indian affairs: November 2013

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Four Turkish nationals sentenced to death in Iran and Saudi Arabia

Four Turkish nationals have been sentenced to death in Iran and Saudi Arabia among more than 6,000 Turkish citizens that have been either arrested and-or convicted in foreign countries as of October 2013, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has stated.

NEW DELHI: Rajesh and Nupur Talwar have been awarded life sentence for killing their daughter Aarushi and servant Hemraj.

A special CBI court on Tuesday sentenced the dentist couple, a day after it convicted them of killing Aarushi and Hemraj.

Earlier, during the arguments for sentencing, the CBI sought death penalty for the Talwars, calling the case 'rarest of rare'.

QUETTA: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Quetta Tuesday rejected former military ruler General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s request for exemption from attendance in a case pertaining to the murder of Baloch nationalist leader Akbar Khan Bugti, DawnNews reported.

During the hearing of the case in Quetta's ATC-1, former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao was produced before the court.

Meanwhile, the court rejected Musharraf’s application seeking exemption from attending court proceedings and ordered him to appear at its upcoming hearing.

BAGHDAD: A spate of Iraq attacks, including twin bombings at a market and the assassination of a former MP, killed at least 46 people, officials said Tuesday.

Monday's attacks struck in Baghdad and predominantly Sunni Arab areas north of the capital that have borne the brunt of the worsening unrest, with nearly 6,000 people killed so far this year.

DHAKA: Bangladeshi opposition supporters detonated scores of homemade bombs and removed railway tracks to disrupt train services on Tuesday as a planned nation-wide-protest against upcoming elections turned violent, witnesses and police said.

One man died and dozens were wounded across the country in clashes between supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and police, witnesses said.

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court exempted former president Asif Ali Zardari from appearing in the hearing on Tuesday over corruption cases against him and adjourned the next hearing until December 9, DawnNews reported.

The bench hearing the case, comprising of Justice Mohammad Bashir, also instructed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) again to provide Zardari's counsel with copies of the references filed against him.

Turkey could increase its oil imports from Iran to 130,000-140,000 barrels per day (bpd), from around 105,000 bpd in a gradual manner, if Western sanctions against Iran ease, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said during a live interview on CNBC-e television yesterday.

“We have already reduced our imports to around 105,000 [bpd] due to the sanctions. Once these sanctions are no longer in effect, I believe the amount we buy will hike,” he said, adding that Turkey couldn’t ignore Iran, which had one of the world’s three largest oil reserves, and was Turkey’s second biggest oil supplier after Russia.

CAIRO : In what can be described as a first official reaction to reports about Islam ban in Angola, officials at the Southwest African nation’s Washington embassy have denied the reports as erroneous, asserting their country’s respect for all faiths..

“The Republic of Angola … it’s a country that does not interfere in religion,” an official at the Angolan Embassy in Washington, DC, who did not want to be identified discussing the sensitive matter, told International Business Times via telephone Monday, November 25.

Rocket ‘fired from Iran’ kills girl in border town

QUETTA: A girl was killed and six people were injured when a rocket fired by Iranian border forces hit three houses in Tump town of Kech district on Monday.

Balochistan Home Secretary Asadur Rehman Gilani confirmed the incident and told Dawn that the rocket fired from across the border had hit the houses in the town near Pak-Iran border.

Sources said the three houses were destroyed by the attack.

An official of Kech administration said that one of the houses belonged to Mullah Omer, believed to be a commander of an Iran-based religious outfit, Jaish-ul-Adl.

A Saudi court has sentenced one man to death and another 19 to jail for the deadly storming of the U.S. consulate in the Red Sea city of Jeddah in 2004, one of a series of al Qaeda attacks last decade.

Another 19 people were convicted on Monday of plotting to hijack a Western airliner, scouting a Westerners' residence and planning to attack a royal family member. They were given jail terms ranging from 12 months to 25 years, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.

PARIS: France’s foreign minister said Monday the European Union would likely lift some sanctions on Iran in December, as part of a hard-won deal that curbs Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Laurent Fabius also said Israel – which blasted Sunday’s agreement as a “historic mistake” – was not likely to launch any preventative strikes on arch-foe Iran, “because no one would understand” such a move “at this stage.”

Cairo: Egypt’s president passed a law on Sunday making it illegal to hold demonstrations without the approval of the police and banning protests in places of worship, a move rights groups condemned as a blow to political freedom.

As the law was being announced by state media, thousands of anti-government protesters were on streets in Cairo and other cities, as they have been regularly in the nearly three years since a popular uprising ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has requested the Inspector General Police (IGP) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to nominate the US and CIA in the Hangu drone strike FIR.

PTI’s Central Legal Secretary, Barrister Suleman Afridi submitted the written request to IGP Khyber Pakhutunkhwa which cited the statement of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, a news story regarding the US drone strike in the Washington Post and decisions of the Peshawar High Court.

Nupur and Rajesh Talwar were found guilty today of murdering their teen daughter Aarushi and their domestic help Hemraj at their home in May 2008. They were arrested and taken to Dasna jail in Ghaziabad; they will be sentenced tomorrow.Lawyers present in court said the couple broke down after the judge found them guilty of murder. "We are deeply disappointed , hurt and anguished for being convicted for a crime that we have not committed. We refuse to feel disappointed and will continue to fight for justice," they said in a written statement.Their lawyers said they will appeal against today's verdict in a higher court.

LAHORE: The fact-finding committee constituted to probe the Rawalpindi incident on Monday presented its report to Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif which held the police responsible for the tragedy, DawnNews reported.

Following the Ashura violence in Rawalpinidi, the chief minister had constituted a three-member fact finding committee to probe the incident, which completed its report on the matter.

Two sailors were confirmed dead and 24 were missing after two ships sank in separate accidents off the coast of China's Shandong province, authorities said Monday.

According to the Shandong Maritime Safety Administration, a cargo ship 'XINGLONGZHOU65', registered in east China's Zhejiang province, sank off Yantai city around 9 p.m. Sunday, leaving 12 sailors missing, reports Xinhua.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People Party (PPP) on Monday submitted an adjournment motion in the Upper House of Parliament against the US-led drone strike conducted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Hangu district last week which had killed at least five persons, DawnNews reported.

Senior PPP leader Raza Rabbani submitted the motion in the Senate secretariat.

The debutants Anwar Ali and Bilawal Bhatti had been selected primarily to bowl Pakistan to victory. They did that with five wickets between them, headlined by Bhatti's superb use of the yorker at the death. They were not expected to bat Pakistan to a win, but they did that too, with a 74-run partnership for the eighth wicket that breathed life into an innings that was gasping for air.

ISLAMABAD: Maulana Hafiz Mohammad Tahir Ashrafi, chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council and a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), has come up with a 14-point code of conduct to be observed by religious organisations to end sectarian violence in the country.

The Maulana forwarded the code to the CII secretariat on Sunday with a request that a special meeting of the council be called to discuss it.

India welcomes Iran nuclear deal

India on Sunday welcomed the accord reached between Iran and the six world powers on Tehran's nuclear programme that seeks to curb Iran's nuclear development programme in exchange for lifting some sanctions.

The deal – between Iran and the US, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany (P5 plus 1) – was arrived at early on Sunday after more than four days of negotiations.

"As the agreement between Iran and the P5 plus 1 has been agreed to just a few hours ago, we are in the process of obtaining details from our key interlocutors," said Syed Akbaruddin, spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs.

Club—wielding activists from Imran Khan’s political party forcibly searched trucks for NATO supplies in northwest Pakistan on Sunday in protest at deadly US drone strikes.

Around 100 workers from the former cricket star's Pakistan Tehreek—e—Insaaf (PTI) party set up checkpoints in the northwestern city of Peshawar on a main road leading to Afghanistan.

Turkey has welcomed the deal reached between P5+1 countries and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program and reiterated its endorsement of the process, recalling its earlier efforts for a diplomatic solution to the question.

Chasing 289 on an outfield that looked like it was wet because of persistent rain and not dew, West Indies had it all to lose, and some of their batsmen tried their best to do so. Ultimately, the cool head of deposed ODI captain Darren Sammy prevailed to level the series 1-1. Kieran Powell and the brothers Bravo threw their wickets away, and Lendl Simmons tried to do so unsuccessfully, but Sammy timed the final assault well to carry a stumbling West Indies to their first win of the tour.

Mandsaur: Attacking Congress for "doing nothing for poor", BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday said the ruling party, over generations never wanted to educate people and eliminate
poverty as it was afraid of being stripped of power.

Car bomb attack kills 10 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai

ISMAILIA, Egypt: Ten Egyptian soldiers were killed and 35 wounded in a car bomb attack near the North Sinai city of El-Arish on Wednesday, a security official said.

The attack was one of the deadliest in the Sinai Peninsula, which is near Israel and the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip, since al Qaeda-inspired militants began stepping up assaults following the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.

The soldiers were traveling in a convoy on the road to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

MOGADISHU: Islamist militants rammed a car bomb into a police compound north of Somalia's capital on Tuesday and opened fire on officers, leaving at least 28 people dead, officials and witnesses said.

Al Shabaab - the al Qaeda-linked group that claimed responsibility for a deadly raid on a shopping mall in neighbouring Kenya in September - said it carried out the morning assault.

Gunfire rang out at the police station in Baladweyne, near the border with Ethiopia, into the early afternoon as locals rushed for cover.

At least one person was killed when Egyptian riot police stormed Cairo's Tahrir Square late Tuesday to disperse stone-throwing protesters, a health ministry official said.

Police backed by armoured vehicles fired tear gas and shots after clashes in the square to scatter protesters who had gathered to mark the anniversary of deadly 2011 demonstrations.

MIRAMSHAH: At least two security personnel were killed and four others injured Wednesday morning during a suicide attack on a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost on Bannu-Mir Ali Road in North Waziristan tribal agency, DawnNews reported.

Security officials confirmed the casualties.

A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the Shawa checkpost situated on the Bannu-Mir Ali Road. Subsequently, four security personnel sustained injuries.

ISLAMABAD: The names of three judges including a female judge have been approved by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for the special court that will conduct trial of former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, DawnNews reported.

The names of the judges, along with their profile, were sent to Law Secretary Barrister Zafarullah Khan by the SC registrar with a suggestion to select any three of them as members of the special court.

About the head of the special court, the government was suggested to select the most senior one in the list.

Amritsar: Ten members of a family, among them seven women and children, were killed this morning when the car they were travelling in fell into a canal in Ajnala sector of Amritsar district, police said.

Four children, including two girls, three women and three men lost their lives in the mishap which took place near Ramdas village.

New Delhi: In a big breather for politicians, the Supreme Court on Tuesday approved an amendment in the Representation of People Act, which allows political leaders in police custody to contest elections.

The order comes as a big relief for politicians as the apex court had earlier said that the people who are in police custody cannot contest polls.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pushed back Nov. 18 against allegations that Turkey has not cracked down hard enough on extremists crossing its border to fight in Syria’s civil war while calling for greater intelligence cooperation.

LAHORE: Unidentified gunmen riding a motorcycle on Tuesday killed a senior director of a university along with his driver in Gujrat, a city in Pakistan’s Punjab province, officials said.

Syed Shabir Hussain Shah, director of student affairs at a university, was attacked on Jalalpur Road while on his way to the campus.

Shah and his driver Khadim Hussain received several bullets and died on the spot before they could be taken to a hospital.

Two explosions targeting the Iranian embassy have hit the Lebanese capital Beirut, security sources said, killing up to 23 people, injuring at least 146 and damaging buildings in the embassy compound.

Lebanese sources told Al Jazeera that the Iranian ambassador is safe, but the cultural attache of the embassy has been confirmed dead.

It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts. A security source said the blasts were caused by two rockets fired on the area, in the southern part of the city, but a second security source said there was a car bomb explosion.

A senior official’s use of profanity against a protester has sparked a strong reaction from all opposition parties, prompting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to robustly defend to the Adana governor, while also describing what he did as “inappropriate.”

After initially denying the claims, Adana Governor Hüseyin Avni Cos has admitted that he called a protester “gavat,” which means “pimp,” in response to a demonstration against him by a group of people on Nov. 10. He said the reaction followed a “severe provocation.”

PESHAWAR: At least five suspects were arrested on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in Monday's violence in Kohat a day earlier which claimed three lives, including those of two cops, and caused destruction of public property in Zargaran Bazaar and Tirah Bazaar areas of the city.

According to an official release issued by the office of Inspector General Police Peshawar, seven rifles, a machine gun and three pistols were recovered from the arrested suspects.

The Supreme Court on Monday denied to hear the plea against Union Cabinet’s decision to allow bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh for creation of new Telangana State.

The Union Cabinet had on October 3 given its consent for the creation of Telangana State, to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh.

HANOI: The death toll from flooding caused by heavy rains in central Vietnam has risen to 41, with about 80,000 people forced from their homes, disaster officials said Tuesday.

The National Floods and Storms Control Agency said in a statement that the floods had affected more than 400,000 houses, but added the flood waters have mostly receded, allowing many residents to return home.

The heavy rains began November 14.

Malaysian ambassador in Berlin to foster closer German-Malaysian ties

BERLIN: The Malaysian Ambassador in Germany, Datuk Salman Ahmad, who arrived in Berlin two months ago, is very keen to improve bilateral German-Malaysian relations in all spheres.

"Malaysia's relations with Germany have been traditionally good but they have been heavily focused on trade and business ties.

"While our relations in trade and business are excellent, I see good potential in other areas such as culture, science, education and many others," said Salman in an interview with Bernama.

GARUT : The Garut Resort Police had detained at least 106 illegal migrants from Myanmar's Rohingya province, who were trying to cross to Australia through the southern waters of the Garut district in West Java Province, Indonesia's Antara news agency reported.

"We have secured 106 Rohingya people who wanted to cross to Australia through Indonesian waters," the Chief of Garut Police, Senior Commissioner Adjunct Arif Rachman said on Monday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has set out on a trip to the United States, which will be followed by visits to Russia and Iran, with the Syrian crisis high on the agenda.Following his trip to Washington on Nov. 17-18, Davutoglu will head to Russia to attend the Turkey-Russia High Level Strategic Cooperation Council’s meeting on Nov. 21-22, with a delegation headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Britain's Channel 4 news team, which travelled to Sri Lanka for the weekend Commonwealth summit, said it left the country early after days of extensive intimidation and surveillance by security forces.

The television channel's news editor Ben de Pear said he finally decide d to pull the team out after six men appeared at his hotel room door early on Sunday demanding entry.

France’s Abraham Kiprotich won the men’s competition in the 35th Vodafone Istanbul Marathon, while two Turkish athletes finished in the top three in the women’s race on Nov. 17.

Thousands of racing enthusiasts in the fun run joined pro-athletes who participated in what has been dubbed as “the only intercontinental race in the world.”

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Monday announced advocate Zulfiqar Abbas Naqvi as the special prosecutor in the treason case to be initiated against former military ruler Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf, DawnNews reported.

A petition was submitted in the apex court's Lahore Registry seeking the trial of the former president and his sub-ordinate generals under Article 6 of the Constitution.

ISLAMABAD: On a day when the people of Rawalpindi were anxiously waiting for an official announcement about the state of curfew in their city, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan broke, out of the blue, a jaw-dropping story about his government's decision to formally prosecute former president General Pervez Musharraf under Article 6 of the Constitution.

LAHORE: The Sunni Ittehad Council on Saturday asked the leadership of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan to directly contact political parties including the Jamaat-i-Islami and seek their guarantee for facilitating holding of a Manazra (debate) in Lahore on sensitive religious issues.

On the other hand, the JI leadership has refused to become part of the SIC-TTP debate on these issues, describing it as a futile exercise.

KARACHI: Amid the ongoing ‘Karachi operation’ led by Rangers, six people were killed in the city on Saturday.Violence claimed two lives in Orangi Town while four people, including a policeman, werea killed and at least six others injured in a day-long gunbattle between armed gangs in Lyari.An official at Iqbal Market police station said armed men on two motorcycles targeted two men in Raees AmrohviColony of Orangi Town’s Sector 11½ when they were sitting outside one of the victims’ house.

KANDAHAR: A roadside bomb killed two children in southern Afghanistan on Monday while six bodies found the day before in the restive region where identified as policemen and not laborers, as was initially reported.Deputy governor of southern Zabul province, Mohammed Jan Rasoolyar, said the confusion arose because the bodies found in neighboring Kandahar province were in civilian clothes.

TEHRAN: Iran unveiled a new aircraft Monday that it says is the biggest drone yet to be developed in the Islamic Republic, capable of staying aloft for up to 30 hours.

Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said the reconnaissance and combat drone Fotros has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles). That would cover much of the Middle East including Israel. The earlier Shahed-129 (Witness-129) drone is reported to have a similar range, but can only stay aloft 24 hours.

KOHAT: Army took control of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Kohat and Hangu cities and a curfew was clamped down, following an attack early on Monday on an Imambargah Said Habib in Zargaran Bazaar area of Kohat district.

Station House Officer Cantt Police station Mazhar Jaan told Dawn.com that the unknown miscreants attacked the Imambargah Said Habib in Zargaranabad earlier in the morning which left three people, including two policemen and a civilian, dead during an exchange of fire between the two rival groups.

Deadly bombs hit Syria cities after peace talks flop

DAMASCUS:Bomb attacks in Damascus and southern Syria killed at least 16 people on Wednesday, a day after Moscow and Washington failed to announce a date for proposed peace talks.

In Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Moscow was ready to host informal talks between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the opposition.

Russian and US officials on Tuesday failed to agree a date for a proposed peace conference in Geneva that has been delayed multiple times.

DUSHANBE: Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon won a crushing victory in presidential elections to secure a fourth term at the helm of the poorest state in the former Soviet Union, the election commission said Thursday.

Rakhmon won 83.6 per cent in Wednesday’s elections against five also-ran candidates, full results showed, an improvement even on his showing in the 2006 polls when he won 79.3 per cent.

GENEVA: World powers began two days of talks with Iran in Geneva on Thursday, hoping to reach a “first step” deal over Tehran's nuclear programme, although both sides said a breakthrough was far from certain.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed guarded optimism that an agreement to start resolving the decade-old dispute would be reached in Geneva this week. “If everyone tries their best we may have one,” he told reporters.

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