Signals ‘consistent’ with those from black boxes detected

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A pinger locator has detected signals consistent with those emitted by aircraft black boxes, raising hopes of finding the missing Malaysia Airlines plane a month after it mysteriously disappeared en route to China.

An Australian vessel searching for the Boeing flight MH370 has detected signals consistent with those from aircraft black boxes, Air Chief Marshal (retd.)  Angus Houston, the head of the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) which is leading the search, said on Monday.  Calling it the “most promising lead” so far, Houston said that Australian defence vessel Ocean Shield acquired the signal twice, once for more than two hours.  “We haven’t found the aircraft yet and we need further confirmation,” he said, adding that this is 4,500 meters down.  The HMS Echo, a British navy ship equipped with advanced detection gear, sailed into the area of the southern Indian Ocean on Monday morning where a Chinese crew had detected two audio signals, news channel reported.  And an Australian navy vessel carrying sophisticated US listening technology is investigating a sound it picked up in a different patch of the ocean.  Investigators hope the signals could be locator beacons from the plane’s data recorders, but they’re not sure yet.  It might be only a few hours before the pingers stop transmitting the signals as the batteries inside the beacons, which are designed to start sending signals when a plane crashes into water, last about 30 days after it’s activated.  Finding black the black box is crucial to know what happened on 8th March before the Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines jet with 239 people, including five Indians, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in midair.  The mystery of the missing plane continued to baffle aviation and security authorities who have so far failed to trace the aircraft despite deploying hi-tech radar and other gadge.

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AMIT SHAH GETS ELECTION COMMISSION NOTICE

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 APRIL 7, 2014 BY NARESH KUMAR SAGAR

Amit Shah gets Election Commission notice for hate speeches in UP

The Election Commission has issued notice to Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah for his hate speeches in the riot-scarred Muzaffarnagar area in Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Shah, who is in charge of the BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh, had allegedly said in a speech that the election is a chance to seek “revenge for the insult” inflicted during the riots in Muzaffarnagar in September last, in which nearly 60 were killed and thousands displaced. “A case has been lodged under various sections of the IPC by the District Magistrate regarding some objectionable part in Shah’s speech,” Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha said in Lucknow on Sunday. Shah was booked under section 153 of the IPC (inciting people) and section 125 of the Representation of the People Act (promoting enmity between different classes), the Chief Electoral Officer said. Uttar Pradesh poll authorities have sent the CD of the remark made by Shah in Muzaffarnagar, which witnessed communal frenzy last year, along with report of the District Election Officer to the Election Commission in New Delhi. Shah, who is not contesting the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, triggered a row with his comment that the elections, especially in western UP, is “an election for honour. It is an election to take revenge for the insult. It an election to teach a lesson to those who have committed injustice”. The speech came under fire from political parties which accused him of vitiating the atmosphere in the Muzaffarnagar region.

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ARMY SUCCESSFULLY TEST-FIRES BRAHMOS MISSILE

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APRIL 7, 2014 BY NARESH KUMAR SAGAR

Army on Monday successfully test fired an advanced version of 290 km range supersonic cruise missile BrahMos as part of a user trial at Pokhran test range in Rajasthan.

The missile was launched by a mobile autonomous launcher deployed in full configuration with mobile command post at the ranges.  “The launch was successful and the missile hit the designated target,” Defence Spokesperson Col S D Goswami told the news agency. Senior Army officials witnessed the launch and congratulated the operational team for its successful launch. Both the Army and Navy have already inducted the missile, developed by India in partnership with Russia.

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Ukraine says Russia fomenting eastern unrest

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Ukraine’s Prime Minister on Monday accused Russia of sowing unrest in his country’s eastern provinces as a pretext for dispatching troops across the border.

Speaking at an emergency Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russia was behind seizures of several government buildings in eastern regions that have for weeks seen a spike in secessionist sentiment.  “The plan is to destabilise the situation, the plan is for foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country’s territory, which we will not allow,” he said, adding that people engaged in the unrest have distinct Russian accents.  Yatsenyuk said Russian troops remain stationed within 30 kilometres of the frontier. Earlier in the day, the Interior Ministry reported that armed gunmen had occupied a security services building in Luhansk, a city some 25 kilometres west of Russia that has seen frequent protests since the country’s Russia-friendly president was ousted in February.  Police in Luhansk said they have been put on alert and have blocked all entrances to the city.  A crowd of pro-Russian activists stormed the building yesterday.  Local media reported that demonstrators pelted the building with eggs, and then stones, a smoke grenade and finally a firebomb.  The flames were reportedly quickly extinguished. Police said nine people were injured during the assault on the building.  Eastern Ukraine was the heartland of support for Viktor Yanukovych, the president who fled to Russia in February after months of protests.  About half of the region’s residents are ethnic Russians, many of whom believe Ukraine’s acting authorities are Ukrainian nationalists who will oppress Russians. Ukraine’s interim authorities deny they are infringing the rights of the ethnic Russian population.  Russia has moved large contingents of troops to areas near the Ukrainian border, and speculation is strong that unrest in eastern Ukraine could be used as a pretext for a Russian incursion.  Since Crimea held a secession referendum and then was annexed by Russia in March, calls for similar votes in Ukraine’s east have emerged.

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Egypt court adjourns Morsi murder trial

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Egypt court adjourns Morsi murder trial

A court in Egypt has adjourned the murder trial of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi till Sunday, when it will hear “decisive” testimony from senior security officials.

The case is part of a relentless crackdown against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement since the military ousted him on 3rd July, ending a turbulent single year in office.  Morsi and 14 co-defendants are charged with involvement in the killing of opposition protesters outside a Cairo presidential palace in December 2012.  At Sunday’s hearing, testimony is expected from the former head of the military’s Republican Guard, the unit tasked with providing security for Egypt’s presidents.  The court will also hear from three other top Republican Guard officials and from the head of Morsi’s personal security detail. “The five witnesses are decisive as they were the closest to Morsi and his aides,” Ramy Ghanem, a lawyer for a civilian wounded in the clashes, told media persons.  During pre-trial questioning, the head of the Republican Guard told prosecutors that Morsi called him the night before the clashes. He said he was ordered to disperse a sit-in by Morsi opponents near the presidential palace within an hour but had refused to do so because it could lead to casualties.  On Sunday, defence lawyers for some of the defendants slammed a technical committee report on video footage of the December 5, 2012 clashes between Morsi supporters and opponents, saying it was biased.  The defence team requested that a new independent committee review the footage. Morsi’s murder trial comes as former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi moved closer to replacing him in next month’s presidential election.  On Sunday, Sisi’s campaign said he had already received the thousands of signatures required from supporters to register his candidacy. Sisi is expected to easily win the May 26-27 poll. He is seen by his backers as a saviour for ending Islamist rule after Morsi’s divisive 12 months in office. The Brotherhood and other Islamist groups accuse Sisi of staging a coup against the country’s first democratically elected president, unleashing a wave of violence that has killed almost 2,000 people since July. Morsi, who faces two other trials for espionage and militancy related charges, could face the death penalty if convicted.

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QUAKE JOLTS SOUTHWEST CHINA

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POSTED ON APRIL 7, 2014

25 people were injured and several houses collapsed when a 5.3-magnitude quake struck a town in southwest China on Saturday, where the country’s second biggest dam is located.

At least 21,000 terrified residents relocated after the tremor hit Yongshan County in Yunnan Provinceat 6:40 am (local time) at a depth of 13 km, the China Earthquake Networks Centre said.  At least 25 people were injured and 68,600 residents were affected in the earthquake, according to the county government’s information office.  It said five of the injured are in a serious condition. The quake damaged 2,731 houses and 75 others collapsed. A total of 48 schools were also damaged across six towns, the county government said.  Two roads were also blocked as rocks rolled down the mountains in the area. One of the roads has since been reopened. Yongshan is home to the Xiluodu hydropower project, China’s second largest hydropower station, only 15 km from the epicentre.  Electricity, transportation and communications in the area are back to normal. “We felt the quake strongly, but it did not last long,” said a local resident. Some were woken up by the tremor and ran out of their houses, but returned home a few minutes later.  Authorities have sent 650 tents for displaced residents and several thousands more have been made ready. Zhang Jianguo of Yunnan Disaster Prevention Research Institute denied any evidence linking the quake to Xiluodu power station as rumours were afloat linking the two. The area has a history of quakes, Zhang said. Quakes caused by reservoirs usually have quite shallow epicentres, at a depth of around 4 km, while the epicentre of Saturday’s quake was 13 km deep. Yunnan and neighbouring Sichuan Province are vulnerable to earthquakes.  Multiple earthquakes struck Yiliang county and its neighbouring areas in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in September 2012, killing 81 people. A 7.0-magnitude quake hit Lushan, Sichuan on April 20, 2013, killing at least 196 people.  On May 12, 2008, a huge 8.0-magnitude quake hit Wenchuan in Sichuan province leaving more than 80,000 people dead or missing.

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Hungary prime minister wins 3rd term 

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party has won parliamentary elections and narrowly secured a new two-thirds majority, but gains by a far-right party were a cause for concern.

With over 95 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Office yesterday said Fidesz had won 134 seats in the 199-seat legislature. Fidesz, a right-wing populist party, and its small ally, the Christian Democrats, received 44.5 percent of the list votes, good for 37 seats, and also won 97 of the 106 individual constituencies. “Every doubt and uncertainty has dissipated. We have won,” Orban told cheering supporters gathered near the Danube River after securing a third term. “Hungary again is a place where it is worth living, working and starting a family. We have declared that we are not turning back.” A coalition of left-wing groups was projected to have 37 seats, while the far-right Jobbik party will likely have 23 seats. The green Politics Can Be Different party got 5.2 percent and five deputies in the legislature. Jobbik received 20.7 percent of the list votes, four percentage points more than it received in 2010. Despite the gains, Jobbik leader Gabor Vona said both he and his supporters were “deeply disillusioned” by the result.  “We outperformed pollsters’ expectations, but we were not able to achieve the goal we set for ourselves” of winning the elections, Vona said. Jobbik’s gains, however, were quickly denounced by Jewish leaders. “The gains made by Jobbik, an unashamedly neo-Nazi political party, should serve as a wake-up call for the whole of Europe,” European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor said in a statement.  “This is truly a dark day for Hungary.” Kantor said Jobbik’s success gave other far-right parties across the continent “a strong tail wind going into next month’s European Parliament elections.”  Orban, who has frequently butted heads with the European Union over numerous policy issues and his government’s weakening of democratic checks and balances, said the election results proved that Hungary belonged in the bloc albeit with one important condition. “Hungarians have confirmed that Hungary’s place is in the European Union, but only if it has a strong national government,” Orban said.

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Tewari gets bail in Gadkari’s defamation case 

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U

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari was on Monday granted bail by a local court in connection with a defamation case filed by senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari.

Tewari appeared in person before Metropolitan Magistrate S S Gulane along with his lawyer Manoj Mohite and filed a bail application.The magistrate, presiding over the court in South Mumbai, granted bail to Tewari on a personal bond of Rs 10,000, though his plea was opposed by Gadkari’s lawyer Rameshwar Gite.

On March 7, the court had issued process against Tewari and taken cognisance of the complaint filed by former BJP President Gadkari against the Union Minister for allegedly defaming him.

The magistrate had asked Tewari to appear today.

Accordingly, he came to the court and applied for bail, which was granted.

Gadkari had dragged Tewari to the court in December 2010, when the latter, as Congress spokesperson, allegedly accused the former BJP chief of holding ‘a benami’ flat in the scam-tainted Adarsh Society in Mumbai.

According to Gadkari, Tewari’s statement was highly defamatory and lowered his reputation in the eyes of public.

His image was shattered in the society with such defamatory remarks made by the minister, he contended.

Gadkari further said it was his “serious objection regarding the corruption scam in the name of Adarsh” that had led to the then Maharashtra Chief Minister stepping down and CBI filing a case.

The Congress, he said, was “annoyed and aggrieved with him for Gadkari’s expose on corruption eroding the party’s administration in the state.”

Countering that, Manish Tewari made a “false and malicious” claim that he (Gadkari) owned a benami flat in Adarsh, the complaint alleged.

Gadkari argued that Tewari had allegedly committed a criminal offence of defamation and hence he should be tried under IPC for such act.