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| May 22, 2005 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1426 |
Updated round-the-clock, with major updates after 10:00 PST (05:00 GMT)
Powerful explosions rock cinema halls in Delhi, 50 wounded NEW DELHI, May 22 (APP) :Around fifty people, including seven women and a child, were injured tonight in powerful bomb explosions in two cinema halls in the national capital during the screening of controversial movie "Jo Bole So Nihal" over which several Sikh organizations already held violent protests. With the two blasts in Liberty and Satyam halls in quick succession, Delhi and Indian Punjab were put on high alert. The cinema halls in the national capital, which were screening the film, were evacuated. (Posted @ 00:30 PST)
Afghan president seeking new relationship with US WASHINGTON, May 22 (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai plans to ask US President George W. Bush on Monday for greater control over Afghan affairs including the detention of suspected insurgents, the fight against drug cultivation and the hunt for Osama bin Laden."I am here to ask president Bush for a longer-term relationship with Afghanistan, for a strategic partnership with Afghanistan, that will evolve economic support, military support and security assistance," Karzai told Fox News Sunday.(Posted @ 00:30 PST)
Chinese climb Everest to see if it's growing BEIJING, May 22 (Reuters) - Chinese mountaineers and researchers climbed to the top of Mount Everest on Sunday to determine whether the world's tallest mountain is still growing. They placed a survey beacon on the summit and set up radar and Global Positioning System instruments to measure its precise height, the official Xinhua news agency reported. In 1975 Chinese scientists measured the height of Everest at 8,848.13 metres (29,029 feet, 3 inches), a few centimetres (inches) more than an Indian survey had found in the 1950s. But in 1999 a U.S. team measured the mountain at 8,850 metres.Growing or not, Everest is changing in other ways. Its glaciers are shrinking on the Chinese side faster than ever because of global warming, official media reported last week.The mountain, known to Chinese as Qomolangma, straddles the border between China and Nepal. The new measurement of its height is due to be released by August. (Posted @ 21:15 PST)
Romanian journalists and guide freed after hostage ordeal in Iraq BUCHAREST, May 22 (AFP) - Three Romanian journalists and their guide have been released in Iraq after being held hostage there for almost two months, the government said on Sunday in Bucharest."The three journalists and their guide are safe and well and have been under the protection of the Romanian authorities since 1:44 pm local time" or 1044 GMT, said Adriana Saftoiu, a spokeswoman for President Traian Basescu."The four will be returning to Romania in the very near future," she added.The Romanians, a woman and two men, were abducted on March 28 in a suburb of Baghdad, along with their guide, a businessman with both Iraqi and US citizenship.(Posted @ 21:15 PST)
Thousands honor slain Indian occupied Kashmiri leader, son urges support for peace process SRINAGAR, India, May 22 (AFP) - Thousands rallied Sunday in Indian Kashmir to honor a top Indian occupied Kashmiri separatist leader slain three years ago, while his son urged the crowd to support the ongoing peace process between India and Pakistan. More than 10,000 people, mostly from northern Indian occupied Kashmir, gathered at a cricket stadium in the summer capital Srinagar to remember Abdul Gani Lone, who was gunned down along with his bodyguard in a daylight murder on May 21, 2002. Lone was the head of the separatist Peoples Conference, an important constituent of Indian occupied Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.His assassination catapulted his 37-year-old son Sajjad Lone into the leadership of the party, which has a sizeable following in north Indian occupied Kashmir.On Sunday Lone's supporters carried placards with pictures of the slain leader saying "peace martyr" in the stadium, which was surrounded on all sides by police and security force personnel.(Posted @ 21:15 PST)
UN condemns reports of torture of Afghans in US military custody KABUL, May 22 (AFP) - The United Nations condemned new allegations of abuse of prisoners by US troops in Afghanistan and called for tough action to deal with the offenders, a day before President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are due to meet at the White House."Such abuses are utterly unacceptable and are an affront to everything the international community stands for in Afghanistan," Jean Arnault, UN special representative in Afghanistan said in a strongly worded statement. Two Afghan prisoners held in a US-run prison at Bagram Airbase were tortured to death by American soldiers, the New York Times reported Friday, citing a leaked 2,000-page file on the US Army's criminal investigation of the case.(Posted @ 21:00 PST)
Thirty acres reserved for women in small industries' estate: Adil KARACHI, May 22 (APP)- A small industries' estate, first in the country, is being set up in Karachi. Sindh Minister for Industries and Labour, Muhammad Adil Siddiqui stateed this Sunday while talking to APP Sunday.Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz performed the ground breaking of the project here today.(Posted @ 21:00 PST)
Iraqi court sentences three insurgents to death KUT, Iraq, May 22 (AFP) - An Iraqi court sentenced three members of the Ansar al-Sunna extremist group to death for rape, murder and kidnapping Sunday, an AFP correspondent reported.This was the first time the death penalty was handed in Iraq since the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari was sworn in earlier this month.The three men, aged 25, 30 and 44, were found guilty of involvement in 20 different operations during which they killed and captured Iraqi police and raped Iraqi women.Iraq-unrest-justice (Posted @ 20:00 PST)
Iran issues stern warning to Europeans ahead of nuclear talks TEHRAN, May 22 (AFP) - Iran warned Britain, France and Germany Sunday against pushing for the Islamic republic to be referred to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme, saying such a step would spark "a crisis over which the Europeans would have no control".Speaking ahead of high-level crisis talks due to be held in Brussels and Geneva this week, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also warned it would take "unilateral decisions" if it faced diplomatic punishment."It is not legally possible to refer our case to the UN Security Council. Many counties believe there is no legal basis for it. So if one country pressures others to do it, they will be the losers, not the Islamic republic of Iran," he told reporters."We have taken the necessary measures and we are not afraid of being referred to the UN Security Council," he said, asserting again that "the decision regarding Isfahan is irreversible".(Posted @ 20:00 PST)
Provinces to get substantial increase in NFC Award if they accept Sindh\`s new formula Sardar Ahmed KARACHI, May 22 (PPI): Senior Minister for Finance, Syed Sardar Ahmed said on Sunday that all the provinces would get a substantial increase in their share if they accepted the formula proposed by Sindh for National Finance Commission Award. Talking to a group of journalists at the governor's house after inauguration of Small Industrial Estate, Northern bypass, Karachi by the Prime Minister, this noon, the minister said he has written a letter to the finance ministers of Punjab, NWFP and Balochistan a few days back explaining the formula. " What we have suggested is that distribution of resources on the basis of population and backwardness should be in bulk, however there must be a certain share with regard to revenue collection by the provinces," minister explained. If the other provinces agreed to our formula, the Punjab would get Rs.160 billion as compared to Rs.125 billion it received this year; the NWFP would get Rs.45 billion compared to this year's figure of Rs.22 billion and Balochistan would get 50 percent increased funds from Rs.11 billion to Rs.22 billion, Sardar Ahmed said. (Posted @ 19:45 PST)
AFGHANISTAN (12 Insurgents killed in Paktika: US commander) Fighting between insurgents and US-led coalition and Afghan forces in the country's troubled east left 12 rebels dead and one U.S.soldier slightly wounded, the U.S. military said Sunday. The clash occurred Saturday in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara. "It was clearly the insurgents who fired upon us first," O'Hara said O'Hara said the 12 were killed by a combination of direct fire from troops on the ground and coalition attack aircraft, and that the surviving rebels fled across the border into Pakistan after the fighting Pakistan's military reported that some shells from the fighting landed in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region, but no one was hurt there. (Posted @ 19:45 PST)
Tornado in Bangladesh destroys more than 600 homes; at least 50 injured BRAHMANBARIA, Bangladesh, May 22 (APP/AP) _ A fierce tornado tore through eastern Bangladesh on Sunday, leaving at least 50 villagers injured, destroying more than 600 homes and uprooting electric poles, an official said. The tornado struck at least 10 villages at Kosba in Brahmanbaria district, 80 kilometres (50 miles) east of the capital, Dhaka, the area's chief administrator Habibur Rahman told reporters. About 1,500 people were left homeless after the tornado struck early Sunday, Rahman said. The injured were taken to a hospital, he said. Storms are common in Bangladesh, a nation of 140 million people, at this time of year. (Posted @ 15:30 PST)
Bus accident in western India kills 12, injures 19 MUMBAI, May 22 (APP/AFP) - At least 12 people were killed and 19 injured Sunday when two buses collided in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, a police inspector said. The accident occurred on a highway connecting India's financial capital Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, with the western coastal resort state of Goa, Mumbai police inspector Satkal said. All the victims were passengers on one of the buses, said Satkal, who uses only one name. The cause of the accident was being investigated, Satkal said. (Posted @ 15:30 PST)
Twenty confirmed killed in north China coal mine accident BEIJING, May 22 (AFP) - Twenty miners have been confirmed killed in a coal mine accident in north China, including 14 who were trapped in a coal shaft after an explosion and six others in a neighboring mine, state media said Sunday. (Posted @ 12:45 PST)
Indonesian hardliners say those who desecrate Holy Quran should be killed JAKARTA, May 22 (AFP) - Indonesians at a rally by thousands on Sunday vowed to wage war against America and said those who desecrate the Holy Quran should be killed. "Destroy America and its allies! Kill those who desecrate Islam!" Muhammad Iqbal alias Abu Jibril, from the Indonesian Mujahedin Council (MMI), exhorted thousands of protestors through a public address system outside the US embassy. Members and supporters of 39 Muslim groups including Indonesia's two largest Islamic organizations, the moderate Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, joined the march (Posted @ 12:35 PST)
Iraq interrogator gives details of Saddam jail conditions LONDON, May 22 (APP/AFP) - Saddam Hussein is being kept in a jail where the small, windowless cells have only a small ventilation flap from which to view the outside world, which can be locked as a punishment, a former interrogator said in an interview published late Saturday. Inmates spent 23 hours a day in their two-metre (6.7-foot) square cells at Camp Cropper, the top-secret Baghdad prison where Saddam and other former top members of his ousted Iraq regime are kept, he said. The revelations -- two days after British and US newspapers printed photographs of a half-naked Saddam in his cell -- came from Dr Rod Barton, an Australian who was once a senior weapons inspector in Iraq. There were around 100 prisoners kept at the "bleak" Camp Cropper, inside three rows of single-storey cell buidings, Barton, who conducted interrogations at the prison, told the Observer newspaper, published on Sunday. (Posted @ 11:00 PST)
British officer could be tried for Iraq 'war crimes': report LONDON, May 21 (AFP) - A British commanding officer decorated for his service in Iraq could face court martial for alleged war crimes following the death of an Iraqi detainee, a report said late on Saturday. Colonel Jorge Mendonca, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his actions in Iraq, is being investigated over the death of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel clerk allegedly beaten to death in 2003, the Mail on Sunday said. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said late Saturday that "the Army Prosecuting Authority is still considering case papers and any decision to prosecute will be announced to the House (of Commons) by the Attorney General," he said. (Posted @ 09:15 PST)
US memo faults Karzai over Afghan heroin-NY Times NEW YORK, May 21 (Reuters) - U.S. officials said in a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this month that a poppy eradication program aimed at Afghanistan's heroin trade was ineffective partly because of President Hamid Karzai's leadership, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions. The May 13 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to Rice, shown to the Times by an official said to be alarmed at the slow pace of poppy eradication, said provincial officials and village elders impeded destruction of poppy acreage. It also said top Afghan officials, including Karzai, had done little to counter that. The Afghan president is scheduled to meet U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House on Monday. (Posted @ 08:50 PST)
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