Friday, March 23, 2012

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Norway not to release Indian kids

Posted:

Norwegian authorities have said they cannot hand over the two Indian kids in foster care to their uncle because of reports of "conflicts" in the family.

A court hearing planned for Friday to decide the fate of the children has also been put off, the BBC reported Thursday.

New developments in the case make it impossible to carry out the hearing in Stavenger district court, scheduled for March 23, BBC quoted Stavenger City Council as saying.

This followed media reports of "marital problems" between the parents.

Local social services say the parents failed to look after their children. The parents deny this. The couple, Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, say "cultural differences" led to the situation.

On Wednesday, Indian diplomats also put off a trip to Norway to monitor the court case for the custody of the children.

Three-year-old Abhigyan and one-year-old Aishwariya Bhattacharya were put in foster care by the Stavanger Child Welfare Service last May, after it felt they were at risk.

The case has received a lot of media attention in India and caused anger. This became a diplomatic issue between the two countries, with India saying the children should be allowed to live in their own cultural and linguistic environment.

Norway won't release kids in custody row

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Norwegian social workers, who sparked a diplomatic row by removing two Indian children from their parents, said yesterday they were calling off a deal to place the kids with their uncle in India due to a spat within the family.

"In light of the great uncertainty that now prevails, the Child Welfare Service (CWS) cannot maintain that a move to India would be in the best interest of the children," said Gunnar Toresen, the head of the agency's local branch in the southwestern Norwegian town of Stavanger.

The two children were removed from their parents in May 2011 by the CWS, which deemed they were not receiving proper care. The parents Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, have rejected the allegations and initially claimed that the authorities objected to their feeding the children by hand and sharing the same bed.

Earlier this week however, the father, Anurup, changed his story, saying, "It was not just cultural bias that prompted the CWS to act. My wife has a serious psychological problem." A Stavanger court had been set to hold a hearing on Friday on whether the initial deal to hand custody of the children to their uncle in India was in their best interest, but the CWS said the new developments "make it impossible to carry out the hearing.
Norwegian authorities were worried "that the children could be caught up in a very unfortunate tug of war in India."


Gunman kept shooting till his final leap

Posted:

Mohammed Merah, who killed seven people in France, jumped from the window of his house amid a hail of bullets with a gun in his hand after a 32-hour stand-off

The al-Qaeda fanatic who murdered seven people in south west France died in a vicious gunfire battle after police stormed his apartment following a 32-hour siege. The Toulouse terrorist burst out of his flat's bathroom 'shooting insanely' at officers, before leaping to his death from a window.


Job well done: French police leave the scene of the gun battle after they
had raided


Mohammed Merah's house. Merah came out shooting madly and
injured two officers. Officials said they never seen this kind of violence.
Pics/AFP

All guns blazing
In scenes reminiscent of a Hollywood film, Mohammed Merah (23), unleashed round after round from automatic weapons after gas cannisters were thrown into his apartment and police stormed in.Two officers were injured, including one who is still in a serious condition.



Interior Minister Claude Gueant said, "We sent in special cameras to be able to see where he was but we could not find him. It was when we were able to locate him in the bathroom that he came out shooting madly at everybody."

"Merah jumped out of the window and continued to shoot. He was found dead on the ground," added Gueant.
Merah, who admits murdering seven people in the past week, had been holed up in his flat in the city of Toulouse with a variety of weapons since Wednesday. Police decided to move in after negotiations broke down and he threatened to start killing officers. Yesterday morning police turned powerful spotlights on Merah's building to try and blind him and keep him from seeing the operation closing in around him. He had said he wanted to 'die with weapons in his hands'.

Revenge killings
Police also confirmed that, during the hours of negotiating, Merah had admitted to killing a rabbi, three Jewish children and three French paratroopers in three separate motorcycle shooting attacks.
They are believed to be the first killings inspired by Islamic radical motives in France in more than a decade.
Authorities said Merah was a radical Islamist and had been to Afghanistan and the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan, where he claimed to have received training from al-Qaeda.

Police said Merah told negotiators he admitted to the killlings to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to protest the French army's involvement in Afghanistan, as well as a government ban last year on face-covering Islamic veils. Even before Merah's death, the lawyer who had defended him for years on a series of criminal charges predicted a dramatic end to the siege.

"He wants to show he is exceptional, omnipotent, and this approach can only end up as something tragic," Christian Etelin said. He said Merah had tried to join the military but was rejected. He said Merah was also disillusioned after a string of convictions for petty crimes and after efforts to reduce his sentences through work programs failed.

Sarkozy's crackdown on Internet hate sites
Following Merah's death, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said anyone who regularly visits 'websites which support terrorism or call for hate or violence will be punished by the law.' And he promised a crackdown on anyone who goes abroad 'for purposes of indoctrination in terrorist ideology'.

Merah vowed to 'bring France to its knees'
Mohammed Merah proclaimed he would "bring France to its knees" before dying. A known criminal who escaped from prison in Afghanistan while serving a sentence for carrying bomb-making equipment. Merah described himself as an Islamist warrior and member of the al-Qaeda network.

India votes against Sri Lanka on 'war crimes', UN resolution adopted

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Sri Lanka today faced a major embarrassment as the UN's top human rights body adopted a resolution censuring it for alleged war crimes in the conflict with LTTE as India joined the West in backing the US-sponsored move.

In the 47-member UN Human Rights Council, 24 countries, including India, voted for the resolution and 15 against it, while eight nations abstained.

Tamil protests
Under pressure from the DMK, India joined the West in backing
the US-sponsored move against Sri Lanka. File Pic/Suresh K.K.

India, which normally does not vote on nation-specific resolutions, made a last-minute departure in the current instance after overwhelming pressure from parties in Tamil Nadu, especially the DMK which had even considered pulling out its ministers from the government at the Centre, to vote against Sri Lanka.

Interestingly, India's neighbours like China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, voted against the motion.

Maldives said the resolution was not necessary and Sri Lanka should be given time to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

The vote came after a spirited opposition from Sri Lankan Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, who said no one from outside could dictate to his country about human rights.

The resolution asked the government to explain how it would address the alleged violations of international humanitarian laws and how it would implement the recommendations of the LLRC. It also encouraged the UN Human Rights Office to offer Sri Lanka advice and assistance and the government to accept it.

Explaining its position on its vote for the resolution, India said it believes the primary responsibility for promotion and protection of human rights lies with the states. It said while it subscribes to the broader message of the resolution and the objectives it promotes, it also underlined that any assistance from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights or visits of UN Special Procedures should be in consultation with the Sri Lankan government.

"These are norms which all of us in the Council subscribe to. A democratic country like Sri Lanka has to be provided time and space to achieve the objectives of reconciliation and peace," the explanatory note said.

In the Council, India said, everyone has the responsibility to ensure that "our conclusions do contribute to this objective rather than hinder it."

India also urged the Sri Lankan government to take forward the process of broader dialogue and show concrete movement towards a meaningful devolution of powers, including the implementation of the 13th Amendment and beyond.

"We would also urge that Sri Lanka takes forward the measures for accountability and to promote human rights that it has committed to. It is these steps, more than anything we declare in this Council, which would bring about genuine reconciliation between all the communities of Sri Lanka, including the minority Tamil community," it said.

India said the UN Council has also been briefed by the government of Sri Lanka in this session on the series of steps taken to implement the report and other measures.

"We welcome these steps. We are confident that implementation of the report will foster genuine reconciliation," it said.

Noting that it cannot remain untouched by developments in Sri Lanka, India said it will continue to remain engaged with the country to take forward the process of reconciliation to secure for all its citizens a future marked by equality, dignity, justice and self-respect.


Posted by Harshad at 7:35 AM

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