VIENNA: Iran is trying to accelerate its uranium enrichment programme, a U.N. nuclear report showed, but experts said it was unclear when Tehran's new machines could start operating and how efficiently they would work. The Islamic state's progress in introducing next-generation centrifuges is closely watched in the West and Israel as it would enable Tehran to speed up accumulation of material that could be used to build atomic bombs. Iran denies any such aim. Iran has tried for years to develop centrifuges more advanced than the erratic 1970s-vintage IR-1 machines it now runs, but deploying ...
Published On: 2013-05-23

CAIRO: It was one of the most perplexing events of Egypt's revolution: orchestrated attacks on prisons around the country that broke out more than 20,000 inmates while police were tied down with the massive popular protests that swept autocrat Hosni Mubarak from power. The prison breaks added to the chaos during the 18-day uprising in 2011, and the flood of criminals onto the streets fueled a crime wave that continues to this day. Also among those who escaped were around 40 members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, as well as more than 30 leaders of Egypt's Musl...
Published On: 2013-05-23

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's cricket board says gunmen have kidnapped the father of its national team captain. There has been no ransom demand since Mohammad Nabi's 60-year-old father, Khobi Khan, was abducted near his home in the city of Jalalabad. Cricket board president Shazada Masoud said Thursday that police are assisting but there have been no leads or any contact since Khan was taken from his car on Tuesday. He said Nabi told him his family has no personal disputes and he is shocked at the abduction. Kidnapping is fairly common in Afghanistan amid the violence of fighting the Ta...
Published On: 2013-05-23

ISLAMABAD: A roadside bomb killed 11 security personnel and two civilians on Thursday in southwestern Pakistan where separatist rebels have for decades been battling to control the region's natural gas and other resources. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bomb in the city of Quetta. It was planted in a three-wheeled auto-rickshaw and blew up as a truck carrying the security men passed by. Sixteen people were wounded and the death toll could rise, said police in the city, which is capital of Baluchistan province. Ethnic Baluch separatists opposed Pakistan's May 11 gener...
Published On: 2013-05-23

PRAGUE: Part of an exhibition displaying outfits and photographs of Marilyn Monroe was stolen while being transported to the Czech Republic from Italy, the event's curator said on Wednesday. The exhibition, commemorating the 50th anniversary of her death, was created by the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence last year. Ferragamo was the actress' favourite shoemaker and she owned a dozen pairs of his hand-made shoes. Curator Jan Trestik said a truck carrying mannequins and photographs was raided in an apparently coordinated attack in the central Czech Republic on trucks carrying luxury g...
Published On: 2013-05-23

WASHINGTON: Supporters of U.S. immigration reform are hoping that the smooth and drama-free passage of their legislation through a Senate committee - a departure from almost everything that has happened in Congress over the past four years - will boost the likelihood of the bill winning full Senate approval. Even Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee who voted against the immigration bill on Tuesday, told Reuters TV that the "very fair" debate by the panel "does improve its chances." But a tentative deal on a companion bill in...
Published On: 2013-05-23

AMMAN: Washington threatened on Wednesday to increase support for Syria's rebels if President Bashar al-Assad refuses to discuss a political end to a civil war that is spreading across borders. Rebels called for reinforcements to combat an "invasion" by Hezbollah and its Iranian backers, days after Assad's forces launched an offensive against a strategic town that could prove to be a turning point in the war. The battle for the town of Qusair has brought the worst fighting in months in a war that has already killed more than 80,000 people, and by drawing in Hezbollah has spread se...
Published On: 2013-05-23

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen since 2009. The disclosure to Congress comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama in which he plans to pledge more transparency to Congress in his counterterrorism policy. It was already known that three Americans had been killed in U.S. drones strikes in counterterrorism operations overseas, but Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed details that had remained secret and also that a fourth America...
Published On: 2013-05-23

LONDON: Two men attacked another man near a London military barracks Wednesday, in what British authorities were investigating as a possible terror act. One man is dead and two others were injured. While details were scant, Prime Minister David Cameron called the killing "truly shocking" and said he had asked Home Secretary Theresa May to call an urgent meeting of the government's emergency committee. A British government official who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation said the details that had emerged were indicative...
Published On: 2013-05-22

STOCKHOLM: Hundreds of youth have set fire to cars and attacked police and rescue services in poor immigrant suburbs in three nights of rioting in Stockholm, Sweden’s worst disorder in years. Yesterday night, a police station in the Jakobsberg area in the northwest of the city was attacked, two schools were damaged and an arts and crafts centre was set ablaze, despite a call for calm from Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. The riots in one of Europe’s richest capitals have shocked a country that prides itself on a reputation for social justice, and fuelled a debate about how Swede...
Published On: 2013-05-22