8 theSun | THURSDAY JUNE 11 2009

news without borders

Militants attack Rudd calls for end

to vigilante action

Pakistan hotel, 18 dead

PESHAWAR: Rescuers have
pulled 18 bodies from the rubble
of a luxury hotel in northwest Pa-
kistan hit by a suicide car bomb,
as blame fell yesterday on Taliban
rebels avenging a military push.
Two United Nations employees
were among the dead and more
aid workers were wounded in
the massive blast that devastated
the Pearl Continental in Pesha-
war late on Tuesday, in what
the senior UN official branded a
“heinous attack”.
A top provincial official said
the blast was likely the latest in
a string of attacks by militants
seeking to extract revenge for a
six-week offensive against them
in swathes of the northwest.
Police hunting for the dead
moved from room to room in
the five-star hotel, large parts of
which were reduced to rubble
when three attackers shot secu-
rity guards and then slammed
an explosives-laden truck into
the building.
“The blast is a reaction to
the army offensive in Swat and
Malakand. The possibility of this
type of terrorist attack cannot be
ruled out in future,” North West
Frontier Province information min-
ister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said.
He said the death toll had risen
to 18, as rescue workers continued
to pull people from the wreckage
of Peshawar’s ritziest hotel.
“I fear that eight to 10 people
or maybe even more are still
trapped under the debris,” said
Shafiullah Khan, a police officer
at the scene.
Police investigator Abdul Gha-
foor Afridi said 57 people were
injured, including foreigners.
The UN said the dead included
two of its employees – Serbian na-
tional Aleksandar Vorkapic, who
worked for the refugee agency
UNHCR, and Perseveranda So of
the Philippines, who worked for
children’s agency Unicef.
“On behalf of the United Na-
tions community in Pakistan, I
strongly condemn this heinous
attack,” said Fikret Akcura, UN
resident coordinator in Pakistan,
adding that four UN employees
were also wounded.
“No cause can justify the kill-
ing and injuring of humanitarian
workers and innocent civilians.”
Afridi said three attackers in two
vehicles shot their way through a
security barrier and into the hotel
compound, where they managed
to detonate about 500kg of explo-
sives packed in a small truck.
Grainy CCTV footage broad-
cast on Pakistani television
channels showed a car driving
quickly through a security post,
swiftly followed by the truck.
No group has yet claimed
responsibility for the attack.
About a dozen aid workers were
staying at the hotel before heading
out to refugee camps in North West
Frontier Province, where Pakistan
launched military action in three
districts on April 26 to try to crush
Taliban rebels. – AFP
CANBERRA: Australia’s Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd called for
calm as Indian students led
“vigilante” patrols yesterday
after a second night of protests
in the wake of attacks on for-
eign students in Sydney and
Melbourne.
Scores of Indian students
eXtra: took to the streets of western
Getting the Sydney, leading to two police
arrests, after attacks in both Syd-
message ney and Melbourne which have
across sparked diplomatic protests and
pg 10 fears of an international student
exodus from Australia.
“It’s unacceptable for anyone
to commit an act of violence
against any student of any
ethnicity anywhere in Aus-
tralia,” Rudd told local radio.
“It’s equally unacceptable for
so-called reprisal attacks and
for so-called vigilante action as
well.
“I think everyone just needs
to draw some breath on this
and I think we need to see a
greater atmosphere of general
calm,” Rudd said.
Rudd made his appeal
after Indian students formed
vigilante-like groups at train
and bus stations in Melbourne
following a string of attacks in
the city over the past 18 months
which Australian authorities
insist have been crime-related.
Indian students believe the
attacks have been “racist”,
warning of a culture of “curry
bashings” in Australia, where
foreign students are the coun-
try’s third biggest export earner,
worth more than US$12 billion
(RM42 billion).
China’s government last
week joined India in raising
concern about sporadic attacks
on Chinese students in recent
years, urging Australian au-
thorities to ramp up security.
In a bid to ease tensions,
police in Melbourne ordered
groups of young Indian men pa-
trolling three suburban railway
stations at St Albans, Thomas-
town and Springvale to disband
after they gathered to prevent
more attacks on their country-
men. In Sydney, around 70
people gathered in the western
suburb of Harris Park, where In-
dian community representatives
claimed to have been attacked
by ethnic Lebanese-Australian
gangs, responding with baseball
bats. – Reuters

briefs
Search at crash zone
turns to black boxes
FERNANDO DE NORONHA
(Brazil): After helping Brazil’s navy
recover at least 41 bodies from the
Atlantic, France yesterday turned
to hunting for the black boxes from
an Air France jet that came down last
week, killing all 228 people on board. A
French military nuclear submarine, Em-
eraud, was to arrive at the crash zone,
1,100km off Brazil’s northeast coast, in
an effort to locate the homing beacons
from the data and voice recorders of
flight AF 447. – AFP
British cops suspended
over torture charges
LONDON: Six British police officers
have been suspended or placed on
restricted duties after allegations of
torture against suspects arrested in
an anti-drugs operation last year, po-
lice said yesterday. Newspapers said
the alleged ill-treatment included
“waterboarding”, a simulated drown-
ing method that has been used by
CIA interrogators. – Reuters
‘Pregnant man’ gives
birth to second child
LOS ANGELES: A man who was born
a woman before undergoing gender
realignment surgery has given birth to
a second child, ABC News reported on
Tuesday. Thomas Beatie, who is legally
male but decided to keep his female sex
organs during chest reconstruction sur-
gery and testosterone therapy, attracted
worldwide headlines last year after
revealing his pregnancy. – AFP
Earth-Venus collision
likely, but you are safe
PARIS: A force known as orbital
chaos may cause our Solar System
to go haywire, leading to possible
collision between Earth and Venus or
Mars, according to a study released
yesterday. The good news is that
the likelihood of such a smash-up is
small, around one-in-2500. And even
if the planets did careen into one
another, it would not happen before
another 3.5 billion years. Indeed,
there is a 99% chance that the Sun’s
posse of planets will continue to cir-
cle in an orderly pattern throughout
the expected life span of the Sun
another five billion years. – AFP