Car bomb blast kills at least eight in Iraq’s Mosul

MOSUL: A car bomb exploded inside a residential complex housing displaced Shia Muslims in the Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding four, hospital and police sources said.

The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks on Shia pilgrims and other targets since a political crisis erupted a month ago in Iraq’s fragile power-sharing government, split among Shia, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish blocs.

“The hospital received eight bodies including four women, three children and a man and another four wounded,” said Laith Habbaba, manager of the Hamdaniya Hospital in Mosul.

Police confirmed the number of casualties.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber disguised as a policeman killed at least 53 people and wounded scores in an attack on Shia pilgrims at a checkpoint in the southern city of Basra.

Political tensions in Iraq have been high since December when Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government ordered the arrest of a Sunni vice president, touching off a crisis that has many fearing a relapse into sectarian conflict.

Mosul, 390 kilometres north of Baghdad, was once an al Qaeda stronghold, and witnessed some of the fiercest fighting during the war that followed the 2003 US-led invasion.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

India, China resume border talks in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Indian and Chinese officials on Monday began fresh talks on sensitive border issues after discussions last year were cancelled over a speech in India by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Shiv Shankar Menon, India’s national security adviser, and Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo led the two delegations at the meeting in New Delhi, the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement.

The 15th round of the cross-border talks will last two days, and cover the range of long-standing territorial disputes and other issues, officials said.

“While working hard to develop itself, China is fully committed to developing long-term friendship and cooperation with India,” Dai wrote in The Hindu newspaper on Monday.

“There does not exist such a thing as China’s attempt to ‘attack India’ or ‘suppress India’s development’,” he said.

The 2,000-kilometre border between India and China has been the subject of talks since the 1980s after the two nations fought a brief but brutal war in 1962.

Talks were cancelled in November after reports that Beijing objected to a scheduled speech in New Delhi by the Dalai Lama, who China’s Communist government labels a separatist.

The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He later founded the government in exile in the northern Indian town Dharamshala after being offered refuge.

Chinese infrastructure build-up along the border has become a major source of concern for India, which increasingly sees China as a longer-term threat to its security than traditional rival Pakistan.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL