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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Suicide car blast in Lahore kills 17

after the blast 

A powerful car bomb blast went off outside an emergency police service office on Lahore's Mall road on Wednesday, killing 17 people and wounding 250 others, quoted police and rescue officials as saying.District Coordination Officer Lahore Sajjad Bhutta confirmed it was a suicide car bomb blast.Rescue teams were shifting the injured to nearby hospitals, sources said.The blast also caused damage to buildings in the vicinity, police said.'It was a strong blast. It damaged several buildings and cars and shattered widows,' said police spokesman Nayyab Haider.Officials say there is a chance the device had been planted inside a car parked between Rescue 15 building and offices of intelligence agencies.There was no claim of responsibility.Gunshots were heard immediately after the blast but it was not clear who was firing, the witness said.A big cloud of white smoke rose over the city after the blast.The same month, gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying members of the Sri Lankan national cricket team on their way to a stadium for a match. The well-coordinated attack wounded at least eight members of the team and killed a driver and six Pakistani police officers. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the blast comes as Pakistan's army continues its campiagn against Taliban fighters in the country's northwestern Swat region.

Loud blast rocks Lahore, four injured

At least four persons were injured in a blast outside the Rescue 15 building at Lahore’s Mall Road near the GPO Chowk, in which at least four persons were wounded.The wounded were sent to the Gangaram Hospital in Lahore. The blast shattered the windowpanes of nearby buildings. The sounds of firing were also heard after the blast, eyewitness said. The relief teams were going to the place of the blast. More details yet to come. 

North Korea Warns of Military Strike on South After Restarting Nuke Plant

North Korea's military says it considers South Korea's participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction tantamount to a declaration of war against the North.The communist North's military said in a statement Wednesday that it will respond with "immediate, strong military measures" if the South actually stops and searches any North Korean ships under the Proliferation Security Initiative.The statement, carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, said North Korea no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War, as a protest over the South's participation.South Korea announced its participation in the anti-proliferation program Tuesday, one day after the North conducted a nuclear test.North Korea has restarted a weapons-grade nuclear plant and fired five short-range missiles in two days, news reports and South Korean officials said Wednesday, deepening the North's standoff with world powers following its latest nuclear test.The missile launches came as the U.N. Security Council debated possible new sanctions against the isolated communist nation for its nuclear test on Monday. Retaliatory options were limited, however, and no one was talking publicly about military action.

South Africa hit by recession for the first time in 17 years

For the first time in 17 years, Africa's biggest economy has entered a recession. South Africa's gross domestic product fell 6.4% in the first quarter after shrinking 1.8% in the last quarter of 2008.South Africa entered its first recession since apartheid as the global crisis pounded demand for its main exports, leaving growth down 6.4 percent in the first quarter, the government said Tuesday.The market had expected a drop, but the showing was far worse than most forecasts, adding to pressure on new President Jacob Zuma, who took office just two weeks ago promising to create jobs and fight poverty."The world deteriorated beyond expectations ... (As we are) very dependent on foreign trade there was no way we were going to escape from that," said Johan Rossouw, chief economist at Vector Securities and Derivatives.Seasonally adjusted real GDP for the first quarter of 2009 decreased by an annualised rate of 6.4 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2008, said the Statistics SA, the government's compiler.The economy had contracted by 1.8 percent in the last quarter of 2008. The two consecutive quarterly contractions put South Africa in its first recession in 17 years.The main drags on the economy were manufacturing, down 3.3 percentage points, and mining, down 1.7 percentage points, the agency said.The unadjusted real GDP for the first quarter was down 1.3 percent compared with the same period last year. "They are really horrible numbers and do demonstrate that the economy actually weakened a lot more than had been anticipated in the first quarter," Dennis Dykes, chief economist at Nedbank, told 702 Talk Radio.

No talks until Israel ends roadblocks, settlements, says Palestinian envoy

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will tell US President Barack Obama at meetings Thursday that he will not restart peace talks unless Israel removes all roadblocks and halts settlements in the West Bank, the top Palestinian negotiator says.Palestinians will not restart peace talks with Israel unless it removes all roadblocks and freezes settlement activity in the West Bank, top negotiator Ahmad Qurei said in an interview on Tuesday.Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will present the conditions during his first official meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington on Thursday, Qurei said in an interview with the Haaretz daily."There will be no negotiations without a complete cessation of the settlements, including what you call 'natural growth,'" he said, referring to construction in existing settlement blocks."There will be no negotiations without an evacuation of the outposts established since 2001," he said, referring to settlements in the occupied West Bank built without authorisation from the Israeli government."Before the negotiations, Israel will have to remove also all the internal roadblocks that dissect the West Bank," he said, referring to the more than 600 barriers that Israel erected in the aftermath of the second Palestinian intifada that severely hamper freedom of movement in the West Bank.Qurei reiterated the Palestinians' refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state as demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of a final agreement.

Pakistani Military Claims Victories in Street-by-Street Fighting in Swat Valley

Pakistani troops fighting street-by-street with Taliban militants have regained control of more than half of the largest town in the Swat valley, and many insurgents were now fleeing the battlefield, military commanders said Tuesday.The militant threat has made Pakistan's Western allies increasingly anxious to see political stability in the country — a goal that may be helped by a top Pakistani court's decision Tuesday to lift an election ban on opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, the country's most popular politician according to polls.The ruling removes a source of uncertainty and possible political conflict in the country as it battles Taliban insurgents spreading out across the nuclear-armed nation from the lawless northeast.Sharif is now free to contest national elections in 2013 and become elected to parliament in a by-election. He had been blocked because of a criminal conviction in 2000 he has insisted was politically motivated.Officials said the military's monthlong offensive was advancing in the Swat valley, where a growing humanitarian crisis is adding pressure to the government, which is being tested in its resolve to stand up to the militants.The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees on Tuesday said nearly 2.4 million people have been uprooted by the violence, with people being forced from their homes at a rate of about 126,000 people day — one of the sharpest rates of displacement in recent world history.he numbers were being cross-checked for accuracy, but there was no immediate sign that conditions were improving, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva.And Human Rights Watch warned that a curfew keeping thousands of residents trapped in the valley in their homes for long periods risks causing a humanitarian catastrophe because food, water and medicine is running out.Pakistan army chief spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas gave an upbeat assessment Tuesday of the campaign, which is strongly backed by U.S. officials who want Pakistan to root out al-Qaida and Taliban havens used to plan attacks on Western troops in nearby Afghanistan. Swat is considered an important test of the Muslim nation's ability and willingness to do so.

North Korea defies global outcry

North Korea has restarted its main nuclear plant and test-fired another short range missile, according to South Korean media, despite international condemnation over its underground nuclear detonation on Monday.Pyongyang's latest moves come as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, together with Japan and South Korea, held an emergency session on Tuesday, but diplomats said it needed "some time" to finalise a response.South Korean paper Chosun Ilboreported on Wednesday that US spy satellites had detected steam coming from a reprocessing facility at the North's Yongbyon nuclear plant.The reported activity indicates it may have made good on a threat issued in April to restart a facility that extracts weapons-grade plutonium, although South Korea's defence ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report.Separately, South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting an official at Seoul's presidential office, said the North fired a short-range ground-to-ship missile into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, from the east coast city of Hamhung at around 9pm (12:00 GMT) on Tuesday.

Obama chooses supreme court judge

An Hispanic American has been chosen by Barack Obama to become the next supreme court judge in the first such nomination in the US.The US president said on Tuesday that New York judge Sonia Sotomayor was "an inspiring woman who I believe will make a great justice".Sotomayor said "my heart today is bursting with gratitude'' and called the nomination the "most humbling honour of my life''. If confirmed by the US senate, Sotomayor, 54, will succeed David Souter, who is retiring. Both are considered to be "liberal" justices and the appointment is unlikely to change the ideological balance of the court, which shifted to the right under the Bush administration.

Zimbabwe: '100,000 hit by cholera'

Cholera is expected to infect its 100,000th victim in Zimbabwe this week in the worst outbreak of the disease in Africa for 15 years, the Red Cross has said.Although the disease, which has claimed 4,276 lives, is slowing, it remains a serious threat, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Tuesday."We stand now within days of 100,000 cases," Matthew Cochrane, an IFRC spokesman, said, a figure that was "unimaginable" just a few months ago.He said that a cholera outbreak 15 years ago in what was then Zaire killed 12,000 people, typically refugees in camps fleeing the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.Cochrane said that Zimbabwe's case was notable as it was so deadly and had not emerged during any conflict.