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Thursday, November 05, 2009 PARIS: Former French President Jacques Chirac said he was ready to appear in court over accusations of embezzlement during his time as mayor of Paris and was determined to clear his name.Chirac, 76, was ordered last week to stand trial over allegations that when he was mayor, the Paris City Hall handed out contracts for non-existent jobs as a favor to people who were politically useful."I want to be able to establish the reality of the facts rapidly so that this page can be turned definitively," Chirac said in an interview to be published in Thursday's edition of the daily Le Figaro.No former French head of state has been prosecuted for corruption and the case has stirred huge media interest in France.The Paris prosecutor's office, which had opposed the decision to send Chirac to trial, said Wednesday it would not appeal the judge's decision, removing a potential obstacle to a court hearing.The center-right Chirac, 76, was mayor from 1

Thursday, November 05, 2009 LISBON: A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Wednesday hundreds of kilometres off Portugal's Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, US and Portuguese geologists said.The US Geological Survey said that the quake struck 445 kilometres (277 miles) south of the islands at a depth of 10 km at 4:41 pm (1841 GMT), but it was not felt in the region.The remote islands form a quake-prone Portuguese archipelago located some 1,500 kilometres from Lisbon and are home to some 240,000 Azoreans. "The event was not felt in the region," said the Azores's volcanic and seismic activity institute, CIVISA.

Thursday, November 05, 2009 AMMAN: Jordan has granted citizenship to the wife and sons of Iraq's jailed former deputy premier Tareq Aziz, who have lived in the kingdom since the 2003 US-led invasion, an official said on Tuesday."The council of ministers granted Jordanian citizenship on Monday to Saddam Tareq Aziz and his mother Violet Yusef Nobud," the official told media."The elder son, Ziad Tareq Aziz, and his wife, Seba Mzaffar Antwan, have been granted citizenship recently, upon their request," he said.He gave no further details. Named foreign minister in 1983 and then deputy prime minister in 1991, Aziz, 73, turned himself into US forces in April 2003 after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.Aziz, who has been convicted for crimes against humanity, was from a Chaldean Catholic family.One of a handful of long-term senior survivors of Saddam's regime, Aziz is reported to have suffered two heart attacks in custody.About 4.4 million Iraqis have fled their homes

Thursday, November 05, 2009 KABUL: Five British soldiers were killed yesterday in a shooting at an Afghan police base in Helmand province, the Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday. The soldiers are believed to have been shot by a "rogue" Afghan policeman who opened fire in a police compound, Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, a military spokesman, told media. The British soldiers were living and working in the compound in the Nad-e’Ali district as part of an assignment to train Afghan national police officers, Wakefield said. The gunman and a possible accomplice escaped and a search is under way, Wakefield said. Three of the soldiers were from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, the ministry said. Next of kin have been informed, it added. "The death of five brave soldiers in a single incident is a terrible loss," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an e-mailed statement.

Thursday, November 05, 2009 NEW YORK: Many of the Middle East's most intractable problems could be solved if Iran accepts a proposed resolution for its controversial nuclear program, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said Wednesday. "Iran could be the door to a stable Middle East," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei told a think tank in New York. "I think it's very clear if we succeed on that, it would open the way, finally, to a new era, when Iran and the US... can work together," ElBaradei said at the Council on Foreign Relations, listing Iraq and Afghanistan as two areas where Iran could play a hugely constructive role. He said there was "a unique opportunity. I see it (for) the first time..., a genuine desire on both sides to seriously engage." However, ElBaradei warned this optimistic scenario depended on Iran signing up to the proposed deal and on Western powers sticking to diplomatic dialogue. If Israe

TEHRAN: Iran's state news agency says an earthquake has injured at least 700 people in the country's south. Local news agency reported Wednesday that 100 of the injured had been hospitalized while the rest were minor cases. The 4.9-magnitude quake struck the southern port city of Bandar Abbas at 2:56 a.m. local time, cutting power and telephone lines and sending residents streaming into the streets. The broadcast said there were no reports of deaths in the quake, which hit 850 miles (1,367 kilometers) south of the capital. Bandar Abbas is one of Iran's key ports and home to a large oil refinery that primarily serves the domestic market.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 WASHINGTON: Iran "must choose" whether to open the door to opportunity and prosperity, President Barack Obama said Wednesday in a statement marking 30 years since the storming of the US embassy in Tehran. "We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for," Obama said. "It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity and justice for its people."Radical Islamist students captured the city-center US embassy on November 4, 1979 just months after the Islamic revolution toppled the US-backed shah. The students, who took 52 American diplomats hostage and held them for 444 days, said they were responding to Washington's refusal to hand over the deposed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 LONDON: Five British soldiers have died from gunshot wounds in a single incident in Afghanistan, which is now under investigation, Britain's Ministry of Defence said Wednesday.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 LONDON: The premiere of A Christmas Carol took place in London's festive West End tonight. Jim Carrey, Bob Hoskins and Colin Firth all turned up to promote the movie at the star-studded premiere in Leicester Square. Alice Temperly, Daniel Merriweather, Denise Van Outen, Faryl Smith, Lisa Butcher, Little Boots, Meg Matthews, Ozwald Boateng, Peter Andre, Phil Tufnell, Richard Hammond, Saffron Aldridge, Spandau Ballet, Taio Cruz, The Noisettes, The Saturdays and more celebs turned up to celebrate the launch of the film, which also coincided with the turning on of London's Christmas lights.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 TEHRAN: A 4.9 magnitude earthquake has jolted Iranian city Bandar Abbas, leaving as many as 209 persons injured, Geo news reported. According to sources, the quake jolts were felt in Iranian city Bandar Abbas and its adjoining areas early on Wednesday morning with intensity 4.9 recorded at Richter scale but no causality has been reported in the calamity as yet.The quake struck at 2:56 am (2326 GMT Tuesday) and also rocked the adjoining Qeshm highland. "As of 6:00 am today, we have 209 people wounded in the earthquake said Farshid Abedi, the head of the main medical university in Hormozgan province where Bandar Abbas is located.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 HANOI: The death toll from Tropical Storm Mirinae rose to 57 in Vietnam on Wednesday as authorities stepped up rescue and relief operations in the affected central regions.In the hardest-hit province of Phu Yen, 24 more deaths were reported as information trickled in from isolated areas, disaster official Dang Thi Lanh said Wednesday. An additional 18 people were reported missing.The storm and flooding left another 18 people dead and seven others missing, according to disaster officials and the government's Web site.Soldiers using speed boats continued to move people from flooded homes and provide victims with instant noodles and water, Lanh said.Authorities have evacuated nearly 15,000 people from Phu Yen, where the water began to recede Wednesday. A day earlier, many families scrambled to rooftops to escape the overflowing Ha Thanh River.In the neighboring province of Binh Dinh, two military helicopters continued to drop food and water to villagers st

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 HAGUE: The former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before the international war crimes tribunal for the first time yesterday, but only to repeat that he needed more time to prepare his defence, Geo news reported.Karadzic's trial on genocide charges, regarded as one of the most important in the history of the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia, opened last week but he boycotted the opening sessions.Yesterday he told the court: "I don't want to boycott these proceedings, but I cannot take part in something that has been bad from the start and where my basic rights have been violated."Representing himself, he repeated that he had not had sufficient time to read the more than one million pages of evidence and listen to or watch more than 300 hours of audio and video material in order to prepare his defence.Yesterday's administrative hearing was adjourned after less than two hours. The presiding judge, O-Gon Kwon, said

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 NEW YORK: Republican Chris Christie defeated the incumbent Democratic governor of New Jersey Wednesday, US media projected, in a second electoral blow for President Barack Obama who had campaigned for the Democrat.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 SYDNEY: Australia is expelling Fiji's top envoy in retaliation for the military regime's move to kick out Canberra's senior diplomat, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said on Wednesday.Smith said Fiji's acting high commissioner Kamlesh Kumar Arya, had been ordered to return to Suva. "This is deeply regrettable and Australia is deeply disappointed at Fiji's conduct in this matter," he said, according to the public broadcaster.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 UNITED NATIONS - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged Israel to end its "provocative actions" in east Jerusalem and to abide by its commitments to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, Geo news reported on Tuesday."The Secretary General is dismayed at continued Israeli actions in occupied east Jerusalem, including the demolition of Palestinian homes, the eviction of Palestinian families and the insertion of settlers into Palestinian neighbourhoods," a UN statement said."The eviction today of a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem is just the most recent incident," it added.Warning that such actions "stoke tensions, cause suffering and further undermine trust," Ban urged Israel "to cease such provocative actions."He also reiterated his call on Israel "to implement its commitments" under the blueprint for Middle East peace put forward by the United States, the European Union, Ru

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 SEOUL: The United States and North Korea have agreed to hold two rounds of bilateral meetings before the North returns to multilateral nuclear disarmament talks, a US news report said. The agreement was reached at last month's meetings in New York and San Diego between officials from the two sides, Foreign Policy magazine said on its website, in a report seen Wednesday. The communist state, putting further pressure on the United States to start direct talks, announced Tuesday it has completed reprocessing spent fuel rods to produce more plutonium for its atomic weapons programme. The US State Department responded that the plutonium production "runs counter" to the North's disarmament commitments and violates UN Security Council resolutions. It said it has not decided when and where to hold bilateral talks involving the US special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth. Foreign Policy, quoting an administration official, said "substant

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 SYDNEY: Twelve people were feared dead on Tuesday more than 24 hours after an unidentified boat sank in rough seas far off Australia's northwest, an official said.One body had been recovered and 11 people were still missing in the remote spot 2,700 kilometres (1,700 miles) from Australia's mainland, a customs spokeswoman told media. Some 27 survivors had been picked up by a passing tanker. Two bodies sighted in the water have yet to be recovered, a news agency said early Wednesday. Authorities have not confirmed whether the 39 people on the stricken boat, which went down overnight on Sunday, were bidding to join the more than 1,700 asylum-seekers who have made the perilous voyage to Australia this year. "Obviously, considering the amount of time they've been in the water, there are concerns for their safety. But we'll keep looking," the customs official said of the missing.Choppy seas continued to hamper the search by the Bahamas-r

Tuesday, November 03, 2009 GAZA: Israel has released six members of the Palestinian parliament affiliated to the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) who were jailed after resistance fighters seized Gilad Shalit in a 2006 cross-border raid. The freed lawmakers were identified as Ahmad Attoun and Wael Al-Husseini from Jerusalem Al-Quds, Khalil Ar-Rabai, Samir Al-Qadi, and Mahir Badr from Hebron (al-Khalil), and Mahmoud Al-Khatib from Bethlehem (Beit Lahm). “The detention of Palestinian lawmakers was a crime against humanity and the international community should call Israeli occupation to account for that violation,” Gaza-based Hamas lawmaker and head of the International Campaign for the Release of Abducted Members of Parliament Mushir Al-Masri said. Al-Masri stressed that the campaign he leads will continue to lobby against the detention of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Eighteen other Palestinian legislators are still in Israel's custody, includi

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 BASEL: Pakistan’s tennis star Aisamul Haq Qureshi and his doubles partner James Cerritani beat tennis great and world number one, Roger Federer and his Swiss compatriot Marco Chiudinelli in straight sets at the Basel Open.Qureshi was at his serve-and-volleying best in the round-of-32 match as he and Cerritani cruised to victory against Federer and Chidudinelli 6-4, 6-3 to book their place in the quarter-finals of the $2.6 million ATP tournament.Playing in Federer’s hometown, Aisam and his partner were in control of the match from the first game and although Federer and Chiudinelli produced moments of brilliance, the grit and powerful serve-and-volley game of Aisamul Haq and Cerritani saw them through to the end.The pair will now play tournament first-seeds Daniel Nestor (Canada) and Nenad Zimonjic (Serbia) in the quarter-finals.Talking with Geo News, Aisamul haq said that he long struggle has paid off as defeating Federer is the greatest achievement of his

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 LAHORE: Pakistan downed hosts France in the World Cup qualifying round match at Lillie, France on Tuesday, Geo news reported on Tuesday.After having beaten Russia and Italy, it was being tipped as one of the toughest match for Pakistan and in this test the green shirts came out with a thumping 4-2 win. According to reports received here, Pakistan enjoyed upper hand right from the start and they went into 2-1 lead by the close of the first half. Though Pakistan was dominated most of the time, France displayed a bit of aggression after conceding the first goal. Sohail Abbas struck twice through penalty corner pushes while Akhtar Ali and Rehan Butt converted two field goals. FrTdTric Soyez and Arnaud Becuwe reduced the margin from France. Pakistan’s goals came in the 8th, 26th, 37th and 55th minutes of the match while France struck 23rd and 67th minutes. Earlier in the day, Japan beat Italy by three goals to nil. The led the match 1-0 at half time. Poland had