Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Hazare ends hunger strike, threatens civil disobedience

4:45 AM McGhori

MUMBAI: Indian anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare called off his latest hunger strike on Wednesday but signalled he would step up his political efforts to turn voters against the ruling party and government. Hazare began his fast on Tuesday to demand that the government pass a strong new anti-graft law that would create a powerful ombudsman tasked with identifying and prosecuting corrupt public officials. “Today I will break the fast,” the frail 74-year-old told supporters in Mumbai. “We will discuss the future strategy to launch our fight against corruption.” Doctors had urged the former army driver to call off his hunger strike because of low blood pressure and dehydration. Hazare and his supporters maintain that...
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“Really easy” to close Strait of Hormuz: Iranian navy chief

4:42 AM McGhori

TEHRAN: Iran would find it ‘really easy’ to close the world’s most important oil transit channel, the Strait of Hormuz at the Gulf’s entrance, but would not do so right now, Iran’s navy chief said Wednesday. “Shutting the strait for Iran’s armed forces is really easy — or as we say (in Iran) easier than drinking a glass of water,” Admiral Habibollah Sayari said in an interview with Iran’s Press TV. “But today, we don’t need (to shut) the strait because we have the Sea of Oman under control, and can control the transit,” he said. Sayari was speaking a day after Iran’s vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, threatened to close the strait if the West imposed more sanctions on Iran, and as Iran’s navy held wargames in international...
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Pakistan rejects US report on Salala attacks

4:41 AM McGhori

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has rejected the joint US-Nato report on the attack on a Pakistani check post on Nov 26, military sources told FTNews on Wednesday. According to the sources, the US-led report was ‘not based on facts’, and that it can not be unbiased as long as the probe was headed by Brigadier General Stephen Clark. US officials said Tuesday that the American military has briefed Pakistan’s army chief on its investigation into US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border last month. Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby told reporters that a report by military investigators was delivered to General Ashfaq Kayani on Sunday by a US officer based in Islamabad, who explained the findings to the...
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Kayani briefed on investigation: Pentagon

2:38 AM McGhori

WASHINGTON: The American military has briefed Pakistan’s army chief on its investigation into US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border last month, US officials said Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby told reporters that a report by military investigators was delivered to General Ashfaq Kayani on Sunday by a US officer based in Islamabad, who explained the findings to the general. The full report from the joint US-Nato investigative team was not released publicly until Monday to allow time for the Pakistani leadership to read the findings first, Kirby said. “We wanted General Kayani to be able to see the entire thing,” he said, calling the approach “an appropriate professional courtesy”...
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Three Nato troops killed in Afghanistan

2:35 AM McGhori

KABUL: A roadside bomb attack killed three Nato troops in eastern Afghanistan, one of the deadliest flashpoints in the 10-year war against Taliban insurgents, the military said Wednesday. Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) did not release the nationalities of the troops or give further details of the incident, which happened on Tuesday. The deaths take to 561 the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on figures from independent website iCasualties.org. A total of 711 foreign troops were killed in Afghanistan last year, the highest annual total since the US-led invasion in 2001 ousted the Taliban from power. There are about 130,000 international...
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Mass anti-Assad protest in Homs as monitors visit

2:31 AM McGhori

DAMASCUS: About 70,000 protesters marched towards the city centre on Tuesday where security forces fired at them and lobbed teargas, activists said. The military withdrew some tanks, in what the activists called a ploy to persuade the monitors that the city was calm. Footage on the Internet showed monitors confronted by residents as gunfire crackled around them. The Arab League observers, who arrived in the country on Monday, want to determine if Assad is keeping his promise to implement a peace plan to end his military crackdown on nine months of popular revolt. The monitors were due to return on Wednesday to Homs where crowds have pleaded for them to visit the most violent neighbourhoods. Activists say tanks ran amok and...
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