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| May 26, 2006 | Friday | Rabi-us-Sani 27, 1427 |
Updated round-the-clock, with major updates after 10:00 PST (05:00 GMT)
Musharraf calls for flexibility on Iran nuclear row ISLAMABAD, May 26 (Reuters) President Pervez Musharraf called on Friday for "flexibility" on all sides to settle the row over Iran's nuclear programme. Speaking to visiting Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi, Musharraf said that while Pakistan supported Iran's right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, it was opposed to proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world. "Pakistan would support efforts to reach an amicable settlement," he said, adding: "It (is) important that confrontation be avoided and flexibility be shown by all sides." Davoudi stressed that Iran had no desire to acquire nuclear weapons and was ready to give more assurances to the international community. (First Posted @ 15:15 PST Updated @ 19:18 PST)
India, Pakistan agree on joint survey of Sir Creek NEW DELHI, May 26, 2006 (AFP) India and Pakistan ended two days of talks Friday and agreed to conduct a joint survey of a disputed marshland that separates India's western Gujarat state from Pakistan's Sindh province, a spokesman said. "Both sides agreed to conduct the joint survey of the Sir Creek and adjoining areas and waters between November and March 2007," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said. He added that negotiations on marsh area will resume in August. Technical experts from both countries will meet in Pakistan in August to work out the details for a joint survey, he said.(Posted @ 20:50 PST)
Car bomb kills at least nine in Baghdad BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A powerful bomb exploded Friday in an outdoor market in Baghdad’s Nahda area, killing at least nine people and wounding 30, police said. A bomb also exploded in Baghdad’s neighbourhood of al-Bayaa, wounding 13 civilians, police added. Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb missed an American convoy but injured three Iraqis on a minibus in the upscale Mansour district, police said. Another roadside bomb hit a police patrol in Kirkuk, killing one policeman and wounding four others. A cleric imam Wafiq al-Hamdani was slain when gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on him Friday as he was walking to his Kawaz mosque in Basra, a member in the Association of Muslim Scholars said. Elsewhere, a security official in Tikrit General Hospital, said U.S. soldiers brought 14 bullet-riddled bodies, including those of two children, to the morgue in Saddam Hussein's former hometown late Thursday. It was unclear who had killed them and the U.S. military said it had no information. (Posted @ 23:34 PST)
Blair pleads for world to put Iraq differences behind WASHINGTON, May 26, 2006 (AFP) British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday made a call for countries to put their differences behind on Iraq and rally behind the new government in the war-ravaged country. "This should be a moment of reconciliation not only in Iraq but in the international community," Blair said in a foreign policy speech at Georgetown University in Washington. He described Iraq's new government as a child democracy "struggling to be born", and the international community as "the midwives". "You may not agree with original decision," Blair told his audience of some 800 students, faculty members and invited guests. "You may believe mistakes have been made. You may even think, how can it be worth the sacrifice?” Nevertheless, Blair said "I don't want to reopen past arguments", adding "I want to advocate a new concord to displace the old contention."(Posted @ 23:10 PST)
Pakistani police find bomb-making material, arrest two KARACHI, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Pakistani police Friday arrested two people and seized 450 kilogrammes (990 pounds) of bomb-making material during a raid in Mangopir area in Karachi's western district, an official said. Police found 325 kilos of sodium nitrate, 100 kilos of potassium and other material used in home-made bombs, police said. Police did not disclose the identities of the arrested suspects.(Posted @ 20:46 PST)
APHC dismisses Indian PM’s peace talks as a ‘useless seminar’ SRINAGAR, occupied Kashmir, May 26 (Reuters) Chief of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, on Friday dismissed talks between New Delhi and local political leaders as a useless "seminar" that failed to achieve anything. "We had some apprehensions about the round table conference and the apprehensions came true. This conference was like a seminar and failed to yield any result," he said in his Friday sermon at the main mosque in Srinagar. "For the permanent solution of the Kashmir dispute, it is necessary that India, Pakistan and people from both parts of Kashmir should be involved in talks. Also United Jihad Council’s chairman Syed Salahuddin said in a statement published Friday that "militants will continue their struggle until they get freedom from India. Independence is our right and we will get it."(Posted @ 20:08 PST)
Bosnian Serb gets 20 years for war crimes SARAJEVO, May 26 (Reuters) Bosnia's war crimes court on Friday sentenced Bosnian Serb former officer Dragoje Paunovic to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity during the Balkan country's 1992-95 war. The court said Paunovic "ordered and carried out persecution against the Muslim civilian population from the Rogatica area on political, national, ethnic, cultural and religious grounds by committing murders and other inhumane acts." The indictment said that on August 15, 1992, while leading a small group from the Rogatica battalion based in eastern Bosnia, Paunovic ordered his soldiers to capture 27 civilians and use them as human shields on a frontline. Later that day he ordered soldiers to shoot the captives, also taking up a gun himself. Only three people survived.(Posted @ 20:04 PST)
E Asia must act as counterforce to US, Europeans: Mahathir TOKYO, May 26, 2006 (AFP) East Asian nations must pull together to boost their global stature but Australia and New Zealand should be excluded due to their Western ideology, former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad said Friday. "We would like to have the Southeast Asian countries... come together so that we would be able to voice our opinions in international negotiations, particularly with regard to trade and financial regimes," Mahathir told a forum in Tokyo on the future of Asia. "That would enable us to balance the force of the European Union and NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement)", he said. Mahathir said India should be considered for membership because it had made efforts to open its economy in recent years. "Asians want to trade. We don't want to conquer countries," he added.(Posted @ 20:00 PST)
China drops out of joint anti-terrorism exercise BEIJING, May 26, 2006 (AFP) China said Friday it will not participate in a maritime anti-terrorism exercise with Japan, the United States and three other countries this weekend. "Due to other tasks at this time by the concerned departments, China will not participate in this activity," a foreign ministry spokesman said refusing to comment further. His comments come just a day ahead of the scheduled joint exercises that also involve Russia, South Korea and Canada.(Posted @ 19:54 PST)
Hayden confirmed to lead CIA WASHINGTON, May 26, 2006 (AFP) The US Senate confirmed Air Force General Michael Hayden to be the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, following his May 8 nomination by President George W. Bush. He replaces Porter Goss, who stepped down after a year and a half in the post.(Posted @ 19:50 PST)
Pakistan to release 71 Indian fishermen ISLAMABAD, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Pakistan will next week repatriate 71 Indian fishermen who were arrested for illegally fishing in its territorial waters, the foreign ministry announced Friday. The fishermen would be handed over to the Indian authorities on May 30 at Wagah border crossing near Lahore, it said in a statement. The ministry termed the release a "goodwill gesture" in the ongoing peace process between the two countries. It did not give details of when the fishermen were arrested. Friday's announcement came three days after India said it would release 59 Pakistani fishermen. They are due to return home on Saturday. Home secretaries of both countries are scheduled to hold two days of talks from Tuesday in Islamabad to take up the issue of other prisoners held in each other's jails, the Pakistani statement added.(First Posted @ 17:45 PST Updated @ 19:36 PST)
10 Taliban killed in fresh Afghan fighting KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Taliban insurgents attacked a police vehicle in Ghazni province Friday, killing a policeman and setting off an hour-long battle in which 10 militants were killed, police said.(Posted @ 19:32 PST)
Parliament ratifies US-Bulgarian agreement for joint military bases SOFIA, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Bulgaria's parliament ratified Friday a United States-Bulgarian agreement for setting up joint military facilities in the Balkan state. A total of 150 deputies out of the 172 present in the 240-seat body voted to ratify the agreement, signed during a visit here in April of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The deal, valid for 10 years, concerns the Novo Selo training area near Sliven in the east, the air bases of Bezmer near Yambol in the southeast and Graf Ignatievo near Plovdiv in the south, as well as a storage site near Aitos in the east. The facilities will be jointly used for training by US and Bulgarian troops. They will host around 2,500 US soldiers at a time, with numbers reaching up to a possible 5,000 during rotation of troops.(Posted @ 19:30 PST)
Bangladeshi president undergoes heart surgery DHAKA, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Bangladesh's President Iajuddin Ahmed underwent successful heart bypass surgery in Singapore on Friday, his press secretary said. "Doctors found three major blockages but there were no complications during the surgery and they are hopeful that there will not be any post-operative difficulties," his press secretary said. Ahmed, 75, underwent the four-hour operation at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital.(Posted @ 19:26 PST)
Murdering Blair 'morally justified': British MP LONDON, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Killing British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a suicide bombing would be morally justified as revenge for the war in Iraq, lawmaker George Galloway said in a magazine interview Friday. The MP for the anti-war party, Respect, was asked if it would be justifiable for a suicide bomber to blow up Blair provided there were no other casualties. Galloway told GQ magazine: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it -- but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of July 7." He said "it would be entirely logical and explicable," adding that "and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq -- as Blair did."(Posted @ 19:24 PST)
Pakistan, Afghanistan resume bus service after 27 years PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Pakistan and Afghanistan resumed bus service Friday between their two border cities after 27 years, officials said. A bus carrying 22 passengers left Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, for the Afghan eastern city of Jalalabad travelling through the historic Khyber Pass. The trial run of the bus was conducted in March. Authorities said they plan to run three buses from Peshawar and three buses from Jalalabad daily. (First Posted @ 15:15 PST Updated @ 19:20 PST)
Rights group says 34 civilians were killed in Afghan village attack KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) An Afghan human rights group said Friday that about 34 civilians were killed in a U.S. airstrike on a southern village this week, which is double the official toll. The director of the Kandahar office of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said Afghans who had fled their small village of Azizi said that about 25 family members were killed in one mud-brick home and that nine were killed in the village's madrassa. About 11 civilians were wounded in total, and villagers reported burying about 35 ``unknown people'', meaning people from outside their area. The estimate of 34 deaths more than doubles the number of dead civilians given by the governor of Kandahar and President Hamid Karzai, who said that 16 people had died. (Posted @ 17:42 PST)
US offers India help to fight Maoists RAIPUR, India, May 26 (Reuters) The United States has offered to help an Indian state remove thousands of mines planted by Maoist rebels and train its police force to battle the insurgents, a senior official said on Friday. Two American diplomats made the offer to the state government during a visit on Thursday, Chhattisgarh's Additional Chief Secretary (Home) B.K.S Ray said. The U.S. offer to help Chhattisgarh is the first known foreign proposal of aid in India's fight against Maoist rebels. The U.S. embassy in New Delhi downplayed the offer, saying Washington is coordinating with India in law enforcement and counter-terrorism.(Posted @ 17:05 PST)
Iran rejects Iraq talks with US for now BAGHDAD, May 26 (Reuters) Iran has decided not to take up an offer from Washington of direct talks over the future of Iraq for the time being, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference during a visit to Baghdad. He said Iran's initial acceptance of talks had been exploited for propaganda by the United States and that Tehran had therefore decided to suspend its decision to take part. "Unfortunately the American side tried to use this decision as propaganda and they raised some other issues. They tried to create a negative atmosphere and that's why the decision which was taken for the time being is suspended," he said.(Posted @ 17:02 PST)
34 countries kick off exercise against WMD in Turkey ABOARD THE TCG BARBAROS (AP) As part of mock drills, warships participating in a large multinational exercise took off into the Turkish Mediterranean Friday in pursuit of a cargo ship said to be carrying weapons of mass destruction. The exercise, with 34 countries including the United States, was a practice session to prepare for intercepting weapons materials before they reach a country like Iran.(Posted @ 15:20 PST)
Militants kill suspected government spy in Pakistani tribal area MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, May 26, 2006 (AFP) Pro-Taliban militants Friday shot dead a trader whom they accused of spying for government forces in Pakistan’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials said. The local carpet trader was attacked at a main market in the town of Miranshah and he later died in hospital, a local government official said. Witnesses said the assailants fled from the scene shouting that they had meted out punishment to a spy. Separately a health clinic in Hamzoni village near Miranshah was damaged when explosives planted by suspected militants went off late Thursday, the official said.(Posted @ 15:15 PST)
Bomb kills Islamic Jihad member in Lebanon SIDON, Lebanon, May 26 (Reuters) A bomb wounded a senior Islamic Jihad official and killed his brother in southern Lebanon on Friday, in an attack the Palestinian group blamed on Israel. It was not immediately clear who targeted Mahmoud Majzoub,known as Abu Hamze, and his brother Nidal, also an Islamic Jihad member. "This is an Israeli attack and a dangerous escalation," Islamic Jihad official Ali Abu Shahine said in Beirut.(Posted @ 15:15 PST)
Iran has right to peaceful nuclear work: Iraq BAGHDAD, May 26 (Reuters) Iraq said on Friday that Iran had the right to develop a peaceful nuclear programme. "We respect and confirm the right of the Republic of Iran and the right of any other state to have scientific and technological abilities to research in the field of nuclear energy for peaceful uses," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said during a news conference with his Iranian counterpart. "We don't want any of our neighbours to have weapons of mass destruction," Zebari added. He was speaking after talks with Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, who arrived in Baghdad earlier on Friday.(Posted @ 15:05 PST)
Annan calls on Myanmar junta to free Suu Kyi BANGKOK, May 26 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan made a direct appeal on Friday to Myanmar junta leader Than Shwe to free opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi, whose latest detention order expires this weekend."I take this opportunity to appeal to General Than Shwe and the government to release her," Annan told Reuters Television. "I am relying on you, General Than Shwe, to do the right thing."(Posted @ 13:05 PST)
Hamas pulls private militia off streets of Gaza to avoid infighting GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip, May 26 (AP) _ Hamas withdrew a controversialprivate militia from the streets of the Gaza Strip on Friday, saying it wanted to avoid further infighting with the rival Fatah movement. Hamas said it was not disbanding the 3,000 strong unit, but that it was withdrawing the force from public areas. The gunmen were not in sight Friday, and the streets of Gaza City were quiet.(Posted @ 12:45 PST)
US Senate approves immigration reform WASHINGTON, May 26 (AFP) - The US Senate adopted on Thursday sweeping reforms of immigration law that would allow millions of undocumented workers to seek legal status in the United States. The bill passed 62-36 would create 200,000 temporary work visas for foreigners who take low-skill jobs here, and double the number of US Border Patrol agents on the border with Mexico. Most controversial is a provision that would allow many of the estimated 11.5 million foreign workers here illegally, many of them Mexican, to gain legal status.The bill also includes funding to build a 600 kilometer (370 miles) wall along the Mexican border to block illegal entry. Mexican President Vicente Fox who was on a three-day visit to the United States said: "It is a wonderful day for the United States and Mexico, but especially for Mexicans in the United States and their families."(Posted @ 11:35 PST)
India admits more work to be done on nuclear deal with US NEW DELHI, May 26 (AFP) - More work has to be done on the Indo-US nuclear deal before it goes through Congress, India's Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said in London on Thursday after handing over to US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns a draft of a proposed bilateral agreement on civil nuclear cooperation. Burns "gave me an account of where it stands (in the US Congress). There is still work to be done," Saran told reporters, adding however that the "outlook was positive and encouraging".(Posted @ 11:20 PST)
ADB lends Pakistan 42 million dollars for tribal areas MANILA, May 26 (AFP) - The Asian Development bank (ADB) said Friday it will lend Pakistan 42 million dollars for a project to improve farming, livestock and irrigation in that country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The project aims to increase the productivity of about 52,500 hectares (129,670 acres) of rain-fed lands and benefit about 37,500 households in the northern districts of Baijaur, Khyber, and Mohmand, the ADB said in a statement from its headquarters in the Philippine capital. The loan will come from the ADBs concessional Asian Development Fund and will carry a 32-year term with a grace period of eight years.(Posted @ 11:10 PST)
US lawmakers want Pakistan to reopen probe on illicit nuclear network WASHINGTON, May 26 (AFP) - US lawmakers on Thursday called for the reopening of a probe into a nuclear smuggling network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan amid concerns he could have supplied Iran with nuclear weapon designs. "We have given Pakistan a get-out-of-jail-free card on the single worst case of profileration in the past 50 years," Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman told a House of Representatives hearing Thursday.Given the "grave consequences" of Khan's acts and "his relevancy" to the current Iranian and North Korean crises, the US and the international community should expect more from Musharraf, said Republican legislator Ed Royce, who chaired the hearing by a House panel dealing with international terrorism and nonproliferation.(Posted @ 09:15 PST)
East Timor hands over security to Australia DILI, May 26 (AFP) - East Timor on Friday handed over security to Australian troops in the capital to restore order in the streets and stop a bloodbath between the Timorese military and rebel soldiers. After a day that saw at least 15 people killed as houses were torched and unarmed men gunned down, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said his own Timorese forces were being ordered back to their barracks.(Posted @ 09:15 PST)
Bush says Abu Ghraib was biggest mistake of Iraq war WASHINGTON, May 26 (AFP) - President George W. Bush said Thursday that the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was the "biggest mistake" made by the United States in Iraq. Speaking after a summit with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush said "I think the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement, is Abu Ghraib. "We've been paying for that for a long period of time," Bush told a joint White House news conference. Bush said he also regretted some of his tough talk during the war campaign such as his "bring them on" challenge to Iraqi insurgents in July 2003, four months after the US-led invasion.(Posted @ 09:15 PST)
Karachi Stocks down 358.46 points: KARACHI, May 26:At close of trading the KSE-100 index was at 10660.39, down 358.46 points. (Bureau Report) (Updated @ 16:10 PST)
Forex update: KARACHI, May 26: The Pakistani Rupee was traded at Rs 60.53 to the US Dollar in the open market. (Bureau Report) (Updated @ 16:10 PST)
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