Thousands protest in India over Olympics sponsor

BHOPAL: Thousands protested in India on Saturday against the country’s decision to compete in the London Olympics despite sponsorship of the Games by a US firm linked to the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. Marking the 27th anniversary of the industrial disaster which killed tens of thousands of people, protestors gathered at two sites in the central city of Bhopal to demand India pull out from the Games, which are sponsored by Dow Chemical. Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide, the firm blamed for the lethal gas leak, a decade after the company had settled its liabilities with the Indian government by paying $470 million for Bhopal victims. Rachna Dhingra, an activist of the Bhopal Gropu for Information and Action said, “This protest is against...

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Expelled Iranian diplomats arrive in Tehran

TEHRAN: Iran’s diplomats expelled from London over the storming of the British embassy in Tehran this week arrived in the Iranian capital early Saturday, Iranian media reported. The group of diplomats was kept out of sight of waiting media as they passed through back corridors in Tehran’s international airport after landing aboard an Iran Air flight. Some 150 students chanting “Death to Britain” and holding flower necklaces who were there to welcome the group did not see them either, an AFP photographer said. The diplomats were expelled from London on Friday in retaliation for the violent incursion of Britain’s embassy and a second diplomatic compound in Tehran on Tuesday by hundreds of pro-regime Iranian protesters. Britain,...

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Pakistani man pleads guilty over US terror charges

WASHINGTON: A Pakistani man living in the United States faces up to 15 years in jail after pleading guilty Friday to providing material support to the militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). US justice officials said Jubair Ahmad, 24, posted a propaganda video for LeT “glorifying violent jihad” in 2010, three years after he arrived in the United States with his parents and two younger brothers. “Foreign terrorist organisations such as LeT use the Internet as part of well-orchestrated propaganda campaigns to radicalise and recruit individuals to wage violent jihad and to promote the spread of terror,” said US Attorney Neil MacBride. “Today’s conviction of Jubair Ahmad demonstrates that we will aggressively investigate and prosecute...

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