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Iraqi PM signs
new security law USA airlifts
uranium from Iraq Vitamin pill can
check AIDS
5 die in Lanka
bombing IAF to
participate in 10-nation exercise |
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Iraqi PM signs new security law
Baghdad, July 7 Machinegun fire and grenade explosions echoed through Haifa Street on the west bank of the Tigris river during the clashes. The normally busy commercial thoroughfare was deserted and US soldiers sealed off roads leading to the area as a US helicopter circled overhead. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi signed the new security law that gives his government wider powers to combat insurgents and foreign Islamist militants, a source in his office said. Before the street clashes began, several mortar rounds hit Baghdad, wounding eight persons, the police and hospital staff said. Several persons were hurt when two rounds struck a medical centre near the office of Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord party in the western district of Mansour. Another round landed in a residential street in the southern Dora district. The US military had no immediate comment on the blasts, but said guerrillas had killed four US marines in the Sunni Muslim heartlands west of the Iraqi capital yesterday. Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari has said the new security law empowers the government to impose curfews, set up checkpoints and search and detain suspects. The measures will be temporary and will apply only in parts of Iraq. The widely anticipated law had been delayed several times as the government, which formally took over sovereignty from the US-led occupation on June 28, ironed out the details and consulted with US officials, political sources said. Allawi’s government has also planned to restore the death penalty, suspended during the US-led occupation, and offer a temporary amnesty for rebels who fought the Americans. Iraq’s vital oil exports returned to normal levels after repairs to a pipeline damaged by weekend sabotage that had helped send world oil prices to one-month highs. Unidentified militants have kidnapped an Egyptian driver who was delivering petrol from Saudi Arabia to the US military in Iraq, Al Jazeera television reported. The Egyptian embassy in Baghdad and US military said they had no information about the reported abduction. A number of foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq since April. At least four have been killed, including an American and a South Korean beheaded by the Jama’at al-Tawhid and Jihad group led by Al Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
— Reuters |
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USA airlifts uranium from Iraq
Washington, July 7 Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced the radioactive materials were removed from the Tuwaitha Nuclear Centre and the airlift was completed on June 23 “to keep potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of the terrorists.” Less sensitive radiological materials-used for medical, agricultural or industrial purposes-have been left in Iraq, Abraham said in a statement yesterday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which in the pre-war period had kept the Tuwaitha uranium under seal, was told in advance of the U.S. removal, as were Iraqi officials, Abraham said. The UN inspectors removed highly enriched uranium that could be used for weapons and shipped it for storage in Russia. The low enriched uranium was placed under seal in storage at Tuwaith under the control of the IAEA.
— PTI |
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New York, July 7 In a clinical trial involving nearly 1,080 pregnant women with HIV in Tanzania, it was found those who swallowed a daily dose of vitamins B, C and E for upto five years were around 50 per cent less likely to progress to full-blown AIDS than those in a comparison group, researchers reported in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’. The multi-vitamins should be given to developing-world HIV patients in the early stages of the disease. This would be a relatively cheap way to improve their quality of life, lead author Wafaie Fawzi of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, was quoted by ‘Nature’ magazine as saying. The supplements could also postpone the point at which the disease worsens and patients need to be placed on antiretroviral therapy, which is more potent but costs around 300 to 400 dollars for each patient annually. Patients are not usually placed on antiretroviral drugs until the disease worsens because of their side-effects, the study said. Fawzi’s supplements contained about six times the US recommended daily allowance of the vitamins. Supplements are likely to have the biggest impact on HIV in the developing world, where poor nutrition is widespread. It is too early to say whether they will also benefit patients in the developed world, who probably already have Good diets or whether they will have the same impact on men as women, the ‘Nature’ reported. — PTI
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Colombo, July 7 The woman was being escorted to a police station right opposite the US and British diplomatic missions in the capital when she detonated explosives strapped to her body, the police said. “She had gone to the nearby ministry of Tamil Minister Douglas Devananda but was not allowed to go in,” a police officer said adding, “The security guards alerted the police who went there and brought her to the station for questioning. She refused to be searched and set off the attack.” Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse was in his adjoining “Temple Trees” official residence when the attack took place, officials said.
— PTI |
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IAF to participate in 10-nation exercise
Washington, July 7 The ‘’Cooperative Cope Thunder’’ is an annual exercise where friendly nations train together in a near realistic scenario. It is for the first time that IAF fighter aircraft will be participating in an international exercise outside the Indian subcontinent, the Indian Embassy said. The other countries participating in the exercise are Canada, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia and Sri Lanka. The IAF’s earlier participation in Cope Thunder exercise was limited to sending observers in 2001 and 2002 and thereafter one IL-76 aircraft participated in 2003. Participation with the fighter aircraft in the exercise would help India validate its concepts and operational philosophy. The IAF contingent comprises 200 air warriors, six Jaguar fighters, two IL-76 and two IL-78 Flight Refueling Aircraft.
— UNI |
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