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Pak Taliban plan to attack on May 11 election

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 09 Mei 2013 | 21.50

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Taliban plan to carry out suicide bombings during Saturday's election in a bid to undermine the poll, according to a letter from the leader of the militant group.

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, in a message to the group's spokesman, outlined plans for attacks, including suicide blasts, in all four of the country's provinces.

"We don't accept the system of infidels which is called democracy," Mehsud said in the letter, dated May 1, and obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

Since April, the al-Qaida-linked Pakistani Taliban have killed more than 100 people in attacks on candidates and rallies, particularly those of secular-leaning parties, in a bid to undermine elections they regard as un-Islamic.

The attacks have prevented candidates from the three main parties in the ruling coalition from holding big rallies. Instead, they have relied on door-to-door campaigning or small meetings in homes or on street corners.

However, the militants have not attacked the main opposition party led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which has courted support from groups accused of supporting militancy.

Sharif, who is seen as favourite to become the next prime minister, says Pakistan should reconsider its support for the US war on Islamist militancy and suggests he would be in favour of negotiations with the Taliban.

Nor have the Taliban attacked former cricketer Imran Khan's party, which advocates shooting down US drones and withdrawing the Pakistani military from insurgency-infested ethnic Pashtun areas along the Afghan border.

The letter from Mehsud is bound to raise fears of attacks during the historic vote.

Pakistan's military said on Thursday it would send tens of thousands of troops to polling stations and counting centres to prevent the Taliban from disrupting the election.

The polls, already Pakistan's most violent, marks the first time that a civilian government will complete a full term and hand over to another administration.

The Taliban are blamed for many of the suicide bombings across Pakistan, a nuclear-armed strategic ally.

Army spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa said 300,000 security officials, including 32,000 troops, had been deployed in Punjab, the most populous province.

"Definitely they have reports and obviously they have made a plan to counter that," newspapers quoted him as saying, referring to security agencies getting threats of violence from the Taliban.

Another 96,000 security forces would be deployed in the northwest of Pakistan, where the Taliban operate from strongholds.

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) has capitalised on widespread frustrations with the outgoing government led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

The military has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 66-year history, either through coups or from behind the scenes.


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Nun, 2 others guilty of US nuclear facility breach

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee: An 83-year-old nun and two fellow protesters were convicted Wednesday of interfering with national security when they broke into the primary storehouse for bomb-grade uranium in the U.S.

It took the jury about 2 ½ hours to find the three protesters guilty of a charge of interfering with national security and a second charge of damaging federal property.

The trio spent two hours inside the complex, which has had a hand in making, maintaining or dismantling parts of every nuclear weapon in the country's arsenal. They cut through security fences, hung banners, strung crime-scene tape and hammered off a small chunk of the fortress-like Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, or HEUMF, inside the most secure part of complex.

Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, who testified on their own behalf during their federal trial, said they have no remorse for their actions and were pleased to reach one of the most secure parts of the facility.

Defense attorneys said in closing arguments on Wednesday that federal prosecutors had overreached in the charges against the trio because of the embarrassment caused by the break-in.

"The shortcomings in security at one of the most dangerous places on the planet have embarrassed a lot of people," defense lawyer Francis Lloyd said. "You're looking at three scapegoats behind me."

Prosecutor Jeff Theodore was dismissive of claims that the protesters' actions were beneficial to security.

The head of an agency charged with safeguarding the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile said the breach is "completely unacceptable" and an "important wake-up call." Neile Miller, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday that officials have taken "decisive action" since the incident, including a new management team and a new defense security chief to oversee all NNSA sites.

Rice said during cross examination that she wished she hadn't waited so long to stage a protest inside the plant.

"My regret was I waited 70 years," she said. "It is manufacturing that which can only cause death."

Rice said she didn't feel obligated to ask the Catholic bishop in the area for permission to act at Y-12. Challenged by a prosecutor about whether it would have been a courtesy to inform superiors of her plans, Rice responded: "I've been guilty of many discourtesies in my life."

Boertje-Obed explained why they sprayed baby bottles full of human blood on the exterior of the facility.

"The reason for the baby bottles was to represent that the blood of children is spilled by these weapons," he said.

All three defendants said they felt guided by divine forces in finding their way through the darkness from the perimeter of the plant to the enriched uranium plant without being detected.

Prosecutors argue the act was a serious security breach that continues to disrupt operations at the facility. The intrusion caused the plant to shut down for two weeks as security forces were re-trained and contractors were replaced.

Federal officials have said there was never any danger of the protesters reaching materials that could be detonated on site or used to assemble a dirty bomb, a position stressed by defense attorneys.

The protesters' attorneys noted that once they refused to plead guilty to trespassing, prosecutors substituted that charge with the sabotage count that increased the maximum prison term from one year to 20 years. The other charge of damaging federal property carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The protesters call themselves "Transform Now Plowshares," a reference to the biblical phrase: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks."

Their actions were lauded by some members of Congress, who said the incursion called attention to flawed security at Y-12, first built as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II that provided enriched uranium for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

The plant makes uranium parts for nuclear warheads, dismantles old weapons and is the nation's primary storehouse for bomb-grade uranium. The facility enjoys high levels of support in the region, and Oak Ridge has always taken pride in its role in building the atomic bomb, viewing it as crucial to the end of the war.

A report by the Department of Energy's inspector general said Y-12 security failures included broken detection equipment, poor response from security guards and insufficient federal oversight of private contractors running the complex.

For decades, protesters have rallied at the gates of Y-12 around the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Some deliberately trespass or block traffic to provoke arrest and call more attention to their cause. Some years, authorities have tried to deprive them of the notoriety by refusing to prosecute. In previous prosecutions, the stiffest sentence ever meted out was less than a year in prison.


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Pak court declares US drone strikes as illegal

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani court on Thursday declared that US drone strikes in the country's lawless tribal belt were illegal and directed the foreign ministry to move a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations.

The Peshawar high court issued the verdict against the strikes by CIA-operated spy planes in response to four petitions that contended the attacks killed civilians and caused collateral damage.

Chief justice Dost Muhammad Khan, who headed a two-judge bench that heard the petitions, ruled the drone strikes were illegal, inhuman and a violation of the UN charter on human rights. The court observed that the strikes must be declared a war crime as they kill innocent people.

"The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future," the court said. It asked the foreign ministry to table a resolution against the American attacks in the UN.

"If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US," the judgment said.

US officials have said the drones target al-Qaida and Taliban elements in Pakistan's tribal regions who are blamed for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistan insists that the US spy planes kill innocent people, damage civilian property and are counter-productive to the war on terror.

The US has rejected Pakistan's calls for halting drone strikes.

The Peshawar high court had earlier reserved its verdict after the completion of arguments by lawyers for the federal government and the petitioners, including the Defence of Pakistan Council, an amalgamation of religious groups, tribal elders and rights groups.

The petitioners had asked the court to direct the government to make public any secret deal with the US on drone strikes, stop drone strikes by force, take the issue to the UN Security Council and pay compensation to families of people killed in missile attacks.


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Dhaka building collapse toll crosses 800

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 08 Mei 2013 | 21.50

SAVAR (Dhaka): The death toll in Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster passed the 800 mark as rescuers pulled out 51 more decomposed bodies on Wednesday from the debris of the ill-fated eight-storey building that collapsed last month.

According to officials at the makeshift army control room here, the death toll hit 803 on the 15th day after the disaster while the number of people rescued alive remains unchanged at 2,437.

Hundreds of bodies are still trapped under the debris of the illegally constructed Rana Plaza building as many have remained missing, local media reported.

The building in Savar near the capital Dhaka that housed five garment factories collapsed on April 24. It is still unclear how many people were there on that fateful day.

Police have charged the building owner Sohel Rana and five factory owners with causing deaths due to negligence and violating construction laws, charges punishable by a maximum seven years in jail.

According to police, the building owner illegally added three floors and allowed the factories to install generators.

Some of the survivors of the collapse alleged that the factory owners had forced them to work despite appearance of a huge crack on the building the day before it collapsed.

Textiles minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui on Wednesday said 16 unsafe factories in capital Dhaka and port city Chittagong have been shut down in the wake of the tragedy.

Besides, fire service and civil defence have prepared a list of 243 factories vulnerable to fire mishap.


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Kurdish rebels begin critical pullout from Turkey

ISTANBUL: Kurdish rebels have begun withdrawing from Turkey into their stronghold in northern Iraq, a pro-Kurdish lawmaker said on Wednesday, in a major step towards ending a decades-long conflict that has left tens of thousands of people dead.

The pullout is the first visible sign that months of fragile talks between the state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) could succeed in ending 29 years of guerrilla war.

"We know that they have started moving," Selahattin Demirtas, a pro-Kurdish lawmaker actively involved in the process, told AFP.

About 2,000 rebel fighters are expected to begin leaving Turkey on foot, travelling through the mountainous border zone to reach their safe havens in the inhospitable Qandil mountains in northern Iraq.

There they will join 5,000 fellow militants at the command base which has been used as a springboard for attacks against Turkish security forces.

Ankara did not confirm the start of the pullout but Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said: "We are following the process closely.

"It is hard to say with precision what is happening at what time," Arinc said in televised remarks. "What matters to us is the result, and it looks like we are getting there."

The withdrawals are expected to take three to four months, with several media outlets reporting that the rebels have been on the move for weeks and that May 8 is a "symbolic" date of departure.

"They prefer to move at night and stay out of sight in daytime," to avoid tensions as well as publicity that might jeopardise their security, Demirtas said.

On Tuesday, the rebels said they would not renege on their promise to withdraw following an order from jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, onetime nemesis of the Turkish state.

Ocalan, known as "Apo" or uncle to Kurds but branded a "baby killer" by Turks, called in March for a historic ceasefire after months of clandestine peace talks with Turkish security services.

But even if his supporters have agreed to the pullout, the fighters have yet to lay down their arms as the delicate process begins.

Rebels on Tuesday complained that Ankara was boosting troop numbers and carrying out surveillance flights at the border, saying the moves were "delaying the peace process" and paving the way for "provocations and clashes".

The Turkish army has not confirmed the measures but said its "fight against any terrorism continues", although no fatal clashes have occurred in recent months, the first such lull in years.

Acting PKK leader Murat Karayilan warned last month that the fighters would would strike back and the withdrawal would halt "immediately" if they were attacked.

"We have no doubt about the state but fear provocation from dark forces," Demirtas said, referring to the possibility of ambushes by splinter paramilitary groups which may not be in favour of the peace process.

Mass withdrawals in 1999 were disrupted when Turkish forces ambushed departing rebels, killing around 500 people and wrecking hopes for a permanent peace.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly vowed that retreating rebels "will not be touched".

He said Tuesday that "laying down weapons" should be the top priority for the PKK, which is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and the West.

Karayilan said in April that the PKK was expecting Ankara to "do its part" before giving up their weapons, and called for wider constitutional rights for Turkey's Kurds, who make up around 20 percent of the 75 million population.

A permanent peace could transform Turkey's impoverished Kurdish-majority southeast, where investment has remained scarce and infrastructure insufficient due to the threat of clashes.

It will also impact Erdogan's political future, after he braved a major nationalist backlash in revealing the negotiations with Ocalan.

Millions of Kurds are expecting Ocalan, whose death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2002 after European Union pressure, to be pardoned and join political life.

Ocalan said in his March peace call that a ceasefire would be the beginning of a "new era" for the Kurdish movement.

"It is not the time to give up the struggle, but to start a different one," Ocalan said.


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Pakistan polls: Nawaz, Imran are neck-and-neck

ISLAMABAD: The PML(N) and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf appear to be neck-and-neck in the race for power in Pakistan as they enjoy almost the same voter approval ratings in a new survey released on Wednesday.

Over 25 per cent of respondents in the poll conducted by Herald magazine said they intend to vote for the PML(N) in the May 11 general election while 24.98 per cent said their vote would go to Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf.

Only 17.74 per cent of respondents said they would vote for the Pakistan People's Party, which led the outgoing government that ruled Pakistan for the past five years.

In Punjab, which has more than half of the parliamentary seats going to the polls, the PML(N) appeared to be the party of choice, with 38.66 per cent of respondents saying they would vote for it, followed by at 30.46 per cent.

The PPP trailed way behind at 14.33 per cent.

In the PPP's traditional stronghold of Sindh, the party enjoyed the biggest share of support with 35.21 per cent of respondents saying they would vote for it, followed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement with 19.37 per cent, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf with 8.45 per cent and PML(N) with 8.1 per cent.

The PPP continues to be backed by more people in Sindh even though 50 per cent of respondents in the province rated the federal government's performance as poor or very poor.

In Khyber-Pakthunkhwa, Imran Khan's party was leading with the support of 35.41 per cent of respondents while the PML(N) (with 12.92 per cent support) and the Awami National Party (with 12.44 per cent support) are distant runners-up.

The Balochistan National Party (Mengal) has the highest backing among poll respondents in Balochistan, at 19.18 per cent, with the PPP a distant second at 8.22 per cent.

The two parties leading nationally, PML(N) and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, only have 2.74 per cent and 5.48 per cent support, respectively, among respondents in Balochistan.

The poll covered 1,285 respondents and was conducted by the Herald in March in 42 districts and two tribal agencies across Pakistan.

It also shows a high level of distrust among respondents about the polling process, with 65.6 per cent of them saying that polls in Pakistan are not free, fair and transparent.

Only 29 per cent of respondents believed the Election Commission had the capacity to ensure free, fair and transparent elections, while the number of those who are unsure about it was much higher at 49 per cent.


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US moves closer to arming Syrian rebels

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 07 Mei 2013 | 21.50

WASHINGTON: A Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is predicting the US will soon be "arming the rebels'' seeking to overthrow Syria's Bashar Assad.

Tennessee's Bob Corker says "it's time for to begin changing'' the balance of power in the 2-year-old civil war.

The Obama administration said last week it was rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels.

Corker and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican, joined President Barack Obama and Democratic Sen. Mark Udall for golf Monday. Corker tells "CBS This Morning'' political issues were discussed but said the partners agreed not to publicly reveal the conversation.

Corker did say that Washington wants to exercise caution about which opposition groups to support, saying it doesn't want to line up with the more radical elements fighting against Assad.


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Bangladesh building collapse toll hits 715

SAVAR: The death toll in Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster rose sharply to 715 as rescuers pulled out 36 more decomposed bodies on Tuesday from the debris of the ill-fated eight-storey building that collapsed last month.

Officials at the makeshift army control room here said the death toll from the deadly building collapse soared to 715 on the 14th day into the disaster.

The number of people rescued alive were 2,437, they said. The officials, according to local media, said they still expect more bodies from the debris of the illegally constructed Rana Plaza building as many have remained missing.

The building in Savar near the capital Dhaka that housed five garment factories collapsed on April 24. It is yet to be clear how many people were there on that fateful day.

Police have charged the building owner Sohel Rana and five factory owners with causing deaths due to negligence and violating construction laws, charges punishable by a maximum seven years in jail.

According to police, the building owner illegally added three floors and allowed the factories to install generators.


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UK, Somalia host aid conference in London

LONDON: Somalia's president opened an international conference on Tuesday by asking donors to provide "considerable investment and support" for his beleaguered government in the coming years.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and British Prime Minister David Cameron were co-hosting the conference in London that aimed to bolster Mohamud's government in Mogadishu.

"There is a huge amount at stake right now," Mohamud told the delegates. "The future of our country, the security of the region, and the wider world, and the removal of the piracy stranglehold on the Gulf of Aden."

Somalia was expected to detail its plans to develop the country's security forces, justice sector and financial management systems in hopes of getting more international aid.

Delegates included a number of African heads of state and representatives from the IMF and the World Bank. Human Rights Watch has urged those attending to make accountability and women's rights a priority for the Somali government.

The conference came under harsh criticism from al-Shabab, an al-Qaida affiliate active in Somalia that seeks to overthrow the Mogadishu-based government and install an Islamic one.

Al-Shabab, which counts several hundred foreign fighters among its ranks, controlled Mogadishu from roughly 2006 to 2011 until African Union troops forced it out of the capital. The group still controls wide swaths of south-central Somalia.

Al-Shabab leader Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr released an audiotape over the weekend in which he called Tuesday's meeting a plot to "plunder" Somalia's mineral wealth "under the guise of international trade relations and fighting corruption." He said the international community wanted to discard Islamic law in Somalia and replace it with Western laws and constitutions.

Zubeyr also urged his followers to increase suicide attacks to "permanently cripple" the Mogadishu-based government. The next day a suicide car bomb attack in the Somali capital killed at least seven people.

Zubeyr blamed the regional tensions over land and ethnicity on the Britain's colonial-era partitioning of Somalia between Kenya and Ethiopia.

Mohamud, the president, was inaugurated in September at the end of the eight-year UN-backed transitional government.


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Blast at election rally kills 15 in Pakistan

Written By Unknown on Senin, 06 Mei 2013 | 21.50

PESHAWAR: A blast at a pre-election rally killed 15 people in northwest Pakistan on Monday, officials said.

The attack at a gathering of members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam religious party also wounded 40 people, said the officials.

Since April, the Taliban have killed more than 70 people in attacks targeting three major political parties, preventing many of their most prominent candidates from openly campaigning.

But the militant group has targeted moderate parties in their bid to undermine May 11 general elections, not religious ones like the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam.


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Israel raids on Syria killed at least 15 soldiers

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes on Syrian military targets at the weekend killed at least 15 soldiers and dozens more were unaccounted for, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog said on Monday.

"At least 15 soldiers were killed, and dozens more are missing" after the strikes near Damascus early on Sunday, said the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman.

"These three sites (targeted) would usually have around 150 soldiers in them, but it's not clear if they were all there at the time of the strikes."

Syria said on Sunday that Israel had targeted three military sites near Damascus, with a diplomatic source in Beirut saying the attacks were against a military facility, a weapons depot and an anti-aircraft unit.

The Syrian government has not given an official toll from the attacks, but the foreign ministry said in a letter to the UN that the Israeli "aggression caused deaths and injuries and serious destruction."

The attacks, which residents said sounded like an earthquake and lit up the night sky, were the second time in a week that Israel has reportedly targeted Syrian sites.

An senior Israeli source said the target was weapons destined for Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is allied with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.


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Google's 'Palestine' page harms peace hopes: Israel

JERUSALEM: A senior Israeli official accused Google on Monday of setting back Middle East peace hopes by putting the name "Palestine" under the banner of its search page for the Palestinian territories (www.google.ps).

Palestinians hailed Google's move as a virtual victory on the long path to the state they seek in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, which Israel seized in the 1967 war.

With bilateral negotiations stalled for 2-1/2 years over Jewish settlement building, the Palestinians have campaigned for foreign recognition of statehood, and were upgraded to "non-member state" at the United Nations in November.

Following the UN lead, Google's Palestinian homepage and other products previously labelled "Palestinian Territories" were changed on May 1 to read "Palestine".

"I think that the Google decision from the last few days is very, very problematic," said deputy Israeli foreign minister Zeev Elkin, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"When a company like Google comes along and supports this line, it actually pushes peace further away, pushes away negotiations, and creates among the Palestinian leadership the illusion that in this manner they can achieve the result," he told Israel's Army Radio.

"Without direct negotiation with us, nothing will happen." A Google spokesman in Israel referred Reuters to a statement from last week in which it said: "We are following the lead of the U.N. ... and other international organizations."

Israel was furious at the UN upgrade last November, which was opposed by the United States but passed by an overwhelming majority, and reacted by withholding Palestinian government funds and announcing more settlement building.

An adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the move as a "victory for Palestine and a step toward its liberation".

Google had "put Palestine on the Internet map, making it a geographical reality", the adviser, Sabri Saidam, told the official news agency WAFA, adding that the Palestinians had invited Google's cartographers to come and gather more data for their online maps.

Google Maps currently shows little or no detail for major Palestinian towns such as Nablus and Ramallah, while many Jewish West Bank settlements have streets and parks clearly labelled.

Saidam said Israeli opposition to Google's new rubric was rooted in fear that "the recognition will destroy Israel's concept of 'Judea and Samaria'" - the biblical names that the Jewish state uses for the West Bank.


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Hollande denies discord with Merkel: Report

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 05 Mei 2013 | 21.50

BERLIN: French President Francois Hollande has contested claims he has put cooperation with Angela Merkel on ice until after Germany's general election and praised the chancellor, a German news weekly reported Sunday.

"That is wrong, that is not my position," Der Spiegel quoted Hollande as having told the Luxembourg foreign minister at a meeting on Friday at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris.

The magazine said Hollande had had an article from the previous week translated in which it reported that a Merkel advisor felt Paris had no interest in agreeing on basic issues until after the September 22 vote.

"There is no personal animosity between Merkel and me," Spiegel reported him as saying in its edition to hit newsstands Monday.

The French president, who marks his first year in office on Monday, praised Merkel in the meeting with Jean Asselborn as "a very pleasant interlocutor", according to the news magazine.

Merkel and the French leader have had trouble finding common ground over austerity policies championed by Berlin that are causing growing resentment in the European Union.

That ideological rift was underscored recently when Hollande's Socialist Party branded Merkel an "austerity chancellor" and accused her of "selfish intransigence" in a leaked document.


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Violence in Bangladesh for stricter blasphemy law

DHAKA: Violence gripped the Bangladeshi capital on Sunday as thousands of Islamists chanting 'Allahu Akbar' and demanding a tougher blasphemy law enforced a road blockade and clashed with police leaving at least one person dead and scores injured.

Witnesses said the Purana Paltan area at the heart of the capital and downtown Dhaka saw the worst violence where activists using brickbats, stones and crude bombs clashed with riot police who retaliated with hundreds of rubber bullets and tear gas canisters.

"One transport worker was declared dead after being caught in the crossfire at Gulistan area (and) several dozens of Hefazat activists and ordinary pedestrians are being treated for injuries," a doctor at the main state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital said.

Police said several of their men were wounded as the activists of the newly-floated Hefazat-e-Islam attacked them prompting them to retaliate with the help of armoured personnel carriers.

The Islamists marched down at least six highways and took position at the entry points of the city, stopping road transport and cutting off Dhaka's road links with rest of the country while raising slogans of 'Allah-u-Akbar!' (God is the greatest!) and "One point, One demand: Atheists must be hanged".

Hefazat-e-Islam or 'Protectorate of Islam' enforced their 'Dhaka siege' programme to mount pressure on the moderate Awami League-led government to implement their 13-point demand including the enactment of a blasphemy law to punish those who insult Islam and the Prophet.

The group earlier planned to lay a peaceful siege allowing vehicle movement inside the city but later decided to stage a rally at Motijheel area when police granted them permission on condition that they would not turn violent.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a press conference on Friday urged the radical group to call off the their planned demonstration saying laws already existed to punish blasphemers and being a pious Muslim herself she would not allow Islam or the Prophet to be insulted by anyone.

She also agreed to introduce tougher provisions in the existing laws to punish blasphemers but urged the radicals to be considerate about the country's moderate culture and heritage saying these did not conflict with Islamic teachings.


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Egyptian cabinet to be reshuffled by end of week

CAIRO: The Egyptian cabinet will be reshuffled by the end of the week, a state-run newspaper reported, pointing to a delay in efforts to revamp a government widely criticised for failing to get the economy moving and to conclude a much-needed IMF loan deal.

President Mohamed Mursi announced on April 20 he would carry out the reshuffle, generating hope of a more inclusive cabinet that could build political consensus around talks with the International Monetary Fund on a $4.8 billion loan programme.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said on April 22 the reshuffle would be completed by early last week. A presidential spokesman said on April 24 it would be done "within days".

The IMF has stressed the need for broad political support for a loan deal seen as vital to easing Egypt's economic crisis but which is also likely to bring with it politically-sensitive austerity measures such as tax increases and subsidy cuts. Cairo failed to reach an agreement with IMF officials last month.

But Kandil is set to stay in office and Mursi's most vocal opponents are not expected to be included in a limited reshuffle that falls short of their demands for a complete overhaul of the cabinet before parliamentary elections expected later this year.

State-run Al Gomhuria newspaper on Sunday quoted sources in the Muslim Brotherhood - the movement behind Mursi - as saying "the reshuffle will see the light at the end of the week". The sources said it had taken longer than expected because The presidency was seeking people with the right experience.

But Al Masry Al Youm, an independently owned newspaper that is critical of Mursi, said Kandil was struggling to complete the reshuffle because candidates were refusing to work with him.

"You have to be a true patriot to take a job in the cabinet now," said Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based political analyst. "Certainly the opposition seems much more comfortable watching the current government fail than in sharing the blame."

A government spokesman contacted by Reuters declined to say when the reshuffle would be announced. "The consultations are still going on," Alaa El Hadidi said.

Al-Ahram, another state-run newspaper, reported last week that the reshuffle would involve the ministries of justice, legal affairs, culture, agriculture, planning and international cooperation, and an economic portfolio.


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Afghan president says CIA payments to continue

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 04 Mei 2013 | 21.50

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday that the CIA's station chief in Kabul has assured him that the regular funding that the US intelligence agency gives his government, will not be cut off.

He said the Afghanistan government had been receiving funds from CIA for more than a decade as part of its regular monthly assistance from the US government.

Karzai had earlier confirmed that his government had received such payments following a story published in The New York Times that said that the CIA had given the Afghan National Security Council tens of millions of dollars in monthly payments delivered in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags.

"The help and assistance from the US is for our National Directorate of Security. That is state-to-state, government-to-government regular assistance," Karzai said. "So that is a government institution helping another government institution, and we appreciate all this assistance and help, all this assistance is very useful for us. We have spent it in different areas (and) solved lots of our problems."

Karzai would not say how much assistance his government had received, because it was being used for intelligence work, but acknowledged it was in cash and that for, "all the money which we have spent, receipts have been sent back to the intelligence service of the United States monthly."

He claimed that much of the money was used to care for wounded employees of the NDS, Afghanistan's intelligence service, and operational expenses.

"It is an official government deal between the two governments. This is happening all over the world; such deals between governments; and in Afghanistan, which is a needy country, these sorts of deals are very important and useful," he said at the news conference held to announce the results of his recent trip to Europe.

Karzai confirmed the payments during a news conference earlier this week in Helsinki, Finland. After Karzai's confirmation in Europe, White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment on the newspaper report, referring questions to the CIA, which also declined comment.

In his gathering with reporters at the presidential palace, Karzai said he had met the Kabul station chief of the CIA earlier in the day. "I told him, because of all these rumours in the media, please do not cut all this money because we really need it," Karzai said. "We want to continue this sort of assistance and he promised that they are not going to cut this money."

He added that negotiations for a new bilateral security agreement with the United States had been delayed because of conditions that Afghanistan had placed on such a deal. The security agreement is to govern a US military presence after 2014, when nearly all foreign combat troops are to have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan. The talks, which started in late 2012, are set to last up to a year.

President Barack Obama has not said how many troops will remain, although there have been estimates ranging from 8,000 to 12,000. It is unlikely that such an announcement will be made until the security agreement is signed. Those troops would help train Afghan forces and also carry out operations against al-Qaida and other militant groups.

Karzai said Afghanistan was ready to sign a deal as long as the American government in exchange for being able to stay on bases in the country agrees to the terms of Afghan security, funding assistance and help with training and equipping Afghan security forces. It is thought that the contentious issue of providing US troops' immunity from Afghan law is a low priority for the Afghan government in the negotiations.

The Afghan government has not said how much rent it would want for three or four US bases, but it is believed to be in the billions. Afghanistan is also thought to be seeking security guarantees to protect its porous borders, including the frontier with Pakistan that is the main infiltration route for insurgents who retain sanctuary in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.

"The position of the United States about the security of Afghanistan and relations with neighbouring countries, or whatever attacks are happening from the neighbouring countries on Afghanistan, should be very clear," Karzai said. "So we are trying our best that the security of Afghanistan should be guaranteed, peace in Afghanistan should be guaranteed, a strengthening of the Afghan security forces should be guaranteed, as well the economy of Afghanistan should be guaranteed."

It was unclear how Karzai expected the United States or any of its allies to guarantee Afghanistan's borders against attack.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been severely strained in recent months, especially over the delicate issue of the demarcation of their border.

Afghan and Pakistani forces engaged in a nearly five-hour exchange of fire last Tuesday along Afghanistan's eastern border. One Afghan border policeman was killed and two Pakistani soldiers were wounded in the fighting in eastern Nangarhar province.

The main problem is that Afghanistan does not recognize the disputed Durand Line, the 19th century demarcation between present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Pakistan does.

"Since the Durand line has been imposed on Afghanistan, it was not acceptable to the Afghans and we cannot accept the Durand line," Karzai said. "No government in Afghanistan will accept the Durand Line."

Pakistan and Afghanistan have long been tense neighbours. Afghanistan has been deeply suspicious of the motives of a government that long backed the Taliban regime and has since seemed unable or unwilling to go after militant leaders taking refuge inside its borders. The killing of al-Qaida chief, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan only strengthened Afghan wariness of the neighbouring country.

In an effort to defuse tensions, US Secretary of State John Kerry on April 24 brought Karzai and Pakistani military chief general Ashfaq Parvez Kayani together in Brussels for security talks. But he meeting apparently did little to ease the tension.

"We need Pakistan. They are our neighbouring country," Karzai said. "While I'm President, I will continue to improve relations with Pakistan. But our position is clear, we don't accept the Durand Line and we will not accept it."

"Whatever the British empire imposed on Afghanistan, it was not acceptable in 1893 and it is not acceptable to us today."


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China mulls five-year visas

BEIJING: China plans to issue multiple-entry five year visas to attract high-skilled foreign professionals to broaden its technological base.

Foreign talent will soon be eligible for Chinese visas valid for up to five years, according to a draft regulation, official media here reported.

The draft was released by the legislative affairs office of the state council on Friday, and public opinion is being sought for a month.

It states that China will grant two new types of visa, R1 and R2, for foreign professionals. Both types will be granted to foreign talent and professionals at senior level that the country urgently needs, state-run China Daily reported.

A R1 visa will come with residency rights, while a R2 visa will allow multiple entry and exits.

Liu Guofu, an immigration law specialist at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said R1 visa holders can apply for a residence permit for up to five years, while a R2 visa will allow professionals to stay in China for 180 days at a time.

The regulation will be implemented under the Exit and Entry Administration Law, which takes effect in July.

Also China Ministry of Public Security is drawing up a draft regulation, under which foreigners who work in China for 10 consecutive years may be eligible for a "green card".

Visa holders should be experts recognized by provincial-level governments and above, and professionals that China urgently needs.

The new state council regulation does not specify groups that China urgently needs and which are eligible for " talent visas".

But Liu said that a draft, in which ministerial departments had assessed feedback from specialists, shows that they include candidates with management experience at leading multinationals, specialists in education and science-related fields, and renowned figures in culture and sport.

"The ministry of human resources and social security or the state administration of foreign experts affairs may soon release the list of target groups," Liu said.

Wang Huiyao, director of the Centre for China and Globalization in Beijing, said the new visas will help attract overseas talent.

"The regulation will especially lure those who work in other countries but want to spend time working in China," he said.

Wang said that in the past, China had focused a great deal on how to manage foreigners working in or visiting the country when making or amending visa-related laws and regulations.

But now the country is aiming to attract global talent by providing more convenient visa policies, like many other countries, including the United States.


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Shed the elitist image, Britain's Cameron is warned

LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron must shed his elitist image and connect with ordinary voters, a senior party member said on Saturday, after the anti-EU UK Independence Party scored major gains in local polls at the expense of the ruling Conservatives.

Discontent with immigration levels was a key factor behind UKIP's dramatic victory in Thursday's local council elections, in which it won over 25 percent of votes and recorded the best result for a party outside the big three since World War Two.

Cameron, who once called UKIP supporters "fruitcakes and closet racists", conceded that his party had to work to win back disaffected voters, and he will try to regain the political initiative next week, by outlining new measures on immigration.

"We need to show respect for people who've taken the choice to support this party and we're going to work really hard to win them back," he said.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage demanded big cuts in immigration during his campaign, playing on public concerns about the prospect of large numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians coming to Britain, after they gain full rights to work in the EU next year.

On Wednesday, Cameron's coalition government will outline measures to restrict the welfare benefits available to immigrants, particularly in the field of health.

But for the leader, who like several key advisers attended one of Britain's top private schools Eton College, the problem is one of image as well as substance.

NO MORE OLD ETONIANS

David Davis, a senior Conservative who challenged Cameron for the party leadership in 2005, said that he risked appearing "out of touch" with voters he must win over, if he wants to be re-elected in a national ballot in 2015.

"The fact is that if we want to win the next election, we have to break this impression of being privileged and out of touch," Davis wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"That means more straight talking and fewer focus groups ... and please, please no more Old Etonian advisers."

The opposition Labour Party has long accused Cameron's inner circle of being "posh boys", and the issue resurfaced last month when Jo Johnson, brother of London mayor Boris and Cameron's friend at Eton, was named head of the government's policy unit.

Davis also argued for bringing forward a referendum on the membership of the European Union, something Cameron has already promised to do if he wins in 2015 and after he has renegotiated Britain's position within the bloc.

Cameron may now go one step further and enshrine that pledge in law, ministers have hinted.

His liberal democrat coalition partners; one of Europe's most pro-EU parties; would not allow him to simply introduce a government bill to that effect but, the ministers say, there may be ways around that obstacle.

According to Davis, UKIP's policies on law and order, immigration, taxation, foreign affairs and Europe were like those of a simplified 1980's conservative manifesto.

"So the electoral answers are conservative ones," he wrote, "but the test of our response is less about how right-wing we are than how relevant we are to ordinary people."


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Britain's far-right surges in local polls

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 03 Mei 2013 | 21.50

LONDON: Britain's far-right UK Independence Party, known for its strong anti-immigrant rhetoric, on Friday made "remarkable" gains in local elections, emerging as a serious threat to the three main political parties of the country.

The party, also known for opposing Britain joining the 27-member Eurpean Union, has emerged as a serious threat to Britain's three main political parties, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, in what is being described as the biggest protest voting in history of the country in the council elections held on Thursday.

UKIP averaged 26 per cent of the vote in the wards it contested, making it the biggest gain by a fourth party in England since World War II, according to BBC.

Until now, the UKIP was seen as largely peripheral party, with a number of its members in the news for making racist or anti-semitic remarks.

As part of its many party pledges, the UKIP has vowed to introduce a five-year freeze on immigration and make overstaying a visa a criminal offence.

"We have been abused by everybody, the entire establishment, and now they are shocked and stunned that we are getting over 25 per cent of the vote everywhere we stand across the country. This is a real sea-change in British politics," Farage told BBC.

Among the UKIP candidates, there was Indian-origin Sushil Patel - the father of Conservative MP Priti Patel, who had created a stir with his decision to stand for the far-right party. He came second to the Tories in Hertfordshire.

With around seven of the 35 council election results declared so far, the Tories have lost two of the seven seats it held and the Liberal Democrats have also lost several seats, including four in their key target area of Somerset.

"It was a protest against central government's polices - it's disappointing but we'll bounce back," said Peter Bedford, a Conservative councillor who lost his seat to a UKIP candidate.

The polls also included a key byelection in South Shields, a Labour stronghold vacated by David Miliband, who recently announced his exit from politics.

While Labour was able to retain the seat with Emma Lewell-Buck winning 6,505 votes, UKIP grabbed second place with 24 per cent of the vote. The party was surprisingly able to grab Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters, even though it contested the seat before.

Prime Minister David Cameron has already attempted to counter the UKIP threat by floating the possibility of granting MPs an in-out EU referendum before the 2015 election.

Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps said his party had heard the message and failed to move quickly enough to get the message out. "We get it. We have heard you, we understand and we are also anxious to make progress," he said.

But pressure to shift further right on the immigration issue could intensify if UKIP continue to make significant gains.


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Over 130 dead in tribal fighting in western Sudan

KHARTOUM: More than 130 people have been killed in the latest outbreak of tribal fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region, a tribal leader said on Friday.

"Fighting was going on until last night and from our side we have 37 dead," said the leader of the Beni Halba tribe, who claimed that more than 100 members of the rival Gimir group were also killed.

A Gimir official could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Beni Halba leader, who declined to be named, said a land dispute caused the fighting in Edd al-Fursan, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) southwest of the South Darfur state capital Nyala.

"This is our land and those people are living on it," he said.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), cited the Sudan government's Humanitarian Aid Commission as confirming "new inter-tribal fighting between the Gimir and Beni Halba tribes over land ownership" in South Darfur.

"Seven people from the Gimir tribe were reportedly killed in an attack on 26 April. The fighting is continuing", OCHA said in its weekly humanitarian bulletin issued late on Thursday.

About 2,000 members of the Gimir and Assignor tribes have been displaced, said OCHA, citing government figures.

In April, the United Nations said 50,000 people from southwestern Darfur had fled over the border to Chad because of inter-tribal conflict. Clashes had occurred between the Misseriya and Salamat groups.

Competition for resources, from water to gold, is a key driver of conflict in Darfur, where ethnic rebels rose up against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government in 2003.

While the worst of the violence has long passed, rebel-government battles continue along with tribal disputes, inter-Arab fighting, kidnappings, carjackings and other crimes.


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For Pakistan, Sarabjit was always Manjit

BHIKHIWIND (Punjab): Sarabjit Singh in India, Manjit Singh in Pakistan. For the man, who was given a state funeral here Thursday after having been brutally attacked in a Lahore jail where he was on death row, it was really all about a name.

For his family, he was Sarabjit Singh, the 26-year-old who had mistakenly crossed the border into Pakistan in an inebriated state in 1990. For Pakistan, he was Manjit Singh, a condemned terrorist guilty of blasts in Lahore and Multan that killed 14 people.

For nearly 23 years, Sarabjit Singh tried to wash off the name-tag and actions of someone else. He was only partially successful.

When he was laid to rest in his hometown here Friday, Sarabjit made his final journey under his given name - treated as a martyr in his own country.

But the duality persisted.

Even when he was declared dead Thursday morning, authorities and media in Pakistan said that "terrorist Manjit Singh" had died.

Through his letters and lawyers, Sarabjit, as he was always known in India, tried to tell everyone in Pakistan that he was not Manjit Singh and not involved in any terror activities.

But hardly anyone listened to him in Pakistan and he was awarded the death penalty.

His family maintained all along that Sarabjit's case was that of mistaken identity.

On Friday, when Sarabjit was cremated with full state honours, thousands of people gathered here to pay their last respects. He was described by all as a amartyr.

In death, he found his name and peace.


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Israel PM: Any peace deal will go to referendum

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 02 Mei 2013 | 21.50

JERUSALEM: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he would put any peace deal reached with the Palestinians to a referendum, in a meeting with the Swiss foreign minister.

"If we get to a peace agreement with the Palestinians, I'd like to bring it to a referendum. And I'd like to talk to you about your experiences with that," Netanyahu told Didier Burkhalter, the premier's office said in a statement.

"If you can come to Switzerland, where you are any time invited, then I can show you the referendum, how it works, because we have all the time referendums," Burkhalter replied.

Netanyahu said in 2010 that he would consider submitting any peace agreement he might reach with the Palestinians to a referendum, during long-awaited peace talks which stalled that month and have not resumed since.

Thursday's statement came a day after Netanyahu rejected the idea that an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories would bring peace, in an apparent snub to a modification of an 11-year-old pan-Arab peace plan.

"The root of the conflict is not territorial. It started a long time before 1967," Netanyahu said in a meeting with foreign ministry officials, referring to the year Israel seized Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the Six-Day War.

"The Palestinians' lack of will to recognise the state of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people is the root of the conflict," Netanyahu said.

The remarks followed Arab League moves on Tuesday to revive and modify its 2002 peace initiative, which drew praise from Washington and Israel's chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni but no official response from the Israeli government.

The Saudi-led proposal, which offers full diplomatic ties with the Arab world in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from land occupied in 1967, now includes a reference to the principle of mutually agreed land swaps, a move hailed by Washington as "a very big step forward."

But the day of the announcement, two deadly incidents took place in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, killing an Israeli and a Palestinian respectively.

A knife-wielding Palestinian on Tuesday killed a Jewish settler at a West Bank checkpoint in the first fatal anti-Israeli attack in the territory in 18 months, prompting clashes that injured several settlers and Palestinians.

And an Israeli air strike on Gaza City the same day killed a suspected Salafist Islamist militant who the military accused of involvement in rocket fire against the Red Sea resort town of Eilat in April.


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Somalia famine kills 258,000, half of them children: Report

NAIROBI: Almost 260,000 people, half of them young children, died of hunger during the last famine in Somalia, according to a UN report on Thursday which admitted the world body should have done more to prevent the tragedy.

The toll is much higher than was feared at the time of the 2010-2012 food crisis in the troubled Horn of Africa country and also exceeds the 220,000 who starved to death in the 1992 famine.

"The report confirms we should have done more before the famine was declared," said Philippe Lazzarini, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

"Warnings that began as far back as the drought in 2010 did not trigger sufficient early action," he said in a statement.

Half of those who died were children under five, according to the joint report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

"Famine and severe food insecurity in Somalia claimed the lives of about 258,000 people between October 2010 and April 2012, including 133,000 children under five," said the report, the first scientific estimate of how many died.

Somalia was the hardest hit by extreme drought in 2011 that affected over 13 million people across the Horn of Africa.

"An estimated 4.6 percent of the total population and 10 percent of children under five died in southern and central Somalia," the report said, saying the deaths were on top of 290,000 "baseline" deaths during the period, and double the average for sub-Saharan Africa.

Lazzarini said that about 2.7million people are still in need of life- saving assistance and support to build their livelihoods.

Famine was first declared in July 2011 in Somalia's Southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions, but later spread to other areas, including Middle Shabelle, Afgoye and inside camps for displaced people in war-ravaged Mogadishu.

In Lower Shabelle 18 percent of children under five died, the report said.

The United Nations declared the famine over in February 2012.

During the famine, it was feared that tens of thousands had died, whereas the report now shows more people died than in Somalia's 1992 famine, when an estimated 220,000 people died over a year.

Famine implies that at least a fifth of households face extreme food shortages, with acute malnutrition in over 30 percent of people, and two deaths per 10,000 people every day, according to the UN definition.

Somalia, ravaged by nearly uninterrupted civil war for the past two decades, is one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid workers and one of the regions that needs them most.

However, security has slowly improved in recent months, with Islamist fighters linked to Al-Qaeda on the back foot despite launching a deadly bombing campaign.

At the time, most of the famine-hit areas were under their control, and the crisis was exacerbated by their draconian ban on most foreign aid agencies.

The aid agency Oxfam said the "deaths could and should have been prevented".

"Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures," Oxfam's Somalia director Senait Gebregziabher said in a statement.

"The world was too slow to respond to stark warnings of drought, exacerbated by conflict in Somalia and people paid with their lives."

Over a million Somalis are refugees in surrounding nations, and another million displaced inside the country.

Next Tuesday, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and British Prime Minister David Cameron will co-host a conference in London to discuss how the international community can support Somalia's progress.

More than 50 countries and organisations are due to take part.

Oxfam said leaders should "ensure that this was Somalia's last famine" by helping generate jobs and "ensuring trained, accountable security forces".


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Musharraf arrested for Bugti's killing

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police on Thursday arrested and interrogated beleaguered former president Pervez Musharraf over the killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti in a 2006 military operation, one of three high-profile cases that have dogged him since he returned to the country from self-exile.

A team of Balochistan police arrested the former military ruler and grilled him for nearly four hours at his farmhouse on the outskirts of Islamabad, which was declared a "sub-jail" by authorities.

The five-member police team confirmed to reporters outside the sprawling farmhouse that Musharraf had been arrested over the killing of Bugti.

Musharraf, 69, was the army chief when the operation against Bugti was ordered.

Earlier in the day, Judge Chaudhry Habib-ur-Rehman of an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi accepted a request from Balochistan Police to include Musharraf in the probe into Bugti's death.

Shortly after the judge issued the order, the police team went to Musharraf's farmhouse to question him.

Musharraf is facing charges over the death of Bugti. A court in Balochistan had issued a warrant for his arrest in 2011.

Since his return to Pakistan in March, Musharraf has also been arrested for detaining more than 60 judges during the 2007 emergency and over the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

In a related development, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who was Interior Minister in Musharraf's regime, appeared in an anti-terrorism court in Quetta for the hearing of a case over Bugti's killing.


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Myanmar forces restore order after anti-Muslim riots

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 01 Mei 2013 | 21.50

KYAW BOI LAY (Myanmar): Hundreds of police and troops restored order in central Myanmar on Wednesday after a fresh outbreak of sectarian violence in which one man was killed after Buddhist mobs trashed property owned by Muslims following a minor street incident.

In all, 10 people were injured in Oakkan and nearby villages, just 60 miles (100 km) north of the commercial capital Yangon, and one died of a head wound, the deputy police commissioner of Yangon, Thet Lwin, told Reuters.

Police arrested 18 people who had been charged with theft, assault and arson as well as gathering in a mob, he said.

"They are safe now and can go back to their homes," he said of Muslims who had been forced to flee into surrounding woods to escape the mobs.

The latest wave of sectarian violence erupted in March in the central town of Meikhtila, causing 44 deaths and displacing an estimated 13,000 people, most Of them Muslims.

A Reuters investigation found that radical Buddhist monks had been actively involved in the violence and in spreading anti-Muslim material around the country before and after.

Tension has remained high, and state television said the latest unrest was started when an 11-year old novice monk was hit by a Muslim woman while collecting alms in Oakkan. Other reports said the two had bumped into each other in the street.

"The crowd of Buddhists hurled stones at a mosque damaging six windows and electricity meter boxes. The crowd destroyed the facades of 25 shops," the MRTV television station said in a bulletin late on Tuesday.

Koko Naing, 28, a Muslim resident of nearby Kyaw Boi Lay whose home had been destroyed, told Reuters that at least three different mobs had attacked his village from 3:30 p.m. (0900 GMT) on Tuesday and on into the night.

He said things had been fine in the village until the trouble in Meikhtila but soured quickly afterwards, with monks making anti-Muslim speeches in monasteries.

"Since the violence in Meikhtila, we've been living in fear. We've heard Buddhists will attack again so we are afraid," he said.

"I KNEW THEIR FACES" Reuters reporters saw stickers for a campaign known as the "969" movement of nationalist monks on houses on the road into the village.

Despite the presence of police in the village, about 100 Muslims had chosen to stay camped out in the woods with what belongings they had managed to salvage.

Koko Naing said some of the people who had destroyed their homes were from neighbouring villages. "I saw them and I knew their faces."

Presidential spokesman Ye Htut said in a statement posted on his Facebook page that mobs had tried to set houses on fire in the Oakkan area and 77 were damaged.

Army battalions based in the area were helping restore order, he said, and a senior police official said about 400 police officers were patrolling.

Sectarian clashes between Buddhists and Muslims, who make up about 5 percent of Myanmar's population, have erupted on several occasions since a quasi-civilian government took power in March 2011 after five decades of brutal military dictatorship.

Seven Muslim men are on trial in Meikhtila charged with murdering a monk, seen as the spark that set off the riots there in March. Dozens of Buddhists are to face trial later.

The most serious attacks took place in Rakhine State in the west in June and October last year, when Buddhists fought against Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship by Myanmar and seen by many in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. At least 192 people were killed.

A Reuters investigation found that the wave of attacks in October had been organised, led by Rakhine nationalists tied to a powerful political party in the state and incited by Buddhist monks, abetted at times by local security forces.


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Turkish Airlines bans bright lipstick on hostesses

ANKARA: Turkish Airlines has banned air hostesses from wearing brightly-coloured lipsticks such as red or pink, a move which has sparked fierce debate as the government is accused of trying to Islamise the country, local media reported on Wednesday.

Numerous women posted pictures of themselves wearing bright red lipstick on social media websites to protest at the measure, part of a new aesthetics code for stewardesses working for Turkey's main airline.

The lipstick ban is the latest in a string of conservative measures adopted by the airline, which have sparked the ire of fiercely secular Turks.

"This measure is an act of perversion. How else could you describe it?" said Gursel Tekin, vice-president of the main opposition party CHP.

Turkish Airlines defended the ban, saying in a statement that "simple make-up, immaculate and in pastel colours, is preferred for staff working in the service sector."

In recent months the booming airline — 49 per cent state-owned — has also stopped serving alcohol on internal flights.

In February, images of proposed new uniforms for flight attendants bringing in ankle-length dresses and Ottoman-style fez caps were criticised as too conservative. The skirts of Turkish Airlines stewardesses once came in far above the knee.

However the more conservative new uniforms have not been adopted.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyin Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, in power for over a decade, is often accused of creeping efforts to coerce the country to be more conservative and pious.

Turkey is a fiercely secular state, despite being a majority Muslim country. Under Erdogan's rule headscarves — banned in public institutions — have become more visible in public places and alcohol bans are more widespread.


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At least 15 killed in Iraq bomb blasts

BAGHDAD: At least 15 people were killed in a series of bomb blasts across Iraq on Wednesday, police and medics said, following a sharp increase in violence that has prompted warnings of a full-blown sectarian conflict.

Violence in Iraq has increased as the civil war in neighbouring Syria puts a strain on fragile relations between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Tensions are at their highest in Iraq since US troops pulled out more than a year ago.

A suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest detonated himself in the midst of a group of government-backed Sunni fighters who were collecting their salaries east of the city of Falluja, killing six, police sources said.

In Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, police said a roadside bomb killed four policemen. A car bomb in a Shia district in northeastern Baghdad killed at least three people and wounded 14, police and hospital sources said. Another car bomb north of the city of Ramadi killed two policemen and wounded another 10.

Iraq is home to a umber of Sunni Islamist insurgent groups including a local al Qaeda affiliate that has launched frequent attacks to undermine the Shia-led governments and provoke wider confrontation.

Violence is still well below its height in 2006-07, but provisional figures from rights group Iraq Body Count indicate the number of violent deaths in April was the highest monthly toll since 2009.


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