W O R L D

Indian sailor dies, 9 missing in freighter mishap
Tokyo, October 7
An Indian sailor died and nine others were missing after a freighter with 25 Indians in its crew caught fire and ran aground in stormy weather off the coast of eastern Japan. At least 13 crew members of the Panamanian-registered cargo ship were washed overboard yesterday and four of them — all Indians — were rescued.

Fuel oil and its load of ironstones leak from the broken Panamanian- registered freighter Giant Step on Saturday morning, off Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture, eastern Japan. — AP/PTI photo

Get tough with Pak, NATO tells USA
Kabul, October 7
NATO commanders in Afghanistan have asked their respective governments to “get tough” with Pakistan to ensure that Islamabad ends all direct and indirect support to the Taliban.

Pak admits having helped insurgency in J&K
Washington, October 7
Pakistan has admitted that it might have helped insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir at “some time” but claimed it is now “trying our best” to prevent infiltration of militants into India.

Rockets found near HQ of ISI
Islamabad, October 7
The police found two rockets close to the headquarters of Pakistan’s top spy agency in Islamabad today, the Interior Minister said, just two days after two rockets were discovered close to the presidency and Parliament.

Camilla dons Di’s diamond brooch
London, October 7
While Prince Charles’ wife Camilla, has made it a point not to wear jewellery previously worn by the Prince of Wales’ much loved first wife Diana, Princess of Wales, she recently made an exception for a diamond brooch that was a particular favourite of the late princess.

UK to probe data theft in Indian call centres
London, October 7
Britain will investigate the alleged data theft in Indian call centres after a TV channel reported that financial records of hundreds of thousands of Britons were available for as little as US $ 15.

• Indian scribe missing in Nepal

Indian sailor dies, 9 missing in freighter mishap

Tokyo, October 7
An Indian sailor died and nine others were missing after a freighter with 25 Indians in its crew caught fire and ran aground in stormy weather off the coast of eastern Japan.

At least 13 crew members of the Panamanian-registered cargo ship were washed overboard yesterday and four of them — all Indians — were rescued. However, one of them, a 34-year-old Indian man, died later at a hospital while two sustained serious injuries, Japan Coast Guard officials said.

The 98,600-tonne Giant Step was caught in strong winds and heavy rain and broke into two in the waters off Kamisu, they said. The vessel with a crew of 26 — 25 Indians and a Pakistani — was also damaged by a fire in a cabin and its engines failed.

Thirteen more crew members trapped inside the vessel were rescued this morning and airlifted to safety.

The search for the nine missing men is continuing, the officials said. The Coast Guard did not identify the missing crew members.

Eastern Japan was hit by stormy weather yesterday due to the tropical storms Babinca and Rumbia in the Pacific Ocean.

The freighter was heading from Australia to Kashima port, about 100 km from Tokyo, with a cargo of 190,000 tonnes of iron ore. — PTI

Get tough with Pak, NATO tells USA

Kabul, October 7
NATO commanders in Afghanistan have asked their respective governments to “get tough” with Pakistan to ensure that Islamabad ends all direct and indirect support to the Taliban.

Commanders of the five-nation force - the USA, Britain, Canada, Denmark and Holland - have written to their respective governments citing clinching evidence from the testimonies of Pakistani nationals caught along with the Taliban that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is operating at least two camps outside Quetta in Balochistan to foment insurgency in Afghanistan.

Commanders of the 31,000-strong NATO forces in Afghanistan want these governments to issue another ultimatum like the one in 2001 to ensure that Islamabad ends all support to the Taliban insurgents.

A report in The Telegraph, London, said on Friday that many of the 160-plus Taliban militiamen caught by NATO forces have given details that sharply contradict vehement claims made by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf during his recent visits to the USA and Britain that the Taliban resurgence is home-grown.

“It is time for an ‘either you are with us or against us’ delivered bluntly to president Musharraf at the highest political level,” writer and journalist Ahmed Rashid quoted one NATO commander as saying.

“Our boys in southern Afghanistan are hurting because of what is coming out of Quetta,” he added.

The commanders’ move comes even as the NATO began extending its operations from this week to the troubled eastern and southern Afghanistan, refurbishing its strength by another 10,000.

“Taliban decision-making and its logistics are all inside Pakistan,” said Afghan defence minister General Rahim Wardak, echoing what President Hamid Karzai has been saying.

The evidence and details of the Taliban’s firepower displayed during the fierce fighting in recent weeks clearly indicate that this is possible only with the help of Pakistan’s ISI.

They have narrated their ‘frustration’ at having to deal with a problem that emanates from the safe havens and training camps in neighbouring Pakistan. That being the case, it was time for the respective governments to “get tough” with Pakistan, something which the Bush administration in the USA and the Blair government in Britain have been less inclined to do. — IANS

Pak admits having helped insurgency in J&K

Washington, October 7
Pakistan has admitted that it might have helped insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir at “some time” but claimed it is now “trying our best” to prevent infiltration of militants into India.

“Jihad, insurgency or whatever you want to call it in Kashmir...Yes, Pakistan may have helped the jihad at some time but it was not started by us and now we are trying our best to stop people from crossing,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to the USA Mahmud Ali Durrani said.

He was delivering a lecture at the South Asia Programme of the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University when he was asked what Pakistan was doing to stop terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) from crossing into Jammu and Kashmir.

“To the best of my knowledge Lakshar-e-Taiba is a banned organisation. They are no more in Pakistan,” Mr Durrani said. However, even two years ago, the LeT had money collection boxes in the markets of Rawalpindi, he said. — PTI

Rockets found near HQ of ISI

Islamabad, October 7
The police found two rockets close to the headquarters of Pakistan’s top spy agency in Islamabad today, the Interior Minister said, just two days after two rockets were discovered close to the presidency and Parliament.

The rockets were hidden in bushes on a hill close to the military’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters but Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao denied reports that the ISI headquarters was the target.

“No it was not the target,” he told Reuters. “These were 107 mm rockets and they have been defused.”

On Thursday, police recovered two Russian-made 107 mm rockets attached to mobile phones in a patch of green across a six-lane road from Parliament and the presidency.

Authorities said those rockets were not target-specific and were probably aimed at spreading alarm in the capital. — Reuters

Camilla dons Di’s diamond brooch

London, October 7
While Prince Charles’ wife Camilla, has made it a point not to wear jewellery previously worn by the Prince of Wales’ much loved first wife Diana, Princess of Wales, she recently made an exception for a diamond brooch that was a particular favourite of the late princess.

Made in the style of a circle of diamonds with the three- feathered insignia of the Prince of Wales inside, with a suspended cabouchon emerald pendant, the diamond brooch was given as a wedding gift to Princess Alexandra of Denmark when she married Bertie, Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII, in 1863 by ‘The Ladies of Bristol’.

When Queen Alexandra died in 1925, the brooch was handed down to her daughter-in-law Queen Mary and then on to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who presented it to Diana on her marriage to Prince Charles, reports the Daily Mail.

Diana was frequently seen wearing the stunning diamond brooch to set off a pair of diamond and emerald drop earrings given to her as a wedding present by Charles.

After the Princess of Wales’ death in a car accident in Paris in 1997, the brooch, as well as her other royal heirlooms, were handed back the Queen as they are, according to British law, owned by the monarch.

The brooch has now been passed on the Duchess of Cornwall who wore it on a shawl-collar white wool jacket for the royal premiere of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys. — ANI

UK to probe data theft in Indian call centres

London, October 7
Britain will investigate the alleged data theft in Indian call centres after a TV channel reported that financial records of hundreds of thousands of Britons were available for as little as US $ 15.

“It appears that some mobile phone companies’ call centres in India are being targeted by criminals intent on unlawfully obtaining UK citizens’ financial records and this will be the focus of our investigation,” Deputy Information Commissioner, David Smith, said. — PTI

Indian scribe missing in Nepal

Kathmandu, October 7
An Indian journalist has been missing from the Nepalese capital since last week.

Krishna Kumar, 50, who had worked with the New Delhi edition of the Times of India and then variously with Business India group’s television channel, Jain TV and APCA, went missing from Kathmandu valley on October 1. — IANS