Suicide bombs kill 39 in Pakistan

LAHORE, MAR 12: A pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other Friday, killing at least 39 people in this eastern city and wounding nearly 100, police said, reports AP.
It was the fourth major attack in Pakistan this week, indicating Islamist militants are stepping up violence after a period of relative calm.
At least six security personnel were among the dead, senior police official Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq said.
The bombers, who were on foot, struck RA Bazaar, a residential and commercial neighborhood where several security agencies have facilities.
Pakistani TV channels showed security forces swarming the area as bystanders rushed the injured into ambulances. Senior police official Tariq Saleem Dogar said 39 people were killed, and another 95 were hurt.
Some of the wounded were missing limbs, lying in pools of blood after the enormous explosions, eyewitness Afzal Awan said.
"I saw smoke rising everywhere," Awan told reporters. "A lot of people were crying."
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida.
The militants are believed to have been behind scores of attacks in U.S.-allied Pakistan over the last several years, including a series of strikes that began in October and lasted around three months, killing some 600 people in apparent retaliation for an army offensive along the Afghan border.
In more recent months, the attacks were smaller, fewer and confined to remote regions near Afghanistan.
But on Monday, a suicide car bomber struck a building in Lahore where police interrogated high-value suspects - including militants - killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
Also this week, suspected militants attacked the offices of World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian aid group, in the northwest district of Mansehra, killing six Pakistani employees, while a bombing at a small, makeshift movie theater in the main northwest city of Peshawar killed four people.
The attacks show that the loose network of insurgents angry with Islamabad for its alliance with the U.S. retain the ability to strike throughout Pakistan despite pressure from army offensives and American missile strikes against militant targets.
The violence also comes amid signs of a Pakistani crackdown on Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida operatives using its soil.
Among the militants known to have been arrested is the Afghan Taliban''s No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, are believed to have lost their top commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a U.S. missile strike in January.
The group has denied Mehsud is dead but has failed to prove he''s still alive.
Militant attacks in Pakistan frequently target security forces, though civilian targets have not escaped.
During the bloody wave of attacks that began in October - coinciding with the army''s ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal area - Lahore was hit several times.

Suu Kyi denounces new election laws

YANGON, Mar 12: Myanmar''s military regime unveiled on Friday the last of its election laws, which detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has described as unjust and repressive, reports AP.
The laws bar the Nobel Peace laureate from running for office or even voting in polls and greatly weaken her National League for Democracy.
The date of the election has not been announced. The fifth and last law, carried in state-owned newspapers Friday, governs elections to 14 regional parliaments.
Details of the five," which critics deride as a sham designed to cement the military''s power. A military-backed constitution was approved by a national referendum last May, but the opposition charges that the vote was unfair.
An election law announced Wednesday prohibits anyone convicted of a crime from being a member of a political party, making Suu Kyi ineligible to become a candidate in the elections - or even a member of the party she co-founded and heads.
In August, Suu Kyi was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest by briefly sheltering an American who swam uninvited to her lakeside residence, and was sentenced to 18 more months of detention.
Election laws announced Thursday take away her right to vote, saying those convicted of crimes are barred from the polls. Thursday''s two laws also formally invalidated the 1990 election results, saying the 1989 election law under which those polls were held was repealed by the new legislation.
"They have been slowly trying to decimate the party and now they are doing it with utmost force. But the NLD will never collapse," said the party''s deputy chairman, Tin Oo.
However, authorities moved Wednesday to reopen several NLD offices in Yangon by removing red wax that had been sealed over their locks since 2003 to restrict party activities, Nyan Win said earlier.
The United States and human rights groups have warned that the junta is running out of chances to make the elections appear credible. Clauses in the constitution already ensure that the military will retain a controlling say in government and bar Suu Kyi from holding office.

Indonesian police kill 2 militants

BANDA ACEH, Mar 12: Police hunting Islamist militants in western Indonesia killed two suspects and arrested six others at a security checkpoint Friday, an official said, reports AP.
One of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings, Dulmatin, was shot dead near Jakarta on Tuesday.
The operation was part of a monthlong series of raids that has highlighted the resilience of Southeast Asian militant networks as well as the continued pressure being applied on them by Indonesian anti-terror police.
The crackdown began after police raided a militant camp in a remote corner of Aceh province.
The Bali bombings and several others against Western targets in Indonesia since then were carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah or associated groups.
Those targeted in the recent raids are believed linked to that network, which at its height in early 2000 had contacts with al-Qaida and cells across Southeast Asia.
Police killed the two suspects Friday as a group of eight tried to flee from a bus that was stopped at a checkpoint close to the Aceh capital of Banda Aceh, provincial police chief Maj. Gen. Aditya Warman said.
There was a 15-minute gunbattle before the remaining six suspects surrendered and were arrested, Warman said.
Police seized five assault rifles and a police pistol from the suspects, said a police official who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The pistol had been issued to one of three policemen shot dead in an ambush by more than two dozen suspected militants last week, he said.
The bus had been chartered in Banda Aceh. The driver and one passenger are not suspects, he said.

Taiwan minister resigns over row

TAIPEI, Mar 12: Taiwan''s justice minister has resigned after her public stance against the death penalty failed to win popular backing, reports AP.
The decision by Wang Ching-feng - announced by the Cabinet late Thursday - highlights the continued support for capital punishment in Taiwan, despite the island''s four-year de facto moratorium on executions.
On Wednesday, Wang said she would not issue death warrants against any of the 44 inmates now on death row. "I would rather step down than sign any death warrant," she said. "If these convicts can have an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves, I would be very happy to be executed or even go to hell in their stead."
That statement set off a firestorm of criticism, not only among relatives of victims of violent crime, but also among members of her ruling Nationalist Party, including President Ma Ying-jeou. "Death sentences have to be carried out according to the law," said Ma spokesman Lo Chih-chiang.

Obama to donate $1.4m Nobel prize money

WASHINGTON, Mar 12: President Barack Obama plans to donate the $1.4 million from his Nobel Peace Prize to helping students, veterans'' families and survivors of Haiti''s earthquake, among others, drawing attention to organizations he said "do extraordinary work." Obama is giving a total of $750,000 to six groups that help children go to college, reports agency.
Fisher House, which provides housing for families with loved ones at Veterans Administration hospitals, will receive $250,000, the White House said Thursday. And the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, for which two former presidents are raising money to rebuild earthquake-ravaged Haiti, will receive $200,000. "These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans and countless others in need," Obama said in a statement. "I''m proud to support their work."
Obama was chosen for the Nobel award more for his aspirations and approach than his accomplishments thus far.
The Nobel committee honored him for changing the tenor of international politics and for pursuing goals Obama says will require worldwide effort, such as nuclear disarmament and reversing global warming. Obama himself was surprised by the award, and aides said at the time he would donate the cash prize to charity.
The Fisher House donation would help pay for three new homes at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies of Americans killed overseas are flown.
"It''s work that needs to be done for these men and women who have served this nation so gallantly," Fisher House Foundation Chairman and CEO Kenneth Fisher said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Thailand braces for anti-govt protest

BANGKOK, Mar 12: The Thai capital braced for possible violence as anti-government activists launched Friday what they hope will be one of the country''s biggest protests in an effort to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to call new elections, reports AP.
Leaders of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, called the Red Shirts because of their hallmark garb, have vowed to keep their "million-man march" protest nonviolent. Demonstrators started meeting around the country Friday and plan to converge on the Thai capital on Sunday.
The group''s last major protest in Bangkok last April deteriorated into rioting that saw two people killed, more than 120 people injured and buses burned on major thoroughfares. The army was called in to quash the unrest.
The Red Shirts include followers of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and other people who oppose the 2006 military coup that toppled him. They believe Abhisit came to power illegitimately with the connivance of the military and other parts of the traditional Thai ruling class who were fearful of Thaksin''s popularity while in office in 2001-2006.
Several schools planned to close Friday and again next week if circumstances warrant. Some two dozen foreign embassies have issued travel advisories, including the United States, which urged Americans to stay away from the protests where "violence cannot be ruled out."
Some allies of the Red Shirts have openly boasted of armed retribution if the protests are suppressed. The government has advised against panic, while warning of possible sabotage by the Red Shirts. Viral e-mails have advised readers to stock up on food and fuel.
Government supporters claim the Red Shirts will dress up as police and soldiers to shoot demonstrators in order to create martyrs; Red Shirt leaders says provocateurs pretending to be protesters will incite violence to discredit their movement. More than 30,000 security officials will be deployed around Bangkok and 46,000 "civilian defense volunteers" are on standby for the rallies, government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said. Red Shirt leaders say they hope up to 600,000 protesters will turn out.

Afghan insurgents kill 3 cops

KABUL, Mar 12: Police in eastern Afghanistan say three members of an elite strike force have been killed in an overnight attack by insurgents, reports AP .
The police chief of Paktia province, Azizudin Wardak, says insurgents launched an attack on a police post on the outskirts the provincial capital. When a rapid-response police force rushed to aid the fight, the militants detonated a roadside bomb, killing three officers including the strike force''s commander.
One police officer was wounded in the gunbattle Thursday night, but the small group of insurgents retreated after the bomb was detonated.
The al-Qaida-affiliated Haqqani faction of the Afghan Taliban is active in Paktia as well as in nearby Khost province near the Pakistan border.

Madonna offers tips on ''Marriage Ref''

NEW YORK, Mar 12: Madonna doesn''t think a wife should withhold sex from a sloppy husband, reports AP .
But she believes a wife should dispose of her late husband''s prosthetic leg to spare the feelings of the wife''s current mate. This was some of her relationship advice on NBC''s "Marriage Ref," where she joined actor-comedians Larry David and Ricky Gervais as a guest panelist on Thursday''s edition.
The show invites its "experts" to help analyze real-life disputes between married couples, mostly for laughs.
Host Tom Papa makes the final ruling.
In one case, Mindy Goldman was offering sexual favors to husband Alan if he would clean up the messy basement.
A good idea? Madonna cracked that "it''s weird that she wants him to be clean so that they can be dirty."

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