B4U India

Prachanda meets Ban Ki-moon

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:30:00 -0400

Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda met Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon at the UN Headquarters here on Saturday.

According to the Permanent Mission of Nepal to the United Nations, the UN Secretary General assured of the United Nations'' continued support in the days ahead and expressed his readiness to assist in the socio-economic development in Nepal.

He also appreciated Nepal''s continued participation in the UN peacekeeping operations while Prachanda reiterated Nepal''s commitment to continue providing troops to UN peacekeeping missions at the call of the UN.

Prachanda expressed his commitment to move ahead in the spirit of the Comprehensive Peace Accord and to all the agreements reached to bring the peace process to a logical conclusion.

Prachanda held meetings with President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari and leader of delegation of Vietnam Pham Ghia Khiem.

Matters of bilateral and mutual interest were discussed with Zardari while means and ways of expanding bilateral relations was discussed with the Vietnamese DPM.

Prachanda also attended an interaction programme organized by the Nepali community organizations based in New York, Nepalnews reported. (ANI)

Taliban engaged in secret talks sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Britain

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:29:00 -0400

The Taliban has been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a wide-ranging ‘peace process’ sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain.

The unprecedented negotiations involve a senior former member of the hardline Islamist movement traveling between Kabul, the bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and European capitals, The Guardian reported.

Britain has provided logistic and diplomatic support for the talks despite official statements that negotiations can be held only with Taliban who are ready to renounce, or have renounced, violence.

Sources in Afghanistan confirmed the controversial talks, though they said that in recent weeks they had lost momentum.

According to Afghan government officials in Kabul, the intensity of the fighting this summer has been one factor. Another is the inconsistency of the Taliban demands.

“They keep changing what they are asking for. One day it is one thing, the next another,” one Afghan government adviser with knowledge of the negotiations said.

One aim of the initiative is to drive a wedge between Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The talks started in the summer and have been brokered by Saudi Arabia at the invitation of the Afghan government. The go-between has spent weeks ferrying lists of demands and counter-demands between the Afghan capital, Riyadh and Quetta. He has also visited London to speak to Foreign Office and MI6 personnel. A delegation from Saudi intelligence has also visited Kabul.

The Taliban are understood to have submitted a list of 11 conditions for ending hostilities, which include demands to be allowed to run key ministries and a programmed withdrawal of western troops.

In Kabul, President Hamid Karzai''s national security adviser, Zalmay Rasul, has been in charge of the negotiations. It is understood that Karzai has yet to make a formal response to the demands, leading to frustration among some western officials. (ANI)

1 in 5 Aussies unfit to be a parent, says expert

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:29:00 -0400

One in five Australian parents is ‘unfit’ to be a parent, says leading child-health expert Professor Fiona Stanley.

Owing to either excessive professional commitment or lack of parenting skills, or simply the lack of means, the health of future children is bound to suffer.

"There are a worrying number of threats to children''s health in society today,” News.com.au quoted the expert as saying.

"If we don''t respond to these challenges ... we will be looking at our generation, my generation, as being the last generation that lives longer than its parents,” she added.

Insisting on the urgency of the situation as grave as that of the global warming, Professor Stanley criticized the Federal Government’s policy on paid parental leave.

She said: "The fact we don''t have maternity leave or parental leave in Australia is just indicative of our lack of valuing of parents.”

"There''s this increasing group of parents who are just not making ends meet.

"And they may represent as much as 20 per cent of the population when you add in Aboriginal people and the most disadvantaged in society.”

The Australian epidemiologist further warned against mental illness, obesity, asthma and substance abuse as the principal threats facing the future generation. (ANI)

Kate Middleton "trying out" series of police protection officers!

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:28:00 -0400

Prince William’s love interest Kate Middleton is presently interrogating several police protection officers – to discover the one she is most comfortable with.

Chased by the paparazzi at various events and exposed to potentially dangerous situations, Wills and Prince Charles have decided to pay for the 26-year-old’s protection.

Hence, Kate has reportedly been directing her series of questions towards the security officers attributing compatibility as one her priorities.

"Having a protection officer is a very close relationship and it is vital to get it right," Telegraph quoted a security source, familiar with the situation at Clarence House, as saying.

"The officer is the person with whom you can end up spending most time and it can be a nightmare if it is someone you can''t get along with," the source added. (ANI)

Londoners turn gorillas for a day to raise money!

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:27:00 -0400

Hundreds of people in London dressed themselves in gorilla outfits to raise money for charity.

Approximately 750 runners participated in the ‘2008 Great Gorilla Charity Run’ setting a world-record for the largest-ever gathering of people wearing gorilla costumes.

The 7km event that took place in London on September 27 had been organised by ‘The Gorilla Organization’ - a charity based to protect Central African gorillas from becoming extinct.

Hoping to raise 200,000 pounds, Jillian Miller, the charity director claimed that the event was becoming more successful with every passing year.

"The event has got better every year and the atmosphere among the runners and spectators is incredible,” Telegraph quoted him as saying.

Bill Oddie, the conservationist and BBC''s ‘Springwatch’ presenter, who fired the starting pistol, said: "It is great that people are prepared to put so much effort into something so worthy, while maintaining such good humour." (ANI)

Exploding custard, rice pudding truck sends driver running!

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:26:00 -0400

A truck driver, who was transporting 60, 000 tins of custard and rice pudding to a local supermarket, was forced to desert his truck when it began to explode.

Not knowing that his HGV had caught fire, the driver was forced to stop by the passing motorists on the A382 in Chagford, Devon.

Soon after he fled the truck, the 26 tonnes of Ambrosia custard and rice pudding cans began exploding ‘like thousands of gunshots’, reports Telegraph.

Though the fire crews arrived within a short span, they were unable to do much since the desserts had already burnt out while the truck itself was consumed within 20 minutes.

"The first we knew about it was a whiff of smoke and burning sugar and then suddenly it just erupted,” Jill Pendleton, an eyewitness, said.

She said: “It was incredible how quickly the fire caught hold - the whole thing was over in less than 20 minutes.

"When the heat reached the tins they started to explode and we could hear what sounded like thousands of gunshots.

"There were two huge explosions which we think were either the airbags or the diesel tanks.

“The driver seemed very shaken.”

However, a spokesman from ‘Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service’ has revealed that there were no casualties and the incident itself was accidental in nature. (ANI)

Al Qaeda plans to recruit 800 Muslim criminals in UK for their holy war

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:26:00 -0400

Al-Qaeda terrorists have targeted 800 Muslim criminals they want to recruit for their “holy war” against Britain, say prison probation officers.

The officers believe that attempts have been made to convert one in 10 of the estimated 8,000 Muslims in the eight high-security prisons in England and Wales to al-Qaeda cause in the past two years, The Times reported.

The Ministry of Justice has begun a programme to persuade convicted terrorists to give up their cause. It is also trying to protect vulnerable Muslim inmates from violent extremists.

The ministry said this weekend that it had established a unit to tackle “the risks of extremism and radicalism in prison”.

The radicalisation is being led by some of the estimated 150 terrorist prisoners in England and Wales. The number of Muslim inmates has grown over the past decade to more than 10 percent of the jail population.

Most are young men, typically petty criminals serving two or three-year sentences for crimes such as burglary, theft, drug dealing or fraud.

Many are impressionable and feel aggrieved by what they see as mistreatment by the authorities. They are considered to be ripe for recruitment by al-Qaeda.

One of the most notorious Al-Qaeda terrorists, Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who was convicted of trying to blow up a transatlantic jet in 2001 with explosives in his trainers, had served time as a petty crook before being radicalised.

The size of the problem emerged in evidence given to a review of radicalisation in jails by Nick Herbert, the shadow justice secretary.

An internal review of Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire, where almost a third of the 500 inmates are Muslim, warned that staff were struggling to deal with Muslim gangs. It said the staff feared that a serious incident was imminent. (ANI)

Attempt of Islamic extremists to kill the publisher of book on Prophet foiled

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:25:00 -0400

Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorist command has foiled an alleged plot by Islamic extremists to kill the publisher of a forthcoming novel featuring sexual encounters between the Prophet Muhammad and his child bride.

On Saturday, armed undercover officers arrested three men after a petrol bomb was pushed through the door of the north London home of the book’s publisher, The Times reported.

The Metropolitan police said the target of the assassination plot, the Dutch publisher Martin Rynja, had not been injured.

Undercover police was following the suspected terror gang and the fire was quickly put out after the fire brigade smashed down the front door.

Security officials believe Rynja was targeted for assassination because his firm, Gibson Square, is preparing to publish a romantic novel about Aisha, child bride of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Jewel of Medina, by the first-time American author Sherry Jones, describes an imaginary sex scene between the prophet and his 14-year-old wife.

It was withdrawn from publication in America last month after its publisher there, Random House, said it feared a violent reaction by “a small radical segment” of Muslims. It said “credible and unrelated sources” had warned that the book could incite violence.

Random House reacted after Islamic scholars objected to its contents, saying it treated the wife of the Prophet as a sex object.

The foiled terrorist attack recalled the death threats and uproar 20 years ago following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, and the worldwide protests that followed the publication in a Danish newspaper in 2005 of cartoons deemed offensive to Islam, in which more than 100 people died.

Two of the suspects were arrested in the street outside Rynja’s four-storey townhouse in Lonsdale Square, Islington, while the third was stopped by officers in an armed vehicle near Angel Tube station.

They were being questioned yesterday on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, a spokesman said. (ANI)