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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

81 Razmak students, teachers rescued, 37 still missing

Freed students from the Razmak cadet college jump from an army truck 
as they arrive in Bannu

Security forces rescued on Tuesday morning 81 students and teachers of the Razmak Cadet College after an exchange of fire with militants in Garyom area of North Waziristan, according to a senior government official. But, 35 students and two teachers are still missing.There were conflicting reports about the number of students and teaching staff kidnapped by the Taliban in Bakkakhel of the Bannu Frontier Region when they were going home on Monday.Bannu police put the number at 540, basing their claim on statements by students and teachers who had managed to escape the militants’ dragnet. But a senior official of the tribal administration told Dawn that 300 students and 50 teachers and members of their families had left the college.‘This confusion was because of the unknown number of family members who were accompanying the faculty members. Our guess is that the total number was 400 plus,’ Additional Chief Secretary of Fata Habibullah Khan said.He said that in the melee, many cadets and teachers had managed to escape and reach home. ‘It took us the whole day to call homes and try to locate individuals in Peshawar, Bannu and other places. Many of them managed to reach home on their own.’Mr Habibullah said that 37 people remained unaccounted for and the administration believed they were held somewhere on the border between North and South Waziristan. ‘We think that they have not yet been taken to Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan,’ he added.The authorities have asked tribal elders in Janikhel, Bakkakhel and North Waziristan to hold talks with the militants and ensure early recovery of the hostages.

Air France jet wreckage found

Brazil's military has found the wreckage of the Air France passenger jet that disappeared with 228 people on board, the country's defence minister says.Nelson Jobim said on Tuesday that there was "no doubt" that Flight AF447 had crashed into the Atlantic after Brazilian military aircraft found debris along a 5km stretch of the ocean.Speaking in Rio de Janerio, Jobim said that the find "confirms that the plane went down in that area", hundreds of kilometres from the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.No bodies have yet been spotted among what was said to be metallic and non-metallic debris.

Obama sets off on Middle East trip

Barack Obama has set off for the Middle East where he is expected to reach out to the Muslim world in a speech in Cairo.The US president left Washington DC on Tuesday and will visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday before continuing on to Egypt on Thursday, where he is expected to address Muslims directly.But even before he began his four-day trip to the Middle East, al-Qaeda's deputy leader urged Muslims not to listen to the US leader.Calling Obama a "criminal", Ayman al-Zawahiri told Muslims not to heed the "elegant words" of the US president whose speech in Cairo is aimed at repairing ties with the Islamic world damaged by his predecessor's "war on terror" policies."His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words," said an audio recording purportedly by al-Zawahiri posted on an al-Qaeda-linked website on Tuesday.The recording could not be verified.Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said Obama's speech "will outline his personal commitment to engagement, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect"."He will discuss how the United States and Muslim communities around the world can bridge some of the differences that have divided them."

CCTV footage released of Rescue-15 building attack on 27 May 2009

Obama hopeful on Mid-East peace

US President Barack Obama has told the BBC he believes his country can help to get serious Middle East peace negotiations back on track.Mr Obama's first interview with a UK broadcaster comes on the eve of a trip to the Middle East and Europe.On Iran, he said he hoped to see progress by the end of the year, through "tough, direct diplomacy".But he said, rather than imposing its values on other countries, the US should act as a role model.Speaking to BBC North America Editor Justin Webb, Mr Obama said he believed the US was "going to be able to get serious negotiations back on track" between Israel and the Palestinians.

India 'unhappy' over Hafiz Saeed release

Indian Home Minister

The Indian government said Tuesday it was ‘unhappy’ over a court decision to release the head of an Islamic charity India says was linked to last year's Mumbai siege.‘We are unhappy that Pakistan has not shown the degree of seriousness and commitment it should have to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks,’ Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters.Lahore High Court on Tuesday declared the detention of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and three other members of his party unlawful.An Indian foreign ministry official told AFP that New Delhi was carefully watching to see ‘whether the government in Pakistan will appeal against the court order.’India says the charity is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), blamed for a 2001 raid on the Indian parliament and last November's Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed.Pakistan had sealed offices of the Dawa within weeks of the Mumbai attacks after a UN Security Council resolution described the charity as a terror group.Islamabad had frozen the group's assets besides placing Saeed  —also the founder of LeT —under house arrest.Pakistan has however refused to hand over Saeed or ‘any fugitives from Indian law’ named in a list of 42 wanted men India says are being sheltered by Pakistan.

Finding downed jet in open ocean is a tall order

Though searchers believe that they have found debris from an Air France jet that disappeared off Brazil's coast Monday, finding the entire plane and learning exactly what downed it could be a tedious, years-long process.Many factors can complicate a search effort. Tradewinds and ocean currents can quickly scatter wreckage across several square miles, and the plane's altitude -- almost 7 miles, in the case of Flight 447 -- can make it difficult to pin down where the aircraft hit the water."It's a big ocean," said John Hansman, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's International Center for Air Transportation. "Once you're offshore, you're no longer in direct radar contact."It varies from airline to airline, but passenger jets generally send location reports every few hundred miles when they're over open water, Hansman said.They also send out maintenance reports via satellite that provide the plane's location at a specific time. Some maintenance reports are routine; others are sent when a problem or malfunction is detected, Hansman said. 

Chinese curbs before anniversary

China has blocked several websites ahead of the 20th anniversary of the suppression of the Tiananmen protests.Chinese internet users were unable to connect to the social networking service Twitter, their Hotmail accounts and the photo-sharing service Flickr.Meanwhile veteran dissident Wu Gaoxing, who was jailed for his part in the 1989 pro-democracy movement, was held at the weekend, a fellow activist said.China bans discussion of the events in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.Thursday 4 June is the 20th anniversary of the crackdown, when troops quelled weeks of protest by students and workers.China has never released a death toll from the suppression on what it says was a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. Hundreds are believed to have died in and around the square.

Brazilian air force finds plane debris: official

Relatives and friends of Air France flight AF447 passengers leave at a crisis center at the Tom Jobim International airport in Rio de Janeiro — Reuters Photo

Brazilian air force aircraft searching the Atlantic Ocean Tuesday for a missing Air France flight that had been carrying 228 people have found debris from a plane, AFP quoted an air force spokesman as saying.The ‘small remains’ were located 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of Brazil’s Fernando do Noronha island.It could not immediately be confirmed that the debris were from Air France flight AF 447, spokesman Jorge Amaral told reporters.Among the pieces of wreckage located was an aircraft seat, he said.‘The search is continuing because it’s very little material in relation to the size’ of the Air France Airbus A330, he said.Amaral added that officials needed ‘a piece that might have a serial number, some sort of identification’ to be sure that it came from the missing airliner.The Fernando do Noronha archipelago lies 370 kilometers (230 miles) off Brazil’s northeast coast.Air France flight AF 447 disappeared Monday, four hours into an 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.Searchers were to follow the plane’s course up to the point it lost contact with Brazilian controlers.That zone, located deep in the Atlantic Ocean almost halfway between the South American and African continents, was determined by the last signal received from AirFrance flight AF 447: an automatic data signal telling of multiple electric and pressurization failures.The Air France Airbus A330 was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished at 0220 GMT Monday, four hours into an 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. No distress message was sent.