| TOP STORIES |
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A high-tech
fix for one corner of India |
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Soon after N.
Chandrababu Naidu became chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh in
August 1995, he ordered that a partly built and abandoned government
building here on the edge of the city be finished and turned into a
college for computer software engineers. Today, the building houses one of
300 institutions of higher learning in a state that graduates 65,000
engineers a year, compared with 7,500 when Mr. Naidu took
office. |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/27/technology/27RUPE.html |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/27/technology/27RUPE.html |
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Pakistani
judge wants 3 detained al-Qaida suspects in court |
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Lahore, Pakistan
-- A Pakistani judge Friday ordered authorities to present three al-Qaida
suspects - two U.S. citizens and a Canadian - in court next week, saying
prosecutors must justify their detention. The three men were arrested
along with six other suspects, including another American and another
Canadian, earlier this month; four Pakistanis were later
released. |
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http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021227_000735-search,00.html |
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http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/world/4822956htm |
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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2002/dec/27/122705131.html |
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http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/4822956.htm |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ADec27.html |
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International
monitors ask Sri Lanka government, rebels to show
restraint |
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Colombo --
International monitors called on the government and Tamil Tiger rebels
Friday to restrain from trading accusations and consolidate the gains of
historic peace process aimed at ending Sri Lanka's 19-year civil war. "The
time has come when there will be more to lose from using force than from
protecting the gains," the Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said
in a statement in the Sri Lankan capital. |
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http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021227_000644-search,00.html |
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India, US
won't extradite to international courts without
consent |
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New Delhi --India
and the U.S. have signed an agreement not to extradite each other's
nationals to any international tribunal without consent, officials said
Friday. The agreement, signed in New Delhi on Thursday, didn't directly
refer to the International Criminal Court, established six months ago as
the first permanent international tribunal to judge individuals for war
crimes. But an Indian Foreign Ministry official said the pact was intended
to "bypass" the ICC. |
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http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021226_003285-search,00.html |
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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=524&ncid=1276&e=2&u=/ap/20021227/ap_wo_en_po/as_gen_india_us_extraditions |
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http://www.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=CpGQm0bebAw5KAweTDxmTC3bVD&Topic=Metals&Nav=na-fc-fcmetals&StoryTitle=Metals&Type=metals |
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http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/r.htm |
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Pakistan
Airlines to issue 8-year bond within a week |
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Karachi, Pakistan
-- Pakistan International Airlines will issue a 15 billion rupee,
eight-year unlisted bond within a week, a senior airline official said
Thursday. Kaleem Malik, the state-run company's finance director, told
reporters at a function that the government has approved the terms of the
bond and agreed to guarantee it. |
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http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20021226_000863-search,00.html |
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http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?cat=TOPBIZ&src=201&feed=reu§ion=news&news_id=reu-isl101749&date=20021226&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw |
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Kerala to do
away with 697 legislations |
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The Kerala
Assembly will try and repeal as many as 697 laws that have become
obsolete. These range to the Prevention of Juvenile Smoking Act passed by
the Maharaja of Cochin in 1920, which laid down a punishment of six
stripes to juvenile smokers. Incidentally, a High Court directive a few
years ago has supposedly ended public smoking in the state, though smokers
can be spotted in public places in Kerala without too much
effort. |
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http://www.tobacco.org/news/112443.html |
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Indian states
turn to electronic lotteries for cash |
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Mumbai, India --
Indian states are embracing electronic lotteries, replacing paper versions
that lost their appeal amid claims of fraud, as they seek to plug deficits
that total about a tenth of the nation's gross domestic product. `This is
definitely a source of easy money for these governments,' said Madan
Sabnavis, an economist at Larsen & Toubro Ltd., India's biggest cement
maker. As televised game shows gain popularity, one winner is Playwin
Infravest Ltd., India's first automated lottery company. Zee Telefilms
Ltd.'s chairman, Subhash Chandra, owns Playwin and broadcasts its lucky
draw. Its first lottery in Maharashtra, India's wealthiest state, started
this month. |
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http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Top%20Financial%20News&T=markets_box.ht&middle=ad_frame2_all&s=APgpW3BXBSW5kaWFu |
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Tech
outsourcing to India gets boost |
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Bangalore, India
-- After slowing in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,
outsourcing by American companies to Indian concerns or to their own
Indian units has begun to pick up. The new contracts span the
technology-related spectrum, going well beyond the software code writing
of the last decade to include chip design, product development, call
centers, consulting and other support services. |
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http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4813241.htm |
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/12/25/BU21096.DTL&type=tech |
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Vietnam plans
to gain larger portion of Indian, Chinese markets |
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Hanoi -- The
Trade Ministry has planned to diversify its measures to boost trade
turnover with China and India. In the recent past, especially in 2002,
businesses in Vietnam and India have actively sought any business
opportunities available. However, their two-way trade turnover remains
modest and incommensurate with their potential. Many Vietnamese businesses
have shown little interest in doing business with their Indian partners
due to the two countries' similar export structures. |
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http://www.globalsources.com/TNTLIST/2002/12/24/ix/6962-0229-.htm |
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Kashmir's
insane shot by neglect |
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Srinagar, India
-- Accidental killings of madmen by Indian security forces are rising in
the insurgency torn north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (news - web
sites), where a lone mental hospital struggles to cope with swelling
demand amidst governmental apathy and neglect. This week security forces
gunned down mentally retarded Abdul Gaffar, 45, spotted wandering through
a security formation in the northern district of Baramulla in the dead of
night. This is the latest in over a dozen such accidents in the Kashmir
Valley in the last three years. Those shot were aged between 20 to 40
years. |
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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=655&ncid=655&e=1&u=/oneworld/20021226/wl_oneworld/10502_ |
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Around Asia
Markets: Maturity comes to an Indian market |
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The sale of
India's first 20-year corporate bond by Power Finance Corp. maythe
country's $160 billion debt market to more overseas investors, according
to some local fund managers. Power Finance, a state-run lender to
utilities, sold 22 billion rupees ($458 million) worth of bonds Tuesday.
Foreign banks such as HSBC PLC and Standard Chartered PLC were among the
buyers, said R. Krishnamoorthy, the Indian lender's director of finance.
"We've proved there's appetite for long-duration paper in the local
market." |
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http://www.iht.com/articles/81424.html |
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http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Top%20Financial%20News&T=markets_box.ht&middle=ad_frame2_all&s=APgpRaBT2UG93ZXIg |
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Pakistan
Christians fear more attacks |
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Islamabad --
Christian leaders in Pakistan have condemned Wednesday's attack on the
minority community during Christmas celebrations in the Punjab province,
saying that they were increasingly becoming targets in revenge for the
US-led anti terrorist campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan. “This has
happened because of Pakistan's support for the American policies in
Afghanistan,” Mehbood Sada, director of the Christian Study Center, told
IRIN in the capital, Islamabad on Thursday. “If the US attacks Iraq
non-Muslims in Islamic countries will also suffer." |
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http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31502&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN |
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Murder suspect
flees Pakistan |
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Atlanta -- A
Pakistani immigrant freed from jail to seek treatment for a rare blood
disorder has fled the United States rather than face trial. Mahboob Pasha,
35, had promised to report for trial in Fulton County if allowed to go to
the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for a bone marrow
transplant needed to treat a fatal disease. "We always stated we would
come back and face the music, that was the idea," said Pasha's attorney
Tom West. "But he was perfectly free to go back to
Pakistan." |
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http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/12/26/suspect.fled.ap/index.html |
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Missing
European divers rescued off S.Lanka coast |
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Colombo -- A
Christmas vacation nightmare ended happily Friday when five European
divers missing for more than 24 hours off the coast of Sri Lanka were
found in good health. Rescuers launched an air-and-sea search after the
five, from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, failed to return from a
Thursday morning dive near the coastal town of Negombo, north of the
capital Colombo. |
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http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/4822980.htm |
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al-Qaida
'engineer' slips dragnet |
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Karachi, Pakistan
-- The man who planned the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, al-Qaida
operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, narrowly avoided capture in
September in a raid in which his young sons were seized, according to
senior Pakistani and American intelligence officials. It was one of at
least a half-dozen missed opportunities over eight years to seize
Mohammed, who is described by intelligence analysts on three continents as
the man most responsible for al-Qaida's continuing terror
attacks. |
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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-wokhal233062662dec27,0,1130256.story |
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Terrorists on
the loose |
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Washington --
Many of the terrorist organizers whom the U.S. government has identified
as players in the Sept. 11 attacks remain beyond the reach of the
worldwide effort to hunt al-Qaida. Some still at large are top lieutenants
of Osama bin Laden. Others are mid-level financiers who paid for the
hijackers' movements and training. Others are thought to be low-level
logistical aides who may hold key information about how the attacks were
put together. |
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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usterr273062664dec27,0,49536.story |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ADec26.html |
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Pakistanis
bury girls from church attack |
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Lahore, Pakistan
–– Three girls killed in a grenade explosion inside a Pakistani church
were buried Thursday, while Christians and Muslims alike denounced the
Christmas Day attack that also wounded 13. Police detained six people,
including an Islamic cleric who allegedly told his followers to kill
Christians, after the attack on the tiny, one-room church that was filled
mainly with women and girls. |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/ADec26.html |
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