CIUDAD JUAREZ: Gunmen killed the wife and 5-year-old daughter of a state governor's bodyguard in northern Mexico on Tuesday, authorities said. Brenda Carrillo, 28, and her daughter were gunned down as they left their home in Chihuahua city, the capital of the state by the same name, the state attorney general's office said in a statement. Carrillo worked as an investigator for the state attorney general's office and was married to a bodyguard of Chihuahua Gov. Cesar Duarte. The motive of the shooting was unclear. Many police and investigators have been assassinated in Chihuahua, a state bor...
Published On: 2011-03-30

MANILA: The Philippine government said China executed three Filipinos convicted of drug smuggling Wednesday despite last-minute appeals for clemency and political concessions by the country's leaders. Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, 32, and Ramon Credo, 42, met their families for the last time early Wednesday before they were put to death by lethal injection in Xiamen, said Philippine Consul Noel Novicio. Elizabeth Batain, 38, was allowed to meet with her relatives hours ahead of her execution in Shenzhen, Novicio said. The three were not aware they would be executed Wednesday although their sen...
Published On: 2011-03-30

LONDON: A sweeping array of world powers called forcefully Tuesday for Moammar Gadhafi to step down as Libya's ruler. Some even hinted at secret talks on Gadhafi's exit. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague led the crisis talks in London between 40 countries and institutions, all seeking an endgame aimed at halting the Libyan leader's bloody onslaught against Libya's people. Although the NATO-led airstrikes on Gadhafi's forces aren't aimed at toppling him, dozens of nations agreed in the talks that Libya's future does not include the dict...
Published On: 2011-03-30

JAKARTA: An alleged extremist believed to be one of the masterminds behind the 2002 Bali bombings has been arrested in Pakistan, an Indonesian counter-terrorism official said Wednesday. "Umar Patek was arrested in Pakistan," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity, without giving further details about where or how Tuesday's arrest was made. There has been no immediate confirmation from authorities in Pakistan. Indonesia's counter-terrorism police have been tracking Patek for years. He has a $1.0 million bounty on his head under the US government's "Rewards for Justice...
Published On: 2011-03-30

TOKYO: France and the United States will help Japan in its battle to contain radiation from a crippled nuclear complex where plutonium finds have raised public alarm over the world's worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl in 1986. The high-stakes operation at the Fukushima plant has added to Japan's humanitarian disaster, with 27,500 people dead or missing from a March 11 earthquake and tsunami. New readings showed a spike in radioactive iodine in the sea off the plant to 3,355 times the legal limit, the state nuclear safety agency said on Wednesday, although it played down the impact, saying p...
Published On: 2011-03-30

HAVANA: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday he discussed the delicate case of an imprisoned American contractor with Cuban officials, but is visiting the communist-run island to improve strained relations with Washington not bring the man home. Carter later had private talks with President Raul Castro at the Government Palace but there was no immediate word on what they discussed. The ex-U.S. president said he talked with Cuban officials about Alan Gross, who was arrested in December 2009 while working on a USAID-backed democracy-building project and later sentenced to 15 years i...
Published On: 2011-03-30

NEW DELHI: Pakistan has agreed to allow a visit by Indian investigators as part of their probe into the 2008 Mumbai militant attacks in a significant confidence building measure between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Civil servants in charge of security issues ended two days of talks in New Delhi today, seeking to rebuild trust after the Mumbai attacks that had raised fears of a fourth war between the two countries. The two nations’ prime ministers tomorrow will attend what is expected to be a highly charged World Cup cricket semi-final between India and Pakistan in the northern Indian t...
Published On: 2011-03-29

LONDON: International leaders were gathering in London today seeking to plot out an endgame for Moammar Gadhafi’s tottering regime and to strike agreement on plans for Libya’s future. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Arab League and as many as 40 global foreign ministers were joining the talks — seeking to ratchet up pressure on Gadhafi to quit. Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said several nations planned to table a joint deal aimed at swiftly ending the conflict, setting out proposals for a cease-fire, exile...
Published On: 2011-03-29

NEW DELHI: An American author today angrily dismissed claims his new book on Mahatma Gandhi alleged that India’s independence leader was a racist bisexual who left his wife for a bodybuilder. Indian newspapers were outraged by reviews in the United States and Britain of Joseph Lelyveld’s biography that focused on Gandhi’s relationship with German-Jewish architect and amateur bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach. “How completely you have taken possession of my body,” Gandhi was quoted as saying in a letter to Kallenbach. “This is slavery with a vengeance.” ...
Published On: 2011-03-29

ADEN: The death toll of a massive blast and fire at an ammunition plant in south Yemen that was looted by Al-Qaeda has shot up to 150, a local official said today. The final toll for Monday’s explosion at the plant near the town of Jaar has reached ‘150 dead and at least 80 wounded’, Ahmed Ghaleb Rahawi, sub-prefect of Jaar in the southern province of Abyan where the blast took place, told AFP. “When the residents entered the plant, there were some workers there who... did not warn them of the dangers,” said Rahawi. “The flames spread out over 500 metres,&...
Published On: 2011-03-29