China stands still to mourn quake victims

Flags flew at half-mast, public entertainment was cancelled and 1.3 billion people were asked to observe three minutes of silence on Monday as China began three days of mourning for victims of the country’s massive earthquake.

Officials asked for the horns of cars, trains and ships and air raid sirens to sound as people fall silent at 2:28 pm local time (0628 GMT) - exactly one week after the quake splintered thousands of buildings and killed over 32-thousand people.

The Olympic torch relay - a potent symbol of national pride in the countdown to August’s much anticipated Beijing games - was also suspended during the mourning period.

The national flag in Tiananmen Square, which is raised in a solemn ceremony every morning at dawn, flew at half mast on Monday. State television repeatedly broadcast the ceremony.

To mark the mourning period, the logos of all newspapers were printed in black. Trade on China’s stock and commodities exchanges will also be suspended for the three-minute period of silence, the Securities Regulatory Commission said on its website.

China’s National Grand Theatre will cancel or postpone all performances during these three days.

The mourning period begins as the hope of finding more trapped survivors dwindles, and preventing hunger and disease among the homeless became more pressing.

As the second week of China’s worst disaster in a generation began, the hunt for survivors in the rubble turned glum despite remarkable survival tales among thousands who were buried by the earthquake.

The official Xinhua News Agency slowed its steady run of rescue news, with just three such rescues reported on Sunday, including that of a woman in Yingxiu town reached by soldiers after 150 hours.

With more corpses discovered everyday, the confirmed death toll rose to 32,476, the State Council, China’s cabinet reported.

However, the government says it expects the final death toll from Monday’s massive earthquake to pass 50-thousand.

Meanwhile the injured numbered more than 220-thousand.

Afghani women on work trip to Gujarat

A team of 35 Afghani women are visiting Ahmedabad to learn more about how they can develop their own businesses.

This is a positive leap for them after years of living in a Taliban controlled Afghanistan, where the role of women was limited.

Stepping out of their burqas, these women are now taking part in their country’s economic development.

One of the country’s best known NGOS working on empowering women, the Self-Employed Womens’ Association or SEWA as it is more popularly known, has set up training centres in Afghanistan and they say the response has been very enthusiastic.

Mariyam, one of the trainee at SEWA in Ahmedabad said, ”I want to go back to Afghanistan and help other women who have no means of earning due to their children and family. I want to help them earn respect this way.”

Kamlia, a business woman from Majar-E-Sharif said, ”We now want to rebuild a new Afghanistan in the new rule. I have started my own business from a disturbed place like Majar-E-Sharif.”

Uma Devi, co-ordinator at SEWA in Afghanistan said, ”One of the major problems with women in Afghanistan is lack of education and so while we are trying to provide them vocational training on food processing, agricultural processing, garmenting, we are also working out ways for better education for women living in Afghanistan.”

Yet another Indian cabbie brutally beaten in Australia

An Indian cabbie was brutally beaten by two men in Adelaide who allegedly also stole his taxi in a second such incident in the past three weeks.

Balraj Singh was severely injured on face and his nose was broken in an attack by the two men who had boarded his cab at the weekend, Australian media reported.

Last month, a 23-year-old Indian student taxi driver Jalvinder Singh was brutally stabbed and left bleeding on the roadside in Melbourne.

A number of taxi drivers on Monday protested the attack on Balraj, causing chaos in Adelaide city even as they sought justice for the victim.

Drivers parked about 50 taxis in front of the court building and protested for about 45 minutes, chanting, ”we want justice” over the bashing of Singh, media reports said.

From his hospital bed, Singh said he was punched in the right eye and had his seatbelt wrapped around his neck by a man in the back seat.

”You’re not safe at night time. You don’t know the people you pick up, who they are,” he told ABC TV.

He was being treated for facial injuries, including a broken nose.

Driver Mohsin Mirsa, 26, said cabbies regretted disrupting customers but feared for their safety every day.

”We are prepared to protest until the Government says security screens have to be put in taxis,” he said adding ”we have no protection. If they can do it in Melbourne why not here.”

Meanwhile, ABC reported on Monday that one of the two men charged with bashing Singh and stealing his cab at the weekend made an application for bail.

Driver Balraj Singh was taken to hospital after the attack in the southern suburbs of Adelaide.

Two 24-year-olds, Nathan Morrison and Owen Calyun, appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court this afternoon.

Calyun made no application for bail but Morrison will seek to be released on home detention.

Lawyers for both men asked for their names to be suppressed but the request was denied by Magistrate Joanne Tracey.

Goa’s beach safety plan caught up in bureaucratic process

Goa’s ambitious beach safety plan to arrest increasing drowning deaths is caught up in bureaucratic formalities delaying its implementation, confirmed the tourism officials.

The plan envisages beach safety including lifeguards and constant monitoring of the beach stretches by installing CCTV cameras.

Tourism department officials confirmed that an agency has already been finalized to implement the plan but the financial sanction is awaited.

The state tourism minister Fransisco Pacheco said that the department was in the process of giving final touches to the proposal for the life safety along the beaches, which he said, is designed to reduce fatalities to near zero.

Commenting on increasing deaths due to drowning, the minister said that the guests should execute self-caution and remain away from danger zones.

”Self caution is the best option to counter inadequacy of the prevailing system of life guards,” he added.

Elaborating further the life safety system, he said that the every visitor will be under the care of the arrangements by the agency.

”The functioning of the system will be monitored by high ranking officials through a specially designed software. It is an outcome of elaborate analysis and will involve state of art equipments,” Pacheco said.

There is a requirement of well-equipped lifeguards to deal with any emergency, he added.

ICC surprised at Shah Rukh statement

ICC on Monday appeared surprised at film star Shah Rukh Khan’s statement that its anti-corruption unit had asked him not to be with the team on the playing field, saying that the IPL tournament was being played under BCCI’s rules and regulations.

The ICC said the IPL was a domestic tournament and the game’s governing body did not have any role in formulating the rules.

“The reported incident has nothing to do with the ICC as IPL is a domestic tournament which is being held under the Rules and Regulations of the BCCI,” an ICC spokesman said from Dubai.

“Furthermore, the ICC Board in its meeting held in Dubai on 17-18 March had decided that IPL will introduce a code of conduct, an anti-corruption code and an anti-doping code that complies with ICC regulations,” he said.

Bollywood superstar and Kolkata Knight Riders owner Shah Rukh Khan last night expressed disappointment, claiming he had been barred by the ICC anti-corruption unit from going to the team dug out and dressing room in the remaining IPL matches.

“I like to hang around with the boys. I am very energetic. I am very disappointed that the ICC has stopped me,” he said.

“I don’t know the ICC rules. I’ll tell only one thing. Nobody dare stop me from coming to Kolkata. I’ll be here whenever my team plays a match at the Eden,” Khan said.

Asked whether Shah Rukh needed an accreditation for the IPL matches, the ICC spokesman said, “Everybody needs an accreditation and these are in line with anti-corruption code. BCCI is following anti-corruption code. Now I don’t know what modifications they have made to the code.”

Knight Riders CEO Joy Bhattacharya played down the event and said Shah Rukh was actually stopped by security personnel for not carrying a visitors’ pass.

“Look there is nothing like that. It was a gentleman from the security who stopped Shah Rukh Khan. He said Shah Rukh didn’t have a valid visitor’s pass…I don’t think there is any controversy or issue,” he said.

He said the ICC rules were to make sure that bookies didn’t enter the dressing room.

“When these rules were framed, the concept of franchisee owners’ domestic tournament didn’t even come, the law was not framed to stop people like Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Mukesh Ambani or Vijay Mallya from walking into the dressing room,” he said.

“According to even ICC regulations, there is a system of visitor’s pass, the manager and team management sign it. The person can be allowed in the dressing room as long as it is signed by. So there is no way to stop Shah Rukh from entering the dressing room,” Bhattacharya added.

Send Bangladeshis to camp: Centre to Raje

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has told NDTV that the Centre asked her government to round up all Bangladeshis staying illegally in the state and put them in a transit camp.

Speaking to Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of Indian Express in Walk The Talk programme Raje said her government has been writing to the Centre since June 2006 about the problem of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, and this was the suggestion the Union Home Ministry made in formal written replies.

With investigators suspecting the role of Bangladesh based militant group HuJI in the Jaipur serial blasts, Bangladeshis staying illegally in Rajasthan have come under the scanner.

Many of them have been held for questioning.

Excerpts of the interview:

Vasundhara Raje: I will give you an example on the deportation and of the Bangladeshi national residents finding ways to Rajasthan.

We have written letters to them (Centre) many times. We wrote to them in June 2007 saying we need to do something about this. We got a reply back from them: ”Why don’t you collect them and put them into a transit camp somewhere.

TN govt’s cheaper idli inflation strategy

In a bid to shield people from the heat of inflation, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu has urged hotel owners to slash the prices of common items like idlis, dosas and pongal.

This step is despite the fact that cost of the ingredients are steadily shooting up.

E V Velu, TN Food Minister, said, ”We hope to get a favourable response from hotels in a week. The government will take all steps to reduce prices.”

Hotel owners find this move impossible. ”We are running commercial establishments not government canteens,” is what most of them say.

The initial request, many fear, may soon give way to strong arm tactics.

P Rajagopal, owner of Sangeetha chain of restaurants said, ”It’s not only the production cost but the administration cost, rental cost, everything has gone up. Threatening us with an ordinance is not the solution. They must calculate just how we businessmen can survive.”

A plate of idli costs between Rs 10 to 15 and dosa about Rs 20. S Viswanathan, a customer said, ”Unless the government reduce the prices of essential commodities, nobody can do any miracle.”

Hotel owners have convened a meeting this weekend to decide on the government directive.

Jenna’s wedding enlivens civil war village

So close and yet so far: Tiny Crawford is sort of like a bridesmaid at arm’s length from
Jenna Bush’s wedding on Saturday.

All of the action is at President George W Bush’s 1600- acre ranch 11 kilometres outside this one-stoplight town.

Friday night’s rehearsal dinner was even farther away -87 kilometres from the ranch in a town called Salado, meaning the more than 200 Bush family and friends invited to the nuptials might never even set foot downtown Crawford.

”It’s a private ceremony. It’s an exciting time for the Bush family,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said on Thursday. ”They’re all beginning to converge here in Texas and in Crawford and I know the president and Mrs Bush are really looking forward to this weekend.”

The bride, first lady Laura Bush and daughter Barbara weren’t even in Crawford most of on Friday.

Early in the day, the three attended a bridal lunch for family and friends at an inn in Salado, more than an hour’s drive south of Crawford.

They stayed the day in the small tourist village, founded before the Civil War, getting ready for the evening events. The president made his way solo to Salado.

There the parents of the groom, Henry Hager, hosted the rehearsal dinner for members of the family and the wedding party at the Old Salado Springs Celebration Centre in the heart of the town filled with coffee shops, western-style stores, antiques, eateries and clothing shops.

Then later, all of the wedding guests, some just arriving in the area, were invited to what was billed a ”Texas-sized celebration” at the Salado Silver Spur Theatre in the village, once a stagecoach stop.

With no hotels in Crawford, local residents are more likely to welcome tourists who just want to say they were here when Jenna married her longtime boyfriend.

Beauty queen grilled for crush on Pak Prez

A Pakistani beauty queen who recently expressed a desire to date President Pervez Musharraf is being chided for ”bringing a bad name to Pakistan”.

Reigning Miss Pakistan World Mahleej Sarkari surprised everyone last month by saying she ”loved” Musharraf and wanted to ”date” him. She even had pictures of herself blowing kisses at a Musharraf portrait posted on a website.

Following the brouhaha over this ”breaking news”, Toronto-based Sarkari, was invited by a Pakistani TV channel to its Dubai studio recently for an interview. Though the beauty queen accepted the invite graciously, she was shocked by the host’s aggressive tone during the interview.

Sarkari was ”berated for bringing a bad name to Pakistan” for her participation in beauty pageants and particularly her comments on Musharraf, the weekly Friday Times reported.

The beauty queen said the interviewer seemed to be on a mission to discredit her and Musharraf. When Sarkari returned to Toronto, she telephoned the producer and objected to being lured to Dubai with false promises, but he said he was not at fault and was merely ”following orders”.

Sarkari recorded her phone conversation with the producer and has sent the tape to a rival channel.

She had dedicated a long post to Musharraf on the Pakistani pageant’s website. ”Going to international pageants we have found out how much Musharraf is known to all beautiful young girls, the beauty queens. Some have replied, ”Oh yes, the general man (sic).” While others have said ”’the man who rules Pakistan’,” she wrote.

”Everything positive… I think personally Musharraf Sahab is very good-looking. Some Pakistani politicians may not agree with these gorgeous women. You know like Benazir, all men around the world thought she was a beauty, similarly Musharraf is a hunk. He has enough charisma to have young girls going nuts,” goes the beauty queen’s post.

Sarkari said she would love to date Musharraf if he asked her out. ”Yes, any time…I like him a lot…,” she told a news portal.

Earlier this week, another Pakistani beauty queen claimed she and Musharraf are ”old friends”. Maria Mateen, who has bagged many beauty awards, however, told a TV channel that she had no desire to date Musharraf as they were ”already good friends”.

Pak ready to deport Dawood: Gillani

Pakistan will take action against any terrorist group operating against India from its soil and consider a request for extraditing underworld don Dawood Ibrahim if New Delhi provides ”authentic proof” in this regard, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani has said.

Gillani said his government could also consider India’s request for access to terrorist leaders like Masood Azhar, who was released in return for safety of passengers of Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar in 1999, if it is backed by evidence.

Rejecting India’s concerns over terrorism in Kashmir being financed and executed by Pakistan-based groups like Lashker-e-Taiba with the backing of the Inter-Services Intelligence, he said, ”We are already working with the whole world against extremism and terrorism and our point of view is extremely clear that we are against them.”

”We have lost our own leader (former premier) Benazir Bhutto because of (terrorism). How can I deny that? We are fighting against terrorism,” Gillani said in a TV interview.

When pointed out that several outlawed terrorist groups like Lashker-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Al-Badr re-emerged in Pakistan in recent months after changing their names, Gillani said his government would act against such groups.

”We are against terrorism and we are against terror groups. We will not be supporting any terrorist,” said Gillani.