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Sunday, August 02, 2009 ::HAVANA: Cuba’s president, Raul Castro, has offered to discuss the future of Cuba with the US. In making the offer, he said dialogue was possible as long as the US did not try to change the island's communist government. Castro, speaking to the island's National Assembly, said he wanted to respond to recent overtures by Washington but the Cuban socialist system of government would remain non-negotiable. Castro said he had been pleased with the less aggressive, more respectful approaches to himself and his brother, former leader Fidel Castro, by the Obama administration. In his address he said he had not been elected President to return capitalism to Cuba or to surrender the revolution.

Sunday, August 02, 2009::JAKARTA: An Indonesian passenger plane carrying 16 people disappeared over eastern Indonesia on Sunday.The Twin Otter plane was on a commercial flight over the remote Papua region when it lost contact with ground officials, said Capt. Nikmatullah, the director of operations of airline Merpati Nusantara.No trace had been found of the plane more than four hours after it took off, said Nikmatullah, who goes by a single name. The aircraft was carrying enough fuel to keep it in the air for 3 hours, he told a TV channel.The plane was on a 50-minute journey from Sentani, a major airport in Papua, to the town of Oksibil, he said.Much of Papua is covered with impenetrable jungles and mountains.In the past, crashed planes have never been found.Indonesia, a nation of more than 18,000 islands, has seen several major air crashes in recent years that have killed more than 220.In 2007, the European Union banned all Indonesian carriers from landing in the bloc. It recently li...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 AMSTERDAM: Five gay Dutch-American couples tied the knot aboard a boat Saturday during Amsterdam's gay pride festival, as thousands of revellers took to waterborne floats on the city's historic canals.Organisers said around 560,000 people turned out for the celebrations in the capital of the Netherlands, the first country to legalise gay marriage in April 2001.Applause rang out from a huge crowd of spectators as the couples were married on one of the 80 boats transformed into parade floats for the celebrations.Some of the newlyweds had travelled from New York, where gay marriage is not legal, to the Netherlands in order to say their wedding vows."Unfortunately, we have had to come all the way to Amsterdam to be able to get married legally," lamented 25-year-old Patrick Decker."The United States is the land of freedom, but homosexuals are still not free to get married," added another one of the newlyweds, 40-year-old Hans Heijnis from...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 RIYADH: The Ministry of Health has arranged four million doses of vaccine to treat swine flu during the Umrah and Haj pilgrimages, Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah announced at a news conference at the ministry on Saturday.The minister said that the news conference was held to keep the public informed of all developments regarding the spread of swine flu in the Kingdom. “We want to be transparent in all our activities regarding the control, spread and treatment of the disease in the Kingdom.”He assured the families of those who have died of swine flu that full inquiries would be held into the deaths. The minister said that blood samples of the four people who have died in the Kingdom have been sent to Center For Disease Control (CDC) in the US for necessary analysis.Regarding the forthcoming Haj season, the Foreign Ministry has not yet stipulated quarantine requirements for Haj visas at its overseas missions. The Kingdom’s recommendations include the exc...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 MANILA: Thousands of mourners are gathering at Manila Cathedral to pay their last respects to their beloved leader former Philippine President Corazon Aquino Sunday. Aquino, who died at the age of 76 on Saturday after a long battle with colon cancer, led millions of Filipinos in protests against dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a popular revolt in 1986, before taking over as president.Popular as Aunt Cory, Aquino was to be buried on Wednesday after a family-led ceremony, in accordance with her wishes not to be given a state funeral, the presidential palace said. Schools across the country were to close for the day.She will be laid to rest beside her husband, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, who was assassinated in 1983 after flying home from exile to lead the anti-Marcos opposition.Hundreds of ordinary Filipinos filed past her coffin overnight Saturday as it was opened for public viewing.By Sunday morning, thousands more had lined up to see the former president ly...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 LONDON: The international military mission in Afghanistan has delivered "much less than it promised" due to the lack of a realistic strategy, an influential committee of British lawmakers said Sunday.In a report, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said without a clear strategy stabilising Afghanistan had become "considerably more difficult than might otherwise have been the case."Lawmakers criticised US policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan and warned the "considerable cultural insensitivity" of some coalition troops had caused serious damage to Afghans' perceptions that will be "difficult to undo"."We conclude that the international effort in Afghanistan since 2001 has delivered much less than it promised and that its impact has been significantly diluted by the absence of a unified vision and strategy grounded in the realities of Afghanistan's history, culture and politics," the report said....

Sunday, August 02, 2009 WASHINGTON: The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan is weighing advice that thousands of additional American forces are needed to prevail in the fight against insurgents.A number of analysts who helped draft an assessment for the new commander, General Stanley McChrystal, are publicly advocating a major increase in US troop numbers in Afghanistan -- a politically-sensitive proposal that could meet resistance in the White House and Congress.A prominent Washington military analyst who was part of the assessment effort, Anthony Cordesman, said it was crucial that more combat brigade teams -- which range from 3,000 to 5,000 troops -- be deployed as part of a shift in strategy.Cordesman and other analysts on the team said the mission had been neglected for years and that the target for Afghan security forces also needed to dramatically increase from current goals of 134,000 for the army and about 82,000 for the police.Cordesman was among a dozen analysts ...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 ANKARA: Plan to demolish a building in Cankiri, central Turkey went badly wrong when the 25-metre high structure rolled over onto its roof. The building, a flour factory built in 1928 which had been idle since the 1980s, was scheduled to be demolished to make way for a shopping centre. None was reported to have been injured.

Sunday, August 02, 2009 TEHRAN: The first court trial of the detainees arrested during the post-election unrest was held on Saturday. According to the indictment, a number of the accused confessed that the post-election unrest was preplanned and the plan was following the timetable of the velvet revolution to the extent that over 100 stages of the 198 steps of Gene Sharp were implemented in the foiled velvet revolution. The indictment said that despite warnings by the Supreme Leader, certain groups propagated the idea of the possibility of fraud in the election without presenting any documentation, a claim which was widely disseminated by the enemies of the Islamic Revolution. It said one of the political groups guilty of this offense is the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin Organization, which began making claims about the strong possibility of vote-rigging months before the presidential election. The indictment said that forged documents were found at the house of former industries minis...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 KABUL: Following the bloodiest month for foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan, foreign officials announce the death of four more US-led soldiers in the war-ravaged country. Senior US military officials in Kabul confirmed that three American troops were killed on Saturday when a roadside explosion ripped through an army convoy in the troubled southern Kandahar Province. More than two hundred foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year. A Saturday statement by the French military confirms that a French soldier was also killed in deadly clashes with Taliban militants north of Kabul. Two other soldiers were wounded in the clashes. Deaths among US-led NATO troops have also soared this year, particularly in the insurgency-hit southern and eastern provinces where deadly fighting is ongoing. Seventy-four foreign troops -- including 43 Americans -- have so far been killed in militant attacks across Afghanistan during the five past weeks. July was the de...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 KABUL: Following the bloodiest month for foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan, foreign officials announce the death of four more US-led soldiers in the war-ravaged country. Senior US military officials in Kabul confirmed that three American troops were killed on Saturday when a roadside explosion ripped through an army convoy in the troubled southern Kandahar Province. More than two hundred foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year. A Saturday statement by the French military confirms that a French soldier was also killed in deadly clashes with Taliban militants north of Kabul. Two other soldiers were wounded in the clashes. Deaths among US-led NATO troops have also soared this year, particularly in the insurgency-hit southern and eastern provinces where deadly fighting is ongoing. Seventy-four foreign troops -- including 43 Americans -- have so far been killed in militant attacks across Afghanistan during the five past weeks. July was the de...

Sunday, August 02, 2009 WASHINGTON: The United States said Saturday it has asked Switzerland, which represents US interests in Tehran, to confirm reports that three American tourists were arrested through the border with Iraq. "We have seen Iranian media reports stating that three American citizens have been detained in Iran," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood in a statement."We have asked our Swiss protecting power to confirm these reports with Iranian authorities and, if true, to seek consular access," he said. "The protection of American citizens is our highest priority," he added. In northern Iraq, a Kurdish official said earlier that three US backpackers were arrested after having been warned on the Iraqi side not to hike in the mountains because of the proximity of the border with Iran. Beshro Ahmed, media adviser for general security in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, said the two men and a woman had entered from Turkey earlier along...

Sunday, August 02, 2009::ROME: Michael Phelps defied the odds to deliver another crushing defeat to Milorad Cavic on Saturday, besting the Serbian yet again in the 100m butterfly World Championships final.Phelps smashed the 50-second barrier with a time of 49.82sec, and handed Cavic a bigger defeat than the one he suffered by a fingertip at the Beijing Olympics.Cavic lost by one-hundredth of a second to Phelps in the 100m fly at the Beijing Games and had hoped to turn the tables on the American superstar in Rome.Phelps was having none of it."It was an incredible race, we all went a lot faster than I expected," said Cavic, who clocked 49.95sec.As the crowd strained to watch them, Cavic made the most of the moment, taking up a stance facing Phelps across the blocks prior to the start.Phelps, famous for rising to the big occasion, felt the tension as well.Cavic appeared perfectly placed to deal Phelps his second defeat of these championships.He grabbed Phelps's world record...