Four
Left activists killed in Bihar (Go
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Palinagar
(Bihar): Four CPI-ML (Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist))
activists were gunned down by suspected rebels belonging
to the banned People's War Group (PWG) in Bihar on Thursday.
Party's state unit secretary Vidyanand Vakil said that armed
PWG men stormed the houses of the workers at Paliganj village
and fired indiscriminately killing all the four instantly.
Giving details, he added: "Four of our members were killed.
The assailants entered the houses and opened indiscriminate
fire at them. At around 3.30 a.m., the police came and they
took away the bodies. But till now no postmortem has been
done," said Vakil. Police suspect that the strike is in
retaliation for the killing of two of the PWG activists
last week. Meanwhile, raids were being carried out at different
places to nab the assailants.
National
Conference boycotts Assembly over Women's Bill (Go
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Srinagar:
The National Conference staged a walkout in the State
Assembly on Thursday as a mark of protest against a controversial
Women's Bill. The move comes a day after the opposition-sponsored
no-trust motion against chairman of state's Legislative
Council was defeated by one vote. The Bill denies certain
property and political rights to Kashmiri women if they
get married outside the state. The main opposition party
in the state, the National Conference, had moved the motion
against its expelled legislator Abdul Rashid Dar for his
support to the Bill in the last session. The bill moved
by the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) was allowed
to be lapsed after its main coalition partner the Congress
raised serious objections. "We will not let the law be passed.
I am saying this on behalf of the party that we will do
everything possible to prevent this from being passed,"
Abdul Rahim Rather, a National Conference legislator told
reporters. The proposed legislation had also created a furore
in national parliament with major opposition parties staging
walkouts against the Bill.
Indian
female weightlifter among five suspended from Olympics (Go
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Athens:
Indian weightlifter Pratima Kumari tested positive for
a banned drug and was suspended from the Athens Games here
Wednesday. Pratima had pulled out at the last moment without
any satisfactory explanation being offered by the Indian
officials. She was to participate in the 63 kg weight category.
The 28-year old Pratima, a double gold medallist at the
Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002, returned the positive
test during a pre-Olympic anti-dope campaign which started
on July 30.
Daily
allowance for Indian Olympians raised to 50 USD (Go
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New
Delhi: The daily allowance for the Indian players and
coaches participating in the Athens Olympics has been increased
from 20 dollars to 50 dollars, Union Minister for Youth
Affairs and Sports Sunil Dutt announced Thursday. "With
retrospective effect, the daily allowance for our players
and coaches participating in the Olympics is now 50 dollars
instead of the 20 dollars given earlier," Dutt told reporters
here. He was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar on "Rajiv
Gandhi's Vision for Youth". "There are limited facilities
for sportspersons", he said adding that there is not enough
interest in sports, except for say cricket."
Maoists'
stir affects life in Kathmandu (Go
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Kathmandu:
Food prices have begun to rise and fuel is available
on ration here even as the Maoist rebels kept vehicles off
roads leading to Nepal's Capital for a second consecutive
day on Thursday. The guerrillas' call for an indefinite
blockade and an implied threat to attack vehicles that violate
it, has disrupted the supply of food and goods to Kathmandu,
a city of 1.5 million people situated in a valley ringed
by hills. Even the few armed convoys cannot meet the city's
demands of cooking oil, rice, sugar and vegetables, grocers
said. "Extremely bad, very bad, quite costly, the price
of everything especially vegetables have gone up very high,"
said shopper K.K. Jhar as he displayed a bag of vegetables
which he said would have cost 10 or 12 rupees before the
blockade but had now more than doubled in price. The city
showed a few signs of panic buying, but fuel wholesalers
were rationing supplies and many residents feared shopkeepers
might try and take advantage of the blockade to spike prices.
"The blockade is already having an effect - prices are up
already by about ten percent," said a shopkeeper Ramesh.
"Of course there will be an artificial price rise as people
try to make some money and take advantage of the situation,"
complained another shopper. This is the first time the rebels
have tried to shut down the Capital, which, so far, has
been spared much of the rebel violence.
Pak
FM clears hurdle to become Pak PM (Go
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Islamabad:
Pakistan Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz has won two National
Assembly seats - Attock and Tharparkar - thereby clearing
the way to take over as the country's prime minister. He
is likely to be installed as the PM next week, officials
said. Aziz will take over from Ch. Shujaat Hussain, the
caretaker prime minister. According to unofficial sources,
the former Citibank executive bagged 76,161 votes against
29,443 for his main opponent in Attock district of central
Punjab province. He also trounced his opponent in a second
by-election in Tharparkar in Sindh province by securing
152,102 votes against the rival's 10,732. Legislators from
the two constituencies had resigned to allow Aziz to win
a NA seat, a pre-requisite to be prime minister. Reports
said that the results would be formally announced later
in the week. Meanwhile, a mixed reaction was evoked from
amonmg the people about Aziz's wins. "He will prove to be
a good prime minister as we saw his policies worked in Musharraf
government and he brought a lot of foreign currency in the
country. This indicates he would be a better prime minister,"
said Zaheer Ahmad, a resident of Islamabad. Dr. Sheikh Sirajul-Haq,
a local resident, was apprehensive that Aziz might not be
as successful as a politician. "As far as economy is concerned,
he will prove to be good, but politically he will not be
quite successful because our politicians are smarter," Haq
said. An unidentified housewife disagreed saying: "He is
an educated, cultured and a cool headed man. I think he
will be good (for the country)." Aziz's victory was also
hailed by stock market players, as he is said to have steered
a sharp turnaround in Pakistan's financial fortunes.
US
WW-II wrecked ship a nuclear timebomb (Go
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London:
Scientists have revealed that a World War II American
cargo ship, which broke up on a sandbank, could cause one
of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever. Scientists visiting
the site at which the ship was found in the Thames Estuary,
warned that the USS Richard Montgomery had 14,000 bombs
with unprotected fuses that could be ignited by a chemical
reaction with water or a collision. According to The Sun,
the blast, which could be 700 times the size of the 1995
Oklahoma City bomb, could devastate the nearby Kent port
of Sheerness.
Bush
may get only three per cent of the Muslim vote (Go
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Washington:
US President George W Bush is unlikely to get the required
support from the Muslim community in his country, when he
seeks re-election in November. According to the Daily Times,
the poll conducted by a well-known civil rights group, Council
for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has suggested that
Bush may only get three percent of the American Muslim vote
that cast its ballot in his favor in 2000. Of the 1200 Muslims
contacted by CAIR, only three percent said they were likely
to vote in Bush's favour again. "Though it's probably not
too much of a surprise that President Bush isn't doing all
that well among Muslim voters, let's note for the record
that this poll has the President clocking in at a rather
anemic three percent support among voters who say there
is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger," the paper
quoted freelance journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, as saying.
The present poll varies starkly from the figures in 2000,
when 55 percent Muslims voted for him.
