French ex-president Chirac convicted in graft trial

PARIS: A judge declared French former president Jacques Chirac guilty on Thursday in a political graft trial that made history by producing the first conviction of a head of state since Nazi collaborator Marshall Philippe Petain in 1945. In the absence of the 79-year-old who ruled from 1995 until 2007, a judge declared Chirac guilty of misuse of public funds. Chirac was tried on charges of diverting public money into phantom jobs for political cronies while he was mayor of Paris between 1977 and 1995, a time when he built a new centre-right Gaullist party that launched his successful presidential bid. The judge was due to announce later what penalty, if any, would be impose...

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US lawmakers target Pakistan aid

WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed legislation to freeze some Pakistan aid, slap harsh new sanctions on Iran, and endorse indefinite imprisonment of suspected terrorists. Acting shortly after the White House dropped a threat to veto the bill, the Republican-led chamber voted 283-136 to approve the $662 billion Defence Authorisation bill, which also sets high hurdles for closing Guantanamo Bay. The Democratic-held Senate was expected to vote on the same bill as early as Thursday. The measure had drawn fire from civil liberties groups that denounced its de facto embrace of holding alleged extremists without charge until the end of the “war on terrorism” declared after the September 11, 2001 attacks. US...

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Ex-Taliban denies reports of Qatar office

KABUL: An ex-Taliban envoy said on Thursday that he had no knowledge of plans by the Afghan insurgents to set up a political office in Qatar, even though media reports billed him as a potential chief of a possible Taliban mission in the tiny Gulf state. By opening an office, the Taliban would indicate a willingness to talk peace after 10 years of war in Afghanistan and signal their intention to try and find a political solution to an insurgency that has cost the lives of thousands. Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, said he was unaware of such an office being planned. A top member of the Afghanistan peace council, ex-Taliban official Arsala Rahmani, said he was also unaware that such an office was about...

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Syria deserters kill at least 27 troops: activists

NICOSIA: Syrian army deserters killed at least 27 soldiers and members of the security forces during clashes in the southern province of Daraa on Thursday, a rights group said. The fighting broke out at dawn at checkpoints in three separate locations, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement sent to AFP in Nicosia. On Wednesday, army defectors killed at least eight Syrian troops in an act of revenge after security forces shot dead five civilians, in the second such attack in as many days, the Observatory said. In its latest statement, the rights group said that among 21 civilians killed on Wednesday was an Iraqi woman who snipers shot on the outskirts of Damascus. As the toll mounted,...

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Toxic alcohol kills 102 in India

KOLKATA: A tainted batch of bootleg liquor killed 102 people and sent dozens more to the hospital in villages outside the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, officials said. Day laborers and other poor workers began falling ill late Tuesday after drinking the brew that was laced with the toxic methanol around the village of Sangrampur, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Kolkata, according to district magistrate Narayan Swarup Nigam. ”It’s a very sad thing that this has happened. Why don’t the police stop this? I cannot understand? What connection do they have?” said Anwar Hassan Mullah, who brought six people from his village to the hospital. All of them died, Mullah told NDTV news channel. Police arrested four...

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