Three killed in Delhi building collapse

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New Delhi: Three people were killed and at least nine others injured after a building collapsed here Saturday morning, an official said.

The building collapsed around 9 a.m. in North Delhi's Inderlok area.

"Three people have been killed in the incident. The rescue operation is still on to bring out those who are still trapped under the debris," North Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) mayor Yogender Chandolia told IANS.

The NDMC has provided an excavator to remove the debris in addition to the four fire tenders sent by the fire department, he added.

"Nine injured people have been taken to Bara Hindu Rao Hospital, out of them four are in critical condition," Deputy Commissioner of Police Madhur Verma told IANS.

Verma said four to five families lived in the building and around 15 people are still feared trapped under the debris.

"The Rescue operation is still underway," Verma added.

Flipkart unveils tablet for Rs.9,999

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Bangalore: India's largest e-commerce player Flipkart Thursday launched its first tablet Digiflip Pro, priced at Rs.9,999.

The tablet comes in black and white variants with shopping benefits worth Rs.5,000 and free e-books valued at Rs.2,000 from the company.

'Launching our own tablet, we have taken another step towards building an entire e-commerce ecosystem in the country. With one of the largest user bases, we have access to huge data that allows us to predict what kind of products and services will work in the market,' Flipkart vice president Michael Adnani said in a statement here.

With a dual SIM 3G calling facility for faster data connectivity and voice calling, the seven inch size tablet has a 1.3 gigahertz (GHz) quad core cortex processor and one gigabyte memory.

Service for tablets will be available through the company's 120 network centres in over 100 cities across the country.

'Customers across 13 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad can avail of 24-hour service by visiting any of the 22 centres we have partnered with in these cities,' the statement said.

Launched in October 2007, Flipkart offers 15 million products across 70 categories. With 18 million registered users, the portal claims to have 3.5 million hits a day and five million shipments a month.

Indian arrested in Kuwait for money laundering

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Kuwait City: An expatriate Indian has been arrested on arrival at the Kuwait International Airport on charges of money laundering, media reported.

The unidentified Indian, who flew from India, was found with an undeclared amount of 12,000 Kuwaiti dinars (over $42,550) in cash in his luggage by a customs officer, Arab Times reported Wednesday.

He has been referred to the authorities concerned for further investigations.

According to Kuwait law, passengers are not allowed to carry more than 3,000 Kuwaiti dinars in cash. 

19 killed in bomb attack in Baghdad

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Baghdad : At least 19 people were killed and 41 were wounded in a bomb explosion in the Iraqi capital Thusday, a police source said.

A suicide bomber blew up himself at a popular market in a Shiite-majority of Kadhimiyah area, north of Baghdad, leaving 19 people dead and 41 others injured, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Iraq is witnessing some of its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, a total of 8,868 Iraqis, including 7,818 civilians and civilian police personnel, were killed in 2013, the highest annual death toll in years.

More US advisors reach Iraq

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Washington: Four teams of 50 US advisors have reached Baghdad to help the Iraqi military counter Sunni insurgents who have made rapid advances in the country.

US forces in Baghdad have started the first of two planned joint operations centres to assess the security situation, Xinhua quoted Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren as saying.

'It will serve as a centre where information that's coming in from the various teams of advisors can be consolidated and analysed,' Warren said.

The 50 are part of 300 US military advisors President Barack Obama has ordered into Iraq to assess the offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).

The group has overrun towns and cities across the country's north and west and is moving closer to Baghdad, Warren said.

The US teams are mainly from the army's special forces. Overall, there are some 500 American military personnel in Iraq.

14 killed in Andhra gas pipeline blast

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Hyderabad: 14 people were burnt to death and scores of others injured in a huge explosion and fire that took place at a GAIL gas pipeline in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh early Friday morning, officials said.

The dead include three women and three children while about 30 people were injured. The death toll may rise as the condition of 15 of them is said to be critical.

State Finance Minister Y. Ramakrishnudu told reporters that 14 people were killed and many others were injured when the fire broke out around 5.30 a.m. in Nagaram village in Mamidikuduru mandal of the coastal district.

The minister said: 'The fire caused massive losses. Coconut trees and other crops in over 10 acres were reduced to ashes.'

The injured were shifted to hospitals at Amalapuram and Kakinada towns.

The blast rocked the 18-inch pipeline of state-owned Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) near Tatipaka refinery of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), about 550 km from Hyderabad.

GAIL officials said the cause of the fire would be known only after a thorough probe.

They said Rescue and relief operations were underway at the blast site.

The huge flames leaping out of the pipeline damaged houses and shops near the blast site. The villagers ran out of their houses in panic as the fire accompanied by loud blasts engulfed a large area.

Local police officials said fire tenders brought the blaze control.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is cutting short his visit to Delhi and rushing to the accident site. He along with senior officials will be landing at Rajahmundry airport, about 90 km from the blast site.

Naidu expressed grief at the loss of lives in the GAIL pipeline explosion. 'He reviewed the situation with district collector and senior officials from Delhi,' said an official statement.

Naidu directed Deputy Chief Minister N. Chinna Rajappa to rush to the blast site to monitor rescue and relief operations.

Rajappa, who is also the home minister, asked district officials to take all measures to provide relief to the injured.

Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the incident. He also spoke to officials of the petroleum ministry.

YSR Congress party chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed shock and grief over the accident. He demanded best medicare to the injured and a probe into the incident.

Bangladesh JI leader faces death penalty

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DHAKA: Bangladesh´s war crimes court is set to deliver a verdict Tuesday against the leader of the largest Islamist party, who could face the death penalty for his alleged crimes during the 1971 independence struggle.

Motiur Rahman Nizami, 71, faces 16 charges ranging from mass killing to rape, arson and genocide, relating to violence committed by one of the most notorious militias during the war which he is suspected of leading. A death sentence could trigger violent protests in the country as Nizami´s Jamaat-e-Islami party has a strong grassroots base with hundreds of thousands of activists and supporters.

Similar verdicts including the execution of a senior Jamaat leader last year saw massive unrest nationwide as Islamists fought with security forces in towns and cities, leaving around 200 people dead. Police were seen patrolling important places in the capital Dhaka while private television Channel 24 said border guards have been deployed in major cities and towns across the country to prevent any violence. Nizami, the president of Jamaat-e-Islami, pleaded not guilty and accuses the country´s secular government of using the special war crimes court to target opposition leaders.

Prosecutors say Nizami was one of the chief architects of the mass killings of Bengalis in the 1971 independence war which saw Bangladesh emerge from what was then called East Pakistan. The government says three million people died in the war. Independent researchers put the estimate between 300,000 and 500,000. "He established the Al-Badr forces during the war to support the Pakistani army," prosecutor Mohammad Ali told AFP ahead of the verdict and the sentencing, which he said would come on Tuesday.

As head of Al Badr, he was involved "in committing crimes against humanity such as genocide, murder, rape and arson" as well as the murder of the country´s top intellectuals, Ali said.

Nizami, a minister in the Islamist-allied government of 2001-6 is already on death row after being sentenced to death in January for trafficking weapons and trying to ship them to a rebel group in northeast India.

 

Six of a family gunned down in Nowshera

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NOWSHERA: Six members of a family including four women and a child were shot dead in Nowshera on Tuesday night, Geo News reported.

Police said the incident took place in Amangarh Labor Colony, where the accused opened fire after quarrel with brother. As a result, six members of the family including four women and child were killed.

Police have nabbed the accused and started further investigation.

US oil climbs on oil exports report

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SINGAPORE: US oil prices climbed in Asia Wednesday following a report that the United States, the world´s top crude consumer, has lifted a four-decade ban on exports.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for August delivery rose 70 cents to $106.73 in mid-morning trade after jumping nearly a dollar in early trading. It had slipped 14 cents in New York trade. Brent crude for August eased 41 cents to $114.05.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday that Washington has "cleared the way for the first exports of unrefined American oil in nearly four decades". Citing rulings that have not yet been announced, the newspaper said the Commerce Department has given two companies -- Pioneer Natural Resources and Enterprise Products Partners LP -- permission to ship a type of ultralight oil known as condensate for foreign buyers. The shipments could begin as soon as August, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

"There have been some expectations for the ban on exports to be lifted and investors will now be watching to see if transportation links are up to mark to move supplies," Desmond Chua, market analyst at CMC Markets in Singapore, told AFP.

Producers have long been clamouring for the US government to lift the ban on exports with crude stockpiles near record levels, but less-than-satisfactory transportation links could still hinder the outflow of supplies from storage hubs. The US-to-Canada Keystone XL pipeline project has pitted environmental groups against the oil industry, which has argued that it will bring much-needed jobs and help fulfill the US goal of energy self-sufficiency.

Chua said investors are still monitoring the crisis in crude-producer Iraq, despite fading fears that it could result in a major supply disruption. "Unless we see any major disruption to Iraqi oil assets in the south, we aren´t going to see further risk premium associated with the crisis," he said.

Insurgents have captured swathes of Iraqi territory in a lightning offensive that began on June 9, but they have yet to directly threaten the key oil-producing region in the south. (AFP)

 

 

More than 1,000 killed in 17 days in Iraq: UN

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GENEVA: More than 1,000 people -- at least three-quarters of them civilians -- were killed this month as militants swept through large swathes of northern and western Iraq, the United Nations said Tuesday.

At least 1,075 people were killed and 658 were injured in the country in the 17 days from June 5 to 22, Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN human rights office told reporters in Geneva.

He said the numbers "should be viewed very much as a minimum."

At least 757 civilians were killed and another 599 injured in the provinces of Nineveh, Diyala and Salah al-Din, he said.

A number of the deaths were due to "verified summary executions and extra-judicial killings of civilians, police, and soldiers who were hors combat."

At least 318 more people -- not necessarily all civilians -- had been killed and 590 injured in Baghdad and areas in the south, "many of them as a result of at least six separate vehicle-borne bombs," he said.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, have since early June overrun major areas of five provinces and driven to within less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Baghdad.

The militant onslaught has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, alarmed world leaders, and put Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki under pressure at home and abroad. (AFP)