Killing of French troops ‘individual action’: Karzai

KABUL: The killing of four French troops by an Afghan army soldier was “an isolated and individual action” and did not represent the anger of the Afghan people, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Karzai was speaking after meeting French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet who flew to Kabul in the wake of the shooting at a French base on Friday.

The president “expressed his sadness” over the incident, a statement from the presidential palace said.

“The attack against French forces by an Afghan army soldier does not represent the anger of Afghan people but it is just an isolated and individual action,” he said.

It was a matter of concern that for the second time “an Afghan army soldier turned his weapon on French soldiers” and the ministry of defence had been assigned to investigate the issue, the statement said.

The French defence minister said Saturday that he had been told that the Afghan soldier who killed the troops was a Taliban infiltrator, but Karzai did not mention this allegation.

The Taliban say they are investigating to see whether the shooter had links with the insurgents, suggesting that some attacks by Afghan soldiers are prompted purely by patriotism and anger towards the “invading enemy”.

Longuet had thanked Karzai for his condolences “and assured his country’s continued assistance to Afghanistan”, the statement said.

The defence minister had said “France will sign long term strategic treaty with the government of Afghanistan… and will continue its assistance to Afghanistan beyond 2014″, according to the statement.

When news of the shooting broke on Friday an angry French President Nicholas Sarkozy warned that France could pull its troops out of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan before the planned withdrawal in 2014.

Earlier Sunday, Longuet and General John Allen, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, presided over a solemn repatriation ceremony for the bodies of the four French troops at a snowy Kabul airport.

“The enemy will not hesitate to resort to the worst acts of treachery. Your mission was symbolic: to live with Afghan soldiers, to teach them and not to protect yourselves,” said NATO Lieutenant General Olivier de Bavinchove.

“You died for a just cause: for righteousness and freedom,” he said at the the ceremony attended by some 700 soldiers and Catholic and Protestant clerics.

The four coffins, accompanied by photographs of the fallen soldiers, were draped in the French flag before being carried aloft into the snow-covered jet French presidential jet.

Longuet held talks with  Karzai, Allen and the Afghan interior and defence ministers on how better to protect French troops training Afghan soldiers as part of NATO’s mission.

Six French soldiers have been shot dead in just three weeks by Afghans they were training.

Twelve of the 15 soldiers wounded in Friday’s attack have already been evacuated to France. Two others, too badly wounded to travel, are being treated in the American military hospital at Bagram base in Afghanistan.

The last soldier is being treated at a French hospital in Afghanistan. AGENCIES

London riots reveal social strains, say residents

LONDON: Days of riots rocking London point to deeper social unease in poor areas of Britain’s capital, community leaders and residents said Monday, rejecting moves by politicians and police to blame criminals alone.

The touchpaper for the unrest was lit on Thursday when police shot dead Mark Duggan, a resident of the multi-ethnic district of Tottenham in north London, after officers stopped the taxi in which he was a passenger.

Hooded youths torched police cars and a double decker bus in Tottenham on Saturday while a block of flats was gutted after the carpet store on the ground floor was set alight, sending terrified families fleeing into the street.

The violence then spread to other parts of London on Sunday, including Brixton in south London, another racially mixed district which like Tottenham was rocked by riots in the 1980s, with a third day of unrest in Hackney in east London.

The scenes in Tottenham evoked memories of severe rioting on the Broadwater Farm housing estate there in 1985, sparked when a local woman died after police raided her home. In the ensuing violence, a policeman was hacked to death.

A quarter of a century on, with Britain’s economic growth almost at a standstill and government cuts to public spending hitting areas of high unemployment like Tottenham, some residents said they saw the seeds of more unrest.

Osagyefo Tongogara, a community activist who was in Tottenham during the Broadwater Farm riots, said: “There are a lot of parallels with 1985. I don’t call it rioting, I call it rebellion.

“People are angry and frustrated. If you have a community with high levels of unemployment and cutbacks in welfare then this is what you are going to get,” he told AFP.

“We are told that this is a global financial crisis and that we are all in this together but why should we be?

“I don’t know everything about the crisis surrounding this young man’s death. But you can’t just put it (the unrest) down to that or down to criminality. That’s a simplistic explanation for this.”

But others in Tottenham said that although the police had mishandled the aftermath of Duggan’s shooting in an area where there were underlying tensions, there was no excuse for the violence that followed.

“There is anger and frustration here but I feel people have taken advantage of it,” said resident Adam Cuthbert, 24, as he surveyed the damage with his girlfriend.

“The majority of the people on Saturday weren’t from here, they were from other areas. It was people from outside using it as an excuse to create havoc.”

Cheryline Lee, a Tottenham resident, in her 50s, agreed.

“We are not condoning the rioting,” she said. “The police should actually be able to talk to people. But burning buildings like this is much too much. People have lost their houses and people have lost their jobs as well.”

Chuka Umunna, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party who represents a district near Brixton, agreed that the “anger and frustration arising from the tragic death” of Duggan was no excuse for the unrest.

“It’s shocking, it’s completely opportunistic and it’s totally unacceptable,” he said.

British officials were united in their attempts to blame “criminals”.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Monday condemned the violence as he visited Tottenham to view the damage.

“Let’s be clear, the violence we saw last night had absolutely nothing to do with the death of Mr Duggan. It was needless, opportunist theft and violence — nothing more and nothing less,” he said.

London’s deputy mayor Kit Malthouse, who watched Sunday’s violence unfold from the central police control room, said he saw no evidence of a protest, just looting.

“We’re talking about opportunists,” he told BBC television.

Doubt has now been thrown on the original version of events of the shooting that sparked the Tottenham violence.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating the shooting, initially said 29-year-old father-of-four Duggan was killed in an exchange of fire.

The IPCC were even forced to issue a statement to deny rumours that Duggan had been shot in the head, “execution-style”. Ballistic results were expected on Tuesday.

Professor Gus John of the University of London, a Grenada-born academic who has written extensively about race issues in Britain, said dismissing the rioters as thugs was “fatuous” and failed to acknowledge the deeper issues.

“Such labels don’t solve anything,” he told AFP.

“The question is, what disposes these young men to be like that? Why is the largest section of the young offender population in Britain young and black?” AGENCIES

Inspired by Big B, Prakash Jha also joins Twitter

By now, its common knowledge that Amitabh Bachchan is an avid blogger and also very active on popular social networking site ‘Twitter’. In fact during the shooting of his forthcoming film Aarakshan, so inspired was director Prakash Jha by Big B’s dedicated tweeting and blogging that he too decided to join the social networking community.

Prakash Jha, curious to see what the fuss is all about, has recently started tweeting from his handle @prakashjha1.

In one of his early tweets, Jha shares an exclusive still from his upcoming film Aarakshan. It is the picture of Amitabh Bachchan walking in the rain.

Along with the picture, he also re-tweeted Amitabh Bachchan’s tweet dated 8 March “T 300 -Somebody from the crowd, after seeing me getting wet in rain shot after shot, yelled to director -’Look after our son-in-law, please !’”

Whether he looked after Bhopal’s son-in-law is a matter of speculation, but for now, lets all welcome Prakash Jha onto the Twittersphere.

Priyanka Chopra begins shooting for Anurag Basu’s Barfi

If anyone thought they could catch Priyanka Chopra playing a mentally challenged girl in Anurag Basu’s Barfi, they are in for a disappointment. Priyanka is much too nervous to perform in front of onlookers. She has made it clear she needs optimum privacy for this part. For an actress who has braved through the toughest sequences of love-making and violence in Saat Khoon Maaf in the presence of a full crew, this need for seclusion is a startling departure from the norm.

But this is no ordinary role of a mentally challenged girl. Priyanka took extra time to prepare. Those close to her say she has been withdrawn tense and edgy for the last two weeks.

Says Priyanka’s business manager, “She has been tense lately. She has not been going out or entertaining friends.”

The pall of silence apparently fell on Priyanka after she began meeting people suffering from the mental condition that her character in Barfi suffers from. Says a source from the team, “It freaked Priyanka out. She simply stopped meeting her friends. She first had to digest the enormity of the mental condition and then understand how to project it without seeming to act.”

Most of her recent roles have required Priyanka to get into an aggressively performing mould for the camera. For Barfi she needs to go the other way. Says the source from Burfi, “She needs to look like she is not acting. That is the brief from Anurag Basu.”

No one will be allowed on the set when Priyanka Chopra starts shooting for Barfi in Mumbai. Only the skeletal crew will be present when she does her first scene with Ranbir for Barfi.

Known to play audacious never-done-before characters, Priyanka Chopra suddenly got cold feet about her role of a physically challenged woman in Barfi.

For the first time in her career Priyanka has cancelled shooting to give herself more time to prepare for the very complicated part. The shooting was to commence on March 11 but then got pushed to March 24.

Says a source, “No one except leading man Ranbir Kapoor, director Anurag Basu and the cameraman will be allowed to be around when Priyanka begins shooting on Thursday.

Says a source close to Barfi, “It’s very strange. But the first stint of Priyanka’s two new films Agneepath and now Barfi both got cancelled. In the case of Barfi, she personally asked director Anurag Basu to postpone the shooting. She was that nervous about it. She has never been this way about any of her roles before.”

Apparently, the shooting was to begin with a very complex sequence for Priyanka on March 11.

Priyanka just didn’t feel she was prepared for the part.

Says a source, “Priyanka just didn’t want to play the mentally challenged girl by using the normal tools of self-expression. As Anurag has written the part, the girl Priyanka plays suffers from a very subtle psychological disorder. It took Priyanka some time to understand her character’s mental disability. She needed more time to get into character. She asked for the shooting to be postponed.”

According to sources she still doesn’t feel she’s ready. But Barfi can’t wait any more.

After the first day’s shooting, Siddharth Roy Kapoor of UTV, who is producing the film exulted, “It was great, super-charged atmosphere. Both Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra were really enthusiastic. And Anurag Basu was happy to be back shooting. We all think we’re on to something special.”

Obama urges US to pull together after Arizona rampage

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama mourned victims of an Arizona gunman on Monday and steered clear of a debate on whether harsh U.S. political rhetoric inspired the attack on a U.S. congresswoman.

As many members of his own Democratic Party decried the often rabid level of political discourse in the country, Obama said he is grieving for the victims and their families and honoring those who apparently prevented more deaths.

Obama will travel to Arizona on Wednesday to attend a memorial service for the victims of the shooting attack on U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, a U.S. official said. Victims included a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.

Giffords is in critical condition with a gunshot to the brain. She had been holding a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting with constituents near a grocery store when she was attacked.

Arizona: US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot in the head

Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic congresswoman, has been shot in the head at point blank range by a gunman who opened fire on a public meeting that she was holding in Tucson, Arizona today.

At least 11 others including some of her staff members were reported to have been injured, some seriously, and there were reports that between four and six people had died including a Federal Judge. There were conflicting reports over whether Miss Giffords had herself been killed.

Miss Giffords, 40, who is married to astronaut Mark Kelly, was talking to a couple outside a Safeway grocery store when the attacker ran up and opened fire indiscriminately.

Andrea Gooden, an eyewitness who was working across the road from the scene, said: I heard about 15 shots. Then there were people racing across the parking lot. She said there were many sheriffs and firefighters on the scene within minutes.

A respected US website reported another eye-witness, Steven Rayle, who was on the scene at the time of the shooting and helped to hold the suspect down while waiting for police. He told The event was very informal: Giffords had set up a table outside the Safeway and about 20-30 people were gathered to talk to her. The gunman, who may have come from inside the Safeway, walked up and shot Giffords in the head first.

According to Mr Rayle, who is a former Accident and Emergency doctor, Giffords was able to move her hands after being shot.

High Court passes order to seal Sanjay Dutt’s Mumbai properties

They say that old incidents always comes back one way or the other, either to make you feel nostalgic or to haunt you. In case of Sanjay Dutt, it’s the latter that holds true.

The Bombay High Court has passed an order to seal Sanjay Dutt’s Mumbai property after producer Shakeel Noorani dragged the actor to court over losses incurred due to him abandoning a film. The case so far: In the year 2002, Shakeel Noorani launched the film Jaan Ki Baazi that had Sanjay Dutt in the lead along with Priyanka Chopra. Noorani claims that halfway through the shooting of the film, Dutt cancelled the shooting and that despite repeated attempts to contact him, he didn’t respond. That’s the reason why Noorani took a step to move to Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association (IMPPA) seeking help, who in turn, had called Sanjay for hearing him but the arbitration committee adjourned the case twice on his request. The IMPPA, then, told Noorani to move to court, which had the High Court executing decree attaching the assets of Sanjay Dutt, which includes his residence in, Imperial Heights building at Pali Hill, Nargis Dutt Road, Bandra and his office, Sanjay Dutt Productions, Mayfair Melody at Tagore Road in Santacruz.

Noorani, on his part, claimed Rs 2.03 crore from Sanjay Dutt, which also includes Rs 50 lakh paid to him as signing amount. Noorani’s lawyer Ashok Sarogi told the media that Sanjay has an option of either paying the said amount of money within 30 days or else his properties (residence and office) would be auctioned.

On the other hand, Sanjay Dutt’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde said that they will have a look at the decree execution order of the High Court and also the IMPPA award and then decide on appropriate action to be taken in this matter.

Kat hits Akshay in ‘Tees Mar Khan’ shooting

MUMBAI: Famous Director Farah Khan’s “Tees Maar Khan” shooting ended well and is ready to release with all the cast pleased with their performance and satisfied because of their team work and efforts.

Well, maybe it wasn’t really like this, not atleast for Akshay Kumar because the Akshay Kumar got injured quite badly, coz Katrina Kaif had hit him hard though it was not intentionally. The incident happened during the shootings for a song when Katrina hit Akki pretty bad with her elbow.

During the song “Bade Dilwala”, Katrina got very concentrated in dancing, to get the step arrangement in order, and she just did not realize Akshay Kumar was there. For two hours, the producers had to stop the shooting, as Akshay Kumar was in terrible pain and could not continue.

“Tees Maar Khan” is in all the big headlines these days, and the actors and producers together are working hard to promote it. This could be the biggest hit and the memorable movie for Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Akshay Khanna and Farah Khan.

NATO says six troops shot dead in east Afghanistan

KABUL: Six NATO troops were shot dead by a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform during a training exercise in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the coalition said, the worst apparent “rogue” shooting in more than a year.

The incident appeared to be the latest in a string of recent attacks by renegade police and soldiers, underlining the pressure on NATO-led troops as they try to train Afghan forces rapidly to allow the handover of security responsibility from next year.

However, NATO and Afghan officials were unable to confirm whether the person who carried out the shooting was actually a member of the border police or if it was an insurgent who had infiltrated the Afghan security forces.

Afghan authorities said last year they were tightening vetting procedures for the police and army after a similar incident when a renegade soldier

Tezz shoot slowed down due to extreme cold weather in UK

The shooting of Priyadarshan’s train-top thriller Tezz is far from over, thanks to the slow progress of the 45-day shooting schedule in

Britain.

Everyone who has returned from the shooting of Tezz in the UK is depleted and recovering from bouts of fever and incapacitation. Reason? Harsh winter

conditions in the UK proved exceedingly difficult for the cast and crew who are still smarting under the blow to their numbed lungs. To top it all, Ajay

Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Zayed Khan, Sameera Reddy and Mohanlal were all shooting on a speeding train causing the near-frozen Indian cast and crew to get further

challenged by the severe weather conditions.

While producer Ratan Jain dismisses all the panic attacks that the Indian crew went through in England as “just routine hiccups” the director Priyadarshan is

more forthright. Says Priyan, “This has been by far the most difficult film I’ve ever shot. I’ve done action films before. But not a thriller. The whole film

is set on a speeding train. We shot in Birmingham. Thanks to visa delays we got to the UK when winter conditions had set in. It was terrible.”

Apparently, the temperature was so low that even the video monitor couldn’t be kept out in the open. Says Priyan, “I’ve never experienced such extreme cold.

Thankfully I had a video monitor with a remote control. I’d huddle into a room nearest to the shooting spot. But I felt sorry for my Indian cast and crew.

Fortunately, there weren’t that many Indians in the team. Most of the crew was British and they seemed just fine with the cold.”

The Indians fell ill one by one thereby slackening the speed of Tezz. Now there is one more schedule in March in Birmingham.

Pledges Priyan, “We’re not going back until the cold wave is over. The film involves a lot of action sequences. Mohanlal, who is known for his stunts in the

South, also performs some very complicated action sequences for the first time in a Hindi film.”

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