Beijing: Ahead of this week's NSG meet in Vienna, China stuck to its stand saying there was "no change" in its stand on India's membership bid which it has indicated would be considered only after rules for entry of non-NPT countries are finalised by the elite group. “This Friday in Vienna a plenary session of the NSG will be held. Our position is subject to no change as of date," Lu Kang, Spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said. Referring to the November 4 meeting of the National Security Advisors (NSAs) of India and China in Hyderabad, Lu said China is in close contact with relevant parties, including India, and have been having constructive dialogue and coordination on this issue. NSA Ajit Doval had held talks with Chinese counterpart and State Councillor Yang Jiechi in Hyderabad during which the issue had reportedly figured. The talks were held ahead of the meeting of the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in Vienna on November 11-12, where, according to media reports, the group could discuss the two-stage process to admit new members who have not signed nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). India and Pakistan which have applied for NSG membership have not signed the NPT. Last week, China, after the second round talks with India on its entry into the NSG, had said that it would first seek a solution to admit all countries who have not signed NPT and then discuss India's specific application. "On India's accession to the NSG, I can tell you that China's position is very clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying had said.
Pak opposes creation of new permanent seats at UNSC
Islamabad: Pakistan has opposed the creation of new permanent seats at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a reform India has continually advocated for. Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations, Maleeha Lodhi, while addressing the General Assembly session on Security Council Reforms said Islamabad firmly opposes the creation of new permanent seats while terming it as "the antithesis of principles enshrined in the UN Charter." She, however, said: "Pakistan supports expansion of non-permanent seats in the Security Council to make it more democratic, accountable, transparent and effective." The Pakistani envoy went on to say that the deadlock in the Security Council reform process was due to a handful of states seeking to "promote a self arrogated right to an unequal status." "Adding more permanent seats to Security Council will only serve to satisfy the hunger for power and privilege of a few and not address issue of representation," she said. Meanwhile, India has raised the issue of UNSC reforms on several international forums. In the latest development, India and Russia had on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit last month called for comprehensive reform of the UN Security Council to make it more effective and representative of the contemporary geo-political realities.
32 Indian peacekeepers injured in Congo blast
KINSHASA: An explosion killed a child and injured 32 Indian peacekeepers in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma on Tuesday, the UN mission said. The blast hit the peacekeepers while they were out on a morning run in the western Goma neighbourhood of Keyshero, the mission added. "We just heard the explosion and the cries. We then ran over to see," an eyewitness said. About 18,000 uniformed UN personnel operate in Congo, where millions died in regional conflicts between 1996-2003 and dozens of armed groups continue to operate.
'Afghan Girl' to leave Pakistan, return home
Islamabad: Sharbat Gula, famous as the `Afghan Girl' who appeared on a National Geographic magazine cover when she was 12, refused to stay in Pakistan after the provincial government of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) offered to stop her deportation. Recently, a local court ordered her deportation, besides awarding a 15-day sentence and imposing a fine of $1,000. The Federal Investigation Agency arrested Gula, a 46-year-old widow and an Afghan national, last month for allegedly possessing a forged Pakistan national identity card. Soon after her arrest, the UN High Commission for Refugees said she was not a registered refugee. The decision to stop her deportation was taken by the provincial government of Pakistan Tehreek-iInsaf, the party led by Imran Khan, on humanitarian grounds and as a goodwill gesture towards Afghanistan. “We took steps to stop Sharbat Gula's deportation but if she wants to leave, it is her decision,” Shaukat Yousafzai, KP's lawmaker said.
Woman's eyes gouged out, limb cut off by her brothers
LAHORE: A woman's eyes were gouged out and her limb cut off by her brothers in Pakistan's Punjab province after they suspected her of kidnapping one of their daughters. The incident took place in Muzaffarghar, 400 km from Lahore, when the two suspects abducted their sister and gouged out her eyes with a sharp knife and also cut off her feet, police said. Police said one of the brothers had earlier registered an FIR against the woman, who is in her 40s, for allegedly kidnapping his daughter. Meanwhile, the daughter of the victim said that her uncle along with one of his brothers committed the heinous crime to take revenge on her mother for the disappearance of his daughter. The woman has been shifted to a hospital where her condition is said to be critical. Police said a case has been registered against the accused but no arrests have been made so far.
Bangladesh lawmaker jailed for concealing wealth details
Dhaka,: A lawmaker from the ruling Bangladesh Awami League party was jailed for three years for concealing information in his wealth statement to the country's anti-graft body. Judge Abu Ahmed Jomadar of Special Judge's Court in Dhaka handed down the verdict in presence of Abdur Rahman Bodi, the first Bangladeshi lawmaker in power facing such punishment. Upon hearing the verdict, the lawmaker, who will have to serve in jail for three months more if he fails to pay a fine of 1 million taka ($12,772), burst into tears. Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on August 21, 2014, filed a case against the lawmaker in Dhaka, accusing him of amassing huge wealth illegally and concealing information in his wealth statement. According to his wealth statements submitted to the Election Commission in 2008 and 2014, his yearly income was only 200,000 taka ($2,554), which increased to 1.5 million taka ($19,158) in 2014 and his property value surged to about 28 million taka ($357,628) from 4.7 million taka ($60,030) in just five years.
Pak detains Shiite, Sunni leader in Karachi attacks
KARACHI: A Pakistani counter-terrorism police officer says several Sunni and Shiite Muslim leaders have been detained in a probe over recent sectarian attacks in the southern port city of Karachi. Junaid Sheikh said that Faisal Raza Abidi, a former outspoken anti-Taliban Shiite lawmaker from Pakistan's liberal People's Party, is among those facing questioning. He said that police and paramilitary forces have raided both Sunni and Shiite religious seminaries and detained an unspecified number of people. Pakistan's Sunni militants, many affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaida, have long targeted minority Shiites, considering them to be heretics.
Serial killer admits to killing 7
South Carolina: Todd Kohlhepp, who was arrested after a woman was found "chained up like a dog" on his property has confessed to seven killings, authorities said. He was arrested after Kala Brown - who had been missing for two months - was found inside a metal container in Woodruff, South Carolina. The registered sex offender admitted to killing four people at a motorcycle shop in 2003. He also led authorities to the site of two more bodies buried on his property. The confession came as police searching for four missing people on the 100 acre property found a body. The corpse was identified as that of Miss Brown's boyfriend Charlie Carver, 32. During 45-year-old Kohlhepp's bond hearing, lawyers for the Woodruff Solicitor’s Office said Brown had told deputies she saw the suspect shoot her boyfriend dead. Investigators found numerous weapons and many rounds of ammunition.
Australia's same-sex marriage bill voted down
Sydney: Australia's parliament rejected the government's proposal for a national vote on whether to legalise same-sex marriage. The upper house Senate voted 33-29 against the coalition government's bid to hold a plebiscite on the issue. Attorney-General George Brandis introduced the bill into the Senate, where the government does not hold an outright majority, despite expectation the opposition Labor and Greens parties would scupper it. The government has repeatedly warned that a defeat would delay same-sex marriage in Australia for years. Brandis urged the upper house to "stop playing politics with gay people's lives". The opposition said the plebiscite would have sparked harmful debate against the gay and lesbian community and demanded a direct vote in parliament instead. Debate on gay marriage in Australia has gone on for more than a decade and conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hoped to resolve the issue via a plebiscite on February 11. But Labor said the proposed plebiscite of 15 million voters would be expensive and divisive, and also potentially harmful to those in same-sex relationships and their families. Despite strong popular support for marriage equality, Australia is seen as lagging behind other nations which allow homosexual couples the right to wed.
Killer of Indian music baron freed from Dhaka jail
Dhaka: Abdul Rauf Daud Merchant, the convicted killer of Indian music baron Gulshan Kumar, and an alleged aide of Dubai-based Indian underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, has been released from Dhaka Central Jail, media reports said. Merchant left Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj, Jahangir Kabir, senior jail superintendent said. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal did not clarify whether Merchant has been handed over to India, where he is to stand trial. Merchant had been arrested in Brahmanbaria in 2009 for possessing a fake Bangladeshi passport. Merchant was initially kept at the Kashimpur jail in Gazipur. He was kept at the Dhaka Central Jail since November 2014, when he was re-arrested only four days after being released on bail under section 54 of the penal code, which gives the police the right to arrest anyone under suspicion. Merchant was sentenced to life imprisonment in India in April 2002 for shooting dead Gulshan Kumar, in Mumbai on August 12, 1997.
