S.Korea, US practice drills

SEOUL: The US and South Korean military Tuesday practiced attacks on potential seaborne North Korean infiltrators on the third day of a major naval exercise designed to deter the communist state.

The allies are staging the war games in response to what they say was a deadly North Korean submarine attack on a South Korean warship. They have shrugged off the North”s threats of possible nuclear retaliation for the drill.

About 20 ships including the 97,000-ton carrier USS George Washington, 200 aircraft including four F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and 8,000 personnel are taking part in the largest joint exercise for years.

Tuesday”s drills will focus on destroying infiltrating enemy submarines, semi-submersible high-speed boats or seaborne special forces, a spokesman for Seoul”s Joint Chiefs of Staff told foreign news agency.

Separate anti-ship and anti-aircraft drills will be practiced and jet fighters will launch missiles at sea and at firing ranges on land.

Sixteen killed in US floods; scores missing

ARKANSAS: Flash floods have swept away entire campsites in a forest in the southern US state of Arkansas, drowning at least 16 people as they slept and leaving dozens more missing.

Survivors described a torrent of water descending through the Ouachita National Forest, catching campers and families vacationing in hillside cabins completely unaware in the dead of night.

“What is being reported right now from the scene is that there are probably about 30 people still missing,” Chad Stover from the Arkansas department of emergency management, told media, putting the toll at 16.

The exact number of missing was hard to determine as the Albert Pike campground, which bore the brunt of the massive tide of water, had no registration system to show how many campers were present.

Three helicopters were scrambled to help rescuers on foot and horseback as they hunted the forest for survivors from the deluge, which saw local rivers swell by up to six meters (20 feet).

Officials brought a refrigerated truck to the forest to act as a temporary morgue, while at least 30 people had been rescued by early afternoon.

US President Barack Obama ordered federal emergency officials to be on call to help the state authorities if needed and along with the First Lady issued a special message to the disaster victims.

Six killed in Iraq violence

BAQUBA: Six people were killed in Iraq on Friday, including four by a suicide car bomb against a joint US-Iraqi army patrol, security officials said.

The attack on the patrol occurred at around 11:00 am (0800 GMT) in the central town of Jalawla and left 20 people wounded, an official from Diyala province”s security command said.

“Four people were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide attack using a car bomb in Diyala,” the official said.

Dr Abdul Razzaq Ahmed of Jalawla hospital confirmed the toll and added that women and children were among the wounded.

Storm Agatha downgraded to tropical depression

MIAMI: Tropical storm Agatha has weakened after hitting dry land and has been downgraded to a tropical depression, US forecasters said early Sunday.

At 0300 GMT, the center of the weather event was located 25 miles (45 kilometers east-northeast of Tapachula, Mexico, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

Maximum sustained winds have decreased to 35 miles (55 kilometers) per hour, the center said, adding that all tropical storm warnings have been discontinued for the region.

“Additional weakening is anticipated as Agatha moves over the high terrain,” the center noted.

In Guatemala, the storm has already dumped 36 centimeters (14 inches) of rain, triggering flash floods and landslides that killed 14 people Saturday, including four adults and four children inside homes buried by mudslides, officials said.

The National Disaster Agency did not indicate the circumstances of the remaining storm fatalities, but said 12 Austrian tourists were rescued from a resort area that was cut off by a sinkhole in its only road access.

Eleven persons were reported missing in the western part of the country, it added.

In El Salvador, also hit by Agatha”s driving rains, one person was killed, authorities there reported.

Dir: School Blast Toll Rises to 6

DIR, Pakistan News: Some six people including four foreign journalists were killed while several others injured when a blast took place near a girls’ high school in Koto, Lower Dir.
According to sources, inauguration ceremony of the said school was about to start when the blast occurred in which four foreign journalists among six killed. Many journalists including a foreign journalist were among the participants of the ceremony. Police and law enforcement agencies threw cordon around the area and started investigation. Rescue efforts were also kicked off. Lower Dir DPO Mumtaz Zareen said that a security forces’ convoy was targeted in the blast. It merits to mention that so far militants have destroyed several schools in Koto.

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Dir: School Blast Toll Rises to 6 was first posted on February 3, 2010 at 12:40 pm.

Happy Birthday, A R Rahman

Happy Birthday, A R Rahman: Music icon AR Rehman is celebrating his 44th birthday today.
Rehman was born in Chennai, India and was named as Allah Rakha Rehman. He started his career in 90s and so far has received 13 film awards including four national film awards. He was also honoured with Golden Globe Award last year for composing music of a movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. He was converted to Islam in 1989. Rehman also got training from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for some time.
His music album Vande Matram was released in 1997 on India’s 50th Independence Day, which got immediate fame.

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Happy Birthday, A R Rahman was first posted on January 6, 2010 at 3:28 pm.

Suicide Car Bomber Kills At Least 10 In Northwest Pakistan

Full Story And Original Content.TrendPK.com A suicide car bomber killed 10 people, including four children, Saturday at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, in the latest in a string of militant attacks targeting the city, officials said. Attacks on security forces, civilians and Western targets have surged since the government

Full Story And Original Content.TrendPK.com A suicide car bomber killed 10 people, including four children, Saturday at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, in the latest in a string of militant attacks targeting the city, officials said.
Attacks on security forces, civilians and Western targets have surged since the government [...]

Fourteen Suicide Bombers Captured In Punjab

LAHORE, PAKISTAN: Law Enforcement Agencies (LEC) have claimed arresting at least fourteen alleged suicide bombers from across Punjab and have shifted them to unknown places for investigation, Geo news said on Saturday.

Intelligence sources said, the nabbed persons were identified as Hafiz Saeed, Abdul Aziz and Rana Irfan from Boraywala, Qari Abdul Ghani, Molvi Mushtaq and Molvi Ali Hassan from Jhang, Rasheed and two unknown Afghan nationals from Laiyya.

Apprehended afghan citizens would sell clothes on bicycle while heavy explosive materials and literature on Jihad was also seized from the possessions of those arrested from Chechavatni and Bhakkar namely, Flak Sher, Qari Mustafa including four others.

According to sources, the alleged suicide bombers were hailing from banned religious and terrorist outfits.

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Fourteen Suicide Bombers Captured In Punjab was first posted on August 23, 2009 at 11:07 am.

Suu Kyi Sentenced By Court To A 3 Years Prison

YANGON: A Myanmar court has found pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kui guilty of violating her house arrest, but the head of the military-ruled country says she can serve out a 1 1/2-year sentence under house arrest.

The court initially sentenced Suu Kyi on Tuesday to a three-year prison term. But after a five-minute recess, the country’s home minister entered the courtroom and read aloud a special order from junta chief Than Shwe.

The order said Than Shwe was cutting the sentence in half to 1 1/2 years and that it could be served under house arrest.

Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years, mostly under house arrest.

The court also sentenced American John Yettaw to seven years in prison, including four years at hard labor, for entering pro-democracy leader’s home while she was under house arrest.

The 53-year-old Yettaw was found guilty Tuesday of violating the terms of Suu Kyi’s detention by swimming to her lakeside home uninvited and staying for two days.

The court sentenced Yettaw to three years in prison for breaching Suu Kyi’s house arrest, three years in prison with hard labor for an immigration violation and another year in jail with hard labor for swimming in a restricted zone.

It was not clear if the prison terms would be served concurrently.

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Suu Kyi Sentenced By Court To A 3 Years Prison

Flooding In Taiwan 38 Killed

TAIPEI : At least 38 people were killed and another 62 missing in Taiwan’s worst flooding in half a century after Typhoon Morakot battered the island, rescuers and officials said on Tuesday.

Some 35 people were also injured as the typhoon lashed the island with a record three metres (118 inches) of rain over the weekend, submerging houses, streets and bringing down bridges, said the National Fire Agency.

Rescue missions were in full swing Tuesday with the authorities rushing out helicopters to remote areas cut off by fallen bridges or raging rivers.

Reports said up to 600 people were still trapped in a village devastated by mudslides but authorities would not confirm the number.

“My house is gone. We have been trapped for four days and we are scared,” a man from Hsiaolin village, in southern Kaohsiung county, told reporters after being airlifted to safety.

Armoured vehicles and marine landing craft, as well as rubber dinghies, were mobilised in a rescue operation involving nearly 6,000 troops, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.

In central and southern Taiwan, heavy rain caused widespread floods and mudslides, particularly in the county of Pingtung, where thousands of people had been trapped in three coastal townships.

Pingtung county government said residents from worst-hit areas took shelter in government facilities as the region is still without electricity and water despite receding floodwater.

Typhoon Morakot has caused at least five billion Taiwan dollars (156 million US) in agricultural damage while 61,000 houses were left without power and 850,000 homes without water, according to officials.

Among the missing were 14 workers who disappeared when their makeshift shelter beside a river in Kaohsiung was washed away by rising floodwaters early Sunday.

A typhoon that struck Taiwan in August 1959 killed 667 people and left some 1,000 missing.

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Flooding In Taiwan 38 Killed