9/11 Mastermind Warns of Qaida Bomb In Europe, Says WikiLeaks

London: The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks warned that al-Qaida has hidden a nuleash bomb in Europe which will unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” if Osama bin Laden is captured, leaked files revealed Monday.

The terror group also planned to make a 9/11 style attack on London’s Heathrow airport by crashing a hijacked airliner into one of the terminals, files showed.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told Guantanamo Bay interrogators the terror group would detonate the nuclear device if the al-Qaida choef was captured or killed, according to classified files released by the WikiLeaks website.

Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has been held at Guantanamo since 2006 and is to be tried in a military court at the US naval base on Cuba over the attacks. His nuclear threat was revealed in Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, one of several media outlest which have published the classified assessments of detainees at Guantanamo. The German weekly Der Spiegel, also citingWikiLeaks, said that Sheikh Mohammed had told his interrogators he had set up two cell for the purpose of attacking Heathrow in 2002.

The aim was to seize control of an airliner shortly after control of an airliner shortly after takeoff from Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports, turn it around and crash it into one of the four terminals. Sheekh Mohammed said one cell had been formed with aim of taking flying lissons in Kenya, while the other had been tasked with recruiting participants.

He said the plot had been discussed serveral times ay the highest level of al-Qaida. One component had involved the infiltration of ground staff at the airport, according to Der Spiegel. Another attack given the green lifht in late 2001 would have targeted “the tallest buildings in California” with hijacked airliners, Der Spiegel reported. The attackers would have gained access to the airliner cockpits by setting off small bo,bs hidden in their shoes, it said.

Spiritual Leader To Be Buried On Wednesday

Puttaparthi: Godman Sathya Sai Baba, a cult like figure who had a phenomenal following, including the high and mighty, across the globe died here on Sunday  battling illness caused by a multi-organ failure for nearly a month.

86-year-old Baba, whose clout ran far wide with millions of followers but had more than his own share of controversies, died at 7:40 AM following multi-organ failure at the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences founded by him in this backward Anantpurdi disrict town in Andhra Pradesh, the place from where he ran his spiritual empire. “Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is no more with us physically. He left His earthly body on April 24 7:40 AM due to cardio-respiratory failure,” A N Safaya, director of the Institute, said. “Baba’s body eill lie in stste at Sai Kulwant Hall for two days-Monday and Tuesday. Arrangements will be made for darshan after 6:00 pm on Sunday at the Hall,” he said.

Baba will be buried at the Sai Kulwant Hall in Prashanti Nilayam on Wednesday in line with the practice adopted for spiritual leaders in India, contrary to the Hindu custom of cremating bodies. Andhra Pradesh state major industries minister J Geetha Reddy said the members of Baba’s family and the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust have decided that his burial will take place on Wednesday morning. The exact time will be announced later.

SAI BABA’S JOURNEY

Nov 23, 1926: Born in Puttaparthi, Ananthpur district, Andhra Pradesh

Oct 20, 1940: Declares he is Sai Baba

1950: Builds Prasanthi Nilayam, his Puttaparthi ashram

1954: General Hospital established at Puttaparthi

1968: Sets up college for girls at Anantapur

1972: Founded Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, a charitable trust that undertakes social welfare projects

1976: General hospital set up in Bengalore

1978: College for boys at Puttaparthi

1981: Sri Sathya Sai University inaugurated

1991: sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences set up

1995: Launches Anantapur drinking water project

2001: Launches Medak and Mahabubnagar drinking waterProjects

2001: Sets up Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Bangalore

2002: Launches Chennai water project

2007: East Godavari and Wesa Godavari water projects

2009: Launches construction of Sathya Sai University campus

New Delhi: The enforcement directorate has asked sacked CWG Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi to gives details about his bank accounts, other property related information in connection with its probe into the multicrore CWG scam.

According to sources, the ED has sent a communication to Kalmadi to furnish all details of bank accounts, movable and immovable properties, instances of foreign travel before the Commonwealth Games held last year, and transaction of foreign exchange in the last few years.

He has been asked to provide the information before the end of this month and subsequent action which may include fresh summons for questitoning, the sources said. The directorate is probing the flow o funds and forex exchange during the Queen’s Baton Realy (QBR) that was held in London before the Games and has also registered a case in overlays-related works of the Games under the Prevention of Monday Laundering Act (PMLA).

The ED has been tracking the flow of funds with the help of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for sometime now for a number of events related to the games, including the QBR. Kalmadi, being the head of the OC during that time has been asked to furnish the details under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act(FEMA), sources said.

Obama Vows to Give Americans Cheap Health Facilities in Us

Washington: US President Barack Obama on Wednesday said would not like Americans to travel to countries like India and Mexico for cheap medical treatment.

“My preference would be that you don’t have travel to Mexico or India to get cheap health care,” he said. “I’d like you  to be able to get it right here in the United States of America….that’s high quality.” Obama was speaking at a community college in Virginia, and drew applause on several occasions.

Obama was responding to a question from the audience on increasing health care cost in the US.

“Before we went on the path of you can go somewhere else to get your health care, let’s work to see if we can reduce the costs of health care here in the United States of America. That’s going to make a big difference,” he said.

“And Medicare is a good place to start because Medicare is such a big purchaser that if we can start changing how the health care system works inside of Medicare, then the entire system changes. All the doctors, all the hospitals, they will all adapt to these best practices.”

He went on to say: “One of the things that we want to do as part of our health care reform package is let’s start doing a better job of negotiating better prices job of scription drugs here in the United States so that you don’t feel like you’re getting cheated because you’re paying 30 per cent more or 20 per cant more than prescription drugs in Canada or Mexico.”

New Delhi: It was the alertness and prompt action of nine pantry staffers that helped saved lives of hundreds of passengers on board the burning Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani train on Monday. That is a feat for which the Railways has rewarded them with a princely sum of Rs. 3,000 collectively!

As the blaze started from the pantry car at 2.20 AM and was about to spread to adjoining coaches, the staff of Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) pulled the chain, alerted the sleeping passengers in the other coaches and helped them get off the train, said railway officials.

They also delinked the burning coaches from rest of the train which helped in averting a major disaster. The fire spread to the three coaches-B-5, B-6 and B-7 – but nobody was injured as the passengers had got off by then, they said.

The railway has rewarded the nine staffers of the IRTCTC with Rs 3,000 as a “token gesture”, Sanjay Jain, group general manager of IRCTC said. There were total 30 pantry staffers in the train at that time. At the same time, Railways gave Rs 10.6 lakh to 212 passengers (Rs 5,000 per passenger) as ex-gratia for the inconvenience and loss of baggage due to the 12951 Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani.

Railways sought to play down the issue, with a senior official saying the “token” reward was given at the level of divisional railways manager and a higher award cannot be announced pending inquiry into the incident. “The cause of the fire in the pantry car is yet to be ascertained,” the official said.

Railways has order an inquiry to be conducted by commissioner railway safety (CRS) Chetan Bakshi. Four bogies including the pantry car were completely gutted in the fire. “CRS” has reached the site an inquiry process is already underway, said the official.

New Delhi: The government is studying the feasibility of giving value added service providers access to information related to the location of a cell phone as a part of the National Telecom Policy 2011.

Ones given a go ahead, the service has the potential to locate lost cell phones and track people anywhere in the country by simply feeding the mobile number in a web application, even if the handset is not GPS enabled.

At present, the location of a cell phone can be traced only if the handset is GPS enabled. The location-based information of all other (non-GPS enabled) mobile phones can be only accessed by security agencies using mobile phone towers.

Keeping privacy issues and security concerns in mind, the government is contemplating how much information related to location of a mobile phone can be given out to public. “We are vetting it to decide how much of it can be opened for public,” he added. There are various companies in the telecom sector that provide location-based services on request like information about nearest restaurants and hospitals etc. of a particular area where the user is positioned.

The information is provided to the user when he types the name of the location on an mobile application on his cell phone or sends a SMS to a particular number. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has also invited comments on mobile value added services report released by Assoc ham in January as per-cursor to a consultation paper on VAS.

Kolkata: With the ruling Left Front facing its toughest challenge to retain power in 35 years, the first phase of West Bengal Assembly polls will begin today.

The fate of 364 candidates including ten ministers in the polling which will take place in 54 Assembly segments spread over six North Bengal districts. The three constituencies in the Darjeeling Hills will go to polls in the first phase with three hill parties-Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the GNLF and the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League having campaigned in full force.

Congress president Soniya Gandhi and senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee had hit the campaign trail jointly in North Bengal. Gandhi tore into the Left, blaming it for Bengal’s under-development. Promising that the Congress-Trinamool alliance would make Bengal an advanced state if voted, the Congress president alleged Left Front in its 34-yeare rule had made the state back-ward in every district.

Campaigning for votes ended on Sunday for the polls in 54 constituencies spread over six north Bengal districts-Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar, North Dinjapur, South Dinajpur and Malda. Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi addressed campaing meeting at Matigara-Naxalbari, Malbazar and Malda on Thursday last week criticizing the Left Front for its “misrule” and said this election will bring an end to the CPM-led government.

Senior BJP leader L K Advani also addressed a campaign meeting in Jalpaiguri districts on Thursday. BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley were among the national-leavel BJP leaders who addressed campaign meetings.

Advani said if people of Bengal were for a good government they should vote for BJP candidate.

Ahmadabad: During his lifetime Mahatma Gandhi turned many conventions on its head. Today, the Navajivan Trust, a publishing house that Bapu started, has turned the logic of the copyright law on its head.

Navajivan’s story copyright on Bapu’s writings expired in 2009. Everyone expected the trust’s sales of Bapu’s best-seller autobiography-The story of my experiments with truth-to dip as other publishers have increased by nearly 50 per cent in 2010-11. Not only are more people publishing the autobiography, more people are also reading it.

Figures show the trust had been selling around two lakh of the autobiography every year since 1999-2000. In 2010-11, sales reached 3.31 lakh copies for the first time.

“No one can match our price,” says Kapil Bhatt, who handles Navajivan’s sales and copyright issues. “We last revised the price of the autobiography by Rs 10 to 30, 10 years ago. Yet, we have made no compromise on quality.” Other publishers sell the book for up to Rs 300.

Many people asked Navajivan to approach the Central government and have the copyright extended in 2009, but the management decided against it. Bapu had always been against copyright, but his followers convinced him the earnings from books and other writings could fund many of his pet causes, like battling untouchability.

In his will in 1940, he made Navajivan as the heir of all his moveable and immovable property, including the copyright of all books. “The Navajivan Trust will give to the Harijan Sevak Sangh for Harijan service, every year after my demise, twenty-five per cent of the net profit that it earns out of the sale of the books mentioned above and out of the exercise of their copyright,” the will said. Navajivan has kept its word so far even without the copyright.

New Delhi: China on Wednesday dropped broad hints at reversing its two-year-old practice of issuing stapled visas to people hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, saying it was wiling to work with India to resolve issues relating to people to people exchanges.

“You can watch closely and you conclusion yourself,” China’s ambassador to India Zhang Yan said. He was replying to a question on whether Beijing had relaxed its practice of giving visas on paper which were stapled on the passports of persons hailing from J&K. Zhang said the Chinese foreign office spokesperson had already commented on the issue in Beijing and he would not like to add any further.

“We are willing to work with India to resolve all issues involving people to people exchanges. These are our general views which indicate our intention,” he said.

On resumption of high-level defence exchanges, Zhang said he hoped the two armies would start again. “I am happy to know that with the joint efforts of our two sides, we will continue our cooperation in the defence field,” he said.

Chinese foreign ministry official Hong Lie had said the country was ready to solve issues relating to people to people exchanges. “We are very confident about the prospect of bilateral relation,” he said. The statement comes in the backdrop of Beijing granting normal visas to four journalists born in J&K, who are visiting Sanya to cover the BRIC summit beginning on Thursday. India had called off defence exchanges last year after China refused visa to an Indian Army General B S Jaswal on the ground that he headed troops in J&K.

China had in 2008 started the practice of issuing visas on loose sheets of paper to people from J&K, which was seen here as questioning India’s sovereignty over the state. This has been an irritant in bilateral relations and the matter had snowballed into a major controversy last July after the Jaswal episode.

Indian officials were cautiously optimistic that China may have decided to stop the practice, taking on board Indian concerns. They said the two quietly on this without making any announcements.

New Delhi: Indian agencies on Monday scrambled to check the veracity of information from Chile that the key conspirators behind the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999.

Chilean police detained one Abdul Rauf. The detention took place on the basis of an Interpol red corner issued for Abdul Rauf, one of the masterminds of the plot that led to the swap of three notorious for the passengers aboard the hijacked aircraft.

Chilean authorities have sent across photographs and fingerprints of the detained person. The CBI will send a team to chile if the indication firm up. For Indian agencies, Rauf has been crucial as they suspect him to have acted as the conduit between ISI leaders and the hijackers during the six-day crisis that saw the Vajpayee government succumbing to the clamour for safe release of passengers at the cost of its initial stand not to negotiate with the hijackers.

The key role that Rauf, brother-in-law of Maulana Masood Azhar, one of the terrorists who had to be freed as part of the bargain, played in the hijacking has been attested to by Abdul Latif, One of the accused who is in Indian custody. Latif said that Rauf, along with Yusuf Azhar, brother of Maulana Masood, planned the hijack, travelling along with fellow-conspirators to Nepal where the hijackers boarded the ill-fated Indian Airlines plane.

However, sources were keeping fingers crossed whether the person detained by Chilean police was a genuine catch. “We have our doubts because we are not sure whether someone who is on an international wanted list and is so crucial for the real plotters will take the risk of travelling to a distant country under his own identity. Why will anyone take such a risk when he can easily acquire a fake identity with the help of official agencies in Pakistan,” a senior investigator said.

CBI can be helped by the fact that it has copies of driving licences and passports of the hijackers and other plotters, including Rauf.

Earlier, the CBI had to face disappointment after Kenyan police claimed that they had Abdul Karim Tunda, a notorious jihadi terrorist who conducted a bombing campaign in the Capital, in their custody. The detained person turned out to be British national Ismoila Olatunde.