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Anti-war protesters take to streets
France in crisis over threat on headscarf ban
Kremlin-backed Alkhanov wins Chechen polls
Palestinian prisoners resume fast, seek better conditions
MTV awards function sizzles
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Americans learning fusion yoga
Washington, August 30 Yoga continues to attract many in the United States with practitioners not only learning the discipline, but also combining yogic exercises with eastern martial arts and conventional exercises, calling it “fusion” yoga, according to a media report. 
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Anti-war protesters take to streets
New York, August 30 Across the New York harbour in Manhattan, demonstrators marched past the Madison Square Gardens and jammed streets chanting “no more Bush” and carrying flag-draped boxes resembling coffins and fly swatters with President Bush’s image. Each coffin represented one American soldier killed in the war against Iraq and demonstrators said they wanted people to see coffins which the government did not want them to see. They were led by activists, including filmmaker Michael Moore and former Presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson. United For Peace and Justice, the group opposed to the war in Iraq which organised the protest, estimated the number of demonstrators at some 400,000. Several hundred other groups with different causes joined the United For Peace and justice marchers beat drums, sang songs. The groups included gay rights activists, immigrants’ rights groups, those demanding universal health care, among others. The demonstrators accused the Bush administration of waging an unjust war in Iraq, undermining women’s reproductive rights, including abortion rights, and attacked its economic policies. At the Madison Square Garden, some delegates who arrived early, shouted “four more years for Bush” and asked the demonstrators to go home. There was no major confrontation with the law enforcement personnel though police officers in riot gear accompanied them and there was heavy presence of police throughout the route. Some 200 persons were arrested mainly for obstructing traffic and there were moments of panic when a paper dragon carried by a protester was set on fire near the Madison Square Garden. Twelve persons were arrested and two police officers were said to have sustained minor injuries. The convention is held just a short distance from the World Trade Centre, which was destroyed in the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks. US Vice-President Dick Cheney lauded Bush’s war leadership on the eve of the convention.
— PTI |
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France in crisis over threat on headscarf ban
Paris, August 30 After two emergency sessions of the government, the Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin, met with President Jacques Chirac in the Elysee Palace last night. The President also sent his Foreign Minister Michel Barnier to the Middle-East to help gain the hostages’ release. All French political parties and the main Islamic groups rejected with horror a threat by a group calling themselves the Islamic army in Iraq to murder the two journalists unless the law banning the hajib and other religious symbols in state schools was revoked. Georges Malbrunot (41) and Christian Chesnot (37) vanished a week ago while travelling from Baghdad to the besieged city of Najaf. Al-Jazeera television broadcast two short videotapes on Saturday night in which the journalists said they had been captured by the same group which murdered an Italian correspondent last week. The Islamic army in Iraq, believed to be a radical Sunni Muslim
group, possibly linked with Al-Qaida, said it would murder the French journalists within 48 hours. Although France has a history of negotiating with terror groups and paying ransom demands for hostages, the country’s political leaders were united yesterday in condemning the political “blackmail”. Officials said the linking of the kidnapping to the headscarf law, which takes effect with the start of the new school year this week, was opportunistic. However, the threat to kill the journalists was being taken seriously, not as a threat against the lives of the captives but as a threat against France. The Interior Minister, Mr Dominique de Villepin, called an emergency meeting of France’s Muslim Consultative Committee yesterday
morning. Afterwards, they called on “anyone with a share of responsibility for the fate” of the journalists to free them immediately.
— By arrangement with The Independent, London. |
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Kremlin-backed Alkhanov wins Chechen polls
Moscow, August 30 Fortyseven-year-old Alkhanov polled 73.4 per cent of the total 84 per cent votes counted so far. The final results of the polls held yesterday would be announced on Wednesday, Election Commission Chairman Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov said. “The situation will hardly change, there are grounds to believe that the Electoral Commission will declare Mr Alkhanov as Chechnya’s President,” Mr Arsakhanov said. The mid-term polls were declared after the assassination of President Ahmad Haji Kadyrov on May 9 in a terror bomb blast at a stadium. A career police officer, Mr Alkhanov defeated his six rivals. His nearest challengers, Mr Movsar Khamidov and Mr Abdulla Bugayev, got only 8.6 and 5 per cent, respectively, while the four other candidates were credited with less than 5 per cent of the vote. Mr Alkhano, backed by Kremlin, had promised to give war-torn province a clean and honest administration and ruled out talks with the separatist leader Aslan Askhadov, Chechen region web portal reported. Other candidates have complained of widespread violations in a vote that was shadowed by violence, including a man who blew himself up near a polling station in the Chechen capital Grozny yesterday.
— PTI |
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Palestinian prisoners resume fast, seek better conditions
Bethlehem, August 30 The quasi-government Palestinian Prisoners’ Association said inmates at Shikma prison in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon had begun refusing food again at breakfast today. The detainees had suspended their strike on Friday on the 13th day of the open-ended protest which is being observed by up to half of the 8,000 prisoners in Israeli jails. But a spokesman for the Association said the authorities which had promised to allow the Ashkelon prisoners to make contact with inmates in other centres to coordinate their positions had now reversed their position. A spokesman for the Israeli prison service, Mr Ian Domnitz, confirmed that prisoners were again refusing food but denied that any deal had ever been done. “On Friday, 350 to 400 prisoners went back to eat,” he told AFP. “Today the prisoners refused to receive the meals but they continue to eat and drink from the canteen supplies they have been receiving over the last two days,” he added. “It is too early to speak of a hunger strike-I would wait 24 hours. “There has been no such promise (on contacts with other prisoners) and no concessions,” he told AFP. In Bethlehem, some 300 persons marched in solidarity with the prisoners up to an Israeli military checkpoint at the entrance to the West Bank town but there were no reports of clashes.
— AFP |
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MTV awards function sizzles
Miami, August 30 There were no wardrobe malfunctions. Britney didn’t kiss Madonna like last year - or anyone else, for that matter. The most skin shown was from Usher, who preened in front of the camera bare-chested as simulated raindrops fell on his chiselled body during the opening performance. Even Christina Aguilera was classy, dressed sexily yet demurely as she debuted a jazzy number, “Tilt ya head” with rapper Nelly. And the sometimes raunchy comedian Dave Chappelle even kept it relatively clean - despite teasing that he would not. There may have been plenty of sex appeal, but little shock appeal on hand, even though MTV was ready, using a several-second tape delay for the first time. Still, MTV provided the already boiling Miami with even more sizzle Sunday night as MTV brought its annual party known to the city for the first time in the awards’ 21-year history. OutKast’s vivid “Hey Ya!” won four awards, including video of the year. Jay-Z’s “99 Problems,” the most nominated video with six, also won four. The gritty black-and-white “99 Problems,” depicts his own killing as a metaphor for his much-ballyhooed retirement, which has yet to happen.
— AP |
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Americans learning fusion yoga
Washington, August 30 A report in the Washington Post said traditional yoga has been “reincarnated as fusion fitness”. Yoga is increasingly being offered under different names and styles to suit even sportspersons, including weightlifters.
— PTI |
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