Italy to present UN resolution on religious minorities

ROME: Italy will present a resolution on the protection of religious minorities at the next United Nations' general assembly, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Monday.

“Freedom of religion is a principle that applies to every religion,” Frattini said after meeting in Rome with Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities, a Catholic.

“We are greatly concerned by the persecution of Christians in many countries around the world,” Frattini said.

Two Christian brothers accused of writing a blasphemous pamphlet critical of the Prophet Mohammed were shot dead in July outside a court in eastern Pakistan.

“Over the past months in Pakistan Christians were murdered in some villages, stirring consciences in Europe and also in Italy,” Frattini said.

In August 2009, eight Christians were burned alive after being accused of blasphemy.

“We have to say clearly that if there is a clash, it is between extremists, not between Christians and Muslims,” Frattini said.

Bhatti said he “appreciated Frattini's commitment on religious freedom,”adding that the Pakistani government had “taken many steps forward” on the issue. – AFP

Six weeks on, south Pakistan faces new flood threat

DADU: Six weeks after the start of Pakistan's devastating floods, waters pouring into a lake in southern Pakistan are threatening several towns and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee, officials said on Monday.

As floodwaters make their way to the Arabian Sea, new towns in Sindh province are being inundated as embankments constructed to protect cities and towns in the traditional flood plains are now channeling water into new areas, including Lake Manchar.

Tens of thousands of people have fled towns in the Dadu district of Sindh, and officials said more were asked to leave after water, flowing from a breached embankment, reached a dangerous point in the lake, Pakistan's largest freshwater lake.

“Our entire concentration is now on Dadu district as the water is just a few inches from overtopping the Manchar Lake that could threaten many towns,” Additional Relief Commissioner, Riaz Ahmed Soomro, told Reuters.

Officials say several towns around the lake including Bhon and Jhingira are in danger of inundation, threatening an estimated 250,000 people.

“All my seven brothers and their families are now dependent on me as they are all farmers and floods have washed away their lands and crops,” said Abdul Ghani, a school teacher, whose village upstream from Manchar Lake has already flooded.

The floods are Pakistan's worst-ever natural disaster in terms of damage, with more than six million people forced from their home and 20 million people affected.

The calamity has killed more than 1,750 people, and aid agencies have warned that millions more are still at risk of death if emergency food and shelter are not provided.

The government estimates losses at $43 billion and says the gross domestic product could be around 2.5 percent, from the original target of 4.5 percent for the 2010/11 (July-June) fiscal year. – Reuters

Three injured in firing at Quetta relief camp

QUETTA: Three people were injured in a firing incident during the delivery of relief goods at a camp on Sariab Road in Quetta on Monday.

According to the Civil Hospital management, two out of three injured had bullet wounds. One of the victims is a seven-year-old child while the other is a woman.

Security was immediately put on high alert in the relief camp and surrounding area.

Deputy Commissioner Quetta Naseem Lehri has ordered an investigation into the incident.

Security protocol causes baby's death, family claims

LAHORE: A new born baby died because of not getting prompt medical attention due to security restrictions set up for Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore on Monday.

Sharif was visiting the Children’s Hospital to distribute Eidi to patients due to which security protocol had been arranged at the vicinity. The victim’s family alleges that the new born twins from Okara were not able to get prompt medical attention due to the delay.

Relatives of the victim started protesting outside the emergency unit of the hospital, reports stated.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said that the chief minister was visiting the hospital with good intentions and was extremely grieved due to this incident.

PML-N leader Siddique al Farooq said that because of terrorism more security was being provided to the VIPs and that he would be looking into this case to find out if the security protocol was the actual cause of delay in the baby’s treatment.

However, the hospital management denied the incident and said that the victim was already hospitalised when the CM visited. Dr Saeed Elahi of the hospital said no one was stopped at the entrance and that Sharif does not direct road-blocks for his security.

The chief minister has ordered an investigation into the incident, calling for a report by evening.

C’wealth Games: security top concern for New Zealand

WELLINGTON: New Zealand were committed to competing at next month’s Delhi Commonwealth Games but would have no hesitation pulling out if any security concerns were raised, team management said on Monday.

“Anyone suggesting that we are going to put our athletes at risk is mischievous,” New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) president Mike Stanley told reporters in Auckland.

“Right now, New Zealand is planning to be in Delhi. If things change and the New Zealand Government can’t advise us that our athletes are secure in that environment, then we won’t go.”

Security issues at sporting events within the region have been hotly debated since an attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, Pakistan last year, though Games organisers have promised a high level of security.

Seven New Zealand police officers would join a multinational contingent of more than 40 police from Canada, Australia, and Britain, who would also provide advice to team management and additional security for the Oct. 3-14 Games, Stanley said.

“We believe this is the best way to securing our team,” he said. “We have a multinational approach which is well organised. We are confident it will provide our team with the advice it needs to make the most appropriate decisions.”

Stanley said the security assessment would be ongoing and there was no deadline for a final decision on participation.

“That could be right up until the start of the Games and it will be monitored (throughout),” he added.

“It’s just one of those things we have to be vigilant about and we have to take it on a day-by-day basis.”

New Zealand’s chef de mission Dave Currie leaves for Delhi on Tuesday to undertake a final inspection of facilities and security, with the first New Zealand athletes due in the Indian capital on Sept. 25. —AFP

Emotional Kanye closes VMAs; Gaga wins eight

LOS ANGELES: Taylor Swift absolved Kanye West of last year’s onstage sin with one somber song, and West, also in song, beat himself up once again over his misbehavior.

The Swift-West drama took center stage at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, with both superstars either addressing or dancing around the incident that won’t die.

Both dramatic performances delivered on pre-show hype of a Kanye-Taylor sequel and overshadowed the evening's other moments, including Lady Gaga’s eight-win sweep. Among her awards was video of the year for “Bad Romance.”

The stage for both songs was set last year, when West interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech, saying her trophy should have gone to Beyonce. The incident left Swift with hurt feelings, but West was the one who was seriously damaged, as intense backlash made him Mr. Unpopularity.

While West didn’t address the trophy-gate incident directly onstage, he rapped and sang a song that mocked the boorish behavior that has upstaged his music: “I always find something wrong; you’ve been putting up with my (expletive) for too long,” he said, before launching into the an unprintable chorus, which included the line: “Let’s have a toast to scumbags.”

West was booed by some members of the audience prior to his performance.

While Swift is known for skewering those who have done her wrong in song, for West, she offered an olive branch with her song “Innocent,” written earlier this year: “Everyone of us has messed up, too ... I hope you remember today is never too late to be brand new.”

The 20-year-old’s poignant and powerful ode didn’t criticize West. Instead she sympathized with his difficult time in the spotlight and West’s own admissions that his ego has often gotten in his own way.

“Thirty-two and still growing up now; who you are is not what you did,” she sang softly, adding: “You’re still an innocent.”

She then appeared from the audience to skip offstage.

But the evening wasn’t just the Swift-West show: Lady Gaga was the night’s top winner, snatching trophies including best female video. She was also the most outrageously dressed – and that's saying something, giving Katy Perry’s barely there outfit and Ke$ha’s garbage bag-dress

Gaga accepted her video of the year award with an outfit sure to anger PETA: a dress and chapeau made of what seemed to be cuts of raw beef, including a meat purse. It was one of her three zany outfits of the evening: she arrived at the awards in a spectacular outfit by the late Alexander McQueen: A Victorian-inspired gown and a Mohawk feather headdress atop a long white wig, with monstrous stilettos that made her look as she was on stilts. Later, she changed into a black dress so overflowing she needed help to get onstage to accept on of her trophies.

Cher – an over-the-top diva from a different era – gave Gaga her best-video award and noted she had been raising eyebrows while Lady Gaga “was still Baby Gaga.”

Gaga was teary-eyed, and sang the title of her new album as she accepted the last award: “Born This Way.”

Compared to the pathos of Swift and West, and Gaga being Gaga, there were few other highlights, despite performances from Usher, Eminem and Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Linkin Park, and appearances by Nicki Minaj and the cast of MTV’s own “Jersey Shore.”

Host Chelsea Handler gave the show its traditional bawdiness, though her jokes often fell flat, though she did have a few zingers, most of them vulgar.

A pre-taped portion of her opening featured the host getting spanked multiple times by show participants in a backstage hallway before running into the recently freed Lindsay Lohan, who also gave her a swat.

“Have you been drinking?” Lohan demanded from Handler. “Do you think anyone wants to work with a drunk? Take it from me! They don’t!”

Later, on stage, Handler implored the all-star audience to get wild.

“I want to encourage everybody to be on their worst behavior,” she said. “I want to turn this mother out. ... Get your tongues ready because I want those tongues shoved in places they’re not supposed to be.”

But it was a relatively tame night; perhaps, given West’s antics last year, the stars had learned a lesson. – AP

Airstrikes kill 14 insurgents in Afghanistan: Nato

KABUL: Airstrikes killed 14 insurgents in central Afghanistan, Nato said.

The military alliance said in a statement Monday that the air power was used after a joint Nato-Afghan patrol came under small arms and machine-gun fire from militants. It happened Sunday while the patrol was crossing a river in the central Uruzgan province.

Nato said troops requested air support after concluding there was no danger of civilian casualties. Nato aircraft targeted the insurgents in three raids with precision-guided ammunition.

Nato said initial reports indicated no civilian casualties occurred.

‘Commission formed to probe Punjab dykes breaches’

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Monday said that a judicial commission had been formed to investigate breaches made in dykes during floods in the province.

Speaking to media representatives, the chief minister said the commission would visit the affected areas to fully investigate the matter. The commission will soon submit its report to the provincial government, he added.

Shahbaz informed the media that the phase of rescue had been completed in the flood-hit areas and that the rehabilitation of the affected people was an even bigger challenge.

Shahbaz appreciated the role played by the WHO and other international organisations and said that the health kits provided by the WHO helped in diagnosing diseases among the flood survivors.

He said 20 million people had been affected by the floods and no efforts would be spared in helping them

Gaza rocket strikes Israel after deadly clashes

JERUSALEM: Palestinian militants fired a rocket at Israel early on Monday without wounding anyone hours after three Palestinians were killed by tank fire near the tense border of the Hamas-ruled territory.

The military said the rocket landed in an empty field near Sderot, an Israeli town near the border that frequently came under rocket attack in the years before the December 2008 and January 2009 Gaza war.

The spokesman added that five rocket and mortar rounds had been fired from Gaza in the last 24 hours after a week of near-daily attacks. No one has been wounded by the projectiles.

On Sunday three Palestinians, including a 91-year-old man and a teenager, were killed by Israeli tank shelling near the northern town of Beit Hanun, according to Gaza medics.

Israel's military said it had targeted a group of militants who were preparing to fire a rocket-propelled grenade after earlier firing warning shots at people approaching the border fence in the same area.

The Popular Resistance Committees, an armed group, later claimed responsibility for rocket and mortar fire into Israel that occurred at around the same time and location.

The recent violence comes after months of relative calm in the wake of the Gaza war in which Hamas has taken steps to rein in smaller and more radical armed groups who are believed to be behind the rocket attacks.

Hamas is vehemently opposed to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which restarted in Washington this month after a hiatus of nearly two years. A second round of talks is to take place on Tuesday in Egypt.

In late 2008, Israel launched a devastating 22-day war on the Gaza Strip aimed at halting rocket attacks against its territory. The conflict cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Salman Khan apologises over Mumbai attacks remark

MUMBAI: Bollywood actor Salman Khan apologised on Monday after sparking criticism for claiming that the 2008 Mumbai attacks attracted widespread publicity only because the elite were targeted.

The actor —who with his namesakes Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan is one of the Indian film industry's leading Muslim actors —also questioned Indian claims that the Pakistani state helped plan the atrocities.

In an interview recorded three weeks ago with a Pakistani television channel, widely reported in the Indian press on Monday, he said that “everybody knows” that the Pakistani government was not behind the attacks.

“Too much hype has been created around the 26/11 (November 26) attacks because elite people were targeted. Attacks have happened in trains and small towns but no-one talked about it so much,” he said.

Instead, he blamed the failure of India's own security agencies.

Following demands from right-wing Hindu nationalist political groups for a public retraction, and criticism in the newspapers, one of which called him “Khan The Clueless”, the 44-year-old apologised to his fans.

“I think I messed up, so sorry guys,” he wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter on Monday.

Khan's tweeted apology came after he posted a statement on the video-sharing site YouTube claiming his comments had been “twisted around”.

“I saw it myself, the way it is coming across on the TV. It's sounding insensitive,” he said.

“I was just saying that life is equal... it is the same. Some attacks had more media coverage than the others. Why is that? I think every human life is as important,” he added.

“I didn't mean to hurt anybody's sentiments and if I have hurt anybody's sentiments, I am really, really sorry.”

A total of 166 people died and more than 300 others were wounded in the Mumbai attacks when 10 Islamist gunmen lay siege to three luxury hotels, a popular tourist restaurant, Jewish centre and the city's main railway station.

India accuses the banned, Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba of funding, training and equipping the gunmen with help from elements in the Pakistani military.

Khan's newly released film, “Dabangg” (Fearless), has been critically acclaimed and a box-office hit.

Obama aides suggest going soft on Afghan corruption

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama's top aides have concluded they need to refrain from promoting US-style corruption fighting in Afghanistan because of the rift it has caused with President Hamid Karzai, The Washington Post reported late Sunday.

Citing unnamed US civilian and military officials involved in Afghanistan policy, the newspaper said Obama's top national security advisers will meet with him to discuss the problem this week.

The advisers do not yet agree on the contours of a new approach, the report said.

But there is a growing consensus that key corruption cases against people in Karzai's government should be resolved with face-saving compromises behind closed doors instead of public prosecutions, the paper reported.

“The current approach is not tenable,” The Post quoted one administration official as saying. “What will we get out of it? We'll arrest a few mid-level Afghans, but we'll lose our ability to operate there and achieve our principal goals.”

The report contrasted with Obama's public remarks on Friday, when he vowed to keep up pressure on Karzai to tackle widespread corruption, saying it threatened the stability of that country.

Speaking at a news conference, Obama spoke of progress on various fronts in Afghanistan, but said it was crucial to tackle corruption “as part of helping President Karzai stand up a broadly accepted, legitimate government.”

Obama said that every time he talks to Karzai, he reminds him the “only way you are going to have a stable government over the long term is if the Afghan people feel you are looking out for them.”

“And that means making sure that the tradition of corruption in the government is reduced,” he added. “And we're going to keep on putting pressure on him on that front.”

British troops in Afghanistan face heroin smuggling probe

LONDON: British military police are investigating claims that the country's servicemen may have trafficked heroin out of Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence in London said Sunday.

An inquiry has been launched into what officials termed “unsubstantiated” allegations that service personnel had bought the drug and used military aircraft to transport it out of the war-torn country.

British troops at airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar are under investigation and security has been tightened with additional sniffer dogs brought in as part of the crackdown.

“We are aware of these allegations,” said a ministry spokeswoman.

“Although they are unsubstantiated, we take any such reports very seriously and we have already tightened our existing procedures both in Afghanistan and in the UK, including through increasing the use of trained sniffer dogs.”

She added that if any British troops were found to have smuggled illegal narcotics they would “feel the full weight of the law”.

Afghanistan is the world's largest heroin producer with annual exports worth up to three billion dollars.

Clinton resuming ‘last chance’ Mideast peace talks

WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is shepherding Mid-east talks this week that she says may be the last chance for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Clinton and former Sen. George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region, planned to be in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, for talks Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

They are scheduled to shift to Jerusalem for a second day of talks Wednesday, and it’s likely that Obama will resume negotiations with Abbas and Netanyahu in New York the following week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The most immediate obstacle for negotiators is a Palestinian demand that Israel extend a curb on new housing construction in the West Bank – a constraint that Israel says will expire Sept. 26.

The Palestinians have insisted that without an extension, the peace talks will go nowhere.
Raising the pressure, Obama said Friday that he has urged Netanyahu to extend the partial moratorium as long as talks are making progress.

However, Netanyahu said Sunday that the current restrictions will not remain in place, though there will still be some limits on construction.

Netanyahu told Mideast envoy Tony Blair the Palestinians want a total freeze in construction.

“That will not happen,” he said. Israel will not build “tens of thousands of housing units that are in the pipeline, but we will not freeze the lives of the residents,” Netanyahu said.

Obama also said he’s told Abbas that if he shows he’s serious about negotiating, it will give political maneuver room for Netanyahu on the settlement issue. Abbas knows “the window for creating a Palestinian state is closing,” Obama said.

Clinton’s task, Obama said, is to get the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to “start thinking about how can they help the other succeed, as opposed to how do they figure out a way for the other to fail.”

Previewing the upcoming talks, Clinton said “there is a certain momentum” after an initial round in Washington on Sept. 2., which marked the first direct Israeli-Palestinian talks in nearly two years.

In an appearance this past week at the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton was asked why those who see little chance of reaching a settlement in the one-year deadline Obama has set are wrong.

“I think they’re wrong because I think that both sides and both leaders recognize that there may not ever be another chance,” she replied.

The “last chance” notion is based in part on the knowledge that Abbas is living on borrowed time, in a political sense. His electoral mandate expired in 2009 and he fears a Hamas takeover of the West Bank, which is supposed to make up the bulk of an independent Palestinian state.

Time is a motivating factor for the Israelis, too. Some Israelis believe the longer that Israel occupies the West Bank and its growing Arab population, the more Israel’s future as a Jewish state is imperiled. Creating a sovereign Palestine would get Israel out of the occupation business.

More broadly, the status quo is a drag on US interests. The wars and grievances that flowed from Israel’s 1948 founding as a Jewish state have divided the Middle East, and US officials have argued that the conflict begets hatred and suspicion of the US as Israel’s principal ally.

Obama wants a deal within a year; Israelis are deeply skeptical after decades of failed efforts.

Netanyahu acknowledges the widespread doubts.

“There are many obstacles, many skeptics, and many reasons for skepticism,” he said in a Jewish new year address last Tuesday. He called the resumed negotiations “an important step in an attempt” to make peace, but added that it “is an attempt because there is no certainty of success.”

One concern of all the parties to the talks is Hamas, the militant Islamist movement that refuses to negotiate and opposes Israel’s very existence. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, which is supposed to be part of a negotiated Palestinian state along with most of the West Bank.

Michele Dunne, a Mideast expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it appears the talks will go nowhere until the two sides, with Clinton’s help, can find a compromise solution to the settlements issue.

“That’s probably going to have to be the first item on the agenda,” she said in a telephone interview. “The first priority is to make sure that the talks don’t collapse at the end of September.”

She gives the current format for negotiations about six months before the US will have to either give up or put forth its own peace plan and try to rally support for it from moderate Arab states. – AP

Five killed as rickshaw collides with train in Multan

MULTAN: Five people were killed when a motorcycle rickshaw rammed into the Karachi-bound Zakarya Express on Monday morning.

According to rescue sources, the accident took place when one wheel of the motorcycle rickshaw stuck into the railway track near the area of Basti Daadwala in Shujaabad.

The dead included four women and a man, while two children also suffered injuries.

Their bodies had been shifted to the District Headquarter Hospital. However, bodies had not yet been identified.

Three killed in Karachi firing inciden

KARACHI: Unknown assailants gunned down three people and injured one in various incidents of firing in Karachi on Sunday night.

Police initially told DawnNews that incidents of firing occurred in different areas of the Ranchore Line neighbourhood, injuring four people.

The four were shifted to a nearby hospital where three of them — Kashif, Zubair and Prem — succumbed to their injuries. The condition of the fourth victim Asif was stated as critical