so out of breath.’
A tear rolled down Patricia Houston’s face as she recalled the sight of her sister-in-law lying dead on the hotel room floor. ‘She had a peacefulness on her, a look on her. She had a peaceful look,’ Patricia Houston said.
Winfrey asked Patricia Houston if she believed drugs were involved in the singer’s death. Patricia Houston said she believed the pop star’s worse days of drug abuse were behind her, although she stopped short of saying Houston was not on drugs or drinking on the day of she died.
‘I don’t think drugs (were) an issue for her before her death. I don’t know what happened that day. Do you understand what I’m saying,’ Patricia Houston said.
Finally, Winfrey asked Houston’s brother Gary whether Brown, whom Whitney Houston divorced in 2007, was asked by Houston’s family not to attend the singer’s funeral and Gary replied ‘Absolutely not.’ Brown did turn up for the funeral, but left early, blaming a mixup with security over seating.
He said his family was not angry about a picture of Houston in her casket that was printed in the tabloids following her death, and added that his mother long ago had premonitions about a young demise for his sister.
‘I remember my mother used to say … Whitney’s not going to be with us too long,’ Gary Houston said. ‘She’s an angel. She’s a gift.’
SRINAGAR, Mar 12: The Director Local Bodies Kashmir, Shamim Ahmad Leharwal, today suspended the executive officer of Pulwama and Shopian Municipal Committees for violating the orders of the director for auctioning of the entry tax points at the two South Kashmir district headquarters.
The executive officer of Pulwama and Shopain Municipal Committees, Bashir Ahmad Nanda, was directed by the Director Local Bodies not to auction the entry tax points on his own. He had directed him that a member from Director’s office will supervise the bidding process for transparency.
But Nanda auctioned the entry tax points at ` 36 lakh when the original bid was ` 41 lakh causing at loss of at least ` 5 lakh to the state exchequer.
JAMMU, Mar 12: A unique modus operandi being used to smuggle liquor from Punjab to Jammu under the trucks loaded with vegetables was today foiled at Lakhanpur by the alert staff of Toll Post Lakhanpur.
The liquor had been loaded under the truck of vegetables bearing No. 7288 HR37.
During checking and weighing of vegetables, the Excise staff became alert and subjected to truck to frisking. It was detected and 3806 bottles of IMFL had been concealed under the boxes of vegetables.
The Excise Department seized the liquor. Driver of the truck identified as Balwinder Singh son of Ajmanger Singh R/o village Douan, Mohali in Chandigarh and his associate Amit Singh son of Sher Singh of the same village were subjected to questioning during which they revealed that they were smuggling liquor for the purpose of huge benefits as rates of liquor in Jammu and Kashmir were very high as compared to Punjab.
The Excise team, which made the seizure, was led by Deputy Excise Commissioner, Toll Post Lakhanpur Dr Mushtaq Ahmed along with Excise and Taxation Officers PS Chib, Sohan Lal, Alyas Khan, Gurmohan Singh and GL Sharma, Inspectors Rohit Sharma, Anil Chandan, Ashok Khajuria and Sanjeev Khajuria and Excise Guards Tilak Raj and Romesh Kumar. SHO Lakhanpur Inspector Chanchal Singh supervised the Excise team.
JAMMU, Mar 12: A one day workshop on time and stress management was organized by Entrepreneurship Development Institute in collaboration with PHD chamber under PHD-KAS at its Campus here today.
A spokesperson of the EDI said that during the workshop emphasis was laid on different factors leading to stress, concept and relevance of time, traditional time management, 4th generation of time management, time index, time profile, understanding stress and its consequences and managing stress to live better.
C.M Krishna, Programme Director, PHD-KAS Project in his concluding remarks said, that managing stress is all about taking charge, taking charge of your thoughts, your emotions, your schedule, your environment, and the way you deal with problems. He said the ultimate goal is a balanced life, with time for work, relationships, relaxation and fun, plus the resilience to hold up under pressure and meet challenges head on.
Welcoming the participants, Dr. M.I. Parray, Director EDI said, “time management is no longer simply a way to gain competitive advantage, it is now an essential survival tool for the 21st century.”
JAMMU, Mar 12: New India Assurance Company (NIAC) concluded nine day income generation programme at its training centre, Satwari, wherein more than 20 candidates from different parts of the State participated.
The training incharge while concluding the programme emphasized the need for creating awareness on the insurance portfolio particularity among the far-flung inhabitants of the State. The participants were trained by the experts drawn from the fields of management, marketing and rural development who imbibed theoretical and practical knowledge of principles and practice of general insurance portfolio, particularly as per the requirements of the people of the State.
The course coordinator said successful candidates would be authorized by the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India to legally practice general insurance work.
JAMMU, Mar 12: Jammu and Kashmir ITI Contractual Instructors Union held mass protest demonstration in front of Director Technical Education today to focus the attention of the authorities concerned towards their just and genuine demands.
Their demands pertained to Regularization of vocational instructors working as Academic Arrangement for the past seven years; Enhancement in their salary at par with consolidated rate employees; To get the process of interview initiated by SSRB from the posts on which incumbents are already working, stopped immediately; and To withdraw the above referred posts of vocational instructors from J&K Service Selection Board.
Hundreds of contractual vocational instructors from various districts of the State participated in the demonstration. While addressing president of National Trade Union Front Mohd Gafoor Dar urged the Government and concerned authorities of Technical Education to settle the demands of vocational instructors of ITIs on priority basis.
Later a delegation of the Vocational Instructors Union led by Gafoor Dar called on Director Technical Education and discussed the problems of vocational instructors. The Director assured to take up their demands with the Government.
Others who addressed included Ghulam Rasool Geelani, Nishat Ahmed Raina, Molvi Nazir Ahmad, Farooq Ahmad Sheikh, Nisar Ahmed Lone, Manzoor Ahmed, Bilal Ahmed, Parvaiz Ahmed, Rayees Ahmed, Intizar Hussain, Zulfkar Ahmed, Reyaz Ahmed, Ghulam Mohidin, Faisal and Mohd Maqbool.
