In waning days of Barack Obama’s time in office, a final ignominy: Will Congress override the president?

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate will vote on Wednesday on whether to override President Barack Obama’s veto of a bill allowing relatives of victims in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia.

Obama on Friday vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which would allow courts to waive claims to foreign sovereign immunity in cases involving terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, arguing it would set a dangerous precedent.

Known as JASTA, the legislation passed the Senate and House in reaction to long-running suspicions — denied by Saudi Arabia — that hijackers of the four U.S. jetliners that attacked the United States in 2001 were backed by the Saudi government.


Source:-Nationalpost
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Islamabad SAARC summit to be cancelled with pullout of 4 countries

The SAARC summit of 2016 will be cancelled, a senior diplomatic source in Kathmandu has confirmed to The Hindu. The confirmation from Nepal, the current SAARC Chair, came hours after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan followed India’s decision to stay away from the November summit to be held in Islamabad.

“There is no question of holding the summit if four countries declare their unwillingness to participate. As the current SAARC Chair, Nepal has the responsibility of seeking a solution to such pre-summit disputes but under the current circumstances nothing much can be attempted. We will do the due formalities and will declare the summit of 2016 should be cancelled due to non-participation of member-states,” said a Kathmandu-based diplomatic source.



Source:-THEHINDU
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Will soon apply for asylum in India: Baloch leader Bugti

Baloch leader Brahumdagh Bugti has initiated the move to seek political asylum in India, a spokesperson of the Baloch Republican Party told The Hindu over phone from Geneva. Mr. Bugti’s decision to seek asylum in India follows a meeting of his party Baloch Republican Party (BRP), where the decision to shift to India was examined and cleared.

“Baloch Republican Party’s Central Committee has ratified Mr. Bugti’s decision to seek political asylum in India. At the moment, we are concerned about the safety of the president of the party and that is why the decision for political asylum was cleared. We have not yet decided who all will accompany him on his journey to India, but that is up to him decide and the party will volunteer members to accompany him to India as the need arises,” said Azizullah Bugti, a spokesperson of the BRP.

Source:-thehindu
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Naturalised Afghanistan citizen sought in Manhattan blast

The New York Police Department said on Monday that it was looking for a naturalized Afghanistan citizen for questioning in a weekend explosion in a Manhattan neighborhood that injured 29 people.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami could be armed and dangerous.

“We need to get this guy in right away,” de Blasio said on CNN. “My experience is one the FBI zeroes in on someone, they will get them.”

Authorities are still working to determine whether there is a connection between multiple explosive devices found over the weekend in two states- the Manhattan explosion, an unexploded pressure cooker device blocks away, a pipe bomb blast at a Jersey shore town and five explosive devices at a New Jersey train station.

On Sunday night, FBI agents in Brooklyn stopped “a vehicle of interest” in the investigation of the Manhattan explosion, according to FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser.

Source:-thehindu
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US-Saudi Alliance: Barack Obama will veto bill that allows 9/11 victims to sue Saudi, says White House

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama will veto the bill passed by the Republican-majority House of Representatives that, if passed, would allow victims of the 9/11 attacks and their relatives to sue foreign governments suspected of backing terrorism against America, the White House has said.

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act was approved unanimously in the House last week, four months after Senate cleared it.

"The President does intend to veto this legislation," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.

The legislation is strongly opposed by Saudi Arabia which is home to 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks

Source:-economictimes
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Afghan security forces kill last gunman in Kabul attack

 Afghan security forces have killed the last surviving gunman holding out more than 10 hours after a complex attack that began with a car bomb in central Kabul, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Tuesday.

In a message posted on Twitter, he said Afghan special forces had killed all those involved in Monday night's attack in the Share Naw area of Kabul.

Earlier in the day, Afghan security forces sealed off the centre of Kabul as they battled gunmen who barricaded themselves inside the offices of an international aid group.

The attack in a prosperous business and residential area of the capital took place just hours after a Taliban suicide attack near the Defence Ministry killed at least 24 people, including a number of senior security officials.

“We have rescued several families from the area,” Fraidoon Obaidi, chief of the Kabul police Criminal Investigation Department, said.

The attacks highlighted the precarious security climate in the capital just a month before a conference in Brussels where international donors are expected to pledge continued financial support to Afghanistan.

After several hours of quiet overnight, sporadic gunfire and explosions could be heard as day broke. Security officials evacuated terrified civilians from their offices and homes near the explosion site.

An Interior Ministry official said initial reports indicated one person had been killed and six wounded in the attack, with 31 people rescued from the area.

Kabul traffic was blocked in several parts of the city and schools in the area were closed.

On Monday, 24 people were killed and 91 wounded when twin blasts in quick succession tore through an afternoon crowd in a bustling area of the city close to the Defence Ministry.

The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility for that attack, in which a suicide bomber caught security forces personnel and civilians who rushed to help victims of the first explosion.

“When the first explosion happened people crowded to the site and then the second blast occurred, which was really powerful and killed lots of people,” said Samiullah Safi, who witnessed the attack.

An Army General and two senior police commanders were among the dead, a Defence Ministry official said. Another official said the deputy head of President Ashraf Ghani's personal protection force had also been killed.

The double bombing came less than two weeks after gunmen attacked the American University in Kabul, killing 13 people.

It was the deadliest attack in Kabul since at least 80 people were killed by a suicide bomber who targeted a demonstration on July 23. That assault was claimed by Islamic State.

The Taliban's ability to conduct coordinated high profile attacks in Kabul has piled pressure on the Western-backed government, which has struggled to reassure a war-weary population that it can guarantee security.

Afghanistan's foreign partners, concerned about the ability of the security forces to withstand Taliban violence, are expected to pledge support over coming years at the Brussels conference, three months after NATO members reaffirmed their commitment at a meeting in Warsaw.

Outside Kabul, the insurgents have stepped up their military campaign, threatening Lashkar Gah, capital of the strategic southern province of Helmand, as well as Kunduz, the northern city they briefly took last year.


Source:-thehindu
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Kolkata will take a century to recover from Mother Teresa

If Mother Teresa, to be canonised at the Vatican on September 4, is to be named a patron saint of anything it should be for "misinformation". In the last 20 years of her life, truth became an unknown entity to her. The media aided and abetted her lack of integrity and in a way she cannot be blamed for believing in her own lies.

Intellect was not her strong point and, for someone like her, to be surrounded by hordes of sycophants who were telling her if she said black was white then that had to be true, it became intoxicating. The media did spread the mega-myth about her, but she herself was the source. She repeatedly told the world she went around the city 24x7 "picking up" destitute from its squalid "gutters" (she did not), that she fed up to 9,000 in her soup kitchens (she did not), she never refused a helpless child (she did as a rule), that the dying destitute in her so-called home for the dying Nirmal Hriday died a "beautiful death" (they were treated harshly and often died a miserable, painful death).

Mother Teresa was an ultimate politician who worked on behalf of the Vatican. No, she was not an "agent" as that would be conspiratorial. She did not have to do much subterfuge or skulduggery in India itself, as Indians, particularly the media, were in awe of her and connived with her.

When she said in her Nobel speech that she created 61,237 fewer children from (slum) couples abstaining from sex, no one challenged her on her bogus and fantastic figure; neither did they ask her how at the height of the Cold War abortion could be the "greatest destroyer of peace" (said a thousand times, including in her Nobel speech).

I do not blame world media as much as I blame Indian and particularly Kolkata media. Here she was, a jet-setting celebrity -- although appended with the epithet "of Calcutta" -- spending six to nine months in a year in Europe and the US, making strange claims about her work and about the disgusting state of the city, but never to be seen in the city's disasters -- major or minor.



Source:-indiatimes
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Latest | 38 killed in Italy earthquake

 At least 38 people were killed in a strong earthquake that struck central Italy early Wednesday, levelling buildings in several towns as residents slept. One Mayor reported that a family of four was trapped under the debris without any sign of life and another said, “The town isn’t here anymore.”

Many are still missing as people are buried under rubble.

The 6.1 magnitude quake that struck at 3.36 a.m. was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including the capital Rome, where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks. First images of damage showed debris in the street and some collapsed buildings in towns and villages that dot much of the Umbrian countryside.

The hardest-hit towns were reported as Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, with residents running into the streets as aftershocks continued into the early hours. As daylight dawned, residents and civil protection workers began digging out with shovels and bulldozers as dazed residents huddled in the open streets.

Here are the updates:

3.20 pm: At least 38 people died in the earthquake, a spokeswoman for the civil protection department said.

The quake struck towns and villages in the mountainous heart of the country, which was making the rescue operation more difficult, said spokeswoman Immacolata Postiglione.

Speaking to journalists, Ms. Postiglione said 27 people had died between the towns of Accumoli and Amatrice, and a further 10 had died in the nearby Arquata area. Later in her press conference she upped the death toll to 38, without giving further details.

2:30 pm: This video tweeted out by an Italian radio channel Rai Radio 1: "Missing persons searches continue unabated in Amatrice."

2:15 pm: Latest report from Reuters says that at least 20 people are dead. The number of people missing is not availble as yet. But buildings were razed down as the ground shook. Officials are sifting through the rubble to find and rescue people.

11: 55 am: “Now that daylight has come, we see that the situation is even more dreadful than we feared with buildings collapsed, people trapped under the rubble and no sound of life,” said Accumoli mayor Stefano Petrucci. The town, which is about a 110 kms from Rome, is one of the worst-hit by far.

(A scene after the quake struck in Amatrice, central Italy. Photo: Reuters)

11:40 am: Latest update from Reuters say that at least 10 people believed killed in the mountainous central Italy. There are no figures on how many are injured so far but many are trapped in buildings. Rescue operations are on.
Source:-thehindu
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Hafiz Saeed wants nationwide protest in Pakistan if Rajnath Singh is allowed to visit

Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed has asked the Pakistani government not to allow Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh to visit Pakistan and has warned of a nationwide protest if Singh does visit the country.

According to India Today, Saeed said that if Rajnath Singh's visit to Pakistan should only be considered if India allows the Pakistani government to send people to Jammu and Kashmir to help the Kashmiris there.

He also said that Pakistan should stop the export of onions and potatoes to India and should instead send relief materials to Kashmir.


Accusing Rajnath Singh of being "responsible for the killings of innocent Kashmiris", Saeed has warned of a countrywide protest in Pakistan by his outfit if the home minister arrives in Islamabad to attend the Saarc ministerial conference.

"I want to ask the Pakistani government: Will it add insult to injury to the wounds of Kashmiris by welcoming Rajnath who is responsible for the killings of innocent Kashmiris?" he asked in a statement in Lahore.

"It will be ironic as on the one hand, the whole Pakistani nation is protesting against the Indian atrocities in Kashmir and on the other hand, the Pakistani rulers will be garlanding Singh," said the statement issued on Monday.

The mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack said "if Singh comes to Islamabad on August 3, the JuD would hold countrywide protest to tell the world that the Pakistani rulers might have compulsions to receive Kashmiris' killers but the people of Pakistan are siding with oppressed Kashmiris."

He added that protest demonstrations will be held and rallies taken out in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad, Muzaffarabad and other cities of the country on 3 August.

Saeed, who is carrying a $10 million US bounty on his head, warned the government that Singh's presence in Islamabad may create "unrest" among Kashmiris as well as Pakistanis in the face of scores of killings of Kashmiris "at the hands of Indian forces".

The people of Kashmir had refused to meet Singh during his Srinagar visit, he said adding the PML-N government "must also refuse to receive the BJP leader on the excuse that it may hurt and incite feelings of Kashmiris and Pakistanis."
Source:-Firstpost
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