NEW DELHI: India views with “serious concern” growing defence ties between China and Pakistan and says it will have to bolster its own military capabilities to meet the challenge. “It is a matter of serious concern for us. The main thing is we have to increase our capability — that is the only answer,” Defence Minister AK Antony told reporters in New Delhi. The comments followed reports China plans to accelerate supply of 50 new JF-17 Thunder multi-role combat jets to Pakistan under a co-production pact. Antony added safe havens for militants in Pakistan is an...
Published On: 2011-05-21

NEW DELHI: India lives in the most “troubled neighbourhood” in the world, Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Saturday and asked security forces to raise the vigil along the country’s borders.“As I have always said, we live in perhaps the most troubled neighbourhood in the world. “In this troubled neighbourhood, there are countries with governments that are extremely fragile and all this increases the level of threat to our security and our defence,” he said at an investiture ceremony of the Border Security Force, which guards the country’s frontiers a...
Published On: 2011-05-21

FUKUSHIMA: The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea travelled to Fukushima today in a show of solidarity over the ongoing nuclear crisis, visiting evacuees left homeless by the quake and tsunami. Ahead of a three-way summit, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak arrived at shelter some 60 kilometres away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The power station has leaked radiation into the air, sea and land since it was crippled by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11 in the world’s worst nuclear disaster...
Published On: 2011-05-21

RAMALLAH: Senior Palestinian officials say that negotiations with Israel have become pointless after Israel’s prime minister rejected President Barack Obama’s call to base Mideast border talks on the pre-1967 war lines. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s stance only strengthened the Palestinian resolve to bypass such talks, largely deadlocked since 2008, and seek recognition of a state at the UN instead, said Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. However, Abbas himself has not given his official response to parameters for a Mideast peace deal that Ob...
Published On: 2011-05-21

NEW YORK: Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was spending his first day outside a prison today after his lawyers posted $6 million bond in the wake of his indictment on sexual assault and attempted rape charges. Strauss-Kahn was freed from New York’s Rikers Island jail on Friday, trading a jumpsuit for civilian clothes and an isolated cell for an apartment with visits from family and friends. The house arrest of the former IMF chief, who has been accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid, was approved by a judge. Strauss-Kahn will live under the constant surveillance by the pri...
Published On: 2011-05-21

ISLAMABAD: At least 16 people were killed in northwest Pakistan today after a bomb attack claimed by a militant group hit a truck carrying fuel supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, the latest attack in an upsurge in violence since Osama bin Laden was killed. It took place near the Torkham border crossing in the Khyber region, the main route for moving supplies to NATO and American forces in Afghanistan. “The tanker was on fire because of a blast late in the night. There was another blast early in the morning in the same tanker and 16 people who gathered near it to collect oil were...
Published On: 2011-05-21

RAIPUR: Eleven people stormed into a house in a central Indian village and assaulted a woman whom they accused of witchcraft, blinding her and her husband by stabbing them in the eyes with scissors, police said today. The incident took place on Friday in the Raipur district of Chhattisgarh state. Police later arrested 10 suspects. A family in Khaira village had been having money troubles and health problems, which they blamed on a 45-year-old woman, according to SS Baghel, a local police officer. “The accused blamed the alleged witchcraft power of the lady for their problems and raide...
Published On: 2011-05-21

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has suspended a government plan to make military training compulsory for students who qualify for university education, an official said today. The top court on Friday ordered the education ministry to delay implementation of the training programme until a ruling is made on a legal challenge to the scheme. The government has said the three-week residential military training programme, which was due to begin on Monday at military camps, was aimed at boosting leadership qualities. The programme did not involve the use of weapons, the government said. ...
Published On: 2011-05-21

BINH NHAM: A little boy’s birthday party went tragically wrong when a double-decker tour boat capsized during a storm in southern Vietnam, killing 15 people, including the three-year-old being honoured and four other children. Divers recovered the bodies, including two Chinese adults, from the Saigon River today afternoon. The incident occurred in Binh Duong province, 30 km northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. Turkey sex scandal ISTANBUL: Six senior politicians in a Turkish opposition party resigned on Saturday amid a sex video scandal that could have far-reaching consequences in election...
Published On: 2011-05-21

KABUL: A suicide bomber struck a tent filled with medical students eating lunch at a military hospital in Kabul today, killing at least six people and wounding 23, Afghan officials said. The blast, which thundered across the capital, came as the Taliban have stepped up attacks as part of a spring offensive against NATO, Afghan government installations and officials. Afghan army and police stepped up patrols on the streets. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was targeting foreign trainers and Afghan doctors who work with them. He claimed two...
Published On: 2011-05-21