Search for the missing continues in Bahrain boat tragedy
MANAMA, Saturday (Reuters) - Rescue workers searched today for two missing passengers of a cruise boat that capsized off the coast of Bahrain, after at least 57 people, mostly foreigners, drowned, officials said.

They did not identify the nationalities of the missing but added rescuers were also trying to recover the twin-decked boat which went down late on Thursday.

Authorities had detained and were questioning the boat's captain, an Indian national, who they said was unqualified. The traditional wooden dhow was said to have been overloaded with passengers, who were aboard for a corporate party.

"The captain was only a sailor and not qualified to operate the ship. The prosecutor's office has detained him and his assistant," prosecutor Nawaf Hamza told reporters on Friday.

"Initially charges against him are linked to his responsibility (for the accident)," Hamza said, adding that the ship was carrying more passengers than its capacity.

The boat's owner said the top-heavy vessel capsized when passengers gathered on one side, according to Al Arabiya television. The dead were identified as 21 Indians, 13 Britons, five South Africans, five Filipinos, four Singaporeans, four Pakistanis, two Thais, a German, an Irish citizen and a South Korean, the Interior Ministry said.

Rescuers helped by the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet pulled 67 survivors from the water. More than 30 people were taken to hospital. Most have been discharged.

Egyptian national Nasser Wahby told pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that he was on the boat's top deck when it overturned. "We were surprised when the boat tipped as passengers gathered to one side," he said.
One women from the Philippines survived by hanging on to a rope. "I wasn't able to jump and I cannot swim. I wasn't able to wear a lifejacket either because it all happened so fast," she told Asharq al-Awsat.

Officials said 126 people were believed to have been on board. Tourism sources said the vessel had a capacity of 100. The boat trip was for employees of companies involved in a construction project in Bahrain and their families.

South African construction firm Murray & Roberts, the leading firm in the project, said that excluding crew, around 120 people were on the dhow -- employees of the firm, its partner Nass and subcontractors, and their families.

Bush to Iran: Quake aid and nuclear warning
WASHINGTON, Saturday (AFP) - The United States has offered aid to Iran after a devastating earthquake but also kept up pressure over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme.

President George W. Bush made a point of offering sympathy and assistance while at a North American summit in Mexico Friday. "We obviously have differences with the Iranian government but we do care about the suffering of Iranian people," he said.

The powerful earthquake struck western Iran, leaving at least 70 dead and 1,265 injured. The area of Brujerd was hit hardest. The earthquake left at least 45 people dead there and another 1,025 people injured.

The United Nations said Friday it was rushing a team of experts to assess damage. Washington offered shelter for 100,000 people. The State Department said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns telephoned Iran's ambassador to the United Nations to offer assistance, a rare direct contact between the two countries that have had no diplomatic relations for more than two decades.

"Nick offered the condolences of the US government to the people of Iran, the government of Iran for the loss of lives and on behalf of the US government, offered our assistance to the families of the victims," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.

The aid would include blankets, plastic sheeting, hygiene kits, water units and temporary shelters for 100,000 people as well as an intermediate grant of 50,000 dollars for non-governmental organizations, Ereli said.

Iran's ambassador to the UN, Javad Zarif, indicated he would consult with his government before responding, the spokesman said. In 2003, the US government sent assistance when an even more lethal quake struck the southern Iranian town of Bam. Tehran refused an offer of aid last year after another earthquake.

The White House also issued a statement from Bush and his wife, Laura, about the quake. "Our thoughts and prayers are with families and individuals who have lost loved ones," they said.

Chavez calls US immigration measures 'fascism'
CARACAS, Venezuela, Saturday (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sharply criticized bills in the U.S. Congress that seek to crack down on illegal immigration, saying they resemble fascism.

Chavez made the remark in a televised speech Friday, while thousands of students marched in California, Texas, Nevada and other U.S. states to protest the immigration bills.

The Venezuelan leader asked how U.S. President George W. Bush could justify supporting a "horrific" immigration law "against millions of human beings."
"It looks like fascism," Chavez said. He did not elaborate, but critics in the United States have taken strong issue with House legislation that would make illegal immigration a felony and expand walls along the Mexico-U.S border.
"It's not just the law but also that now they're building a wall ... so that we Latin Americans don't cross," Chavez said. "Look at the behavior of the American empire."

Many Mexicans, however, have praised a proposal approved this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee that would legalize more than 1 million undocumented migrant agricultural workers and provide temporary work visas.
Chavez, a constant critic of Bush, said he is sure the 21st century will mark "the end of American imperialism."

Chavez, a close ally of Cuba's Fidel Castro, says he is leading Venezuela toward socialism. The United States, meanwhile, remains the top buyer of Venezuelan oil.

Long mobile phone use raises brain tumor risk
STOCKHOLM, Saturday (Reuters) - The use of mobile phones over a long period of time can raise the risk of brain tumors, according to a Swedish study released on Friday, contradicting the conclusions of other researchers.
Last year, the Dutch Health Council, in an overview of research from around the world, found no evidence that radiation from mobile phones and TV towers was harmful.

A four-year British survey in January also showed no link between regular, long-term use of cell phones and the most common type of tumor.

Unions, students dismiss Chirac compromise on jobs law
PARIS, Saturday (AFP) - Trade unions and students vowed to press ahead with strikes and demonstrations against a new youth jobs law despite a compromise plan by President Jacques Chirac to defuse the crisis.

Demonstrators rampaged through Paris and other cities until early to express their rejection of Chirac's move, made in an address to the nation late Friday. In the capital, protesters smashed store windows, damaged cars, threw bottles at police and attacked the offices of a member of parliament from the ruling UMP party during a march by more than 2,000 people across the city.

Police said 107 people were arrested and two police officers were slightly injured. In a solemn address carried live from the Elysee palace on television and radio, Chirac said he would ratify the controversial measure but promised immediate modifications.

"I believe the First Employment Contract (CPE) can be an effective tool for employment," he said. But he said he had also heard the "anxieties being expressed by many young people and their parents" over the contract, which allows employers to fire under 26-year-olds during a two-year trial period without explanation.

"That is why I have asked the government to immediately prepare two modifications to the law on the points which have been at the heart of the debate.

"The (trial) period of two years shall be reduced to one year. And if the contract is broken, the right of the young worker to know the reasons shall be written into the new law," he said. Chirac said he would ask Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin -- who fathered the CPE -- to take steps to ensure that "in practice no contract can be signed that does not fully include these modifications." Villepin met with heads of the centre-right UMP, whose leader in the national assembly Bernard Accoyer said later he would contact trade union chiefs "very quickly" to "relaunch dialogue" and prepare the new legislation demanded by Chirac "without prejudice."

France has been plunged into turbulence by the youth jobs row, with millions taking to the streets in protests that have sometimes descended into violence. Many universities have been closed for nearly a month, with growing tensions between pro- and anti-strike students. While Villepin says the CPE is vital for cutting youth unemployment -- which is more than 50 percent in immigrant-populated suburbs hit by riots at the end of last year -- opponents say it will erode hard-won labour rights and make it more difficult than ever for young people to find long-term jobs.

Rice presses bumpy British visit
BLACKBURN, England, Saturday (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a second stop in this dreary British town on a visit shaping up as a public relations nightmare where little has gone completely as planned.
Anti-Iraq protests again dogged Rice and her host, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, as they made another foray into the former mill town of 100,000 best known as a footnote in a Beatles song.

More than 200 banner-waving and chanting demonstrators greeted the two as they arrived at the town hall to meet local Muslim leaders, providing a noisy backdrop to a news conference by the ministers afterward.

Rice came to northwest England on what was supposed to be a feel-good visit to Straw's constituency to repay his October trip to her home state of Alabama. But the journey was plagued by problems from the start.

Hopes for meeting former Beatle Paul McCartney fell through, a mosque withdrew its invitation and a local luminary lined up to be an emcee at a concert in nearby Liverpool pulled out as a political statement.

She visited a school in this community that is 25 percent Muslim, but many of the kids were kept home for the day by protesting parents. Others cut classes to join the demonstrations. Rice was supposed to attend a local football match but it was moved to Monday night for better television coverage. So a brief ceremony to present her with a jersey took place in an empty 32,000-seat stadium. The unflaggingly acerbic British press was less than kind to Rice on her visit to the United States' staunchest wartime ally, taking off on her fashion choices as well as her politics.

"Miss Rice may be the most powerful woman in the world but she came dressed like a princess in a mauve trouser suit, pearls and metallic bronze stiletto shoes," the Daily Telegraph wrote. The irreverent tabloid The Sun churned out a dime-novel spoof on "Jack and Condi, A Special Relationship" with offerings such as "Condi drove Jack wild in phone chats about Middle East peace'-- but the Gaza Strip wasn't on his mind."

The Independent accompanied its account with a cartoon depicting a restaurant called "Blackburn Tandoori" with a sign from the management on its front door, "We regret we do not serve Rice."

Many British papers chided Rice for not knowing the reference to "4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire" in the Beatles song "A Day in the Life." (Pop quiz answer: a reported census of local potholes).

The Times newspaper took the pockmarked imagery into the political realm with a cartoon showing Rice and Straw holding up a tattered banner branded "The Case for War."

On a trip designed as diplomatic puffery, Rice also managed to make some unwanted headlines with an admission at a foreign policy forum Friday that the United States had made "thousands" of tactical errors in Iraq.

The offhand comment sent her spokesman scrambling to call reporters to play it down. Too late: the remark made the lead of all three international wire services and the front page of the Washington Post.

Rice went into damage control mode on Saturday, telling a news conference, "I meant it figuratively not literally. I was not sitting around counting."
She told the BBC, "Of course there have been mistakes, but it was not a mistake to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It was not a mistake to unleash the forces of democracy in the Middle East."

Hamas PM orders gunmen off streets after clashes
GAZA, Saturday (Reuters) - Gunmen from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement fired off guns in a show of force in Gaza, defying orders from Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to stay off the streets.

The militants demanded Haniyeh arrest members of a rival group they blamed for deadly clashes in which three people died, violence that has posed a major challenge for Islamist militant group Hamas now in charge of the Palestinian government.

About 300 gunmen shot repeatedly into the air as Fatah strongman Samir al-Mashharawi threatened to take measures if Haniyeh failed to arrest a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, a rival group he blamed for Friday's gunbattle.

"We in Fatah will not allow this person to escape punishment," al-Mashharawi said. Friday's clashes broke out when members of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a group that often fires rockets at Israel, accused Palestinian security forces close to Abbas of helping Israel kill a top faction member in a car blast. Israel's army denied involvement in the explosion. Haniyeh said his government, which beat Abbas's Fatah in a January election and now controls tens of thousands of security officers, had ordered the gunmen involved in the clashes to leave the streets in a bid to end tension.
"What happened was dangerous and must not be repeated," Haniyeh told reporters.

"The culture that dominated the Palestinian street in past years is a culture that needs time in order to turn into a culture that keeps law and order and does not resort to using arms under any condition," he added. The PRC said it had agreed to follow Haniyeh's call and Palestinian Preventive Security Chief Rashid Abu Shbak met with the interior minister and said the gunmen had left the streets.

"I do not think there are gunmen anymore," he told reporters. "The incident is over at the moment and I hope there will be no more consequences".

Freed US hostage arrives in Germany en route home
BERLIN, Saturday (AFP) - Released US hostage Jill Carroll arrived at a US air base in Germany on her way home after nearly three months in the hands of kidnappers in Iraq, the US military said.

Carroll landed at about 0700 GMT at Ramstein air base in a US military aircraft, Captain Beverly Mock of United States European Command (EUCOM) said.
"She will then proceed to Frankfurt where she will take a flight" back to the United States, Mock said. Spokeswoman Marie Shaw of the nearby US Landstuhl Medical Center said Carroll had declined an examination and would leave Germany Saturday afternoon.

Carroll, a 28-year-old freelance journalist, was seized in Baghdad on January 7, and her translator was shot dead. She was freed Thursday and dropped off near the Baghdad office of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Soon after her release, video footage posted on an Islamist website showed her praising Iraq's insurgents, even predicted their victory. Her father said the propaganda video had been a condition for her release.

"I think the mujahedeen are very smart and even with all the technology and all the people that the American army has here, they still are better at knowing how to live and work here, more clever," Carroll said in the video in response to a question.

Asked what she meant, Carroll said: "It makes very clear that the mujahedeen are the ones that will win in the end." The reporter's father Jim told the Christian Science Monitor, Carroll's primary employer in Iraq, that the abductors "obviously wanted maximum propaganda value in the US".

"After listening to them for three months she already knew exactly what they wanted her to say, so she gave it to them with appropriate acting to make it look convincing," he said.

The reporter said immediately after her release that she was well-treated by her kidnappers but that she was tightly confined during her 82-day ordeal and only allowed to move "between my room and the bathroom."

Thailand set for parliamentary vote amid opposition boycott
BANGKOK, Saturday(AFP) - Thailand goes to the polls Sunday in an election called by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as a referendum on his leadership, but an opposition boycott has reduced the vote to a one horse race.
Some 45 million people are eligible to cast their votes in the poll, which Thaksin called three years early in a bid to end weeks of mass street rallies set off by allegations that he abused his office for personal gain.

Polling stations are due to open at 8:00 am (0100 GMT) and counting will start after the polls close seven hours later. Provisional results are expected to trickle in throughout Sunday night.

But protesters have vowed to continue demonstrating for Thaksin to quit long after the ballots have been counted, angry over a controversial share deal that saw his family make 1.9 billion dollars tax free.

In the absence of any opposition candidates, the biggest challenge to Thaksin in Sunday's vote is the "no vote" option that could be exercised in Bangkok and the troubled south, where anger towards the premier is most fierce.
Thaksin has pledged not to take office if he wins less than 50 percent of the vote, and his critics have called for voters to tick the abstention box in a show of no confidence, saying this could deny Thaksin his majority win.

But Sirirat Choonhaklai, an associate professor in public administration at Bangkok's Mahidol University, downplayed the impact of the "no vote" option, saying Thaksin's support remained strong in the country's north and centre.
Another analyst said few people were likely to exercise the "no vote" and that Thaksin's opponents would most likely just stay away from the polls.

"It takes a lot to go out and vote for no one," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
According to Sirirat, a landslide victory would be the best way to end the political crisis, saying a marginal victory would further fuel anti-Thaksin protests.

"If (Thaksin) gets a landslide victory, people won't be able to say he can't rule the country," Sirirat told AFP. "If he doesn't get... a comfortable victory, those people will have an excuse to come out and protest again."

The husband who woke up divorced
The couple, married for 11 years, were told they had to split
A Muslim couple in India have been told by local Islamic leaders that they must separate after the husband "divorced" his wife in his sleep. The Press Trust of India said in a report published on Monday that Sohela Ansari had told friends that her husband Aftab had uttered the word "talaq", or divorce, three times in his sleep.

When local Islamic leaders heard about the incident, they said Aftab's words constituted a divorce under an Islamic procedure known as "triple talaq".
The couple, married for 11 years with three children, were told that they had to split.

The religious leaders ruled that if the couple wanted to remarry they would have to wait at least 100 days. Sohela would also have to marry another man, spend at least a night with him and be divorced by him.

The couple, who live in the eastern state of West Bengal, have refused to obey the order, and the issue has been referred to a local family counselling centre. India's minority Muslim population is governed by Islamic personal laws on issues such as marriage, divorce and property inheritance.

Divorce in Islam
Zafarul-Islam Khan, an Islamic scholar and editor of an Islamic newspaper, The Milli Gazette, said: "This is a totally unnecessary controversy and the local 'community leaders' or whosoever has said it are totally ignorant of Islamic law.

"The law clearly says any action under compulsion or in a state of intoxication has no effect. The case of someone uttering something while asleep falls under this category and will have no impact whatsoever."

Islamic scholars differ on whether the triple divorce pronounced concurrently by the husband is to be considered as a single divorce or three separate divorces.

If it is considered as three divorces, then the couple cannot be married again unless someone else marries the woman and chooses to divorce her.
Most scholars state that if the husband pronounces the divorce of his wife three times on one occasion, it will be counted as three divorces.
Other scholars say it should be counted as only one pronouncement of divorce.

Acceptable divorce
Divorce in Islam is not decreed at all times or in all cases.
The man who wants to divorce his wife should be sober, in a well-balanced and judicious state.

If he is not fully conscious, or forced to divorce his wife, or in a state of wrath which causes him go beyond his intention and imagination and utter what he does not want to say, it is not considered valid.

Divorce in Islam should be intended and studied before considering it the only remedy for an unhappy marriage.

- Aljazeera

Germans 'cleverest in Europe'
Germans are the most intelligent people in Europe, well ahead of the British (in eighth place) and the French (15th), according to a study by the University of Ulster.

Germans scored an average intelligence quotient (IQ) of 107, a scintilla of brainpower above the Dutch who also scored 107, the Polish (106), the Swedish (104) and the Italians (102), the Times newspaper in Britain reported on Monday.

The British rated an even 100 IQ according to the study, ahead of the Spanish (98) and the French (94) who could comfort themselves only by checking the study results for Bulgarians, Romanians, the Turkish and Serbians who languished at the bottom of the table on 89.

Professor Richard Lynn, who headed the study, caused controversy last year by claiming that men were more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average.

Lynn first came to general notice in 1977, when he published a paper saying that East Asians have higher average intelligence by five IQ points than Europeans and peoples of European origin in the United States and elsewhere.
In his recent book, Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis, he concludes that the East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) have the highest mean IQ at 105. These, he says, are followed by the Europeans (IQ 100).

He said of his latest findings that populations in the colder, more challenging environments of Northern Europe had developed larger brains than those in warmer climates further south.

He ascribes the differences between British and French intelligence levels to the results of military conflict.

He described it as "a hitherto unrecognised law of history" that "the side with the higher IQ normally wins, unless they are hugely outnumbered, as Germany was after 1942", The Times reported. - AFP

Family encouraged me to win title, says British Muslim Miss England
DUBAI - "I overcame many hurdles, with the encouragement of my family to win the title," said Hammasa Kohistani, the first British Muslim to clinch the title of Miss England.

In a meeting with the Press at the Dubai Press Club this week, the Miss England expressed her desire to open a charity organisation in Afghanistan, a country to which she originally belongs.

''I wish to promote education among women and girls of my age in Afghanistan,'' said the 19-year-old who has never been to Afghanistan since she left it 14 years ago.

''People say I have made history and that is what is important for me. My family has always supported me in my endeavours,'' she said. Speaking about whether Afghani men would welcome her if she visited Afghanistan, she said, "I have received letters of appreciation from men, especially those based in refugee camps in Pakistan.

"I have made a difference for them because my community is a minority in England. But I cannot say the same for all men. Dubai is a multi-cultural and cosmopolitan society, and I am honoured to be here," said Hammasa who has been invited by Nakheel Properties to attend the Dubai World Cup.

Hammasa says that the pageant has changed her life dramatically. ''Hard times come and go. There is no time for sexism." We have to work together as a team (men and women),'' she says, displaying wisdom much beyond her years.

- Khaleej Times, Dubai

Storm over 'Pro-Life' nude Britney sculpture
NEW YORK - A life-size nude sculpture of pop star Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug has attracted angry mail from both sides of the US abortion debate, ahead of its exhibit in New York next month.

The sculpture by artist Daniel Edwards, titled "Monument to Pro-Life," will be shown at the Capla Kesting Fine Art Gallery in Brooklyn starting April 7.
"We've received hate mail. There's nothing we haven't got on this, and it continues," said gallery owner Lincoln Capla.

While pro-choice advocates have condemned the sculpture's anti-abortion message, the anti-abortion lobby has expressed some disquiet over the graphic nature of the work.

What the gallery termed an "idealised depiction" of Spears giving birth shows the pop star kneeling on her hands and knees, with widened hips and a posterior view that reveals the crowning of the baby's head. Requests for comment from Spears's publicist were not immediately answered Wednesday.

"She hasn't made any contact so far," Capla said of Spears, who gave birth to her first child, Sean Preston, six months ago. "Spears provides inspiration for those struggling with the right choice," Edwards said in a statement.

"She was number one with Google last year, with good reason. People are inspired by the beauty of a pregnant woman," he added. Edwards said models he used when researching the sculpture included the wax figure of a pole-dancing Spears at the Madame Tussaud's in Las Vegas.

The vehemence of the advance response to the work has prompted the gallery to boost security for the exhibition. - AFP

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