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LONDON: Former British prime minister Tony Blair told the Iraq war inquiry Friday that Saddam Hussein had been a "monster" and he could not have been allowed to develop weapons of mass destruction. Blair said the threat posed by the Iraqi leader had been barely tolerable before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but the attacks showed the West could no longer risk him reactivating his weapons programmes. "My assessment of risk prior to September 11 was that Saddam was a menace, that he was a threat, he was a monster, but we would have to try and make best," he said. This assessment "completely changed" after the attacks on New York and Washington. The former premier told the public inquiry into the 2003 war that Saddam was in charge of "an appalling regime" and "we couldn't run the risk of such a regime being allowed to develop WMD (weapons of mass destruction)". Blair also described Saddam as a "pr...

Friday, January 29, 2010 GENEVA: The death toll from the swine flu pandemic has risen to at least 14,711, up 569 from a week ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday. WHO said the spread of the A (H1N1) virus peaked in most of the northern hemisphere in October and November, but transmission was still active in parts of North Africa, eastern and southeastern Europe and south and east Asia. "As of 24 January 2010, worldwide more than 209 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 14,711 deaths," WHO said in its weekly bulletin on the virus. In north Africa, WHO said data suggested swine flu transmission was still "active and geographically widespread", particularly in Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Egypt. WHO added that the virus appeared to have peaked in north Africa in December or January. Several European countries, Austria, Albania, Bulgaria, ...

Friday, January 29, 2010 DUBAI: Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott US goods, blaming industrialised countries for global warming. In a new audio tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and said the way to stop it was to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt. He blamed Western industrialised nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change." He also targeted the US economy in the recording, calling for a boycott of American products and an end to the dollar's domination as a world currency.

Friday, January 29, 2010 BAKU: Two soldiers in Azerbaijan shot and killed four fellow servicemen before committing suicide, the defence ministry said Friday. "Two soldiers opened fire killing four servicemen and wounding two before killing themselves," ministry deputy spokesman Temur Abdullayev told foreign news agency. He said the incident occurred on Thursday evening but refused to provide any further details. "We will issue a statement with more details later," he said. Azerbaijan's news agency, however, quoted military sources as saying the two soldiers who carried out the shooting had been shot and killed while trying to flee the scene. It said a local division commander was among the dead victims.

Friday, January 29, 2010 MOGADISHU: A medical worker says the heaviest fighting in months has killed at least 15 civilians in Somalia's capital. Ali Muse says women and children were among the dead and that more than 30 people were wounded. Muse heads the ambulance service in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. A spokesman for the Islamic insurgency says the fighting started when the Islamists attacked government bases and African Union peacekeeping troops around the city.

Friday, January 29, 2010 JOHANNESBURG: Some of the last of Mahatma Gandhi's ashes, kept in secret for decades by a family friend, will be scattered at sea off South Africa's coast on Saturday, 62 years after his assassination, his family said. After a radical nationalist shot Gandhi on January 30, 1948, he was cremated according to Hindu custom. Normally, ashes are immersed in rivers or the sea within days, but for Gandhi, his remains were divided to many urns and sent around India and across the globe so his followers could hold memorials. One urn came to South Africa, where Gandhi had come to practise law in 1893, living in the country on and off for 21 years. A family friend, Vilas Mehta, helped with the arrangements for the prayers, and the ashes were immersed after 10 days, according to the Gandhi Development Trust in Durban. Unbeknownst to the family, Mehta kept a few remnants of the ashes, and guarded them in secret for the rest of her life, the Trust said. ...

January 29, 2010 PERTH: Pakistan once again showed disappointing performance against Australia being defeated in the fourth consecutive One-day International here at the WACA ground on Friday. Chasing a difficult target of 278 runs, the entire Pakistan team collapsed for a mere 142 in 37.5 overs, giving Australia a 135-run big-margin victory. Australia are leading the five-match series 4-0 with one ODI remaining and they are aiming for another whitewash after making a clean sweep in the three-Test series. Pakistan were in trouble right from the beginning with losing opener Salman Butt (nought) in the very first over and later Younis Khan (6) when they were on just 14. Kamran Akmal also went for 17 and then captain Mohammad Yousuf for 10, Pakistan were reeling at 39 for four. Later, young batsmen Umar Akmal and Fawad Alam added 60 valuable runs for the fifth wicket before Fawad was run out for 21. Umar Akmal made 38 , the highest score of the Pakistan innings, with two fou...

Friday, January 29, 2010 WASHINGTON: US researchers said they feared almost half of all those injured by the devastating Haiti quake may be children, urging relief agencies to plan accordingly. A statistical study by a specialist group at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California showed that those hurt in the January 12 quake will likely "include an extraordinarily high number of children, more than 110,000, nearly half of the estimated total." The study was conducted by Jeffrey Upperman and Robert Neches PhD, who have developed a software tool to help medical service providers plan their responses in the case of disasters and accidents involving children. Using existing data, the Pediatric Emergency Decision Support System (PEDSS) uses statistical methods to estimate how many of the victims of a disaster may be children and what care they might need. "Such needs in Haiti are particularly intense, because fully 35 percent...

Friday, January 29, 2010 WASHINGTON: Clandestine efforts by some countries to create alternative versions of the Internet for political ends could put the Web at risk, the man responsible for organizing the network said while talking to a French news agency. Rod Beckstrom, the CEO of ICANN -- the firm which oversees how the Internet is organized -- said unnamed nations had tried to create parallel networks, but he expressed confidence they would eventually stick with the global-used original. "It has been done," said Beckstrom. "We don't speculate about who is doing it, it is really their private business." Beckstrom heads the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a California-based firm which controls a master list of domain names and IP addresses known as "the root," which is crucial to all Internet use. The blogosphere has been awash with accusations that China and Russia are developing alternative Internet roots, which woul...

Friday, January 29, 2010 WASHINGTON: NASA on Wednesday gave the green light for the US Endeavour space shuttle to blast off towards the International Space Station on February 7 carrying six astronauts. Lift-off is set for 04:39 am (0939 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida in what marks the final year of space exploration for the shuttle fleet, which is due to be mothballed at the end of September. Only five more shuttle flights, including the Endeavour launch, are planned, NASA said in a statement after a meeting of the US space agency's scientists. During its 13-day mission Endeavour's crew will deliver the US module Tranquility, the last big piece of equipment to be flown to the ISS for installation. Tranquility will provide extra room for crew members as well as the life support and environmental control systems. It will also help recycle waste water and produce oxygen. The Endeavour's crew will also carry out three spacewalks dur...

Friday, January 29, 2010 PARIS: Gene scientists have coaxed bacteria into eating agricultural waste and secreting diesel, offering a potentially cheaper, greener energy source than present-day biofuels, a study released Wednesday said. Soaring demand for the current mainstay source for biodiesels -- corn, sugar and other starchy crops -- has caused the prices of some staple foods to soar as farmland is turned over to fuel crops, and worsened deforestation. Some researchers also doubt whether there is a significant net reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases, given the inputs needed from fossil fuels, in ploughing, fertilising, harvesting and processing and so on, to make biofuel. One problem is that oil from plants must first be chemically transformed. To purify ethanol, for example, it must be distilled from a fermentation broth. But biologists in the United States say they have invented a genetically-engineered version of a humble bacterium called Escherichia coli that c...

Friday, January 29, 2010 DAVOS: Former US president Bill Clinton appealed for big business to help Haiti "rise from the ashes" on Thursday as a rising Chinese leader made his biggest international appearance yet at the Davos forum. While Greece's prime minister attacked currency speculators, Clinton told the political and business elite at the World Economic Forum that real money could be made in the Caribbean nation where nearly 170,000 people died in the January 12 quake. "They need to be helped through this hideous natural disaster," said Clinton, a UN special envoy on Haiti, a country he said had been "punished by either being ignored or abused". "They've got the best chance they've ever had in my lifetime ... to escape that past and we have the best chance we've ever had to be a part of that," he said as he launched an initiative at the World Economic Forum to get private sector help for the stricken nation. Clinton...

Friday, January 29, 2010 DHAKA: The South Asian Games are being inaugurated today in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Pakistan are participating in 22 events out of 23 of the tournament. Besides Pakistan and hosts Bangladesh, teams from India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal and Afghanistan are taking part in the SA Games. Afghanistan has been included in the tournament for the first time. Cricket has been included in the tournament for the first time whereas more than 2,500 players will contest in 23 games including athletes, hockey, squash, football, volleyball. Prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the South Asian Games.