16.10.2016 Views

266_CH_14_Oct_2016

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

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 />

Dear Readers...<br />

City Hilights invites you to send in your<br />

suggestions, articles, photos, stories<br />

and ideas. We will publish them for<br />

you. This is your platform. Voice your<br />

opinion. Showcase your talent.<br />

Your suggestions are valuable to us.<br />

info@ibcworldnews.com<br />

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]

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!