| Now, reach Beijing to Shanghai in 5 hrs Posted: 14 Jun 2011 08:15 PM PDT 
BEIJING: Sometime in end June Beijing and Shanghai would get another connection: the bullet trains. The new bullet trains linking Beijing and Shanghai will cost passengers three to four times more than what India' s Rajdhani costs and run more than three times faster. Bullet trains will nearly halve the travel time to five hours and would be of two types; one running at 300kph and another at 250kph. The fare will be 1,750 yuan for business class for the 1,300km journey between Beijing and Shanghai for the 300khp train. Second class seats on the bullet train will cost 550 yuan, the equivalent. '' The fare is much lower at 410 yuan for second class and 650 yuan for first class for trains running at 250kph,'' China' s vice minister of railways Hu Yadong said. Trains moving at 300kph will cover the distance in 4.48 hours. The normal express trains take about 10 hours at present |
| The last big bang in Nepal Posted: 14 Jun 2011 10:33 AM PDT 
KATHMANDU: A distant rumbling and a flash of fire followed by the earth shaking marked the demolition of the last land mines planted by Nepal' s army during the Maoist "People' s War" to secure vital installations from guerrilla attacks. Nepal' s peace and reconstruction ministry and the UN Mine Action Team (UNMAT) jointly organised an event in the forested Pulchowki area in Kathmandu valley on Tuesday in which Prime Minster Jhala Nath Khanal and army chief Gen Chhatra Man Singh Gurung detonated the two last mines placed by the army, making Nepal officially land mine field free, the second country to be declared so after China. "It was a positive bang," said Shaligram Sharma undersecretary at the ministry. "In 2006, after the government of Nepal and the Maoists signed a peace accord, both agreed to provide records about where each side had laid mines and other explosive devices within 30 days and to demolish them in 60 days. However, it took longer." During the 10-year armed revolt, Nepal Army planted 10,941 mines around army positions and vital installations like telecom towers and airports to repel Maoist attacks. These were spread over 53 areas and from October 2007, with the civil war over, the army began clearing the mines. Trained and equipped by UNMAT, with western donors providing over $8 million for the demining operations, Nepal Army today boasts of 180 de-miners who have been certified by the UN agency as being among the world' s best. Besides the anti-personnel mines bought from a Russian manufacturer, the army also fought the war with improvised explosive devices, planting them in 275 areas. So far, 170 places have been cleaned and the government has reinforced the programme with a public awareness campaign as well as a victim assistance plan. However, while the army, having kept meticulous records of its explosive arsenal, has been doing its bit to rid Nepal of dangerous explosive remnants of war, the nearly 20,000-member strong Maoist army is lagging behind. As Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda had admitted, his People' s Liberation Army (PLA), said to possess only about 4,000 firearms, fought the underground war mostly with IEDs made of gun powder smuggled from Bihar. After declaring peace, the PLA handed over 52,617 crude bombs to the UN agency monitoring them, which subsequently destroyed the IEDs. But with the PLA records being inadequate, clusters of bombs devised by it are still likely to be hidden in village homes in Nepal. Even the bombs they used during clashes with the army could have been left unexploded and could still be lying in public places, posing an acute danger to passersby. According to the Unicef, IEDs claimed 16 casualties in the first five months of the current year with the victims being mostly children below 14 and women. Also, emboldened by the Maoists' success with violence, newer armed groups have begun to wage war on the state and society once the Maoist uprising ended. The terror of bomb attacks therefore continues. Last year, for instance, a Hindu militant group bombed a church and two mosques, killing four people. In March this year, three blasts were reported in the Terai plains, targeting public buses. While two passengers were killed, over 40 people were injured. |
| Gaddafi plays chess as Libya burns Posted: 14 Jun 2011 10:31 AM PDT 
Check mate: Gaddafi plays chess with Ilyumzhinov, the president of the international chess federation, in Tripoli. TRIPOLI: State television showed footage of Muammer Gaddafi playing chess with the head of the World Chess Federation, as fighting between the Libyan strongman's forces and rebels raged on many fronts Monday. The images broadcast late on Sunday showed the chess game between Gaddafi and FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov being watched by the Libyan leader's eldest son Muhammad. Gaddafi, who was last seen in public when was shown on TV welcoming South African president Jacob Zuma to Tripoli on May 30, wore a brown cloak and dark sunglasses. The television did not say where the chessboard meeting took place but Ilyumzhinov told Russia's Interfax news agency that he had played against Gaddafi in Tripoli on Sunday. The Russian eccentric who once claimed he hosted extraterrestrials, also sat down for a game of chess with Gaddafi's son Muhammad and the two played the Sicilian defence, Interfax said. "The meeting lasted around two hours, we played some chess with Kadhafi," Ilyumzhinov, who is on a visit to Tripoli in his capacity as FIDE president, told Interfax. "Gaddafi stated that he is not going to leave Libya, stressing that it is his motherland and a land where his children and grandchildren died. He also said that he does not understand which post he needs to step down from." "I am neither premier nor president nor king. I do not hold any post in Libya and therefore I have no position which I should give up," Ilyumzhinov quoted Gaddafi as telling him. Ilyumzhinov, who also met with foreign and education ministers, said he saw a lot of destruction in Tripoli. The chessboard encounter came as fighting between Gaddafi's forces and rebels raged across Libya. |
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