World News Iran’s president acknowledges chemical weapons killed people in Syria
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RANIAN President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday for the first time that chemical weapons had killed people in ally Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use. Rouhani stopped short of saying who he thought had used the arms, but Iran’s Foreign Ministry yesterday said evidence pointed to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Tehran has previously accused Syrian rebels of being behind what it called suspected chemical attacks. Rouhani did not mention
the international furor around Syrian opposition reports that government forces had killed as many as 1,000 civilians with gas in Damascus on Wednesday. “Many of the innocent people of Syria have been injured and martyred by chemical agents and this is unfortunate,” recently elected Rouhani was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency. “We completely and strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons, because the Islamic Republic of Iran is itself a victim of chemical weapons,” he said, according to the agency. Iran suffered chemical
weapons attacks by Iraqi forces during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. “The Islamic Republic gives notice to the international community to use all its might to prevent the use of these weapons anywhere in the world, especially in Syria,” Mehr news agency quoted Rouhani as saying. Syria’s government denies using such weapons and Iran’s foreign minister said on Thursday that groups fighting Assad’s forces in a two-year-old rebellion must have been behind what he then said was just a suspected gas attack.
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“The probe is heading in the right direction and the other accused will be arrested
soon,” Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh told reporters.
Mumbai police arrest third man in gang-rape case UMBAI police arrested a third suspect late yesterday over the gang-rape of a photographer — an attack that has renewed anger over India’s treatment of women. Five men are alleged to have raped the woman, in her early 20s, in the centre of the Indian financial hub where she was on a magazine assignment with a male colleague on Thursday evening. The attack brought back memories of the fatal gangrape of a student in New Delhi in December that sparked nationwide protests. Officers arrested the first suspect on Friday and a second arrest was made overnight, police spokesman Satyanarayan Choudhary said. Late yesterday, police said they had arrested a third suspect after being told his whereabouts by one of the other accused.
Mandela showing ‘great resilience’
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ORMER South African President Nelson Mandela, who has been in hospital since early June with a lung infection, is showing “great resilience” although he remains in a critical but stable condition, the presidency said yesterday. “While at times, his condition becomes unstable, the doctors indicate that the former president has demonstrated great resilience and his condition tends to stabilize as a result of medical interventions,” it said in its latest update on the condition of the 95-year-old antiapartheid hero. “Doctors are still working hard to effect a turnaround and a further improvement in his health and to keep the former president comfortable,” the presidency added in the
•Mandela statement. It was the first update in almost two weeks on the health of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. News of his hospitalization in June with a recurring lung infection attracted worldwide attention for the revered statesman, who is admired as a symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation. Mandela celebrated his 95th birthday in hospital on July 18, showered with tributes from around the world.
THE NATION ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013