8 theSun | WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 14 2009

news without borders

Pakistan suicide bombing toll mounts

PESHAWAR: The death toll from a sui-
cide bombing carried out by a teenage
boy who struck in a busy market in
northwest Pakistan has risen to 45,
officials said yesterday.
The bomber, wearing a vest packed
with explosives, flung himself at a
military convoy as it passed through a
bazaar in Shangla district on Monday,
in the fourth deadly attack blamed on
Taliban rebels in eight days. “Two peo-
ple died overnight and two more died
this morning,” said Dr Ehsanullah Khan
of the state run Alpuri hospital. Thirty-
eight people remained in hospital with
injuries from the blast, he added.
Fazle Karim Khattak, the adminis-
tration chief of Malakand region, said
that 39 of the dead were civilians and
six were soldiers.
“The attacker was a young boy.
He was standing at the side of the
road. As soon as the convoy arrived,
he rushed into the vehicles and blew
himself up,” said Khattak.
A military official on Monday said
the bomber was about 13 or 14 years
old. After a brief lull following the death
of Taliban commander Baitullah Meh-
sud in a US missile strike in August,
Pakistan has again been plunged into
crisis with a wave of militant attacks
killing 125 people in eight days.
Monday’s attack in Alpuri town
came after a group of 10 Islamist
extremists raided Pakistan’s army
headquarters over the weekend leav-
ing 23 people dead and underscoring
the vulnerability of the nuclear-armed
nation.
Shangla borders the Swat valley,
where the government claims to have
quashed the Taliban threat in an of-
fensive launched in April after Taliban
rebels advanced to within 100km of Is-
lamabad. The surge in violence comes
as the army says it plans a full-scale
offensive on Pakistani Taliban bases
in lawless South Waziristan, bordering
Afghanistan. – AFP

Monday after their small plane crashed

North Korea to fire more

off the coast of Corsica, officials said. The
briefs first two survivors were found thanks to
a distress beacon and were plucked from
the sea by a helicopter. A third person was
6.2 earthquake rescued later by an army helicopter.
The last three survivors were found at
hits Aleutian Islands 10pm near a lifeboat that was dropped

missiles ahead of talks

WASHINGTON: A strong 6.2-magnitude
earthquake struck Alaska’s Aleutian Islands
late on Monday, the US Geological Survey
reported. The quake, which occurred at
9.37pm (1.37pm yesterday in Malaysia) at
a depth of 68km, rattled the island chain
about 91km southwest of Unalaska, a town
of about 4,000 people and the Aleutians’
main community, according to the USGS.
There were no immediate reports of
injuries or damage. The chain of about
300 small islands with dozens of volca-
noes sits on the Pacific ring of fire and is
often subjected to seismic activity. – AFP
Police hunt for
murderer of boy
BANGKOK: Thai police have launched
a manhunt for the murderer of a boy
who was shot four times, beheaded
and dismembered, news reports said
yesterday. Remains of a boy believed
to be 4 to 6 years old were found by
a scavenger on Monday in several
plastic bags dumped near a housing
estate in a Bangkok suburb, the Bang-
kok Post reported.
Deputy Bangkok police chief Am-
nuay Nimmano said it appeared the
boy had been tortured. He had been
shot in the arms and stomach before
being shot in the head. A hairpiece was
attached to the boy’s head that might
be connected to “some find of show,”
Amnuay said. – dpa
Six survive plane
crash off Corsica
PARIS: French authorities rescued six
people who survived in the Mediter-
ranean Sea for more than five hours on
by a reconnaissance aircraft, according
to the rescue operations centre in the
Corsican city of Ajaccio. – AFP
Boyzone singer died due
to lung problem: Autopsy
MADRID: An autopsy on Boyzone
singer Stephen Gately revealed that
he died due to excess fluid in his lungs,
a court spokeswoman on the Spanish
island of Majorca said yesterday.
“He died a natural death of acute
pulmonary edema” which had nothing
to do with any consumption of alcohol
or drugs, the spokeswoman said.
A pulmonary edema can be due
to either the failure of the heart to
remove fluid from the lungs or direct
damage to the lung tissue.
Gately, 33, was found dead on Sat-
urday in his apartment in the Majorcan
town of Port Andratx while on holiday
on the Mediterranean island. – AFP
British lawmakers told
to repay expenses
LONDON: Prime Minister Gordon Brown
and opposition leader David Cameron
told lawmakers yesterday to pay back
disputed expense claims or risk losing
their jobs as the rumbling scandal returns
to haunt politicians.
Conservative leader Cameron was
the first to issue the warning.
“If people are asked to pay back
money and if the authorities determine
that money should be paid back and they
don’t pay it back, in my view, they can’t
stand as Conservative MPs,” he told ITV.
Hours later, Labour leader Brown took
a similar stance. – AFP
SEOUL: North Korea was yesterday reportedly that there were indications of more to come.
preparing to fire more short-range missiles, a “There have been indications that the North
move seen as an attempt to boost its bargain- is getting ready to fire short-range missiles
ing position ahead of expected talks on ending from the west coast,” the source was quoted
its nuclear weapons programme. as saying.
Analysts say the missiles serve as a re- The North has issued a warning for ves-
minder of the North’s ability to rattle regional sels to stay out of its coastal waters during
security but were not enough to halt growing daylight hours from Oct 12-16, Japan’s coast
momentum for dialogue after the reclusive guard said.
state announced it was willing to head back US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
to the negotiating table. speaking on Monday, said Washington would
Yonhap news agency quoted a government continue its efforts to end nuclear weapons on
source as saying the North had fired five short- the peninsula.
range missiles off its east coast on Monday and “Our goals remain the same. We intend to
work toward a nuclear-free Korean penin-
AFPPIX
sula,” she told a news conference in Belfast.
“Our consultation with our partners and allies
continues unabated. It is unaffected by the
behaviour of North Korea.”
North Korean state media has so far made
no comment about the missile launches, which
in the past have often been accompanied by
strident commentary attacking governments it
South considers out to do it harm – notably those of
Korean the United States, Japan and South Korea.
activists “If it is true, then it is very regrettable, but
shout I am not in a position to comment on this any
slogans with further now,” Japanese Prime Minister Yukio
placards Hatoyama said of the missile launches.
during a South Korean officials played down the
rally in Seoul launches, saying these were often part of
denouncing routine military drills.
the North’s “The missiles are identical to the ones that
launch of had been fired numerous times in the past,
missiles so we don’t believe there will be problems
yesterday. on holding talks, which will go ahead,” Uni-
fication Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung
said.
However, they do coincide with the arrival
of aircraft carrier USS George Washington off
the South Korean coast. The North usually
protests such visits as a “prelude to war”.
Yesterday, the North accepted a proposal
by the South for work-levels talks on prevent-
ing flooding in a major river that flows across
their armed border, where a surge of water
released by the North killed six people in the
South last month. The North also agreed to
hold Red Cross talks on arranging reunions
for families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean
War, a move that could help warm relations
between the two Koreas. – Reuters

Rebels on trial for extortion racket

PARIS: Twenty-two suspected Tamil Tiger rebels
went on trial on Monday for running an extortion
racket among Paris’s ethnic Tamil diaspora to fund
their separatist struggle in Sri Lanka.
The defendants include Nadaraja Matinthiran,
the alleged leader in France of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is accused of
extorting some €5 million (RM25.5 million) from
the country’s 75,000 Tamils.
Also in the dock is a group called the Tamil
Coordination Committee in France, believed to be
a legal front for the LTTE, which has been listed
as a terrorist organisation by the European Union
since 2006.
Experts believe the Tamil Tigers exert a
controlling influence over the political life of the
1.5-million-strong world Tamil diaspora, in many
cases levying a “revolutionary tax” based on
household size and income.
Most of the Paris suspects were arrested in
April 2007 and charged with criminal conspiracy
to commit acts of terrorism, financing of terror-
ism or racketeering to finance terrorism. Defence
lawyer Gilles Piquois called at the outset for the
case to be thrown out, arguing that the LTTE was
not considered a terrorist organisation by the Sri
Lankan government in 2007 when the charges
were laid.
Sri Lanka lifted the terrorist designation for the
Tamil separatists in 2002 following a Norwegian-
brokered ceasefire, but reinstated it in 2009 after
the truce agreement broke down. Government
forces overran the Tigers’ last jungle holdout
in northeast Sri Lanka in mid-May, ending their
four-decade struggle for an independent Tamil
homeland, one of Asia’s longest-running ethnic
conflicts. The Paris trial is set to run until Oct 28.
– AFP