Karzai sworn in for second term
Tainted by a flawed election and allegations of highlevel corruption in his regime, Hamid Karzai was inaugurated on Thursday for a second term, saying the Afghan Army should assume full control of the country's security within five years.
"We will decrease the role of international forces," Karzai said at a ceremony held at the presidential palace in Kabul. "We want our security within five years to be entirely within the hands of the Afghan government and led by Afghans."
The ceremony was the culmination of a fraught and chaotic electoral process that began on August 20 when Afghans went to the polls. Karzai was proclaimed the winner earlier this month when his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from a run-off after a UN-sponsored inquiry found evidence of widespread electoral fraud.
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Rana came from Dubai, met visa-seekers
Investigators have found evidence to indicate that Tahawwur Rana, arrested along with David Coleman Headley by the FBI for plotting terror attacks on India at the behest of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and his wife Samraz Akhtar 'interviewed' visa-seekers in Ahmedabad and Kochi and stayed with relatives in Agra during their 10-day trip to India just before the Mumbai terror attack.
The couple, who flew into Mumbai from Dubai, returned to the emirate on November 21, 2008. A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is expected to leave for Dubai.
Born in Chichawatni in Sahiwal district of Pakistan, Rana and his wife put out an advertisement for Canada visa-seekers
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16 surgeons work for 25 hours, and the twins are separated
A team of 16 surgeons and nurses successfully concluded 25 hours of delicate surgery Tuesday to separate twin Bangladeshi girls who had been joined at their heads, sharing blood vessels and brain tissue.
It is too early to know whether the two-year-old girls, Trishna and Krishna, suffered any brain damage during the marathon operation an outcome doctors said had a 50-50 chance. The girls will remain in an induced coma for monitoring for several days.
The medical team began the work Monday morning on separating the girls, who were brought to Australia as infants by an aid organization.
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Thackeray verses Sachin and the rest of India
The Shiv Sena’s latest attempt to raise the pitch on the Mumbai-for-Maharashtrians issue boomeranged today with chief Bal Thackeray drawing flak from across the nation for criticising Sachin Tendulkar over his remarks that Mumbai belonged to all Indians.
In an open letter addressed to the cricket icon in the Sena mouthpiece Saamna,Thackeray slammed Tendulkar for saying that Mumbai could not be monopolised and that all Indians had an equal right over it. Criticising Tendulkar for “hurting Marathi sentiments”, Thackeray advised him to stick to cricket and not venture into politics through his statements.
“Sachin, the Marathi mind has shattered after hearing this. Was there any need?
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Omar Sheikh's Pak handler Ilyas Kashmiri also handled Headley
In late 1994, a milkman knocked on the door of a Ghaziabad house. As the door opened, he noticed men with guns inside, but he still delivered the milk. He then tipped off police who raided the place and rescued several foreign hostages being held by a group of terrorists, seeking the release of some arrested militant leaders including Maulana Masood Azhar. Azhar had been arrested in February that year.
When the police reached there, the commander of the terrorist group that called itself Al-Hadid -- essentially it was a Harkat-ul Ansar-Harkat-ul Jihad-al-Islami operation -- had just stepped out with his trusted lieutenant Omar Saeed Sheikh.
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Two days after Batla, Indian Mujahideen men dialled Headley
The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad is probing leads that David Coleman Headley, arrested by the FBI for allegedly plotting a terror attack in India at the behest of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, had contacts with Indian Mujahideen (IM) operatives involved in the 2008 serial blasts in Delhi.
ATS officials have found a UP cellphone number in the call details of the phone Headley used during his stay in Mumbai. This UP number was used by one of the two absconding IM operatives from Azamgarh, Dr Shahnawaz and Asadullah Akhtar alias Asadullah Khan, to contact Headley in Mumbai two days after the Batla House shootout in Delhi on September 19, 2008. ATS sources said the UP cellphone went dead the same day.
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Orissa shuts down 64 mines, probes racket
Probing allegations of a multi-crore mining scandal, the Orissa government has ordered suspension of work at 64 iron ore, manganese ore and limestone mines whose operators have failed to provide proof of legal mining activity.
It is learnt that leases of all these mines ran out long ago but they continued to operate without approval, authorisation or execution of any lease deed subsequently.
Director of Mines Jyoti Ranjan Patnaik said the steel and mines department issued orders last month to deputy directors of mines to verify documents of all lease holders under deemed extension.
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