Because we are different.

Briefs

14 November 2012

Vietnam PM faces call to quit
HANOI, 14 NOV: Vietnam’s embattled Premier Nguyen Tan Dung today faced an unprecedented call in the Communist-dominated parliament to step down over mistakes in his stewardship of the troubled economy. It is believed to be the first time ever that a Vietnamese Prime Minister has been publicly urged to resign by a member of the one-party state's 500-strong National Assembly. afp

10 killed in Iran copter crash
TEHERAN, 14 NOV: Ten people were killed today when a rescue helicopter ferrying wounded people from a car accident to hospital hit power lines and crashed to the ground in northeastern Iran, media reported. afp

Iraq bombings kill 15
Kirkuk, 14 Nov: A spate of apparently coordinated attacks across Iraq on the eve of the Islamic new year killed 15 people and wounded more than 100 others today, officials said. The 11 bombings and shootings struck in Baghdad and six other cities, the security and medical officials said, and will likely raise tensions in a country mired in political deadlock and only relatively recently emerged from a brutal sectarian war. No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the violence. afp

Japan general election on 16 Dec
Tokyo, 14 Nov: Japan will hold a general election on 16 December, a senior governing party official confirmed today, hours after the Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda offered to dissolve parliament. Asked by a journalist on state broadcaster NHK if the country would be going to the polls on that Sunday following a 12-day official campaigning period, Democratic Party of Japan deputy party secretary general Jun Azumi nodded. afp

UN failed to protect civilians during Lanka’s civil war, says report
New York, 14 Nov: An internal review of the final months of Sri Lanka's bloody civil war in 2009, set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, has concluded that the manner in which the world body handled the crisis in the country was “a grave failure” of the UN. A leaked draft of the report, obtained by the New York Times, criticised the UN officials on the ground in Sri Lanka as well as at its headquarters here on the way they dealt with the crisis, particularly in the final months of the war
in 2009, when as many as 40,000 civilians were killed. pti