Ban Ki-moon in Yemen to mark anniversary of transition deal

SANAA: UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in Yemen on Monday to mark the first anniversary of a transition deal that resulted in strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh handing over power, media and diplomats said.

On his first visit to the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, the UN Secretary General will hold talks with President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi and Gulf Cooperation Council head Abdul Latif al-Zayani who is also in Sanaa, according to official news agency SABA.

A UN official in Sanaa meanwhile said Ban's visit was to mark "the first anniversary of Yemen's peace and transition agreement," which forced Saleh to step down after 33 years in power.

Ambassadors from the five permanent Security Council members and envoys from neighbouring Arab Gulf monarchies are also expected to meet Ban to assess progress on implementing the UN and GCC-backed agreement, a local diplomat said.

The deal, signed in Riyadh on November 23 last year after months of anti-government protests and deadly clashes between pro and anti-Saleh troops, brought Hadi to power for an interim two-year period in a single-candidate vote.

It also called for a national dialogue where all parties, including the opposition, youth and northern rebels are expected to come together and agree on a new constitution and on the next presidential and parliamentary elections.

The dialogue was scheduled for mid-November of this year, but has not yet begun, with no reason for the delay and no new date announced.

Hadi has repeatedly urged all parties in Yemen to join the critical talks, but the Southern Movement, an influential alliance of groups seeking autonomy or independence for the south, said on October 3 it would not attend.

- AFP/lp

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2G case: RBI governor D Subbarao deposes in court

NEW DELHI: RBI governor D Subbarao today deposed in a Delhi court as a prosecution witness in the 2G case, saying he had questioned in 2007 the spectrum fee of around Rs 1600 crore for pan India licence.

Subbarao, who was the finance secretary from April 2007 to September 2008, is a key witness in the case in which former telecom minister A Raja and others are facing trial.

During the recording of his statement, Subbarao told the court he had written a letter on November 22, 2007 to the then telecom secretary D S Mathur in which he had questioned the spectrum fee of around Rs 1600 crore for pan India licence.

He said that he had also questioned as to how the spectrum fee of Rs 1600 crore, which was fixed in 2001, could be applied in 2007.

"I also questioned how the rate of Rs 1600 crore, determined in as far as back in 2001, could be applied for licences given in 2007...," he told special CBI Judge O P Saini.

CBI prosecutor A K Singh also showed various files and notes of various departments concerned, including that of department of telecom and ministry of finance, to Subbarao during the recording of his statement which is likely to continue throughout the day.

Till November 11, the court had recorded statements of 77 CBI witnesses in the case in which Raja is the key accused.

Besides Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi, former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja's erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra, three top executives of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG) — Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair — are facing trial in the case.

Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, Kalaignar TV Director Sharad Kumar and Bollywood producer Karim Morani are also accused in the case.

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Officials: Israeli Strike Kills 11 Civilians in Gaza

The Palestinian civilian death toll mounted Monday as Israeli aircraft struck densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip in a campaign to quell militant rocket fire menacing nearly half of Israel's population.

An overnight airstrike on two houses belonging to an extended clan in Gaza City killed two children and two adults, and injured 42 people, said Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra.

Shortly after, Israeli aircraft bombarded the remains of the former national security compound in Gaza City. Flying shrapnel killed one child and wounded others living nearby, al-Kidra said. Five farmers were killed in two separate strikes, al-Kidra said, including three who had been identified earlier by Hamas security officials as Islamic Jihad fighters.

Civilian casualties began to shoot up on Sunday, after Israel said it was stepping up attacks on the homes of suspected Hamas activists. After that warning, an Israeli missile flatted a two-story house in a residential area of Gaza City, killing at least 11 civilians, most of them women and children.

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It remained unclear who the target of that missile attack was. However, the new tactic ushered in a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the crowded territory of 1.6 million Palestinians. The rising civilian toll was also likely to intensify pressure on Israel to end the fighting. Hundreds of civilian casualties in an Israeli offensive in Gaza four years ago led to fierce international condemnation of Israel.

In all, 87 Palestinians, including 50 civilians, have been killed in the six-day onslaught and 720 have been wounded.

Three Israeli civilians have died from Palestinian rocket fire and dozens have been wounded. An Israeli rocket-defense system has intercepted hundreds of rockets bound for populated areas.

Monday's air assault in Gaza City reduced two houses to rubble on either side of a street where residents stepped over piles of cinderblocks and twisted metal. Relatives said Ahed Kitati, 38, had rushed out after a warning missile was fired to try to hustle people to safety. But he was fatally struck by a falling cinderblock, leaving behind a pregnant wife, five young daughters and a son, they said.

One of his daughters, Aya Kitati, clutched a black jacket, saying she was freezing, even though the weather was mild. "We were sleeping, and then we heard the sound of the bombs," she said in a whisper, then broke down sobbing.

Ahed's brother, Jawad Kitati, said he plucked the lifeless body of a 2-year-old relative from the street and carried him to an ambulance. Blood stains smeared his jacket sleeve.

Another clan member, Haitham Abu Zour, 24, woke up to the sound of the warning strike and hid in a stairwell. He emerged to find his wife dead and his two infant children buried under the debris, but safe.

Clan elder Mohammed Azzam, 61, denied that anyone in his family had any connections to Hamas.

"The Jews are liars," he said. "No matter how much they pressure our people, we will not withdraw our support for Hamas."

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion though Egypt saw "some indications" of a truce ahead.

Militant rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon, the Israeli army said.

"As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn't worth it to cease fire," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, over Twitter.

"If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Forty-eight Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israel's raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. A Gaza City media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding 6 journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity".

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: "This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning."

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel's blows Hamas "is still strong enough to destroy the enemy".

An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant's family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.

ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT

Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Israel's operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel's right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron "expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides," in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

London was "putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate," the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu "to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end."

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through "de-escalation" and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees."

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying "there is hope," but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE

Israel, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, said it was still weighing a ground offensive.

Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: "Definitely."

"We have a plan. ... It will take time. We need to have patience. It won't be a day or two," he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel's maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Douglas Hamilton)

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Thai train bomb kills one, injures 15

BANGKOK: Suspected militants detonated a bomb under a train in Thailand's insurgency-riven deep south on Sunday, leaving one person dead and 15 wounded, police said.

The device, which killed a defence volunteer, was buried under the railway in the flashpoint district of Rueso in Narathiwat, one of several border provinces plagued by an eight-year conflict.

The wounded included passengers and railway employees. No foreigners were thought to have been on board the local train, which was severely damaged in the blast.

An insurgency calling for greater autonomy has racked Thailand's far south near the border with Malaysia since 2004. It has claimed more than 5,300 lives, both Buddhist and Muslim, with near-daily bomb or gun attacks.

The militants are rebelling against a history of perceived discrimination against ethnic Malays by successive Thai governments, as well as alleged rights abuses by the army.

- AFP/xq

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Thackeray's two newspapers sport full black front pages

MUMBAI: Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's favourite newspapers Saamna (in Marathi) and Dopahar Ka Saamna (in Hindi) were Sunday published with a full black cover jackets and full black cover pages.

Thackeray, who passed away Saturday afternoon, was the founder-editor of both the newspapers, though the day-to-day affairs were managed by hand-picked and trusted executive editors.

This is the first time in Saamna's history — since it was launched Jan 23, 1988 — that its two main cover pages are printed in sheer black.

On the jacket cover is a large smiling picture of Bal Thackeray, a heading in large font — "Aaple Saheb Gele" (Our Boss Departs) — and a small poem in Marathi below it.

The inside main cover has a flier headline: "Ishwari Avtarache Swargarohan" (A divine avatar goes to heaven), accompanied by the day's top story headlined: "Balasaheb navache vadal shaant zhale" (A storm cloud called Balasaheb is peaceful).

Dopahar Ka Saamna, which usually remained closed Sundays, brought out a special edition as a tribute to Thackeray, said executive editor Prem Shukla.

It also sports a full black cover with a silhouetted right side visage of Thackeray with the headline: "Hinduon Ke Mahadev Ka Mahaprayan", and a small poem: "Jo uthe Ram/jo uthe Krishna/Bharat ki mitti roti hai/ Kya hua hamare Saheb ko/Yeh murti na zinda hoti hai."

The remaining inside pages have thick black bands with the stories in a grey background, or other colours depending on the editorial and pictorial content.

Saamna was founded as a party organ to convey Thackeray's views to the Marathi masses directly.

Dopahar Ka Saamna was launched Feb 23, 1993, to woo north Indians settled in Maharashtra and also make Thackeray's views heard in New Delhi.

Shukla said this was probably the first time in Indian media history that two daily newspapers had published their front pages in full black as a tribute to the Shiv Sena founder and their editor Bal Thackeray.

Moreover, Thackeray's name also appeared as 'Editor' in its regular place, as it has been since the launch of both the newspapers.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Israel's Iron Dome Proves Effective Defense

Israel said that it will install a fifth "Iron Dome" battery before the end of the year, adding another installation to the country's missile defense system, which has proven itself this week, intercepting more than 150 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

The missile defense system, which can identify enemy rockets, determine if they pose a threat to populated areas, and destroy them within a matter of seconds, has been praised by Israel's leaders for saving hundreds of lives.

The system, however, comes with a steep price. Each interceptor missile, which includes a radar guidance system, costs $40,000. Israel has not disclosed how many missiles are required to take down an enemy rocket or how many interceptors it has fired, but experts estimate the country has fired $8 million worth of missiles in the past three days.

The Israelis are only trying to shoot down about a third of the rockets fired by militants, those on a trajectory towards populated areas, said Ben Goodlad, a senior aerospace and defense analyst at IHS Jane's. But of the rockets Iron Dome has targeted, the system is between 87 and 90 percent successful in destroying.

"That is an incredibly high success rate for the system," he said. "What isn't clear is how many interceptor missiles are fired. There may be two, three, or four fired at a one time to take down a rocket."

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Palestinian militants working out of the Gaza Strip, a ribbon of coastline controlled by Hamas, have for years been stockpiling short- and medium-range rockets, built at a fraction of the cost of the Iron Dome missiles and then stored in highly populated areas near hospitals and schools.

Hamas is considered by the U.S. and Europe Union as a terrorist organization.

Militants this week fired rockets further into Israel than ever before, targeting the country's two largest cities, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but there were no casualties in those cities. Three Israelis were killed by rockets elsewhere in Israel.

"We are very pleased with the interception rates," aerial defense commander Brig. Gen. Shachar Shochet told reporters on Thursday. "We have intercepted dozens of Grad and Qassam rockets fired by Hamas and other groups, and prevented serious harm to our civilians."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the country the system had saved lives.

"No other country in the world has technology like the Iron Dome," Barak said. "Had the system not existed, many civilians would be in harm's way. However, the system is not a 100 percent foolproof defense, and does not absolve citizens of their duty to closely follow instructions given by Homefront Command."

The system is not perfect, and can be breeched by a large volley of rockets fired at once, a problem of "saturation," said former White House counterterrorism adviser and ABC News consultant Dick Clark.

Israel, therefore, plans to target the rocket stockpiles rather than continue to shoot down individual missiles. Israel has called up more than 60,000 reserve soldiers and appears to be planning a ground strike in Gaza soon.

Currently four mobile batteries equipped with sophisticated radar technology and missiles and on-board radar, are combined to create a shield over the country.

In 2006, 4,000 rockets were fired at Israel during a war with Lebanon that left 44 civilians dead. In response, the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli defense manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems began developing Iron Dome.

In 2010, after tests proved effective, the United States began funding the program in part. Earlier this year, Congress authorized $600 million for the program, with instructions that the U.S. would eventually begin co-production of the system.

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