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Tuesday, September 22, 2009 NEW YORK: Aishwarya Rai has made it to the 100 most beautiful women list published by Harpers and Queen Magazine. The Bollywood Beauty was placed ninth just like last year. Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie topped the list followed by supermodel Christy Turlington, Queen Rania of Jordan and other luminaries.

NEW DELHI: Commenting on the house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed in Lahore was essentially “a face-saving technique”, India today reiterated that Pakistan should investigate his role in masterminding the Mumbai terror attacks and look for evidence against him on its own soil. On reports that Saeed had been put under house arrest, Home Minister P Chidambaram pointed out that the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder had been charged under two FIRs “unrelated to 26/11”. “If that is a face-saving technique, I have no objection. My demand is that now that he has been arrested, he should be interrogated on the 26/11 incidents; his role in the 26/11 attacks must be investigated,” Chidambaram said. He said Pakistan should look for evidence on its own soil.On the Pakistan government’s stand that there was not enough evidence to take action against Saeed, Chidambaram said: “Evidence is on Pakistani soil. When Pakistan says give us evidence, evidence is not on Indian soil — all the evide...

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed a demand on Tuesday that US-led foreign troops operating in the neighbouring countries of Iraq and Afghanistan leave the region.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 WASHINGTON: Last week, we thought we knew what Barack Obama's Afghanistan strategy was; today, we do not have much of a clue. His out-of-the-blue musings in his Sunday morning TV interviews that "until I'm satisfied we've got the right strategy, I'm not going to be sending some young man or woman over there", indicated an alarming funk at the White House. That it coincided with the leak of his Afghan commander General Stanley McChrystal's assessment, that without significant reinforcements the campaign "will likely result in failure", only adds to the sense of disarray. On the US's most pressing foreign-policy issue, there appears to be a divergence between the political and military leaderships.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 TEHRAN: Iran on Monday welcomed the US move to abandon plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe and denied that the Islamic republic posed a missile threat, Geo News reported."The Islamic republic welcomes any action that serves to decrease arms races," it quoted foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi as saying.US President Barack Obama last week announced he would shelve plans to site parts of a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, and instead deploy more mobile equipment targeting Iran's short- and medium-range missiles.Ghashghavi called baseless and unsubstantiated the idea that the missile plan had been to counter a military threat from Iran."The claim that Iran is a missile threat was made by the United States with political, opportunist and domineering intentions," he said.Ghashghavi put the original shield plan down to "missile competition between Russia and the United States, and in o...

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 SRINAGAR: In occupied Kashmir, the Eid-ul-Fitr, today, was marked with massive Eid gatherings, anti-India protests and clashes between the Indian police and demonstrators.Indian troops after using brute force foiled an attempt by a large number of people to break the police siege around the residence of senior Kashmiri Hurriyet leader, Syed Ali Gilani to bring him out for Eid prayers. Dozens of people were injured on the occasion and many were arrested. The senior leader continued to remain under house arrest for the 12th day, today.Thousands of people, chanting pro-freedom slogans, took out a procession from Eidgah in Srinagar, which was intercepted by the police at Kawdara. The troops resorted to heavy baton charge to break up a demonstration in Lal Chowk. People took to the streets in Sopore, Baramulla, Islamabad and other towns and cities to protest against the Indian state terrorism.Addressing a gathering of hundreds of thousands of people in Eidgah, t...

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 KABUL: Afghanistan's overcrowded prison system has become a "sanctuary and base" from which militants can plan attacks on international forces, as well as a key recruiting ground for new fighters, according to a report by the top US commander in the country.Even detainees not previously linked with the Taliban or al-Qaida are at risk of being radicalised because a lack of personnel to interrogate them means many are kept at the Bagram air base facility for long periods without charge, said General Stanley McChrystal, who is in charge of US and Nato forces in the country.The message came in a four-page supplement to a main report by McChrystal, warning that more international troops and revamped military tactics were needed to avoid possible defeat in the country.Attacks apparently planned from inside prisons included the storming of a luxury hotel in Kabul in January 2008 in which seven people were killed, McChrystal said in his report, detail...