WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama Monday said multi-million-dollar bonuses planned for executives and traders at bailed-out insurance giant AIG were an “outrage” and vowed to pursue a clampdown.
“How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” he said at the White House, pledging to “pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”
source : jang.com.pk
WASHINGTON: The United States is praising Pakistan’s plan to reinstate a fired Supreme Court chief justice whose supporters had threatened to march on the capital.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters Monday that the decision by Pakistan’s leaders had “brought Pakistan back from the brink.”
Wood says Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s calls over the weekend to U.S.-allied President Asif Ali Zardari, who had refused to restore the independent-minded justice, and to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif were meant to signal a concern over the situation and a desire for a nonviolent outcome.
Wood was careful to note that there were no U.S. demands and “no threats at all” in Clinton’s calls.
source : jang.com.pk
DUBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday officially named South Africa as the new hosts of the biennial Champions Trophy this year.
The ICC Board had met via teleconference to discuss a recommendation made by the ICC Chief Executives’ Committee to discuss the venue of the Champions Trophy.
The decision was made after concerns were expressed over weather conditions in Colombo during the dates set aside for the tournament, 24 September to 5 October.
With the need to minimise risk and create certainty around the event, the meeting agreed to recommend that Cricket South Africa (CSA) be sought as the alternative host, with Wanderers and Centurion as the venues, provided agreement on the financial arrangements can be reached. Originally planned for Pakistan, the venue for the event had to be shifted due to security concerns.
ICC President David Morgan said: “I think the Board has made a sensible decision that will give the event every chance of success. We now have clarity on the subject and we can make firm plans for what is going to be a great spectacle of ODI cricket.
“With Wanderers and Centurion, Cricket South Africa can provide two world-class venues in what is effectively one location and as we know from the ICC World Twenty20 2007, weather conditions in the area around Johannesburg in September and October are stable and ideal for cricket.
“I would like to thank Sri Lanka Cricket for its commitment to offer an alternative to Pakistan. And also, I want to acknowledge its willingness to step aside in this matter. I’d also like to thank CSA for putting its hand up and offering to host this event.”
The Board also considered expressions of interest from other potential venues. However, in order to attain immediate certainty and clarity, South Africa was identified as the preferred location on this occasion.
The teleconference also unanimously agreed that the dates for next year’s ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies would be between 30 April and 16 May.
The tournament will take place in St Lucia, Guyana, Barbados and St Kitts with the latter island staging matches in the women’s tournament that will take place at the same time.
source : jang.com.pk
LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Mian Nawaz Sharif paid tribute to lawyers, civil society, students, people and the media on their brave show for the restoration of deposed judges.
Speaking at Geo News program ‘Capital Talk’ here on Monday, Nawaz said that this success became possible over determination of the entire nation.
He said: “Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has phoned him and agreed to implement the charter of democracy (CoD).
source : jang.com.pk
LAHORE: Pakistan People Party (PPP) Punjab’s Parliamentary Leader Raja Riaz said on Monday that restoration of deposed judges had proved the presence of a democratic person at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.
Speaking to newsmen here, he said that any dictator could not make such decisions.
He said that PPP wanted to reinstate all deposed judges, but could not do so over fears of collision among institutions. Riaz said that restoration of judiciary would strengthen the democracy.
Some elements who want to derail the democracy have failed in their motives, he said.
source : jang.com.pk
PESHAWAR: NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said Monday that restoration of deposed judges by the democratic forces would bury the doctrine of necessity once for all.
In a statement issued here, Hussain welcomed the Prime Minister’s move to reinstate deposed judges and termed it a wise decision.
He said that the decision had prevented the country from a major crisis and now the government could focus the progress and prosperity of the country.
The minister hoped that the doctrine of necessity would be buried once for all.
source : jang.com.pk
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s spin bowler Ajantha Mendis was released from hospital on Monday, two weeks after the squad was attacked by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan, his manager Roshan Abeysinghe said.
Mendis, who had shrapnel extracted from his head and back, said he was delighted to go home.
Thilan Samaraweera, who had a bullet removed from his left thigh, remained under observation at a private hospital, doctor Geethanjana Mendis said.
Tharanga Paranavitana, who had a bullet taken out of his chest, and British assistant coach Paul Farbrace were discharged over the weekend.
The convoy of players, officials and coaches on their way to the second Test match in Lahore on March 3 was ambushed by gunmen firing automatic weapons, grenades and a rocket launcher.
Seven Sri Lankan players and Farbrace were injured, and the squad was flown home immediately. Eight Pakistanis were killed by the attackers, who escaped capture.
Mendis said psychologists hired to counsel the team were due to wrap up their programme this week.
“The medical team handling their post-trauma side say the players are a bit shaken up, but those not injured can resume training next week,” he said.
source : jang.com.pk
LONDON: Britain welcomed Monday the reinstatement of Pakistan’s deposed top judge and the cancellation of an opposition march as signs of “real political leadership” to defuse a threatened crisis.
“The steps taken to defuse the political crisis in Pakistan show real political leadership by all concerned,” said Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement.
President Asif Ali Zardari’s decision to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and former premier Nawaz Sharif’s response in calling off the Long March “demonstrate that both men are willing to put the interests of Pakistan first.
“I hope that all parties will now quickly come together around a common agenda to consolidate the political steps made, and to agree measures that will strengthen democracy and impartial justice in Pakistan,” Miliband said.
source : jang.com.pk
LAHORE: The long march led by Pakistan Muslim League-N Chief Nawaz Sharif has reached GPO Chowk, Lahore.
The long march comprises thousands of participants including lawyers, political workers and members of civil society.
Police tried to block the way of caravan led by Nawaz Sharif who came out of his house in spite of the government orders of detention served to him. However, the police retreated after a little while giving way to the caravan.
At GPO Road, clash broke out between enraged protesters and police which used heavy shelling to disperse the protestors.
source : jang.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Qamar-uz-Zaman Kaira has said that the government has not received any report about blockade of TV channel anywhere in the country.
He said that some cable operators had readjusted the placements of channels.
source : jang.com.pk
VIENNA: OPEC ministers have called for an end to overproduction by some members as they sought to slice nearly a million barrels per day from world supply and boost prices but without further shocking the anemic global economy.
Their comments suggested that Sunday’s oil ministers’ meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries might opt for a call on all members to honor production quotas, instead of deciding to slash output outright.
Most members of the 12-nation organization had been clear in favoring reduced output in the days preceeding Sunday’s full meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Still they had left open whether they want to lower output quotas or if they favor a solution less likely to hurt the struggling global economy by simply seeking to end overproduction by some nations above levels allotted to them.
Algerian energy and mines minister Chakib Khelil called for both on Saturday.
“Comply and cut,” he told reporters asking what he preferred. But recognition that direct cuts could backfire appeared to prevail on the eve of the meeting.
While slashing production could raise prices in the short term, it could also lead to further depressing demand, as strugglingeconomies cut back on pricey crude they cannot afford. Pushing forfull quota compliance instead would be less harmful.
OPEC cuts agreed on since September were meant to take a daily 4.2 million barrels off the market. But the 11 members underproduction quotas are still overshooting their joint daily target level of just under 25 million barrels by about 800,000 barrels a day.
source : jang.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan Abdul Hai Gilani has resigned from the post to mark his protest against the torturing of lawyers, locking up of High Court and tear-gas shelling in Lahore.
Talking to Geo News, Abdul Hai Gilani said lawyers have been subjected to torture and tear-gas shells have been fired in the vicinity of Lahore High Court.
He said the whole country has been blocked with the help of containers.
“I have resigned from the post of Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan in protest against all these acts,” Abdul Hai Gilani said.
source : jang.com.pk
MIRPUR: Several containers have been placed at Mangla dam in an attempt to stop the caravans of Azad Kashmir from participating in the long march and subsequent sit-in in Islamabad.
All entry and exit points of the city have been blocked to thwart the long march. The long queues of vehicles can be seen in the area.
Besides, the people carrying passports and visas are not being allowed to go to the airport.
On this occasion, lawyers and citizens chanted anti-government slogans in protest against such harsh measures.
source : jang.com.pk
MADRID: Real Madrid bounced back from their UEFA Champions League disappointment after defeating Athletic Bilbao 5-2 to cut Barcelona’s lead at the top in Spain to just three points.
Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, top of the table for most of the season, can restore their lead to six points with victory over Almeria on Sunday.
Real saw their European dreams go up in smoke on Tuesday at Anfield as Liverpool overran them in a humiliating 4-0 win and they let out their frustration at San Mames.
Dutch forward Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, cup-tied for the Champions League, scored twice to turn the game in Real’s favour after Bilbao had come from two goals down to level.
Arjen Robben put Real ahead before Argentine centre-back Gabriel Heinze added another heading in a 34th minute free-kick. Heinze scored an own goal minutes later and Fernando Llorente levelled despite Bilbao being reduced to ten men with Francisco Yeste harshly sent off for pushing goalkeeper Iker Casillas. Huntelaar then took centre stage with a second half brace before substitute Gonzalo Higuain completed the scoring from the penalty spot.
source : jang.com.pk
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Mian Shahbaz Sharif has said that that the rulers should respect the wish and message of their slain leader Benazir Bhutto and restore the deposed chief justice.
Speaking to Geo News senior analyst Kamran Khan here on Sunday, Shahbaz Sharif said: “President Asif Ali Zardari has humiliated the nation by not fulfilling the promises he made regarding restoration of judiciary.”
“There is no need to call any Aristotle and Socrates for the implementation of agreements,” he said.
He said that PML-N never asked its people to damage public or private properties and appealed to the people to take part in the long march in peaceful manner.
“Nawaz Sharif has said that our first priority is to restore judges,” he added.
source : jang.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has contacted the leaders of coalition parties.
According to sources, the Prime Minister Sunday contacted by telephone Muttahida Qaumi Movement Chief Altaf Hussain, Awami National Party Chief Asfandyar Wali, Chief Jamiat Ulema-i- Pakstan Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman and Chief of Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) Pir Pagara and discussed the situation emerging as a result of long march and sit-in.
source : jang.com.pk
KARACHI: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has dispatched a 40-page report to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani comprising proposed reforms for the next General Election.
This was announced by the ECP Secretary General Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad at a press conference here on Sunday.
He said: “We have proposed the government to consult the election commission about formation of interim government in the report.”
Dilshad said that caretaker prime minister and ministers would not be eligible to contest the polls according to the proposed reforms.
source : jang.com.pk
Nawaz spearheading long march to Islamabad LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Mian Nawaz Sharif told Geo News on Sunday that he is leading the long march towards Islamabad from Lahore.
The long march comprises thousands of participants including lawyers, political workers and members of civil society.
Police tried to block the way of caravan led by Nawaz Sharif who came out of his house in spite of the government orders of detention served to him. However, the police retreated after a little while giving way to the caravan.
At GPO Road, clash broke out between enraged protesters and police which used heavy shelling to disperse the protestors.
The Nawaz-led caravan comprising party workers and people kept marching on, breaking all the hurdles erected on their way while scuffles between police and protesters continued.
Police deployment had been increased in Model Town where barbed wires were laid to block the roads. Police continued heavy shelling and baton charged marchers to thwart the long march, injuring many.
Nawaz Sharif spear-headed the long march along with flood of people, pushing ahead through barricades and hurdles. They crossed the Kalma Chowk where heavy contingents of police were deployed to stop the march. However, the police disappeared after a while.
The number of people participating in the long march kept building up steadily and the caravan of hundreds turned into thousands.
The police seemed to have changed its strategy and decided to retreat upon seeing the ocean of people approaching.
VIENNA: OPEC ministers have called for an end to overproduction by some members as they sought to slice nearly a million barrels per day from world supply and boost prices but without further shocking the anemic global economy.
Their comments suggested that Sunday’s oil ministers’ meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries might opt for a call on all members to honor production quotas, instead of deciding to slash output outright.
Most members of the 12-nation organization had been clear in favoring reduced output in the days preceeding Sunday’s full meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Still they had left open whether they want to lower output quotas or if they favor a solution less likely to hurt the struggling global economy by simply seeking to end overproduction by some nations above levels allotted to them.
Algerian energy and mines minister Chakib Khelil called for both on Saturday.
“Comply and cut,” he told reporters asking what he preferred. But recognition that direct cuts could backfire appeared to prevail on the eve of the meeting.
While slashing production could raise prices in the short term, it could also lead to further depressing demand, as strugglingeconomies cut back on pricey crude they cannot afford. Pushing forfull quota compliance instead would be less harmful.
OPEC cuts agreed on since September were meant to take a daily 4.2 million barrels off the market. But the 11 members underproduction quotas are still overshooting their joint daily target level of just under 25 million barrels by about 800,000 barrels a day.
LAHORE: Former president Supreme Court Bar Association Aitzaz Ahsan managed to escape house arrest and arrived at GPO chowk, Lahore to participate in the long march.
According to sources, Aitzaz Ahsan was detained at his residence where heavy contingent of police of deployed but he managed to escape and reached at GPO Chowk.
Talking to media here at GPO Chowk, he said the detention was illegal.
LAHORE: Former President Pervez Musharraf has said the country is facing many challenges and conspiracies are being hatched against it.
Talking to journalists after condoling death of Pakistan Muslim League-Q Chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s mother here on Thursday, Musharraf said Pakistan is facing serious challenges, however, he hoped that these would be tackled.
As regards Lahore attack, former president said he there should be no conjecture or statement without substantive evidence. He said the government should improve training standard of law enforcing agencies so that they are prepared for any eventuality.
In the meeting, former federal minister Javed Ashraf Qazi and others were also present.
NEW DELHI: Indian government has directed its cricket board to revise the IPL dates in view of security after the attack on Sri Lanka team in Lahore and the IPL commissioner Lalith Modi will announce here today the new schedule.
Following the terrorists attack on Sri Lankan team in Liberty area of Lahore yesterday, the Indian government keeping in view the security concerns has directed the board to revise the schedule of the second edition of the IPL.
India’s interior minister Chidambaram told in a TV interview that due to elections of the Lok Sabha, he had directed to reschedule the IPL because the government did not want to hold IPL matches during the Lok Sabha elections and providing full security to players would be difficult.
The IPL commissioner Lalith Modi said that he is working on the new schedule of the IPL after receiving directives from the government and the revised dates would be announced today.
The second edition of the Indian Premier League was earlier scheduled to be held from April 10 to 24.
LAHORE: Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Ijaz Butt said on Wednesday that foreign teams could not be compelled to play in Pakistan unless security situation improves drastically.
He made these remarks while talking to newsmen at the Qaddafi Stadium here.
Chairman board said that attack on Sri Lankan team had globally tarnished the country’s image. “If someone blames PCB for the security, he is ready to accept it,” he said.
Butt said that there was no change in team’s security on Tuesday and lauded police personnel for their bravery.
“I salute to the Lankan players too for their remarks that they would again visit the country,” he added.
He further said that national team would be sent to Bangladesh only after getting security clearance from the government.
LAHORE: Younis Khan has appealed to cricket’s administrators to save the game in Pakistan, or risk pushing future generations into the clutches of terrorists.
The Pakistan captain fears that an extended boycott by touring teams could lead to a dramatic decline in interest and participation in cricket among the nation’s youth. That, in turn, could invite corrupting influences to fill the void that might otherwise have been occupied by sport, Younis argued.
“Our future as a nation is in our youngsters’ hands,” Younis told a cricket web site. “Sport helps to make good human beings. If the sport is not there, the children can do silly things. We have to be very careful about that. Nobody wants to see children going down a bad path and finding themselves involved with bombs and things like that. We all must do something to stop that happening.
“Maybe in the future we will be alone as a cricketing nation and that would be very sad, especially for the youngsters. When I was a boy, I loved watching Imran Khan, Javed Miandad and Wasim Akram playing against great teams from overseas. It is because of them - seeing them play - that I also played the game. But what if no one comes to Pakistan? How will the youngsters know about the game? What will they do?
“I appeal for all the bosses and the ICC not let cricket die here. They must think about all the factors, including what will become of the youngsters of Pakistan. It would be very easy right now for the ICC and the bosses to say there will be no cricket in Pakistan. But the future will not be good if cricket is taken away from my country.”
BAGHDAD: Iraqi police and medical officials say a car bomb in a crowded cattle market south of Baghdad has killed 10 people and injured 32 others.
Iraqi police Maj. Muthana Khalid says the bomb exploded Thursday morning in the market west of Hillah.
Khalid says those killed and injured were at the market buying and selling cattle. A medical official in Hillah confirmed the casualty toll.
LAHORE: Crime Investigation Agency claimed capturing as many as five suspects including two persons, accused of having involvement in Sri Lankan team assault, from Lahore and other cities of Punjab, Geo News reported on Wednesday.
The investigation staff of the Punjab Police arrested them amid a raid on a building in the Saddar area, sources said.
The sources said the personnel of the Joint Interrogation Team of the Punjab Police arrived in Karachi on Wednesday morning, as they had information regarding the presence of suspects involved in the Lahore attack.
The team left for Lahore later in the day. Salman Aslam adds from Lahore, “The recovery of a cellphone SIM from a bag, abandoned by the terrorists and seized by the police from the crime scene, has led to the arrest of its owner and his alleged accomplice from Kot Samaba, a town in Rahim Yar Khan, according to the police sources.”
The police have also taken into custody 24 other suspects, stated to be members of various banned outfits, from different parts of the city. The sources said the suspected terrorists — Babar Shahzad and teenager Dilawar Hussain — have been shifted to Lahore under tight security.
The main suspect is in his early 20s and he had been working as a guard at a cellphone company tower in Lahore until a few months ago. However, currently he is an employee of a flourmill. Except for the cellphone, nothing has been recovered from them, the sources said.
They said despite detaining and questioning over four-dozen people, The Lahore police are yet to make any headway in the probe into the Liberty attack. They said the sketches of the attackers have been made in the light of the eyewitnesses’ accounts, including rickshaw and car drivers.
Three cars and a rickshaw used by the terrorists during the ambush have also been impounded. The case has been registered against 14 to 15 unidentified armed men. Explosives, suicide jackets, bullets asnd hand-grenades, seized from separate places, have been mentioned in the FIR.
According to sources, suspects had been residing in Lahore for some days and were being assisted from various cities of the province including Lahore.
Investigation team narrowed search operations monitoring selective suspected places following the information they sought from various secrets sources and launched several raids. As a result, five suspects were nabbed on Wednesday, sources added.
Also, sources confirmed involvement of Indian spy agency RAW in Lahore attacks as per preliminary investigation.
It is likely that agencies will make available investigative report on Lahore attack within 18 hours, sources predicted.
Source Jang.com.pk
QUETTA: The four-day life threat deadline set by the kidnappers of Johan Solecki, a UNHCR official, is coming to an end on Thursday.
Baloch Liberation United Front (BLUF) spokesman said three days ago that UN was handed four days to play its role in release and recovery of 1109 missing Baloch people but UN failed to do so.
He said Solecki would be released in exchange of 1109 missing Blaouch people if UN played part to get them recovered.
In order to address the issue of Solecki’s abduction, a committee, headed by Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Aslam Raisani, was formed with MPAs, parliamentary leaders from all major political parties, Provincial Interior Minister, Chief Secretary and local police officials as its members.
Talking to journalist, CM Balocistan Aslam Raisani said on Wednesday, “No success has been achieved so far in connection with Solecki kidnap.”
PESHAWAR: As many as three CD shops were fractionally damaged by blasts in Takht-e-Bhai area in Peshawar, police sources said on Wednesday.
Police sources told Geo News unknown militants planted explosive material outside CD shops which went off at night damaging three CD shops partially.
Police have registered cases against unidentified offenders.
WASHINGTON: With President Barack Obama’s backing, US lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled legislation aimed at using trade-spurred jobs growth as an antidote to Islamist extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The bill would give goods from certain restive parts of those countries duty-free access to the US market in a bid to promote legitimate economic activity where poverty fuels terrorist recruitment and the illegal drug trade.
“Military force alone will not solve the problem” of quenching Islamist extremist forces along the strife-torn countries’ common border, said Democratic Representative Chris Van Hollen, a leading backer.
Obama has “fully embraced” the measure, which has been introduced in the Senate and will soon be in the House of Representatives, said Van Hollen, who was born to a US diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan.
At the same press conference, Ambassadors Husain Haqqani of Pakistan and Said Jawad of Afghanistan said the bill, which would create “Reconstruction Opportunity Zones,” would create jobs for young people who might otherwise join Islamist extremists.
“The young people of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas need to be given a choice other than employment by the Taliban,” said Haqqani, who estimated the zones would create some 30,000 jobs in Pakistan within the first three years, chiefly thanks to textile exports to the United States.
“Fighting terrorism and extremism is not just (using military force), it’s providing hope, jobs,” Jawad told reporters.
US special envoy Richard Holbrooke’s deputy, Paul Jones, said the Obama administration backed the goals of the legislation and would help as needed to resolve the differences between the Senate and House versions.
ISLAMABAD: Interior Ministry issued directives to security agencies here to put security of a foreign airline and offices of foreign diplomats on high alert in all provinces after Saudi airline received an alleged threatening e-mail from al Qaeda, sources said on Wednesday.
According to sources, the airline received a threatening e-mail on February 14 to devastate its offices in Pakistan. Al Qaeda allegedly generated the e-mail.
Meanwhile, another alleged e-mail was received in Islamabad which threatened to destroy Saudi embassy following which embassy’s officials consulted with interior ministry to seek foolproof security measures for its offices across country, sources added.
RIYADH: The Supreme Court in Saudi Arabia has started hearing of Sharia Hudood cases.
Under Majlis-i-Shora, a team of legal experts had prepared a text to carry out court proceedings of criminal suits, which stated that Supreme Court will give the final verdict in Sharia Hudood cases.
A member of Supreme Court Sheikh Shafi told reporters here that Supreme Court will now hear all the cases which were under trial in Supreme Judicial Council.
Geo News correspondent in Saudi Arabia Shahid Nadeem said Supreme Court will also decide about appointments of judges, promotions, orientation programs and other related issues.
MARDAN: Three simultaneous blasts in CD market in Takht Bhai area of Mardan destroyed 20 shops, however no loss of life was reported.
Mardan police told Geo News unidentified militants planted explosives at three places in a market of 20 shops that went off with a bang late on Wednesday night. The entire market was destroyed in the blasts but no causality was reported.
The blats rocked the area and residents came out from their houses in panic. Takht Bhai police has confirmed the incident.
LOS ANGELES – Hollywood has met Bollywood at the Academy Awards, and the makers of Oscar champ “Slumdog Millionaire” hope it’s a sign of future melding between the U.S. dream factory with its counterparts in India and elsewhere in the world.
A tale of hope amid adversity and squalor in Mumbai, “Slumdog Millionaire” came away with eight Oscars, including best picture and director for Danny Boyle.
The low-budget production was a merger of India’s brisk Bollywood movie industry, which provided most of the cast and crew, and the global marketing reach of Hollywood, which turned the film into a commercial smash, said British director Boyle.
“We’re Brits, really, trapped in the middle, but it’s a lovely trapped thing,” Boyle said backstage. “You can see it’s going to happen more and more. There’s all sorts of people going to work there. The world’s shrinking a little bit.”
It was a theme Oscar voters embraced through the evening with other key awards honoring films fostering broader understanding and compassion.
Sean Penn won his second best-actor Oscar, this one for playing slain gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk in “Milk,” while Kate Winslet took best actress for “The Reader,” in which she plays a former concentration camp guard coming to terms with the ignorance that let her heedlessly participate in Nazi atrocities.
Penn had harsh words for protesters outside the Oscars holding anti-gay signs.
“I’d tell them to turn in their hate card and find their better self,” Penn said. “I think that these are largely taught limitations and ignorances, this kind of thing. It’s really sad in a way, because it’s a demonstration of such cowardice, emotional cowardice, to be so afraid of extending the same rights to your fellow man as you’d want for yourself.”
As expected, Heath Ledger became just the second performer to win an Oscar posthumously, receiving the supporting-actor award for the menace and mayhem he wreaks as Batman villain the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” Penelope Cruz was the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar with her supporting prize as a volatile artist in a three-way romance in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
Ledger’s award was accepted by his parents and sister on behalf of the 3-year-old daughter he had with actress Michelle Williams. The win came 13 months after Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs on Oscar nominations day last year.
His sister, Kate Ledger, said backstage that her brother sensed he was creating something special with “The Dark Knight.”
“When he came home Christmas a year ago, he had been sending me shots and bits and pieces of the film,” Kate Ledger said. “He hadn’t seen it, but he knew. I said, `I have a feeling, this is it for you,’ and I said, `You’re going to get a nomination from the academy.’ He just looked at me and smiled. He knew.”
“I think he would have been quietly pleased, because I think he enjoyed the performance he did,” said Ledger’s mother, Sally Bell. “He was very proud of what he did. Heath was never one to be over the top with anything. He would be quietly pleased it was being recognized by his peers in the industry.”
“Slumdog Millionaire” started as an unlikely candidate for the sort of industry and audience recognition it has garnered, presenting a cast of unknowns and a Dickensian tale of an Indian orphan rising above his street-urchin roots.
Though set in a foreign land, the film tells a universal story of optimism that has been eagerly embraced by U.S. audiences.
“This country has changed, from the moment we started making the film to the moment it was released,” “Slumdog” producer Christian Colson said. “I think America is cool again, for the first time in my lifetime. … I think this is a symptom of how it’s beginning to embrace a more-globalized view of the world.”
Boyle earned the directing prize with his first Oscar nomination in a career of hip movies that include the drug romp “Trainspotting” and the zombie horror tale “28 Days Later.”
“Slumdog Millionaire” has all the trademark elements of Boyle: raw and relentless energy, rich visual whimsy, a sense of childlike yearning, and a seamless mix of the harrowing and hilarious.
The film follows the travails and triumphs of Jamal, who artfully dodges a criminal gang that mutilates children to make them more pitiable beggars. Jamal witnesses his mother’s violent death, endures police torture and struggles with betrayal by his brother, while single-mindedly hoping to reunite with the lost love of his childhood.
Fate rewards Jamal, whose story unfolds through flashbacks as he recalls how he came to know the answers that made him a champion on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
“Slumdog” writer Simon Beaufoy, who won the adapted-screenplay Oscar, said the film clicked with audiences stung by the recession and the realization that “this money thing, it’s been shown to be a real false idol.”
“It’s come out at a time when the value of money, which has been raised to this extraordinary height, is suddenly being shown to be a kind of very shallow thing,” Beaufoy said. “The financial markets are crashing around the world, and a film comes out which is ostensibly about being a millionaire. Actually, what it’s about, it’s a film that says there’s more important things than money: love, faith and family. And that struck a chord with people.”
Oscar organizers shook things up a bit after last year’s show drew the lowest TV ratings ever. Song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman was host instead of the usual standup comedian, and he kept the show to three and a half hours, relatively brisk for a ceremony that has topped four hours some years.
The Oscars have been criticized in the past for devoting so much time to technical categories that average movie fans care little about. This time, the show abridged many of those awards, with Will Smith hammering through four such categories in quick succession, including sound mixing and film editing.
That allowed more time for the show to linger with celebrities. Each acting prize was presented by five past winners of the same awards, among them Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Kevin Kline, Sophia Loren, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine and Robert De Niro.
Winslet finally walked off with an Oscar after five previous losses. While Winslet said she had been practicing Oscar speeches since childhood, holding a shampoo bottle instead of a golden statuette, she still felt “like a little girl from Reading,” her hometown in England.
“Did you see my mum and dad? My mum won a pickled onion competition in their local pub just before Christmas, and that was a big deal,” Winslet told reporters backstage. “You just don’t think that these dreams that seem so silly and so impossible could ever really come true.”
___
On the Net:
Academy Awards: http://www.oscars.org
source : news.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON – Brace yourself: The recession is projected to worsen this year. The country stands to lose a sizable chunk of economic activity in 2009 as consumers at home and abroad retrench in the face of persistent economic troubles. And the U.S. unemployment rate — now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years — is expected hit a peak of 9 percent this year.
That gloomy outlook came from leading forecasters in the latest survey by the National Association for Business Economics to be released Monday. The new estimates are roughly in line with other recent projections, including those released last week by the Federal Reserve.
“The steady drumbeat of weak economic and financial market data have made business economists decidedly more pessimistic on the economic outlook for the next several quarters,” said NABE president Chris Varvares, head of Macroeconomic Advisers.
All told, Varvares and his fellow forecasters now expect the economy to shrink by 1.9 percent this year, a much deeper contraction than the 0.2 percent dip projected in the fall.
If the new forecast is correct, it would mark the first time since 1991 the economy actually contracted over a full year and would be the worst showing since 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession.
Vanishing jobs, shrinking nest eggs, rising foreclosures and tanking home values have forced American consumers to cut back, which in turn has caused businesses to lay off workers and slash costs in other ways, feeding a vicious downward cycle for the economy.
The current recession, which started in December 2007, is posing a major challenge to Washington policymakers, including President Barack Obama and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. That’s because its root causes — a housing collapse, credit crunch and financial turmoil — are the worst since the 1930s and don’t lend themselves to easy or quick fixes.
“As the news on the economy has darkened, so too, have the forecasts,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. “We are suffering a period of maximum stress on the economy.”
The economy is expected to remain feeble this year — even with new efforts by the administration and Congress to provide relief.
Just over the past few weeks, a $787 billion recovery package of increased government spending and tax cuts was signed into law, the president unveiled a $75 billion plan to stem home foreclosures and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said as much as $2 trillion could be plowed into the financial system to jump-start lending.
In terms of lost economic activity in 2009, the biggest hit will come in the first six months, forecasters said.
NABE forecasters now expect the economy to slide backward at a staggering pace of 5 percent in the current January-March quarter. That’s a sharp downgrade from the 1.3 percent annualized drop projected in the old survey.
“Further pronounced weakness in housing and deteriorating labor markets underscore the risks for 2009,” Varvares said.
Many economists believe that the current quarter will be the worst of the recession in terms of the bite to gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services produced within the U.S. and is the broadest barometer of the country’s economic health.
The second quarter of this year also will be a lot weaker, with the forecasters now calling for the economy to contract at a 1.7 percent pace, compared with the prior projection of 0.5 percent growth.
In the second half of this year, the economy should expand, but still less than what economists thought just a few months ago. NABE forecasters believe home sales and housing construction should hit bottom by the middle of the year, which would help stabilize the economy. Home prices, however, are expected to keep falling, according to other experts.
NABE forecasters predicted that when all is said and done the recession will have caused GDP to decline 2.8 percent. That would be “slightly less than the 3.1 percent during the early ’70s,” according to the survey of 47 forecasters taken between Jan. 29 and Feb. 12.
Even in the best-case scenario, with the recession ending sometime in the second half of this year, employment conditions will be tough.
Some of the forecasters said the nation’s unemployment rate could rise as high as 9 percent for all of 2009 and hit 10 percent next year. In 2008, the jobless rate averaged 5.8 percent, the highest since 2003. The survey’s median forecast — or middle point — called for the unemployment rate to rise to 8.4 percent this year and 8.8 percent next year.
Companies touching every part of the economy have announced thousands of layoffs already this year and more cuts came last week. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., said it will cut nearly 5,000 jobs, or almost 7 percent of its work force, this year, following the elimination of about 4,000 jobs in the second half of last year. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler, which are asking the government for billions more in aid to remain viable, announced plans to cut 50,000 more jobs, 47,000 of which would be at GM.
The Fed said the unemployment rate could stay elevated into 2011. Some analysts think the jobless rate won’t drift down to a more normal range of around 5 percent until 2013 — at the earliest.
Companies won’t ramp up hiring until they feel confident that any recovery has staying power. That’s why employment is usually the last piece of the economy to reap the benefits of a recovery.
“A meaningful recovery is not expected to take hold until next year,” said Varvares.
NABE predicts GDP will rebound in 2010, averaging 2.4 percent over the course of the year. The Fed, too, is forecasting that the economy will grow again in 2010_ and will pick up momentum in 2011.
Even so, the Fed is still guarded about any turnaround.
Given all the negative forces weighing on consumers and businesses, the economic recovery “would be unusually gradual and prolonged,” the Fed said.
source : news.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON – Lawyers hired by mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac are quietly investigating the firm’s own $2 million lobbying campaign, The Associated Press has learned. The lobbying effort helped quash proposed new regulations on the company before the housing market collapsed.
It was not immediately clear how much Freddie Mac is spending to investigate its own conduct or whether it is spending any federal bailout money on the internal probe. The firm was placed under U.S. government control due to its massive investment losses.
One of Washington’s leading law firms, Covington & Burling LLP, has spent more than a month interviewing current and former Freddie Mac employees and executives, according to three people familiar with the matter. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because they fear reprisals if they were identified. The inquiry is led by former Justice Department prosecutor Stephen Anthony, who specializes in corporate internal investigations.
Freddie Mac board chairman John Koskinen confirmed for the AP that an inquiry is under way but declined to comment further. Anthony did not return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment. Corinne Russell, spokeswoman for the federal office that regulates Freddie Mac, declined to comment.
The internal investigation is happening even as the Obama administration provides $200 billion more in government assistance to Freddie Mac and its larger sister company, Fannie Mae. The two government-sponsored enterprises are the largest providers of home mortgages in America. Freddie Mac’s activities fall under oversight of the new Federal Housing Finance Agency, which describes itself as “a world-class, empowered regulator with all of the authorities necessary to oversee vital components of our country’s secondary mortgage markets.”
The inquiry inside Freddie Mac follows stories by the AP about the company secretly hiring Republican consulting firm DCI Group of Washington to stop a proposal in the Senate in 2005 sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. The legislation would have forced Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to sell hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets from their portfolios of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. At the time, the portfolios were highly lucrative but their value plunged when the housing market collapsed.
The DCI Group did not file lobbying reports describing the work it was performing. At the time, Freddie Mac executives who knew about the initiative referred to it among themselves as “the stealth lobbying campaign,” according to people familiar with the matter. DCI Group spokesman Geoffrey M. Basye says the firm practiced the highest ethical standards and coordinated with Freddie Mac’s lawyers to ensure uncompromising compliance with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations.
The people familiar with the internal inquiry told the AP that Anthony has interviewed current and former Freddie Mac employees about three issues raised by the AP stories:
_An accounting of the work done for the $2 million in payments to the DCI Group. It targeted 17 Republican senators in 13 states working to defeat Hagel’s regulatory legislation by convincing prominent constituents and financial contributors the bill would hurt the housing boom. The measure was never brought to a vote and died.
_An accounting of six-figure payments to 52 outside lobbying firms and political consultants in 2006, including details about what work, if any, the consultants performed for the money paid to their firms. The consultants included former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato. The payments to the 52 consultants amounted to $11.7 million. D’Amato’s firm, which was paid $240,000, declined to comment. Gingrich’s firm was paid $300,000 for strategic advice on a number of issues.
_An accounting of personal use by Freddie Mac executives of company-paid tickets and a company-leased skybox at the Verizon Center. Freddie Mac executive Hollis McLoughlin, who oversaw the $2 million campaign by DCI, was photographed by the AP in Freddie Mac’s leased skybox four months ago at the season home opener of the Washington Capitals hockey team.
Covington & Burling has represented Freddie Mac in other controversies, including its defense against charges it made illegal campaign contributions. Freddie Mac settled the matter by paying a record $3.8 million fine imposed by the Federal Election Commission in 2006. Separately, Covington & Burling represented Freddie Mac in roughly 20 lawsuits alleging the company fraudulently inflated the price of its stock from 1999-2002. All have been settled.
source : news.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON – A Salvadoran immigrant convicted of attacking two women in the park where Chandra Levy’s remains were found was expected to be arrested in the next few days in the former intern’s slaying, a person close to the investigation said.
An arrest would cap a revived investigation into the 2001 killing that had gone cold for years after destroying the career of former U.S. Rep. Gary Condit of California.
Investigators in 2002 questioned Ingmar Guandique, now 27, in the slaying after he was convicted of attacking two women joggers in Washington’s Rock Creek Park. They didn’t charge him, but statements he made to people while in prison helped lead investigators back to him, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity Saturday.
A law enforcement official who has spoken to investigators said the break came in part from DNA evidence that was either retested or collected, and it was connected to Guandique. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Levy investigation is ongoing.
Local prosecutors have convened a grand jury in the District of Columbia, and an arrest warrant is expected within the next few days, the officials said. Levy’s father, Robert Levy, said Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier called his home late Friday and said the same thing.
Chandra Levy was 24 and had just completed an internship with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons when she disappeared in May 2001 after leaving her Washington, D.C., apartment. The Modesto, Calif., woman was wearing jogging clothes when she vanished, and a man walking his dog found her skull and bones in the park a year later.
Authorities questioned Condit, her congressman, in the disappearance, but he was never a suspect in her death. Condit, a popular Democrat for a dozen years in his district, was reportedly having an affair with Levy, and the negative publicity from the case was cited as the main reason for his overwhelming primary loss in 2002.
Guandique was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attacking two women in the park. The federal Bureau of Prisons lists an inmate in California with the same sentence and age, but with the spelling Guandigue instead of Guandique. A message seeking comment was not returned.
One of his victims in the park attacks, Halle Shilling, told The Washington Post that new prosecutors and detectives apologized to her because prior investigators had never interviewed her in the Levy case.
“They said they were so sorry it took so long to talk to me,” Shilling said. “They really want to get to the bottom of this, and they are not going to sleep well until they get a conviction.”
Robert Levy said he and his wife, Susan, were not told who would be arrested, “but we all know who it is.” He would not elaborate but said they would favor a life sentence for the killer.
“If someone is executed, they really don’t suffer too much,” he said from his home in Modesto.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Condit, said the revelations clear the former congressman.
Condit did not return several messages left by The Associated Press but said in a statement to WJLA-TV in Washington that he is glad the Levy family is finally getting answers.
“I had always hoped to have the opportunity to tell my side of this story, but too many were not prepared to listen. Now I plan to do so, but I will have no further comments on this story at this time,” he said in the statement, posted on the station’s Web site.
After Condit lost, he sued several media outlets that had connected him to Levy’s disappearance and death. He reached an undisclosed settlement with three tabloid newspapers.
Lanier, the D.C. police chief, said Saturday that she could not comment out of respect for the Levy family and the investigators and prosecutors who have worked on the case.
___
Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo in Washington and Samantha Young in Modesto, Calif., contributed to this report.
source : news.yahoo.com
WAMPUM, Pa. – Fifth-grader Jordan Brown boarded the bus and headed to school like he did most other mornings in this rural western Pennsylvania community.
But before he left home on Friday, authorities say, the 11-year-old boy had shot his father’s pregnant fiancee in the back of the head as she lay in bed. He then put his youth model 20-gauge shotgun back in his room before going out to catch his bus, police say.
Brown was charged Saturday as an adult in the death of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, who was eight months pregnant, Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said. Houk’s fetus died within minutes due to a lack of oxygen, Lawrence County Coroner Russell Noga said.
Houk’s family and friends, who gathered at her parents’ house Saturday night, told The Associated Press that there had been past problems with the boy.
“He actually told my son that he wanted to do that to her,” said Houk’s brother-in-law, Jason Kraner. “There was an issue with jealousy.”
Pennsylvania State Police found Houk’s body in the rented farmhouse after her 4-year-old daughter told tree cutters on the property she thought her mother was dead, Bongivengo said.
The boy told police there was a black truck on the property that morning — possibly the man who feeds the cows — sending investigators to follow a false lead for about five hours, Bongivengo said. Inconsistencies in Brown’s description of the truck led police to re-interview Houk’s 7-year-old daughter, who implicated the boy in the killing, Bongivengo said. State troopers went to get the boy at school.
“She didn’t actually eyewitness the shooting. She saw him with what she believed to be a shotgun and heard a loud bang,” Bongivengo said. The gun was found in a “location we believe to be in the defendant’s bedroom.”
Brown was arraigned and was being held in the Lawrence County Jail, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday.
“An 11-year-old kid — what would give him the motive to shoot someone?” said Houk’s father, Jack Houk. “Maybe he was just jealous of my daughter and the baby and thought he would be overpowered.”
Defense attorney Dennis Elisco said he plans to ask Monday for the boy to be released on bail and for the case to moved to juvenile court. Elisco and police said they had no clear motive for the shooting.
Elisco said he is waiting to see physical evidence that ties his young client to the killing.
“I don’t think he knows what’s going on,” he said. “I walked out of there thinking he was innocent. I believe Jordan did not do this.”
The boy’s father, Christopher Brown, is “a mess” and had no indication his son had a problem with Houk, Elisco said.
“He’s in a state of actual shock and disbelief,” he said.
The shotgun used is designed for children and has a shorter arm and such weapons do not have to be registered, Bongivengo said. Jack Houk, 57, said the boy and his father used to practice shooting behind their farmhouse, and the two enjoyed going hunting together.
Wampum is about 45 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.
source : news.yahoo.com.pk
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to help revive the economy and is working on a plan to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Obama will touch on his efforts to restore fiscal discipline at a White House fiscal policy summit on Monday and in an address to Congress on Tuesday. On Thursday he plans to send at least a summary of his first budget request to Capitol Hill. The bottom line, said an administration official Saturday, is to halve the federal deficit to $533 billion by the time his first term ends in 2013. He inherited a deficit of about $1.3 trillion from former President George W. Bush.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president has not yet released his budget for the fiscal year 2010, which begins Oct. 1, said the deficit will be shrunk by scaling back Iraq war spending, ending the temporary tax breaks enacted by the Bush administration for those making $250,000 or more a year, and streamlining government.
“We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that seemed to preview his intentions. He said his budget will be “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”
Republicans were not convinced. They said Obama’s plan would hurt small businesses, including many filing taxes as individuals and possibly facing higher taxes under his plan.
“I don’t think raising taxes is a great idea,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “And when our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they’re really talking about is small business.”
Obama’s budget also is expected to take steps toward his campaign promises of establishing universal health care and lessening the country’s reliance on foreign oil.
Obama has pledged to make deficit reduction a priority both as a candidate and a president. But he also has said economic recovery must come first.
Last week, he signed into law the $787 billion stimulus measure that is meant to create jobs but certainly will add to the nation’s skyrocketing national debt. He also is implementing the $700 billion financial sector rescue passed on Bush’s watch; about $75 billion of which is being used toward Obama’s plan to help homeowners facing foreclosure.
source : news.yahoo.com
WUHAN: Governor of Hubei Lihong Zhong met President Asif Ali Zardari here on Saturday and discussed avenues of cooperation in the field of agriculture and hydro electricity projects.
President Zardari said he has come to Hubei province specially to study the Chinese development and their institutions in these two fields and wants his country to benefit from their knowledge and technology.
He said Pakistan was facing energy and food shortage and China could help them in overcoming these challenges.
The Governor welcomed President Zardari and assured his fullest support to Pakistan in the fields of agriculture and power generation projects. He said a number of Chinese companies were already working in Pakistan in various sectors and was desirous of helping Pakistan in whatever way they could.
source : jang.com.pk
RIYADH: Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz has arrived in New York for follow-up medical checks and treatment after convalescing in Morocco, the royal court said.
source : jang.com.pk
MELBOURNE: An Australian author who was jailed in Thailand for defaming the country’s monarchy in a novel that sold just seven copies returned home Saturday, after he was granted a royal pardon.
Harry Nicolaides, 41, exchanged a tearful greeting with his family at Melbourne’s airport, and thanked the Australian people for their support.
source : jang.com.pk
BEIJING: Chinese authorities closed a chemical plant being investigated for contaminating water supplies to 1.5 million people in the country’s east, state media said Saturday.
Biaoxin Chemical Company caused “massive” tap water pollution in Yancheng, a city in east Jiangsu province, forcing the closure of two out of three tap water plants, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Water supplies were restored after a five-hour shutdown Friday, Xinhua said.
source : jang.com.pk
SEOUL: North Korea could be ready to test-fire a missile within days as satellite imagery has shown increased activity at a missile site over the past 48 hours, a defense weekly said.
A significant increase in launch preparations has occurred at the Musudan-ni missile site on the communist country’s northeastern coast, said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a senior analyst at Jane’s Information Group who specializes in North Korean defense and intelligence matters.
“The latest satellite images indicate that North Korea is preparing to launch either a prototype Taepodong 2 intermediate range ballistic missile or a Paektusan 2 space launch vehicle within a matter of days,” Jane’s Defence Weekly said in a report issued Friday in London.
source : jang.com.pk
WUHAN: President Asif Ali Zardari Saturday said that Pakistan wants to benefit from Chinese experience and technology in the field of agriculture for enhanced production that will help his country in overcoming the grain shortage.
“I am very impressed with China’s development in Agri-sector and we want to emulate the same success in Pakistan,” President Zardari said here in his address to China Hubei-Pakistan Agriculture and Water Resources Cooperation Forum.
The president said that Pakistan and China have always enjoyed cordial relations and expressed the hope that his visit will further strengthen these ties particularly in the fields of agriculture and hydro electricity sectors.
He said the prime objective of his visit, the second in four months, was to learn from Chinese model of agriculture and development of hydro electricity projects.
source : jang.com.pk
KARACHI: Over 217 percent more sales taxes on petroleum products during the current fiscal year July-September were recovered as compared to the same period previous year.
Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) released first quarterly report said that over 203 percent more sales taxes were recovered in July 2008 as compared to July, 2007, while in August 199 percent and in September over 246 percent more sales taxes were recovered.
During the period under review, 167 percent more revenues were recovered on account of sales tax on the use of electricity as against 24 percent in sales tax recovery on gas.
According to the data available, sales recovery on cigarettes remained up by 31 percent, telecommunication by 4.5 percent, cement by 3.3 percent, tin canned items over 63 percent, while sales tax on steel products dropped by 64 percent.
source : jang.com.pk
LONDON: A US soldier has been convicted of murder for his involvement in the killing four Iraqis who were shot and dumped in a Baghdad canal in 2007, a British news channel reported.
A military court at a US Army base in Vilseck, Germany, late Friday convicted Sgt. Michael Leahy following his confession that he shot an Iraqi in the back of the head from close range.
The victims were a group of Iraqis who were detained briefly and questioned over an attack on a Baghdad military base.
Leahy was one of a group of soldiers who took detainees away after it was decided there was not enough evidence to charge them. Blindfolded and gagged, the four were then shot and dumped in a canal, the report said.
The soldier faces a possible sentence of life without parole. The military court has not yet handed down a sentence.
Meanwhile, his lawyers argued that the stress of being in a conflict zone for so long meant he was unable to reason properly.
Last year, two other soldiers were sentenced to seven and eight months prison as accomplices in the murder of the four Iraqis.Two more suspects in the crime are still to be tried by the US military court.
source : jang.com.pk
DALLAS: A month after leaving the White House, former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, have moved into their new Dallas home.
Bush’s motorcade drove past a security barricade last evening, bringing the former first couple to their new residence: a 1959 ranch-style brick home that sits at the top of a quiet dead end street in a wealthy Dallas neighbourhood. Bush waved to a jogger as he rode by, and the jogger waved back.
The couple’s new home has about 8,500 square feet, four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms and a wet bar. Local property records indicate the home on Daria Place is worth about $2.1 million.
The house has a wide front yard and dark shutters, with a gate at the top of the driveway that affords some privacy. The Dallas City Council last month approved installation of a security gate that will eventually block access to the street.
Dallas police and Secret Service agents have set up a barricade in recent days limiting access to the neighborhood.
source : jang.com.pk
KARACHI: Security guards of a bank foiled a suicide attack in New Sabzi Mandi area of the city here, Geo news reported on Saturday.
The suicide bomber wanted to enter into the bank but the security guards gunned him down. According to DIG East Zafar Bokhari, the suspected bomber was killed in a police encounter.
source : jang.com.pk
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department sided with the former Bush administration on Friday, saying detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.
In a two-sentence court filing, department lawyers said the Obama administration agreed that detainees at Bagram Air Base could not use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.
“The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we’d hoped,” said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Air Base. “We all expected better.”
In midyear last year, the Supreme Court gave al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released. Three months after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Guantanamo Bay, four Afghan citizens being detained at Bagram tried to challenge their detentions in U.S. District Court in Washington.
After Obama took office, a federal judge in Washington gave the new administration a month to decide whether it wanted to stand by Bush’s legal argument. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd says the filing speaks for itself. “They’ve now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented several detainees. The Justice Department argues that Bagram is different from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and the prisoners there are being held as part of a continuing military action. The government argues that releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting U.S. personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security.
source : jang.com.pk
NEW YORK: A leading international watchdog has asked the Sri Lankan government to “immediately cease” its indiscriminate artillery attacks on civilians in the northern Vanni region and review its policy of detaining displaced persons in internment camps.
In a report released on Saturday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said since early January 2009, civilian casualties have skyrocketed in the fighting between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The 45-page report, HRW said, is based on a two-week fact-finding mission to Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka in February. The government has prohibited journalists and human rights monitors from going to the battle zone in the Vanni, making access to information difficult.
“This ‘war’ against civilians must stop,” said James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch. “Sri Lankan forces are shelling hospitals and so-called safe zones and slaughtering the civilians there.”
Human Rights Watch also called on the LTTE to allow civilians to leave the war zone, stop shooting at those who try to flee to government-controlled territory, and cease deploying forces near populated areas.
Human Rights Watch said that both the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE were responsible for the dramatic increase in civilian casualties during the past month, approximately 2,000 killed and another 5,000 wounded, according to independent monitors on the ground.
source : jang.com.pk
PESHAWAR: One person was killed and two wounded in northwest Pakistan on Saturday when a bomb exploded near a fuel tanker destined for NATO forces in Afghanistan, an official said.
The remote-controlled bomb was planted on the main highway linking Peshawar city with the Torkham border crossing, local official Fazle Akbar told by telephone.
The blast partially damaged the oil tanker, but its driver escaped injuries, Akbar said, adding a passer-by was killed and two local men were injured. A security official also confirmed the incident but gave no casualty figure.
The explosion occurred in the troubled tribal district of Khyber, where Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents have carried out a series of attacks on NATO vehicles and terminals outside the northwestern city of Peshawar.
The NATO and US-led forces in landlocked Afghanistan are hugely dependent on Pakistan for their supplies and equipment, around 80 percent of which are transported through the neighbouring country. Militants earlier this month blew up a key bridge on the main supply route for NATO forces and torched several trucks bringing goods from the southern port of Karachi for forces battling a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
source : jang.com.pk
KABUL: The speaker of the U.S. House met with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Saturday where the two likely talked about the incoming surge of U.S. forces.
Nancy Pelosi arrived in Afghanistan on Friday to meet with Afghan officials and U.S. and NATO military leaders, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman. Pelosi, a California Democrat also met with U.S. troops during her two-day visit.
President Barack Obama announced this last week a surge of 17,000 additional forces to bolster the record 38,000 U.S. troops already in the country. Commanders say the troops are needed to fight a resurgent Taliban that has increased attacks the last three years. Militants now control wide swaths of rural countryside.
Pelosi’s visit comes about a week after a trip here by Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama has promised to increase the U.S. focus on Afghanistan while drawing down troops in Iraq. Democrats for years have said that former President George W. Bush neglected the Afghan conflict in favor of the Iraq war.
source : jang.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: North West Frontier Province (NWFP) seven candidates on senate general seats have been elected unopposed.
Sources said that Zahid Khan, Abdul Nabi Bangash, Haji Adeel of ANP, People’s Party’s Gulzar Ahmad Khan, Waqar Ahmad Khan and Sardar Ali Khan, while JUI’s Haji ghulam Ali were elected unopposed unofficially.
In all 18 candidates were in the field for NWFP’s 11 senate seats. Pakistan Muslim League-N’s three candidates yesterday had withdrawn their papers, which included ML-N Central Secretary General, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra from general seat and Saeeda Ilyas from women seat, while Abul Razzaque from technocrat seat.
source : jang.com.pk
SWAT: Defunct outfit Tahrik-e-Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) and Swat Peace Jirga are holding talks today, as a delegation of national peace Jirga has left for Deolai.
Sources said that the defunct outfit TNSM and Swat Peace Jirga are holding talks today at Deolai area of Tehsil Kabal here, which would mainly focus on future strategy for the restoration of permanent peace in the district.
Later on, TNSM caravan will reach Landakai from Deolai en-route Shahderai and Shamozai and finally to the Mingora town.
TNSM spokesman, Amir Izzat Khan said that the peace march aims at wiping out the fears and panic from among the affected people. The peace caravan will stay put in Swat until peace restored in the entire district.
Swat education department said that government boys’ schools all across the district have been declared open, while the private schools in the area were already open.
source : jang.com.pk
DUBAI: Venus Williams is through to the final of the Dubai Open after defeating younger sister Serena in a three-set thriller on Friday.
Venus took a 10-9 career lead over Serena after defeating her younger sibling in the Dubai Open semifinals. Sixth seed and Wimbledon champion Venus beat the world No.1 6-1 2-6 7-6 to take a 10-9 lead in competitive matches between the two siblings.
American Venus is now the hot favorite to beat Virginie Razzano in Saturday’s final after the Frenchwoman took just over an hour to beat 16th seed Kaia Kanepi of Estonia 6-1 6-2 in the other semifinal.
source : jang.com.pk
KABUL: Three soldiers in the US-led coalition helping to fight a Taliban-led insurgency in southern Afghanistan have died after their patrol was hit by a bomb, the US military said late Friday.
The three were killed on Friday in the southern province of Uruzgan, it said in a statement. It did not give their nationalities. “Three coalition service members died of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device during a combat reconnaissance patrol in the Uruzgan province, Friday,” it said.
Many of the troops in Uruzgan — where Taliban have a strong presence — are Australian and Dutch nationals serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces.
The latest fatalities take to 39 the number of international troops to lose their lives in Afghanistan this year, most of them in attacks.
source : jang.com.pk
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