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IMMIGRATION
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NEW ZEALAND
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The News
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Explorer |
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 Israel test-fires anti-missile system |
Annan postpones Asia visit
By Masood Haider
 UNITED
NATIONS DEC 1. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a surprise
Thursday night move postponed his scheduled visits to China,
Republic of Korea, Japan and Vietnam as the UN budget crisis
instigated by the US Ambassador John Bolton took a turn for the
worst .
A statement issued by his spokesman said "the Secretary-General
has informed the governments of China, Republic of Korea, Japan
and Vietnam of his intention of postponing the upcoming Asian
visit because of pressing matters, in particular the discussions
over the UN budget, and other urgent political issues."
Earlier in a rare public disagreement Britain on Wednesday
rejected US Ambassador John Bolton's proposal to block UN budget
unless the UN General Assembly adopts the reforms package .
Britain strongly supports the reform package, but along with the
other 24 EU states it has ruled out a budget delay. "We are not
in favor of holding any individual items or the budget hostage
to other issues but we do say very clearly that by the end of
this year we need clarity and a determination to tackle a better
management for the United Nations," said the Britain's UN
ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.
 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, warned that any delay in
approving next year's budget would create a "serious financial
crisis". Mr Bolton says a temporary budget could be passed to
ensure UN operations did not grind to a halt.
The
reform proposals are intended to improve the efficiency and
running of the UN bureaucracy by handing the secretary general's
office greater power to oversee management, finance and
staffing. These responsibilities are currently the remit of the
unwieldy 191-state General Assembly, where developing nations
fear losing their influence.
At a closed-door meeting of the G 77 last week, Chairman of the
group Neil Stafford of Jamaica told delegates that Secretary
General Kofi Annan should be told in clear terms that his job is
not that of a chief executive officer and that the United
nations cannot be run like a U.S. or a multinational
corporation.
In a letter to Jan Eliasson, president of the General Assembly
Mr Neil has also implicitly accused the UN Secretariat of trying
to bypass the U.N.'s Fifth Committee, which deals with
administrative and budgetary matters, and the Advisory Committee
on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), in the
proposed reform exercise.
The stand-off is also frustrating Mr Annan, who is desperate to
introduce reforms before he leaves office next year in an
attempt to improve a reputation badly tarnished by the scandal.
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India
says its U.S. ties can balance rising China
NEW DELHI, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Growing
warmth in ties between India and the United States can help
offset China's rising economic and military clout in Asia, a top
Indian official said on Monday. Ties between India and the
United States, once on opposite sides of the Cold War divide,
have warmed in recent years, with the two nations forging a
strategic partnership encompassing many areas from military to
economic and space. The high point came in July when Washington
took a landmark decision to resume cooperation with India on
civil nuclear energy after a gap of many years.
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Saddam
argues with trial judge
NOV 28: Saddam Hussein argued with the
judge and complained about Iraq's occupiers as his trial for
crimes against humanity resumed in a Baghdad court.
The deposed Iraqi president, carrying a copy of the Quran under
his arm, arrived slightly late on Monday for the court session,
the second in his trial and seven aides, which opened on 19
October then adjourned for 40 days.
"They brought me here to the door and I was handcuffed. They
cannot bring the defendant in, in handcuffs," Saddam said, when
asked by chief Judge Rizgar Muhammad Amin to explain his
lateness.
He said he had to walk up four flights of stairs because of a
broken lift in the heavily fortified courthouse.
"I will tell the police about this," Judge Amin told him in the
cool, polite tone he maintained during several tirades by the
former president on the first day of the trial.
"I don't want you to tell them, I want you to order them,"
Saddam replied. "They are invaders and occupiers and you have to
order them."
Saddam, wearing a white shirt and dark jacket, then argued with
the judge about his rights and complained that his jailers had
taken a pen and piece of paper away from him. As his voice rose
heatedly, television footage of the proceedings broke away and
the sound was cut.
Saddam Hussein is charged with crimes against humanity
The images are being broadcast by Court TV, an American company,
with a 30-minute delay to allow officials to interrupt the
footage if anything they do not approve of is shown.
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WHITE
HOUSE PLAN IF SADDAM FOUND 'NOT GUILTY'
NOV 28: Senior Bush administration officials have considered the
unthinkable: What if Saddam Hussein is found not guilty in his
trial?
According to Drudge Report, "There will be more charges filed
against him, and more charges after that, if needed... he has
committed tremendous crimes," a top Bush source explained last
week from Washington.
Saddam and seven of his former henchmen currently face charges
of crimes against humanity over a 1982 massacre of Shiite
villagers.
A defiant Saddam has refused to recognize the court and has
declared himself president of Iraq.
Prosecutors hope to win a conviction by using videotape of
Saddam issuing assassination orders, says the news magazine.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police say they have captured an Al-Qaeda cell
plotting to kill the chief judge in charge of building the case.
The trial resumes Monday after a five-week recess.
Developing...
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X
over Dick Cheney:
CNN OPERATOR FIRED AFTER SUGGESTING 'X' OVER CHENEY WAS 'FREE
SPEECH'
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New
US bill would let some immigrants gain legal status
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8
Nabbed in Alleged Plot against Saddam Judge
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 NRI
is Asian 2005 |
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Pakistani-American
activist picked up by FBI |
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Canada
to spend $920m on immigrants |
'UFOs
are for real - Canada's ex-defense minister'
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Scientists
discover singing iceberg in Antarctica
BERLIN, Nov 24 (Reuters) Scientists
monitoring earth movements in Antarctica believe they have found
a singing iceberg. Sound waves from the iceberg had a frequency
of around 0.5 hertz, too low to be heard by humans, but by
playing them at higher speed the iceberg sounded like a swarm of
bees or an orchestra warming up, the German Alfred Wegener
institute for polar and marine research said in Science magazine
on Friday. "The tune even goes up and down, just like a real
song," scientists said.
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Native
Americans mourn loss of land with "Unthanksgiving" rite |
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`Bomb Al-Jazeera´ |
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EU: Iran's nuclear documents suspicious |
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Toxic
slick flows into major Chinese city |
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Aga
Khan's Dealings Stir Questions of Financial Transparency |
Iraq
awaits verdict of DNA test on Zarqawi 'corpse'
NOV 22: bu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in the Middle
East, may have been killed in a firefight in Iraq, according to
the country's Foreign Minister. Hoshyar Zebari said yesterday
that urgent DNA tests were being carried out on the bodies of
several people who died when US and Iraqi forces stormed a house
in the northern city of Mosul. The US administration, which had
offered a $25m (£15m) reward for the leader of al-Qa'ida in
Iraq, played down the reports but State television in Jordan,
where 59 people died in a series of hotel bombings for which
Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility, carried the alleged
death as "urgent news" in a scrolling newsbar at the bottom of
the screen, suggesting that Jordanian officials believe the
report to be credible.
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Zarqawi
"Not Killed" in Mosul Gunfight
NOV 21: U.S. officials said Monday that
they do not believe Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian insurgent
leader, was among those killed in a gunfight in northern Iraq
Sunday."I do not believe that we got him," said
Zelmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. "But his days are
numbered. We're closer to that goal but unfortunately we didn't
get him in Mosul."
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al-Zarqawi
may have been killed in Mosul
NOV 20:
The
Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group,
may have been killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight
terrorists blew themselves up in the northern Iraqi city of
Mosul.
The unconfirmed report claimed that the explosions occurred
while coalition forces surrounded the house in which al-Zarqawi
was hiding. American and Iraqi forces are looking into the
report. (Jerusalem Post)
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Jeddah Woman Wins Divorce for One Riyal
JEDDAH,
19 Nov - A Saudi man here recently agreed to divorce his wife
for one riyal, Al-Madinah Arabic daily reported yesterday. The
man, however, refused to accept the amount from the woman,
mother of his four sons, but the judge insisted that he take the
money to complete divorce procedures in front of him, the paper
said. According to Al-Madinah, the woman demanded a divorce from
him after he had abandoned her for a long period without
providing proper accommodation and money to meet her expenses.
"If he had asked me to pay any amount of money in lieu of
divorce, I would have paid it without hesitation," the paper
quoted her as saying.
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Pakistan
Gets $5.8 Billion in New Quake Aid
NOV 19: The world pledged a whopping $3.4 billion in new quake
aid for Pakistan at a make-or-break donor conference Saturday,
but aid groups warned that much of the promises were loans that
will heap more debt on the impoverished country.
Pakistan nonetheless hailed the conference as a success, with President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf thanking the nearly 80 attending nations and
international agencies for "helping Pakistan in this hour of
need." He said the gesture "will never be forgotten."
The $3.4 billion in new pledges raises the total aid pledge to
$5.8 billion — slightly more than the government said it needed
to rebuild from the quake.
But about
two-thirds of the money was in the form of loans, Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz said.
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China
to Buy 70 Boeing 737s from USA |
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China
to vaccinate 14bn poultry |
Pentagon
announces plans to lease reconnaissance planes to India
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 - The
Pentagon plans to lease two P-3C
reconnaissance aircraft to India to replace the two Soviet-built
IL-38 May aircraft which are reaching the end of their
operational life.
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Mexico,
Venezuela Sever Ties
Nov 14: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Mexican leader
Vicente Fox of being a "puppy" of President Bush and said:
"Don't mess with me, sir." Fox shot back on Monday that "we have
dignity in this country" and demanded an apology. Now the two
nations are withdrawing their ambassadors.
The severing of
diplomatic relations came after a week of verbal sparring that
highlighted Latin America's differences over free trade and
relations with the United States. The conservative Fox tends to
side with Washington on many issues, while Chavez, a socialist
and populist, has been one of the hemisphere's strongest critics
of Bush.
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Cargo
plane crashes in Afghanistan, Nov 11: All 10 people on board are dead after a Russian cargo
plane crashed into the mountains near the Afghan capital
today. Police say bad weather is believed to have played a role in the
crash. A spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force
says NATO troops are helping at the crash site. The site of the
crash is near Bagram, the U.S.-led coalition's headquarters in
Afghanistan. A NATO spokesperson says the plane was not one of theirs.
Geo reports the crash site, being lashed with
rain and covered in low clouds as rescuers and local villagers
searched for bodies.
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“The
Message” director dies from bomb wounds, AMMAN, Nov 11:
Prominent Syrian film director Mustafa Akkad, died
Friday of injuries sustained in one of the suicide
attacks on luxury hotels in the Jordanian capital, Arab
TV reported.
Akkad, 68, was wounded in the neck in Wednesday's attack
in a hotel that also killed his 33-year-old daughter
Rima.
He is best known for his 1977 epic "The Message",
starring Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas.
67 people killed in the suicide bombings that targeted
three Amman hotels including Palestine intelligence
services chief Bashir Nafay.
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