MELBOURNE: Thousands of passengers were evacuated from the Qantas terminal at Melbourne airport on Thursday after a security breach, reports said. A person, believed to be a man, entered the "sterile" area of the terminal via the exit doors from the baggage collection area, The Age newspaper said. He was seen on closed circuit TV entering through the out door but security staff reportedly lost track of him once inside the terminal. Sky News said at least 5,000 passengers had been evacuated. "Someone breached security. They have to do a sweep," one passenger was quoted a...
Published On: 2011-04-07

WASHINGTON: Pakistan lacks a robust plan to defeat Taliban militants and its security forces struggle to hold areas cleared of the Al Qaeda-linked fighters at great cost, according to a US report. The United States wants Pakistan to subdue Taliban fighters using safe havens in its rugged tribal areas to attack US forces across the border in Afghanistan. “There remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan, despite the unprecedented and sustained deployment of over 147,000 forces,” President Barack Obama’s administration said in a report to lawmakers in C...
Published On: 2011-04-06

MANILA; Armed tribesmen today released 12 hostages they had been holding for six days in a jungle hide-out in the southern Philippines to demand the release of jailed relatives, police said. Most of the hostages were grade school teachers who were seized by five Manobo tribesmen last Friday in a remote southern town in Agusan del Sur province on Mindanao Island. The hostage-takers were demanding the release of tribal leader Jobert “Ondo” Perez, who was jailed with three other tribesmen for taking 79 people captive in the same place in 2009 over a long-running clan feud. Perez w...
Published On: 2011-04-06

AJDABIYAH: Moammar Gadhafi is using human shields to foil airstrikes on his forces, NATO officials said today as rebels angry at alleged Western inaction battled anew to advance on the key coast road. In their eastern heartland, ill-trained rebels set out yet again to retake terrain lost in several headlong retreats from Gadhafi’s superior firepower, reporting heavy fighting west of their frontline town of Ajdabiyah as both sides tried to end a ragged stalemate in the oil-producing state’s civil war. Mohamed el-Masrafy, a member of a rebel special forces unit, said clashes broke...
Published On: 2011-04-06

MILAN: The trial of Premier Silvio Berlusconi on charges he paid for sex with an underage prostitute, then tried to use his influence to cover it up was adjourned shortly after it opened in Milan today. Berlusconi did not attend the hearing, which lasted seven minutes and was devoted to formalities. The trial was adjourned to May 31. The premier was holding a ministerial meeting in Rome to discuss Libya. He has denied wrongdoing.The brief session was held under tight security, with some 100 police patrolling the courthouse in downtown Milan. TV crews and other media came from around the...
Published On: 2011-04-06

KABUL: NATO forces killed seven insurgents who tried to storm their way onto a base in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said today. NATO said the attack was carried out late on Tuesday in the city of Jalalabad by insurgents firing assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades. A statement from the coalition added that NATO forces returned fire and called in an attack helicopter. It said there were no coalition casualties; there were no further details on the killed insurgents. There has been an increase in battles between US-led forces and insurgents in the past couple of weeks as Afghanist...
Published On: 2011-04-06

ABIDJAN: Forces loyal to Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara stormed the bunker where Laurent Gbagbo was defying efforts today to force him to cede power, a spokeswoman for Ouattara said. “They are in the process of entering the residence to seize Gbagbo,” Affousy Bamba said. “They have not taken him yet, but they are in the process. They are in the building.” France, the former colonial power, said fighting was under way around Gbagbo’s residence in Abidjan but that French troops in the city were not involved. A French government source said that...
Published On: 2011-04-06

JOHANNESBURG: The United Nations says 62 people have been killed and thousands forced from their homes since the start of the year by flooding in northern Namibia. In a statement Wednesday, the U.N. children's fund says the numbers could "dramatically increase" soon. U.N. officials in Namibia say a new wave of water is expected from Angola, and the forecast is for more rains in northern Namibia in the coming days. UNICEF says northern Namibia is already vulnerable. It is among the most densely populated and poorest parts of the country, with a high number of people carrying the AI...
Published On: 2011-04-06

KHARTOUM: Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti accused Israel on Wednesday of carrying out an air strike a day earlier on a car on Sudan's Red Sea coast that killed two people. Karti's charge came as a number of Israeli newspapers spoke of the same thing, but the Israeli military and foreign ministry both declined to comment. "From yesterday, we have indications that the attack was carried out by Israel. We are absolutely sure of this," Karti told a news conference in Khartoum. The minister said that in recent days "there have been allegations from Israel that Sudan is supporting...
Published On: 2011-04-06

TOKYO: Japan stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea on Wednesday from a crippled nuclear plant and acknowledged it could have given more information to neighboring countries about contamination in the ocean. Despite the breakthrough in plugging the leak at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, engineers need to pump 11.5 million liters (11,500 tons) of contaminated water back into the ocean because they have run out of storage space at the facility. The water was used to cool over-heated fuel rods. Nuclear experts said the damaged reactors were far from being under control almost...
Published On: 2011-04-06