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New Delhi ● Tuesday ● 17 May 2011 UN cheif Ban Ki-moon calls for restraint between Israel and Palestine

Italy’s FM Franco Frattini says Gaddafi regime days are ‘numbered’

Saudi King Abdullah opens largest women-only university

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International Gaddafi envoys, rebel leaders to hold peace talks in Moscow

Ahmadinejad

Iran Prez to oversee oil ministry Tehran, May 16: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that he himself will preside the country’s oil ministry following the mergers by a number of ministries.

“The Iranian government and the Parliament have consensus on the oil ministry merger.I am the caretaker for the oil ministry,” President Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech on Sunday.

The Iranian chief executive added that the decision to merge ministries was made based on a “legal duty” and “structural obligation” and emphasised that the government’s swift implementation of the law has “executive and scientific” reasons.

Iran’s oil minister Massoud Mir-Kazzemi and other officials stepped down following planned mergers by a number of ministries.

Industry and mines minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian and welfare minister Sadeq Mahsouli also left the Cabinet. Iran last week merged the oil ministry with the energy ministry, industries and mines ministry with the commerce ministry, and the welfare ministry with the labour ministry in a move to cut the number of government departments to 17 from 21 and boost the administration’s efficiency.

—IANS

Egypt FM elected Arab League chief

A Libyan boy walks past a mural showing a caricature of Muammar Gaddafi at the revolution sqaure in the Libyan rebels’ stronghold eastern city of Benghazi on Sunday.

PHOTO: AFP

Israel hunts Syria infiltrators MAJEDA EL BATSH MAJDAL SHAMS, GOLAN HEIGHTS

May 16: Hundreds of police fanned out across the Golan Heights on Monday in search of refugees who crossed over from Syria in some of the bloodiest violence in years along Israel’s borders. In Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories, people gathered to mourn the 14 people killed when Israeli troops opened fire on thousands of protesters who sought to breach its northern borders.

Hundreds were injured in

the occupied Golan Heights, as well as in clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank and northern Gaza Strip as Palestinians marked the anniversary of Israel’s founding in 1948, in an event known in Arabic as the “nakba” or “catastrophe.”

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said house-to-house searches were ongoing on Monday afternoon and roadblocks had been set up around the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams, where protesters who crossed over from Syria gathered.

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said houseto-house searches were ongoing on Monday afternoon and roadblocks had been set up On Monday morning, the police detained a a 34-yearold Syrian, who was trying to leave the town in a taxi driven by a Palestinian from east Jerusalem, he said.

Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai told Army radio

the military remained “in a state of high alert in the north, the south and the centre.” Defence chiefs also extended a 24-hour lockdown on the occupied Palestinian territories which had been due to end at midnight on Sunday.

Sunday’s violence was some of the worst in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since a 1974 truce accord, and the clashes along the Lebanese border marked the bloodiest confrontation since the 2006 war between the two neighbours.

—AFP

£400 test determines Xhow long you will live

Tehran, May 16: Egypt’s foreign minister Nabil AlArabi was elected as Arab League chief after lastminute diplomacy left him as the only candidate in the race. Amr Moussa, a former Egyptian foreign minister, was head of the Arab League for 10 years.

Egypt changed its candidate for head of the 22member Arab organisation at the last minute on Sunday, backing Nabil AlArabi, who was quickly elected. Al-Arabi replaces Amr Moussa, who has resigned to run for the office of President in Egypt. “This is the toughest assignment I will have,” Mr Al-Arabi said in an acceptance speech that was broadcast live on television.

Egypt’s state news agency announced the change in candidate and, shortly after, Qatar’s Abdulrahman bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, a former secretary-general of the six-nation Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, announced his withdrawal.

Egypt had fielded a career diplomat — Mostafa elFekki — a former member of Parliament for the former President’s ruling party, although he quit his post during the 18-day uprising.

—IANS

AASHIMA DOGRA LONDON

May 16: By the end of this year many Britons might be able to get a vague idea about how long they will live. If not a literal “deadline”, a £400 test can tell you how susceptible you are to a relatively short life, in other words, more prone to age related problems like cardiovascular disease, cancer, low fecundity, Alzheimer’s etc.

A company called Life Length is developing the controversial test that simply needs a few drops of blood to give precise results.

It is busy striking deals with medical diagnostic companies all over Europe while anticipating a positive reaction from members of the

Scientists claim telomere testing will become widespread within the next five or 10 years public eager to know how long they will live.

A deal with a company operating in the UK is likely within a year, The Independent reported.

The scientists who developed the test are confident

that the length of the structure on the tip of chromosomes called telomeres is indicative of how fast an individual is aging. They have helped develop the test that makes it possible to compare the “biological age” with the “chronological age”.

A substantial amount of research in the recent past has shown the link between telomere length and life span.

However, never has this scientific discovery powered an over the counter test, accessible to all.

Its sceptics have put forth arguments about ethical considerations and warned of abuse of such a tool by insurance companies and quacks prescribing elixirs of life.

Moscow, May 16: Representatives of Muammar Gaddafi’s government were expected in Moscow on Tuesday and Russia also hoped to host Libyan rebel envoys soon, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.

“We agreed meetings in Moscow with representatives of both Tripoli and Benghazi. Envoys from Tripoli will be here tomorrow. Envoys from Benghazi were supposed to be here on Wednesday, but as they informed us, they were forced to ask us to postpone this visit for technical reasons,” Mr Lavrov was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

“We hope it will take place in the foreseeable future,” Mr Lavrov said, casting Russia as a potential peacemaker.

“We are ready to conduct dialogue with all,” state-run Itar-Tass quoted him as saying at a meeting in Moscow with the UN envoy for Libya, Abdelilah al-Khatib.

Mr Lavrov repeated Russia’s call for an end to fighting in Libya and the start of talks. “Moscow is very, very interested in the swiftest halt to the bloodshed in Libya and for a shift of the situation into the channel of political dialogue.

Earlier on Monday, the International Criminal Court prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and the country’s intelligence chief on charges of crimes against humanity.

Although Moscow appeared set on establishing a diplomatic

Italy, allies plan Gaddafi ‘political exit’ Muammar Gaddafi

conduit out of Libya’s civil war, analysts were sceptical.

“I think if an agreement doesn’t begin with Gaddafi and his immediate family leaving office it isn’t going to fly with the opposition or with NATO,” said David Hartwell, Middle East analyst at IHS Jane’s.

“The ICC warrant today also makes things more complicated. At the same time, we have something of a military stalemate and even a lull. What is most likely happening is that some countries are using that to try and build up the rebels while they soften up Gaddafi’s forces with air strikes.”

Mr Lavrov also said Russia backed an initiative by the UN humanitarian coordinator “for the declaration of a humanitarian pause to clarify the situation on the ground and provide aid to the population across all of Libya”.

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said on May 9 that the way sanctions were being applied on Libya over the Gaddafi government’s war with pro-democracy rebels had been delaying delivery of supplies to its population. Russia, a vetowielding permanent mem-

said the crew shut down the engine after receiving a “stall warning”.

Reuters photographer Beawiharta was aboard the plane with his wife, two sons and daughter.

About 20 minutes after take-off, there were two sharp bangs, sending cabin staff scurrying to retrieve the meals they had only just begun serving.

The plane began shaking violently, he said, and the

Cathay Pacific said the Airbus 330, bound for Jakarta with 136 passengers on board, landed back in Singapore “without incident” just before 2 am. It said the crew shut down the engine after receiving a “stall warning”.

Residents of the southwestern Yemeni province of Saada hold up placards calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Monday, a day after a Gulf mediator met with the embattled President in a new bid to resolve Yemen’s political crisis.

PHOTO: AFP

lights went out. He could smell something burning.

His son, Pradipta, 15, said he saw nothing as he peered out the window.

“But I asked him to cup his hands to get a better view,” Mr Beawiharta said. “He shouted: ‘I see fire! I see fire!’ “Panicked, he then asked: ‘Will we die? Will we die?’ I took his hand and told him firmly: ‘No, we are going to live.’ “Behind us, passengers were praying:

‘God, save our flight! Give us your protection!’”

The prayers got louder and louder, pierced by only the occasional cry of panic.

“A stewardess told us an engine had caught fire and we were on our way back to Singapore. Glued to the window, my son said he could see lights, the sea and ships and then lights on the ground. We all grabbed life jackets from beneath our seats, but the plane landed

smoothly.

“Within five minutes, as firefighters doused the damaged engine, we walked off the plane into the terminal,” he said.

In the waiting room, the pilot greeted assembled passengers.

“The best that we can ever ask of passengers is to stay cool, stay calm... which you did,” he said. “And for that we thank you.”

—Reuters

Extreme makeover: Are humans reshaping earth?

MARLOWE HOOD LONDON

May 16: If alien geologists were to visit our planet 10 million years from now, would they discern a distinct human fingerprint in Earth’s accumulating layers of rock and sediment?

Will homo sapiens, in other words, define a geological period in the way dinosaurs — and their vanishing act — helped mark

the Jurassic and the Cretaceous? A growing number of scientists, some gathered at a one-day symposium this week at the British Geological Society in London, say “yes”. One among them, chemistry Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, has even suggested a new name: the Anthropocene. Whether this “age of man” will be short or long is unknown. But one thing is clear, says Crutzen, who shared his Nobel for

unmasking the man-made chemicals eating away at the atmosphere’s protective ozone layer. For the first time in earth’s 4.7 billion year history, a single species has not only radically changed earth’s morphology, chemistry and biology, it is now aware of having done so.

“We broke it, we bought it, we own it,” is how Erle Ellis, a professor of geography and ecology at the University of Maryland at Baltimore,

spotlight put it. “We don’t know what is going to happen in the Anthropocene — it could be good, even better,” he said.

“But we need to think differently and globally, to take ownership of the planet.”

Dinosaurs were most likely wiped out by a giant meteor that cooled earth’s temperatures below their threshold for survival.

An analogous fate could await humans if temperatures climb by five or six degrees Celsius, which climate scientists say could happen within a century.

But dinosaurs thrived for more than 150 million years before a cosmic pebble ended their extraordinary run, while modern humans have only been around for about 200,000 years, a snap of the fingers by comparison. Another key difference:

dinosaurs didn’t know what hit them, and played no role in their own demise.

Humans, by contrast, have been the main architects of the enormous changes that are threatening to throw what scientists now call the earth system out of whack.

Since Crutzen coined the term a decade ago, the Anthropocene has been eagerly adopted by scientists across a broad spectrum of disciplines. “It triggered

ber of the UN Security Council, abstained from the March vote on a resolution that authorised military intervention to enforce nofly zones. Russia has accused the Nato-led forces carrying out airstrikes of going behind their mandate to protect civilians, saying the coalition has essentially taken sides in a civil war.

—Reuters

Bruni refuses to deny pregnancy rumour on TV

stir against Saleh

Calm, prayers help steer stricken plane back to Singapore Singapore, May 16: Terrified passengers aboard a Cathay Pacific plane prayed together as their aircraft, one of its engines on fire, made its way back to Singapore on Monday, and their calm response earned praise from the captain.

Cathay Pacific said the Airbus 330, bound for Jakarta with 136 passengers on board, landed back in Singapore “without incident” just before 2 am. It

Rome, May 16: Italy and its allies are working on a political solution that would allow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to resign, said Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini on Monday. \ “It would be a political exit that would remove Gaddafi and his family from the scene,” and allow “a government of national reconciliation,” to take over, said Mr Frattini. Possible members of Gaddafi’s government who could take part in the new government “have already been identified”, he said, adding that unveiling the plan, which was still being worked out together with the UN, could cause it to fail. Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court on Monday is due to ask judges in The Hague to issue arrest warrants for three senior members of the Libyan regime.

—IANS/AKI

the realisation that we were in an entirely new era of planet earth,” said Will Steffen, head of Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute. It also triggered debate. At one level, the issues are narrow to the point of pedantry — rock experts quibbling over whether mankind’s present and future geological imprint merits recognition by the International Commission on Stratigraphy.

—AFP

London, May 16: She has kept mum about the “good news” for months and French First Lady Carla Bruni has now added fuel to pregnancy rumours with her latest television interview.

The former supermodel who is reportedly expecting twins with President Nicolas Sarkozy, was congratulated by presenter JeanPierre Pernaut on the show 13 Heures, at which the 43year-old blushed and replied “I congratulate you too,” without saying what for. Bruni had earlier pulled out of a red carpet appearance at Cannes film festival, citing ill-health and has side-stepped the big question in interviews since.

When she scheduled a live interview on a prime time TV show, it was expected that she will finally make it official, reported the Telegraph online.

But instead of asking a direct question, presenter Pernaut quizzed Bruni for several minutes on her charity work against child illiteracy, before saying, “I know you don’t like people talking about your private life, but I just want to congratulate you.”

Bruni married Sarkozy, 56, following a whirlwind romance in 2008. The model-turned-musician had her first son Aurelien in 2001 with former lover, the Parisian philosopher Raphael Enthoven. —PTI PUNJAB STATE POWER CORPORATION LIMITED GURU HARGOBIND THERMAL PLANT LEHRA MOHABBAT

CORRIGENDUM-II The opening date of Enquiry No. 114/O&M/PC-1270 dated 27-01-2011 for procurement S.S. Fluidizing Elements is hereby extended to 03-06-2011. Last date for issue of tender documents is 30-05-2011 and tenders shall be received upto 03-062011 (11.30 AM).

All other terms & conditions shall remain the same For further details please refer to PSPCL. website www.pspcl.in Superintending Engineer/HQ, For Chief Engineer/O&M, GHTP, Lehra Mohabbat.

RO No. 1570/1575 dtd. 12-5-2011