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CITY<br />
HILIGHTS<br />
Vol 1, Issue <strong>266</strong> ` 2.00/-<br />
Friday, <strong>Oct</strong>ober <strong>14</strong>, <strong>2016</strong><br />
www.ibcworldnews.com www.cityhilights.news<br />
English Daily 5<br />
WORLD<br />
Russia says<br />
Damascus embassy<br />
targeted in mortar<br />
attack, no staff hurt<br />
The Russian embassy in<br />
Damascus was targeted in a<br />
mortar attack on Wednesday,<br />
the Russian Foreign Ministry<br />
said, condemning what it<br />
called “a terrorist attack” in<br />
the Syrian capital.<br />
One of the mortar shells,<br />
fired from a district controlled<br />
by rebels, exploded<br />
close to the guard post in<br />
front of the embassy, while<br />
another detonated near the<br />
entrance to the consular office,<br />
the ministry said in a<br />
statement.<br />
The embassy compound<br />
was strewn with shrapnel,<br />
but none of embassy staff<br />
were hurt, it said. It said material<br />
damage was being assessed.<br />
“We confirm that Russia’s<br />
consistent policy of uncompromising<br />
fighting against<br />
terrorists in Syria will be<br />
continued,” the ministry said.<br />
Three South<br />
Koreans found shot<br />
dead in Philippines<br />
The bodies of three South<br />
Koreans with gunshot wounds<br />
to the head have been found in<br />
the Philippines, a South Korean<br />
foreign ministry official said on<br />
Thursday, the latest in a string<br />
of killings of Koreans in the<br />
southeast Asian nation.<br />
Philippine President Rodrigo<br />
Duterte has waged a ruthless<br />
anti-crime campaign since<br />
taking office on June 30 in<br />
which more than 3,600 people<br />
have died in police operations<br />
and alleged vigilante killings.<br />
The bodies of two men and<br />
a woman, all older than 40 and<br />
all with gunshot wounds to the<br />
head, were found on Tuesday<br />
in Bacolor outside the capital,<br />
Manila, the ministry official<br />
said by telephone.<br />
Chief of police at the town<br />
of Bacolor, Sonia Alvarez, said<br />
the deaths were unlikely to be<br />
related to drugs and instead<br />
looked like a crime of passion<br />
or indebtedness.<br />
The case takes to six the tally<br />
of South Koreans found dead<br />
this year in the Philippines,<br />
where more than ten South Korean<br />
citizens have been killed<br />
each year since 2013, South<br />
Korean media said.<br />
India, Russia ink<br />
pact to set up 25<br />
irradiation centers<br />
New Delhi, India and<br />
Russia signed a pact to set<br />
up 25 integrated infrastructure<br />
centers for irradiation<br />
treatment of perishable food<br />
items to improve shelf life<br />
and cut post-harvest losses.<br />
At least 7 centers will be<br />
set up in Maharashtra, with<br />
the first centre near Shirdi<br />
to be ready next year. Perishable<br />
items ranging from<br />
flowers to fish will be treated<br />
there on a commercial scale.<br />
The agreement was signed<br />
between Russia’s United Innovation<br />
Corporation (UIC)<br />
-- a subsidiary of Rosatom<br />
State Atomic Energy Corporation<br />
-- and Hindustan Agro<br />
Co-op Ltd on the sidelines of<br />
the BRICS Business Forum.<br />
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Concerned about king’s health,<br />
Thais flock to Bangkok hospital<br />
About 300 people gathered<br />
at a Bangkok hospital<br />
on Thursday where<br />
Thailand’s King Bhumibol<br />
Adulyadej, the world’s<br />
longest reigning monarch,<br />
is in an unstable condition<br />
as the government urged<br />
jittery stock market investors<br />
to ignore rumours.<br />
The palace said in a<br />
statement late on Wednesday<br />
the king’s health had<br />
“overall not yet stabilized”<br />
and the 88-year-old was<br />
on a ventilator and battling<br />
a new infection.<br />
It followed a statement<br />
on Sunday saying the king<br />
was in an unstable condition<br />
after receiving haemodialysis<br />
treatment.<br />
Well-wishers gathered<br />
on Thursday outside<br />
Siriraj Hospital, which<br />
is near Bangkok’s Chao<br />
Phraya river.<br />
Some wore yellow, the<br />
king’s colour, and others<br />
donned pink, a colour<br />
they believe will bring the<br />
king an improvement in<br />
his health. Some prayed.<br />
“I was worried so I came<br />
here to see for myself,”<br />
said housewife Thornpan<br />
Tornueng, 67.<br />
“This evening I will take<br />
part in chanting for the<br />
king.”<br />
District police commander<br />
Rithee Visetkamin<br />
said more people<br />
were expected to gather<br />
at the hospital through<br />
the day.<br />
The king has long been<br />
seen as a unifying figure<br />
in Thailand, which<br />
has grappled with political<br />
uncertainty in recent<br />
years. His health, which is<br />
watched closely, is a sensitive<br />
subject.<br />
Strict lese-majeste laws<br />
mean public discussions<br />
of his health and any succession<br />
plans are punishable<br />
by lengthy jail terms.<br />
Investors in the Stock<br />
Exchange of Thailand have<br />
sold shares since Sunday’s<br />
statement from the Royal<br />
Household Bureau on the<br />
king’s health.<br />
The main index fell as<br />
Putin rejects accusations of<br />
meddling in U.S. election<br />
Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted<br />
on Wednesday his country was<br />
not involved in an effort to influence<br />
the U.S. presidential election even as<br />
WikiLeaks released another trove of internal<br />
documents from Hillary Clinton’s<br />
campaign.<br />
Last week, the U.S. government formally<br />
accused Russia of launching a<br />
hacking campaign to “interfere with the<br />
U.S. election process.”<br />
Clinton’s campaign, which has<br />
charged the Kremlin is trying to help Republican<br />
Donald Trump win the White<br />
House on Nov. 8, took its allegations a<br />
step further on Tuesday when John Podesta,<br />
chairman of the Democratic nominee’s<br />
campaign, accused the Trump<br />
campaign of colluding with Russia.<br />
At events in Florida, Trump said he<br />
had nothing to do with Putin or Russia.<br />
“I promise you, I don’t have any business<br />
deals with Russia,” Trump said at a<br />
rally in Lakeland.<br />
In Moscow, Putin said nothing in the<br />
hacking scandal is in Russia’s interests<br />
and accused all sides in the U.S. presidential<br />
campaign of misusing rhetoric<br />
about Russia for their own purposes.<br />
“They started this hysteria, saying<br />
this (hacking) is in Russia’s interests,<br />
but this has nothing to do with Russia’s<br />
interests,” Putin told a business forum.<br />
Putin said his government would<br />
work with whoever won the U.S. election,<br />
“if, of course, the new U.S. leader<br />
wishes to work with our country.”<br />
WikiLeaks, the organisation started<br />
by Julian Assange that publishes leaked<br />
information on the internet, this week<br />
released thousands of emails from Podesta’s<br />
email account and has not said<br />
how it obtained them. Last week, it<br />
posted excerpts from Clinton’s private<br />
speeches to banking and financial firms.<br />
The Clinton campaign has not confirmed<br />
the authenticity of the messages.<br />
The leaks, coming as the election<br />
campaign reaches the final stretch, have<br />
the potential to embarrass the Clinton<br />
camp. In recent days, however, Trump’s<br />
own campaign has been in deeper trouble<br />
over the emergence of a 2005 video<br />
in which Trump bragged about groping<br />
women. Many Republican elected officials<br />
have turned their back on him and<br />
Clinton’s lead in national opinion polls<br />
has increasedeft<br />
Trump escalated his attacks on U.S.<br />
House of Representatives Speaker Paul<br />
Ryan on Wednesday, deepening a fracture<br />
in the Republican Party.<br />
Clinton, a former secretary of state,<br />
has repeatedly accused Trump of having<br />
overly friendly ties with Putin and<br />
Russia.<br />
She has noted that Trump’s foreign<br />
policies have tended to align with Russian’s<br />
interests, whether it has been<br />
questioning NATO’s role in defending<br />
Eastern Europe, failing to recognise<br />
Russia’s intrusion into Ukraine, and supporting<br />
Russia’s actions in Syria.<br />
Trump, a New York businessman<br />
who has never previously run for office,<br />
has shifted his policies on a wide range<br />
of issues, from taxes to the minimum<br />
wage to immigration during his White<br />
House campaign but his statements on<br />
Russia have been consistent. His friendly<br />
stance toward Moscow departs from<br />
the views of many prominent Republicans.<br />
During a presidential debate on<br />
Sunday, Trump publicly disagreed with<br />
his own vice presidential choice, Mike<br />
Pence, who had called for a more hawkish<br />
approach toward Russia.<br />
“I DON’T KNOW PUTIN”<br />
At that debate, Trump questioned<br />
whether Russia was behind the hacks,<br />
as the U.S. government has asserted.<br />
And on Wednesday, during a rally in<br />
Ocala, Florida, Trump echoed those remarks.<br />
“Have you ever noticed, anything<br />
that goes wrong they blame Russia?”<br />
Trump told the crowd. “They always<br />
blame Russia and then they says Donald<br />
Trump is friends . . . I don’t know Putin,<br />
folks. What the hell do I have to do with<br />
Putin?”<br />
Trump has said that as president he<br />
would seek warmer relations with Russia<br />
and that it would be in the United<br />
States’ best interests to seek Russia’s<br />
help to defeat Islamic State.<br />
“Trump is the most pro-Russian presidential<br />
candidate ever,” said Max Boot,<br />
much as 6.9 percent on<br />
Wednesday to its lowest<br />
since March 1, but recovered<br />
to close down 2.5<br />
percent, its lowest since<br />
the end of May.<br />
It was down 2.1 percent<br />
by the mid-day break on<br />
Thursday.<br />
Deputy Prime Minister<br />
Somkid Jatusripitak said<br />
he had asked the Securities<br />
and Exchange Commission<br />
(SEC) to investigate<br />
rumours that had<br />
been affecting the market.<br />
“I will tell the SEC to<br />
investigate who spread<br />
the news and who caused<br />
stocks to fall. Foreigners<br />
are waiting to pick up<br />
stocks and Thais are selling<br />
them,” Somkid told reporters.<br />
“I don’t think it’s beneficial<br />
to do that because<br />
this is an important time<br />
for the country and we<br />
should not undermine<br />
ourselves.”<br />
“Don’t listen to rumours.<br />
Please only listen<br />
to the government,”<br />
he added.<br />
The government on<br />
Wednesday urged people<br />
to ignore rumours<br />
on social media and wait<br />
for official announcements.<br />
[Reuters]<br />
a senior fellow for national security<br />
studies at the Council of Foreign Relations.<br />
“Putin no doubt sees a once-ina-lifetime<br />
opportunity to reorient U.S.<br />
foreign policy in his direction by electing<br />
Trump.”<br />
A Russian ultra-nationalist ally of<br />
Putin who is known for his fiery rhetoric<br />
said Trump was the only person<br />
able to de-escalate dangerous tensions<br />
between Moscow and Washington, and<br />
predicted nuclear war if Clinton were<br />
elected.<br />
“Relations between Russia and the<br />
United States can’t get any worse. The<br />
only way they can get worse is if a war<br />
starts,” Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a flamboyant<br />
veteran lawmaker, told.<br />
Clinton campaign chairman Podesta<br />
said on Tuesday the FBI was investigating<br />
a “criminal hack” of his emails, and<br />
he tied the Trump campaign to the leaks<br />
by suggesting that a former Trump adviser,<br />
Roger Stone, had advance warning<br />
of the hacks.<br />
The Trump campaign has not responded<br />
to the allegation about Stone,<br />
but Trump has denied any coordination<br />
with the Russian government to embarrass<br />
Clinton.<br />
He has, however, made clear he<br />
supports WikiLeaks’ efforts. “I love<br />
WikiLeaks,” he said at a rally in Pennsylvania<br />
on Tuesday.<br />
The United States has an ongoing<br />
criminal investigation into Assange’s<br />
publishing of classified material. Clinton<br />
has been a fierce critic of Assange, who<br />
remains at the Ecuadorean embassy in<br />
London where he sought refuge in 2012<br />
to avoid possible extradition to Sweden.<br />
Last week, the Office of the Director<br />
of National Intelligence and Department<br />
of Homeland Security said the government<br />
was confident the hacks of Democratic<br />
political groups and campaign<br />
officials originated from high levels of<br />
the Russian government.<br />
The White House on Tuesday promised<br />
a “proportional” response to Russia<br />
over the hacks.<br />
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei<br />
Lavrov told CNN the United States has<br />
offered no proof of his government’s involvement,<br />
and suggested Moscow was<br />
unconcerned about possible reprisals.<br />
“If they decided to do something, let<br />
them do it,” Lavrov said. ( Reuters)<br />
India rejects Pak’s reference to<br />
women’s condition in Kashmir<br />
United Nations: Innocent Indian women<br />
have suffered for long due to the persistent<br />
terrorist acts perpetrated by “proxies of Pakistan”,<br />
India has said as it strongly rejecting references<br />
by Islamabad to conditions of women<br />
in Kashmir.<br />
Counsellor Mayank Joshi in India’s Permanent<br />
Mission to the UN here “completely”<br />
rejected the “baseless allegations” made by<br />
Pakistan about women in Jammu and Kashmir,<br />
saying “in fact” it is the innocent Indian<br />
women who have for “long suffered due to the<br />
persistent terrorist acts perpetrated by proxies<br />
of Pakistan.”<br />
Joshi exercised India’s Right of Reply after<br />
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Special Envoy<br />
on Kashmir Shezra Mansab Ali Khan referred<br />
to the conditions of women in Kashmir<br />
during an <strong>Oct</strong>ober 11 session on Advancement<br />
of Women in the General Assembly’s<br />
Third Committee, which focuses on social and<br />
humanitarian issues.<br />
Khan said armed conflict and illegal occupation<br />
accentuates the plight of women.<br />
Citing the situation in Kashmir, she said<br />
“thousands of women have fallen victims to<br />
brutal oppression and occupation.<br />
Countless others have suffered rape and sexual<br />
abuse, the worst and most traumatic form of<br />
violence.”<br />
Joshi said it is “ironical” that a country<br />
that has “institutionalised the oppression” of<br />
women in its society including through “medieval<br />
draconian laws is making claims about<br />
the rights of women in a pluralistic democracy<br />
such as India.”<br />
He said Pakistan will be well served to<br />
“seriously examine” what ails its women and<br />
hampers their advancement.<br />
Pakistan has been constantly raising the<br />
Kashmir issue at various platforms in the UN,<br />
including in the General Assembly and its various<br />
committees that deal with diverse issues<br />
such as disarmament and decolonisation.<br />
Joshi asserted that India will not respond<br />
to the “lies and deceit” Pakistan has been<br />
resorting to at the world body to pursue a<br />
diplomacy of “hate”.<br />
“We are aware of Pakistan s cynical attempts<br />
to pursue diplomacy of hate through<br />
lies and deceit. We do not intend to further<br />
respond to such misguided and futile efforts,”<br />
he said.<br />
A Pakistani official however again took the<br />
floor to exercise the Right of Reply to Joshi s<br />
remarks, saying no amount of “obfuscation”<br />
could hide the alleged human rights violations<br />
in Kashmir.<br />
He said Jammu and Kashmir was an “internationally<br />
recognised” dispute and Pakistan<br />
rejected “any insinuations to equate the legitimate<br />
struggles of the Kashmiri people with<br />
acts of terrorism. [PTI]<br />
Indian faces threat from inside,<br />
not outside: Shivshankar Menon<br />
Washington: The real<br />
threats to India are “internal”<br />
and emanate from<br />
communal and social violence,<br />
not from outside forces<br />
such as Pakistan or China,<br />
former national security<br />
advisor Shivshankar Menon<br />
has said.<br />
Asked if Pakistan or China<br />
pose an existential threat<br />
to India, Menon said: “No”.<br />
“In terms of national<br />
security, I think the real<br />
threats are internal,” he<br />
told.<br />
“There’s no existential<br />
threat to India’s existence<br />
today externally, unlike in<br />
the 50s or when we were<br />
formed. And for many years<br />
till late 60s there were actual<br />
internal separatist<br />
threats, not any more. I<br />
think that we have actual<br />
dealt with,” Menon said.<br />
His long career in public<br />
service spans diplomacy,<br />
national security, and<br />
India’s relations with its<br />
neighbours and major global<br />
powers. Menon served as<br />
national security advisor to<br />
Prime Minister Manmohan<br />
Singh from January 2010 to<br />
May 20<strong>14</strong>.<br />
Menon’s first book post<br />
retirement - ‘Choices: Inside<br />
the making of India’s<br />
Foreign Policy’ - is all set<br />
to hit book stores globally<br />
next week.<br />
Asked to elaborate on<br />
what he meant by internal<br />
threats, he said: “If there are<br />
real threats to India, to the<br />
idea of India, India’s integrity,<br />
today they actually come<br />
from within the country.”<br />
“If you look at violence<br />
in India, deaths from terrorism,<br />
from left wing extremism,<br />
declined steadily<br />
throughout this 21st century<br />
until 20<strong>14</strong>-2015. Even<br />
now the basic trend for terrorism,<br />
left wing extremism<br />
is down. What has increased<br />
is since 2012, communal violence,<br />
social violence, internal<br />
violence has increase.<br />
That is something we need<br />
to find a way in dealing<br />
with,” Menon said.<br />
“This is not a traditional<br />
law and order problem,<br />
which our traditional instruments,<br />
the police, the<br />
states know how to deal<br />
with. You look at violence<br />
against women, communal,<br />
caste violence, if you<br />
look at those firms of violence,<br />
these are all a result<br />
of tremendous social and<br />
economic change of uprooting<br />
of population, urbanization...<br />
various forms of<br />
change, which we still need<br />
to learn how to deal with,”<br />
he said.<br />
Menon said those are<br />
the threats, which in the<br />
long run, has a “potential to<br />
make real difference”.<br />
“India has changed. It is<br />
normal. It happens to most<br />
societies where there is<br />
change. But you also have to<br />
learn new ways of dealing<br />
with,” he said and attributed<br />
the new threats to the rapid<br />
and fast development of the<br />
country.<br />
When asked that some<br />
people attributed this to<br />
the BJP coming to power,<br />
Menon said even that is a<br />
consequence of the change<br />
that the Indian society is<br />
undergoing now.<br />
Menon previously served<br />
as India’s foreign secretary<br />
from 2006 to 2009<br />
and as ambassador and<br />
high commissioner to Israel<br />
from 1995-1997, Sri<br />
Lanka (1997-2000), China<br />
(2000-2003) and Pakistan<br />
(2003-2006). [PTI]