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Tuesday, August 04, 2009 KABUL: Amid intense public criticism for not providing enough equipment for troops fighting in Afghanistan, the UK is sending aircraft to the war-torn country that fails to assist the troops. Pilots say the fleet of six Merlins helicopters --due to go to Helmand in December-- are not properly equipped to take part in combat missions against Taliban because they are not armour-plated. The helicopters to be used to move troops and kit around the restive province lack Kevlar armour, The Daily Telegraph revealed Tuesday. The Merlins --which are successful at negating the threat from surface-to-air missiles-- are vulnerable to bullets and rocket attacks while landing. Pilots believe that the lack of protection will endanger the lives of passengers and crew. "We are going to send aircraft out to Afghanistan that are lacking in the required protection. It will be the same as driving a Land Rover along a road full of mines", a Merlin fleet source told the Bri...

August 04, 2009 CAIRO: Osama bin-Laden's deputy said in a video message released Monday that the al-Qaida leader's offers of a truce with the U.S. and Europe remained on the table, though he ridiculed President Barack Obama as "the new face of the same old crimes."In a video posted on an Islamic militant Web site, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, scorned the American president over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Nonetheless, al-Zawahri said "fair" truces offered by bin-Laden were still valid.In 2004, bin-laden offered a truce to European countries that do not attack Muslims. Two years later, he offered the American people a "long-term truce" without specifying the conditions, though in that same audio recording he also warned that his fighters were preparing new attacks in the United States."These offers were dealt with impolitely but are still valid, and the offer is fa...

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 GENEVA: At least 46 journalists have died while reporting the news in 21 countries this year, with Somalia and Mexico the most dangerous places for media, according to the International News Safety Institute (INSI).But the Brussels-based body, which tracks killings and deaths of journalists and their aides around the world, said the once-high casualty rate in Iraq was dwindling rapidly with the relative decline in violence in the country.Up to the end of July, six Somali reporters for local and foreign news organisations had been killed, while two journalists taken hostage in 2008 remained in captivity 11 months later, INSI said."But the situation in Mexico is causing grave concern with at least three deaths confirmed and three more under investigation," said the organisation, which is backed by major media and professional bodies around the globe.Three journalists had each died in Pakistan, Iraq and Philippines, it said. INSI noted a key media body i...

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 KANDAHAR: Suicide and rocket attacks killed five people and wounded more than 20 others across Afghanistan on Tuesday, fanning security fears just over two weeks before elections. A provincial governor survived an assassination attempt just 10 kilometres (six miles) outside the Afghan capital Kabul and eight rockets slammed into the city, wounding a child and adult, authorities said. In the southern province of Zabul, a suicide attacker walked up to an intelligence agency vehicle in a busy bazaar and blew himself up, killing one of the agency's staff and four civilian passers-by, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the attack was similar to scores carried out by the Taliban, which routinely bombs security services in a bloody insurgency that reached record levels this year. Sixteen civilians, including three children, two agency staffers and a policeman were wounded, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Jailani Khan said. Zabul ...

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 MUMBAI: They were once a feared presence on set, keeping an eye on their daughters to protect them from roving eyes or hands. But the days of Bollywood heroines being chaperoned by their mothers are numbered."Mummy-ji", as everyone from the director downwards always called her, is becoming a thing of the past, as actresses in India's popular Hindi-language film industry prefer to forge and manage their careers alone."I think the prime reason is because our industry has become more corporate and sleazy people have disappeared," said Celina Jaitley, the daughter of an Indian army colonel, whose first break was in the 2003 hit film "Janasheen"."Heroines are more confident to decide their lives on their own, unlike in the past," the 29-year-old former Miss India added.Bollywood has changed almost beyond recognition in recent years, not least in that it is now considered a profession worthy of girls from respectable famili...

, Tuesday, August 04, 2009 JOHANNESBURG: Health officials say that a college student has become the first South African to die from swine flu.The 22-year-old male student from the University of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, died July 28 after being sick for a week.Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that the H1N1 virus was confirmed as the cause of death Monday.The student went to the campus clinic with flu symptoms but was later admitted to a private hospital. He was treated for pneumonia but did not recover.There have been more than 500 swine flu cases reported in South Africa since mid-June. Some schools in Johannesburg have temporarily closed after pupils tested positive for swine flu.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 KABUL: Eight rockets struck the Afghan capital Tuesday, including one that landed near the US embassy, wounding a man and a child, the government said.The Taliban claimed responsibility for the dawn attacks, saying its fighters targeted Afghan soldiers and the Kabul international airport. Eight rockets landed in various parts of the city, at least one of them in the US embassy's neighbourhood and others near the airport and in the east, the interior ministry said. One child was wounded from shattered glass and a man was also hurt, but it was unclear how, ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told foreign news agency. A ninth rocket was discovered and defused, he said.