Pakistan delays Mumbai prosecution visit

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani investigators and lawyers Tuesday delayed plans to visit India to gather more evidence for the prosecution of seven suspects linked to the 2008 Mumbai attacks until later this month. The visit was scheduled between February 1 and February 10 in a bid to cross-examine witnesses to the carnage that killed 166 people. Khwaja Harris Ahmad, counsel for alleged mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, made a formal request in court to delay the visit until after February 12. That date marks the end of the traditional Muslim 40-day mourning period for his father, whom Ahmad has asked to replace as Lakhvi’s lawyer. “I also submitted my travel documents in the court today to join the panel whenever it embarks on the visit to India,”...

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Five men killed in shooting in Afghanistan: official

KABUL: An Afghan official says a shooting in the southern city of Kandahar has left five dead, including two police officers and three private security guards. A spokesman for the governor’s office, Zulmi Ayubi, said on Tuesday that a man who was part of a force guarding a checkpoint opened fire during an argument overnight. Ayubi says the shooter fled. He did not say if the attacker was a police officer or a security guard. He says four police officers were also wounded in the shooting and that all involved were Afghans. It’s not clear what the argument was abou...

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Maldives vice president sworn in as head of state

MALE: The first democratically elected president of the Maldives resigned Tuesday and was replaced by his vice president after the police and army clashed in the streets of the island nation amid protests over the arrest of a top judge. Mohammed Waheed Hassan, who previously worked as a top UNICEF official, was sworn in as the new Maldivian president in the afternoon. The resignation marked a stunning fall for President Mohamed Nasheed, a former human rights campaigner who defeated the nation’s longtime ruler in the country’s first multiparty election. Nasheed was also an environmental celebrity, traveling the world to persuade governments to combat the climate change that could raise sea levels and inundate his archipelago...

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US says Palestinian deal ‘internal’ matter

WASHINGTON:The United States on Monday remained on the sidelines over a deal signed between Hamas and Fatah to end a long-running discord between rival Palestinian movements, saying it was an internal affair. “As we’ve said many times, questions of Palestinian reconciliation are an internal matter for Palestinians,” said US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. The accord signed in Qatar was welcomed by officials from both Palestinian movements, but Israel warned Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to choose between reconciliation with Hamas and making peace with the Jewish state. Nuland highlighted that Hamas, an Islamist group which runs the Gaza Strip, was considered a terrorist organization by Washington and...

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