10  theSun | WEDNESDAY JUNE 3 2009

news without borders

UK interior minister
to quit govt: Reports
LONDON: British Home Secretary terrorism and immigration. potential replacement.
Jacqui Smith plans to resign from All the main parties have been Transport Secretary
her government post, according hit by a series of disclosures about Geoff Hoon became the
to media reports, creating further their expenses published in the latest senior politician to
turmoil for a government battered Daily Telegraph newspaper over agree to pay back money
by an expenses scandal sweeping three-and-a-half weeks. after being accused of
through parliament. Labour, in power since 1997, claiming allowances on
Smith’s reputation suffered in appears likely to suffer most in the two homes at the same
March when a leaked copy of time. He said he
her parliamentary expenses would repay £384
claim showed she charged (RM2,200).
taxpayers for the rental of two Finance minister
pornographic movies by her Alistair Darling apolo-
husband. gised on Monday and
Britons are furious that said he would repay
many members of parliament
have milked the expenses sys-
tem, claiming from taxpayers
£350 (RM2,000) after
overclaiming expenses.
An Ipsos Mori poll published
Students
from a
military-run
Pakistan ‘frees’
the cost of everything from dog
food to cleaning their swim-
ming pools at a time when
in The Sun newspaper put La-
bour support at just 18%, level
with Britain’s third party, the
college sit in
a police van
after being
kidnapped
many people are struggling in
a recession.
Support for Prime Minister
Liberal Democrats. It showed
the gulf between Brown’s party
and the Conservatives widen-
released
by Taliban
militants on
students in battle
Gordon Brown’s Labour Party ing to 22%s. the Afghan PESHAWAR (Pakistan): Pakistan said yesterday that
has plunged and voters angry A second opinion poll, in border to soldiers rescued 80 kidnapped staff and students in a
about the expenses scandal are The Independent, showed all the the town of sting operation during a fierce battle, one day after they
rapidly losing faith in politi- major parties losing support as Bannu, 240km were snatched by masked Taliban gunmen.
cians, opinion polls showed. a result of the expenses scandal. southwest of The brazen abduction in a wild part of the northwest,
Brown faces a rout in European polls having presided over a now- Since it erupted last month, more Islamabad, on which targeted staff and students from an army-run ca-
and local elections on Thursday and discredited system. than a dozen members of parlia- Monday. det college, had sparked increased fears of a widening
is expected to reshuffle his team in Some commentators say a poor ment have been forced to announce backlash to a more than one-month offensive against
the next few days ahead of a general poll showing by Labour could lead they are stepping down at the next the Taliban.
election due within a year. to another effort to unseat Brown parliamentary election. The military said all 71 cadets and nine staff were
“It is just speculation. We are not and head off seemingly inevitable Hoon and Darling may be in rescued when militants were moving them from the law-
commenting any further,” a spokes- defeat to the Conservatives in the the firing line in Brown’s reshuffle. less tribal areas of North Waziristan to South Waziristan,
man for the prime minister’s office next election. Some Brown aides say they are where Washington accuses Al-Qaeda of plotting attacks
said when asked about the reports Health Secretary Alan Johnson, urging him to put schools minister on the West.
that Smith would stand down from a more media-savvy figure than Ed Balls, a key Brown ally, into the “The army established checkposts and all the routes
a job overseeing the police, counter- the dour Brown, is tipped as a finance ministry. – Reuters were blocked. After a fierce fight the army was able to
recover them,” the army said.
Officials near the college in Razmak said the students
are aged 15 to 25 and were not training for the army.
US intruder in Suu Kyi home acted alone: Lawyer They had been held up at gunpoint on Monday in
the province close to Afghanistan where Pakistan has
YANGON: A US man who swam to the home – which the prosecution have focused on dur- across Yangon’s Inya Lake on May 4 had pressed an assault against the Taliban for more than a
of Aung San Suu Kyi was not paid by or taking ing the trial – were “just to show his daughter, been consistent both under interrogation and month amid fears the rebels were gaining ground in the
orders from any outside organisation, his law- not for publicity or not to communicate to when his client testified last week. country.
yer said yesterday ahead of final arguments in anyone.” “He did not deny entering (the house). “We tried to secure the release through negotiation.
the trial of Myanmar’s democracy icon. Hearings in the mostly closed trial of Aung He said he came here on God’s mission to After that, we were compelled to launch a military opera-
Myanmar’s military regime has expressed San Suu Kyi and Yettaw have been adjourned warn Senior General Than Shwe (the leader tion,” a military spokesman said in Peshawar, the main
scepticism over John Yettaw’s explanation for until Friday when lawyers will present their of Myanmar’s ruling junta) and Daw Aung San city in northwest Pakistan.
his visit to the Nobel laureate’s lakeside home, closing arguments. Suu Kyi,” he said. No soldiers or civilian casualties were reported in the
with one official suggesting that the American The trial has drawn international condem- “He said he came to warn that she could sting operation.
was a “secret agent or her boyfriend.” nation. be assassinated by some terrorists. He said Tribal elders and government officials had been locked
But lawyer Khin Maung Oo said the devout Yettaw, a former US military veteran, he had his vision in the state of trance. If he in talks overnight on efforts to secure the release of the
Mormon was a “sincere and pious” person testified in court last week that he had a had failed to do so, Aung San Suu Kyi could students and staff.
who believed God had told him to warn Aung dream in which Aung San Suu Kyi was killed be lost and the government will also lose The students had been heading to the town of Bannu
San Suu Kyi and the government after he had by “terrorists” and that he swam across the dignity.” after the college closed for the summer, Bannu town
a vision that she would be assassinated. lake using a pair of homemade flippers to Khin also said his 53-year-old client was police chief Iqbal Marwat said, adding: “They have been
“There is no issue of him acting on some- alert her. a Vietnam War veteran who has post-trau- kidnapped by Taliban militants.” – AFP
one’s instruction to him or that some organi- Last month Myanmar’s consul general matic stress syndrome, diabetes and heart
sation provided money to him to do so,” Khin in Hongkong posted a letter on the Internet disease.
Maung Oo said of his client, who like Aung saying that “we have no idea whether he is Aung San Suu Kyi has branded the trial as Chinese man killed wife for failure
San Suu Kyi faces up to five years in jail. either secret agent or her boyfriend.” biased and said that she allowed Yettaw to to conceive a son, court told
“As far as I know, he’s a very sincere and The country’s deputy defence minister, have “temporary shelter” for a night.
pious person. He cooperated with the court. Major General Aye Myint, said on Sunday that She blamed Myanmar authorities for the WELLINGTON: A Chinese immigrant to New Zealand aban-
He answered the same during the interroga- Aung San Suu Kyi had deliberately covered intrusion, saying they failed to provide proper doned his 3-year-old daughter at an Australian railway station
after killing his wife because she had not given birth to a son,
tion and at the trial,” he said. up the visit. security.
the Auckland High Court was told yesterday.
The lawyer added that photos taken by Khin Maung Oo said Yettaw’s story about The opposition leader has spent 13 of the
It was the first day of the trial of Nai Yin Xue, 55, who was
the American in Aung San Suu Kyi’s house his reasons for his bizarre night-time swim last 19 years in detention. – AFP charged with murdering his wife, Anan Liu, 28, in September
2007.
Their daughter, Qian Xun Xue, was found alone in a Mel-
Ban denies UN covered up death toll in Sri Lanka bourne railway station a few days before her mother’s body,
naked except for the man’s tie she was strangled with, was
NEW YORK: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Ban vehemently rejected the notion that right, it may be wrong, it may be far too high, discovered in the boot of his car in Auckland.
on Monday denied media reports the United the world body had been involved in a cover- it may even be too low. But we honestly don’t Police said Xue, a martial arts instructor who denied the
charge, then flew to the United States where he was arrested
Nations has covered up a high civilian death up. know. We’ve always said an investigation
months later after being detained by people who recognised
toll during the bloody final phase of Sri Lanka’s “I categorically reject – repeat, categori- would be a good idea.”
him on a televisioncrime show. –dpa
war against Tamil Tiger rebels. cally – any suggestion that the United Nations So far the United Nations has no plans for
Last week the French newspaper Le has deliberately underestimated any figures,” an investigation of the Sri Lanka war. The UN
Monde first reported that an unofficial and he said in a speech to the General Assembly. Human Rights Council last month decided French spiderman scales Sydney
unverified UN tally for civilian deaths in the “Let me also say, whatever the total, the not to have any probe of possible war crimes skyscraper
final months of the government’s siege casualties in the conflict were unacceptably committed during the months-long siege SYDNEY: French climber extraordinaire Alain Robert
against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam high.” against the LTTE zone. yesterday got to the top of Sydney’s 41-storey Aurora
(LTTE) exceeded 20,000. Last week UN humanitarian affairs chief In the final months of the war, the civilian Tower using less puff than many office workers who use
The British newspaper The Times later John Holmes disputed the 20,000 figure, say- death rate rose alarmingly as government the stairs. Robert, who was arrested when he climbed
reported the same figure, writing in an edito- ing it was based on questionable assumptions forces surrounded the LTTE, who retreated to down, conquered the skyscraper in less than half an hour
rial that “the UN has no right to collude in and that the final death toll may never be a tiny strip of coast in northeastern Sri Lanka, without even using ropes or a harness.
suppressing the appalling evidence” of a known. where the United Nations says they kept Police Superintendent Ken Finch was angry at the
government-executed massacre of civilians “That figure has no status as far as we’re hundreds of thousands of civilians as human traffic chaos caused as office workers flooded onto the
in northeastern Sri Lanka. concerned,” Holmes told Reuters. “It may be shields. – Reuters street to witness the climb. – dpa