VoteUpIndia » World News http://voteupindia.com Top News of India... Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:03:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= Usama Bin Laden Killed in Firefight With U.S. Special Ops Team in Pakistan http://voteupindia.com/usama-bin-laden-killed-in-firefight-with-u-s-special-ops-team-in-pakistan/ http://voteupindia.com/usama-bin-laden-killed-in-firefight-with-u-s-special-ops-team-in-pakistan/#comments Mon, 23 May 2011 13:47:10 +0000 Sanjay Chavda http://voteupindia.com/?p=9724

Declaring “justice has been done,” President Obama announced late Sunday that Usama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, marking the end of the worldwide manhunt that began nearly a decade ago on Sept. 11, 2001.
The president made the stunning announcement within hours of informing congressional leaders. He said bin Laden was killed Sunday, the culmination of years of intelligence gathering. The news drew a large crowd to the front of the White House, as well as in Times Square, as people chanted “U-S-A. U-S-A.”
Obama, in his address to the nation shortly before midnight, thanked the Americans who have toiled in pursuit of bin Laden and applauded those who carried out the successful mission in Pakistan. Describing that mission only briefly, he said its result “is a testament to the greatness of our country.”
“For over two decades, bin Laden has been Al Qaeda’s leader and symbol,” Obama said. “The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda.”
The president traced the death of bin Laden to a tip received last August. He said he was briefed at the time on the “possible lead,” and that after months of intelligence work it was determined bin Laden was hiding in a compound “deep” inside Pakistan. Obama said, after determining the intelligence was sound, he authorized the operation to bring him to justice last week.

Usama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian–born leader of Al Qaeda who is widely known as the most dangerous terrorist on the planet, has been killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALS at a compound in Pakistan.

He said a “small team” of Americans went after bin Laden in Abbottabad on Sunday. “After a firefight, they killed Usama bin Laden and took custody of his body,” the president said.
Senior administration officials, in a briefing with reporters, afterward said the administration had determined by February that they would pursue the compound “custom built to hide someone of significance” in Pakistan. This decision led to a series of national security meetings starting in March to develop a course of action. Obama gave the final order to pursue the operation on April 29, officials said.
The house was 100 yards from the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an army-run institution where top officers train. A Pakistan intelligence official said the property where bin Laden was staying was 3,000 square feet.
At 3:30 p.m. EST, a 40-man Navy Seals squadron raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the Al Qaeda leader with a bullet to the head.
Four Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters dropped 24 men on the compound. One helicopter suffered a “hard landing” inside the compound after experiencing a mechanical failure and had to be destroyed on the site, according to one defense official.
There was a large shootout. The residents at the compound resisted. The total raid took 40 minutes.
No Americans were killed in the mission Sunday. Officials said three adult men other than bin Laden were killed – one was believed to be bin Laden’s son, the others couriers. One woman was killed when she was used as a human shield and two other women were also injured, the officials said.
Abbottabad resident Mohammad Haroon Rasheed said the raid happened about 1:15 a.m. local time.
“I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing suddenly stopped. Then more thundering, then a big blast,” he said. “In the morning when we went out to see what happened, some helicopter wreckage was lying in an open field.”
“Intelligence analysts concluded that this compound was custom-built to hide someone of significance,” he said.
In the wake of bin Laden’s death, authorities around the world are being urged to take security precautions. One source said officials are concerned bin Laden’s death could incite violence or terrorist acts against U.S. personnel overseas.
The State Department issued a travel alert for U.S. citizens abroad overnight, citing “the enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan.”
Obama said Americans must continue to be “vigilant.” But he said the death of the architect of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil should be welcomed around the world.
“Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims,” Obama said. “So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”
Sources said the vice president informed congressional leaders late Sunday night that the world’s most wanted man had been killed.
Officials said bin Laden’s body, which was in U.S. custody, was given a sea burial.
The announcement comes nearly a decade after the 2001 terror attacks that triggered the Afghanistan war and started a tireless hunt for the terrorist mastermind and Al Qaeda leader.
In recent years, that hunt had increasingly led U.S. intelligence across the border and into Pakistan, where Al Qaeda is thought to be concentrated.

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]]> http://voteupindia.com/usama-bin-laden-killed-in-firefight-with-u-s-special-ops-team-in-pakistan/feed/ 0 Pakistan orders bin Laden investigation http://voteupindia.com/afp-pakistan-orders-bin-laden-investigation/ http://voteupindia.com/afp-pakistan-orders-bin-laden-investigation/#comments Mon, 09 May 2011 16:30:38 +0000 superblogger http://voteupindia.com/?p=9690
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Monday met US demands for an inquiry into how Osama bin Laden lived for years under the noses of its military but refused to be blamed alone for Al-Qaeda or its mastermind.
In a 30-minute address to parliament, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani took veiled swipes at the United States and exonerated Pakistan’s military of complicity or incompetence over the world’s most-wanted terrorist.
Alluding to US funding in conjunction with Pakistan’s role in the 1990s war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan, which ultimately gave birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Gilani said it was unfair for Pakistan to take all the blame.
“Collectively, we must acknowledge facts and see our faces in the mirror of history. Pakistan alone cannot be held to account for flawed policies and blunders of others. Pakistan is not the birth place of Al-Qaeda,” he said.
“We did not invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan or even to Afghanistan.”
Pakistanis have expressed horror at the perceived impunity of the American raid that killed bin Laden, furiously asking whether their military was too incompetent to know he was living close to a major Pakistani military academy, or, even worse, conspired to protect him.
The debacle has been one of the biggest embarrassments ever to hit Pakistan’s powerful military establishment and the civilian leadership has been left reeling, forced to explain itself in parliament.
But Gilani denounced allegations of complicity or incompetence as “absurd”, expressed “full confidence” in the military and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, which he called a “national asset”.
Pakistan long points out that it has lost more than 5,000 soldiers in fighting Islamist militants since 2002, more than the Americans in Afghanistan, and that its ISI agents were involved in dozens of Al-Qaeda arrests.
Gilani said Pakistan was “determined to get to the bottom of how, when and why” bin Laden had been hiding out in Abbottabad, close to Islamabad, and said an investigation had been ordered, later naming its head as Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal.
The fact that bin Laden was holed up for up to five years in the garrison city less than a mile from Pakistan’s top military academy and only two hours’ drive from Islamabad has deeply strained ties with the United States.
Gilani defended the relationship with Washington as a strategic partnership in both countries’ interests, but there is widespread anti-American feeling among the country’s largely Muslim population of 170 million.
“We will not allow our detractors to succeed in offloading their own shortcomings and errors of omission and commission in a blame game that stigmatises Pakistan,” said Gilani.
The White House says President Barack Obama reserves the right to take action again in Pakistan after the May 2 hit.
Gilani insisted Pakistan also reserves the right to “retaliate with full force,” although he stopped short of spelling what, if anything, Pakistan would do should the Americans stage another unilateral high-profile anti-terror raid.
Politicians earlier called for guarantees from the government that the country’s sovereignty will not be breached again.
A week after an elite team of Navy SEALs flew in, seemingly undetected, killed the Al-Qaeda leader and flew off with his body, senior US officials said they had no proof Islamabad knew about his hideout.
Obama has pressed Pakistan to investigate how bin Laden lived for years under the nose of its military, saying he must have been supported by locals or even intelligence agents.
Outraged US lawmakers have voiced suspicion that elements of Pakistan’s military intelligence services must have known his whereabouts, and are demanding that billions of dollars in American aid be suspended.
On Monday, hundreds of Taliban rallied in the town of Wana in the tribal belt, which Washington has called an Al-Qaeda headquarters, vowing to avenge the Al-Qaeda chief’s death and denouncing Pakistan and the United States.
Although there have been isolated protests, there has been no major public outpouring of fury in Pakistan, where more people have died in bomb attacks than on September 11, 2001 and ordinary people struggle with inflation and power cuts.
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]]> http://voteupindia.com/afp-pakistan-orders-bin-laden-investigation/feed/ 0 US, Pakistan threaten each other with military action http://voteupindia.com/us-pakistan-threaten-each-other-with-military-action/ http://voteupindia.com/us-pakistan-threaten-each-other-with-military-action/#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 19:46:44 +0000 superblogger http://voteupindia.com/?p=9646

WASHINGTON: Barely disguising mutual antagonism, the United States and Pakistan on Thursday threatened each other with military action in the aftermath of the American raid on the Abbottabad compound to kill Osama bin Laden, even as sober elements on both sides scrambled to save the relationship from total breakdown.

The White House led the way in publicly reiterating that it would not hesitate to carry out more such special operations in Pakistan if it did not act against terrorists holed up in the country. A lengthy Pakistani foreign office statement that the US incursion could not become the standard operating procedure or precedent for US or other countries did nothing to dissuade Washington from re-asserting the tough Obama policy: if there are terrorists inside Pakistan and it does not act, then the US will.

In fact, the White House itself surprisingly framed Sunday’s raid a war context. “The operation was conducted in a manner fully consistent with the laws of war,” Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney said while discussing the Osama kill. “There is simply no question that this operation was lawful… We acted in the nation’s self-defense.” The remarks appeared to address Pakistan questioning the legality of the US action.

A rattled Pakistan fired back on Thursday through both its civilian front and military cabal which had been silent for more than three days after the US raid widely seen there as humiliating. The provocation for the angry Pakistan reaction was as much concern about more US incursions (and humiliation) as fears that New Delhi would take the American raid as a precedent, an apprehension that was heightened after Indian military commanders said they had the wherewithal to conduct similar special operations.

Statements from New Delhi to the effect that India would not do anything like that to Pakistan during its moment of embarrassment did nothing to assuage Islamabad.

Pakistan’s foreign secretary Salman Bashir, with an obvious eye on India, said that any country that again seeks to raid its territory would face consequences. “We feel that that sort of misadventure or miscalculation would result in a terrible catastrophe,” he said. “There should be no doubt Pakistan has adequate capacity to ensure its own defence.”

Revealing that Pakistan had scrambled its F-16s as soon as it got to know of the raid, Bashir said “The Pakistan security forces are neither incompetent nor negligent about their sacred duty to protect Pakistan. There shall not be any doubt that any repetition of such an act will have disastrous consequences.”

The irony of Pakistan scrambling US supplied F-16s to shoot at Americans hasn’t sunk in in Washington, where some lawmakers are asking for a re-evaluation of the relationship.

The Pakistani military also took on the US, threatening to disrupt its war effort in Afghanistan if there were more such actions. A meeting of corps commanders presided over by army chief Ashfaq Kayani issued a tough statement saying the “COAS (Chief of Army Staff) made it clear that any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States.”

The meeting also reportedly resolved to ask the United States to reduce to the strength of its military personnel in Pakistan to a “bare minimum level.”

While the two sides fired verbal volleys at each other long distance, Pakistan’s envoy to Washington, Hussain Haqqani and US interlocutors tried to calm things down by emphasizing cooperative aspects of the relationship. Several key US players, including Senator John McCain, urged the administration not to push Pakistan to the wall.

But the Obama administration’s tact is being tested by stunning leaks from Pakistani investigators who took over the Abbottabad compound, including disclosures that that bin Laden was killed in cold blood, as witnessed by his 12-year old daughter, and that the raiding party encountered no resistance at all in terms of firing.

Pakistani officials also reportedly sold photographs of the carnage, showing unarmed men (excepting bin Laden, whose body was taken away by American forces) lying in pools of blood, to western news agencies. They said the three men had all been shot in cold blood by US forces.

The exchanges came even as Washington clammed up on further operational details of the US attack amid discrepancies and doubts about how bin Laden was eliminated and whether there was an option for him to surrender.

President Obama on Wednesday decided not to release pictures of bin Laden’s extermination because of its gruesome nature, saying it was the US did not want to use such images as “trophies.”
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]]> http://voteupindia.com/us-pakistan-threaten-each-other-with-military-action/feed/ 0 Obama decides not to release bin Laden photos http://voteupindia.com/obama-decides-not-to-release-bin-laden-photos/ http://voteupindia.com/obama-decides-not-to-release-bin-laden-photos/#comments Wed, 04 May 2011 23:56:17 +0000 superblogger http://voteupindia.com/?p=9643
WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD (Reuters) – President Barack Obama decided on Wednesday not to release photographs of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s body, saying they could incite violence and be used by militants as a propaganda tool.
Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking to head off suggestions that killing bin Laden was illegal, said the U.S. commandos who raided his Pakistani hide-out on Monday had carried out a justifiable act of national self-defense.
In deciding not to make public the pictures of the corpse, Obama resisted arguments that to do so could counter skeptics who have argued there is no proof that bin Laden, who was rapidly buried at sea by U.S. forces, is dead.
“I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk,” Obama told the CBS program “60 Minutes.”
“It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool,” the president added.
“There’s no doubt that Bin Laden is dead,” Obama said. “And so we don’t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again.”
Obama’s decision followed intense debate in his administration. CIA Director Leon Panetta had said on Tuesday the pictures would be released.
Washington also had to weigh sensitivities in the Muslim world over what White House spokesman Jay Carney called “a gruesome photograph.” U.S. Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte said she had seen a picture showing bin Laden’s face and believed it confirmed his identity.
KILL OR CAPTURE
Defending the killing of what the White House has acknowledged was an unarmed bin Laden, Holder said he was a legitimate military target and had made no attempt to surrender to the American forces who stormed his fortified compound near Islamabad and shot him in the head.
“It was justified as an act of national self-defense,” Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee, citing bin Laden’s admission of being involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
It was lawful to target bin Laden because he was the enemy commander in the field and the operation was conducted in a way that was consistent with U.S. laws and values, he said, adding that it was a “kill or capture mission.”
“If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that, but there was no indication that he wanted to do that and therefore his killing was appropriate,” he said.
U.S. acknowledgment on Tuesday that bin Laden held no weapon when shot dead had raised accusations Washington had breached international law. Exact circumstances of his death remained unclear and could yet fuel controversy, especially in the Muslim world.
Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called the killing “quite clearly a violation of international law.” Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent London-based human rights lawyer, said the killing “may well have been a cold-blooded assassination” that risked making bin Laden a martyr.
Husayn al-Sawaf, 25, a playwright, said in Cairo: “The Americans behaved in the same way as bin Laden: with treachery and baseness. They should’ve tried him in a court. As for his burial, that’s not Islamic. He should’ve been buried in soil.”
But there has been no sign of mass protests or violent reaction on the streets in south Asia or the Middle East.
Pakistan, for its part, faced national embarrassment, a leading Islamabad newspaper said, in explaining how the world’s most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of the capital.
The Dawn newspaper compared the latest humiliation with the admission in 2004 that one of the country’s top scientists, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had sold its nuclear secrets.
INTELLIGENCE LAPSES
Pakistan has welcomed bin Laden’s death, but its Foreign Ministry expressed deep concerns about the raid, which it called an “unauthorized unilateral action.”
The country blamed worldwide intelligence lapses for a failure to detect bin Laden, while Washington worked to establish whether its ally had sheltered the al Qaeda leader, which Islamabad vehemently denies.
“There is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone,” Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Paris.
An early U.S. account of the commando raid said bin Laden had taken part in a firefight with the helicopter-borne U.S. troops. Al Arabiya television suggested the architect of the 9/11 attacks was first taken prisoner and then shot.
The Arabic television station said a Pakistani security source “quoted the daughter of Osama bin Laden that the leader of al Qaeda was not killed inside his house, but had been arrested and was killed later.”
Carney on Tuesday cited the “fog of war” as a reason for the initial misinformation on whether bin Laden was armed.
He insisted that bin Laden resisted when U.S. forces stormed his compound in the 40-minute operation, but would not say how. Panetta told PBS television the strike team opened fire in response to “threatening moves” as they reached the third-floor room where they found bin Laden.
There has been little questioning of the operation in the United States, where bin Laden’s killing was greeted with street celebrations. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday showed the killing boosted Obama’s image, improving Americans’ views of his leadership and his efforts to fight terrorism.
In Pakistan, the streets around bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad remained sealed off on Wednesday, with police and soldiers allowing only residents to pass through.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban, who harbored bin Laden until they were overthrown in late 2001, challenged the truth of his death, saying Washington had not provided “acceptable evidence to back up their claim” that he had been killed.
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]]> http://voteupindia.com/obama-decides-not-to-release-bin-laden-photos/feed/ 0 It is inconceivable Osama had no support system in Pak: US http://voteupindia.com/it-is-inconceivable-osama-had-no-support-system-in-pak-us/ http://voteupindia.com/it-is-inconceivable-osama-had-no-support-system-in-pak-us/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 17:42:12 +0000 prashant agarwal http://voteupindia.com/?p=9615
WASHINGTON: The US wondered how Osama bin Laden managed to remain undetected in Pakistan for so long, saying it is “inconceivable” that he had no support system there and noted the Obama Administration is probing what helped the al-Qaida chief to hold on in the country.

“I think it’s inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time,” John Brennan, deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism and homeland security, told reporters at a crowded White House news conference here.

“I am not going to speculate about what type of support he might have had on an official basis inside of Pakistan.”

Bin Laden was killed in a pre-dawn operation yesterday in Pakistan’s Abbottabad. He was living in a three-storey house in the garrison town, barely two hour drive (120 km) from Islamabad .

“We are closely talking to the Pakistanis right now. And, again, we are leaving open opportunities to continue to pursue whatever leads might be out there,” Brennan said responding to questions on how the most wanted terrorist was found in one of the most affluent neighborhoods of Islamabad, which is residences of top retired Pakistani military officials.

“People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. Clearly, this was something that was considered as a possibility. Pakistan is a large country. We are looking right now at how he was able to hold out there for so long and whether or not there was any type of support system within Pakistan that allowed him to stay there,” Brennan said.

“We know that the people at the compound there were working on his behalf, and that’s how we ultimately found our way to the compound. But we are right now less than 24 hours after this operation, so we are talking with the Pakistanis on a regular basis now. And we’re going to pursue all leads to find out exactly what type of support system and benefactors that bin Laden might have had,” he said.

Brennan said following the conclusion of the successful operation, a number of senior US officials are in regular contact now with their Pakistani counterparts. “We are continuing to engage with them. We’re engaging with them today as we learn more about the compound and whatever type of support system bin Laden had.”

Brennan said the fact that bin Laden was found so close to the capital “raises questions”.

“There are a lot of people within the Pakistani government, and I’m not going to speculate about who or if any of them had fore-knowledge about bin Laden being in Abbottabad. But certainly his location there outside of the capital raises questions. We are talking to the Pakistanis about this.”

“But they, at least in our discussions with them, seem as surprised as we were initially that bin Laden was holding out in that area,” he added.
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]]> http://voteupindia.com/it-is-inconceivable-osama-had-no-support-system-in-pak-us/feed/ 0 Osama bin Laden killing gives Obama quick but limited ratings boost http://voteupindia.com/osama-bin-laden-killing-gives-obama-quick-but-limited-ratings-boost/ http://voteupindia.com/osama-bin-laden-killing-gives-obama-quick-but-limited-ratings-boost/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 17:42:10 +0000 prashant agarwal http://voteupindia.com/?p=9629
In the immediate aftermath of the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama’s approval rating has jumped higher, with big increases in the number of Americans giving him high marks on dealing with terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan.

But the new poll, conducted Monday evening by The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center, also finds virtually no movement in Obama’s numbers when it comes to handling the economy. That suggests that success on one front — even one as important as the death of the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — might not translate easily to other areas.

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The Fix: Breaking down Obama’s bin Laden bumpObama may gain more authority for Afghan warCongress agrees on bin Laden, not much elseBush team gives credit, takes some tooMore political news on PostPolitics
.Overall, 56 percent of those polled say they approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president, an increase of nine percentage points over April polls by Post-ABC News and Pew. That is the highest approval rating for the president in either poll since 2009.

There’s also been a clear increase in public satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States, although by a margin of nearly 2-1, Americans are still dissatisfied with the direction of the country.

The president gets big bounces on dealing with Afghanistan, with his approval rating soaring to 60 percent, and on handling the threat of terrorism, where he recorded a career high of 69 percent.

More than three-quarters of all Americans say the president deserves credit for the killing of the bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday. Among Republicans, 61 percent say Obama deserves at least some credit for the move. But just 17 percent of them say he deserves a “great deal” of credit for bringing bin Laden to justice after a nearly 10-year pursuit by U.S. intelligence and military forces.

Republicans are more apt to give former president George W. Bush acclaim for killing bin Laden, with 81 percent saying he deserves at least some of the credit for what happened Sunday. Only 35 percent of Democrats share that view, however, with a slender 4 percent giving the former president a lot of credit.

There is more bipartisan agreement that the U.S. military and intelligence deserve a great deal of credit for the killing.

For the president, the nine-point increase in his overall approval rating is on par with the six-point increase in Bush’s numbers in the weeks following the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in December 2003. Then, as now, political independents moved the most.

Compared with the mid-April Post-ABC poll, Obama’s approval rating among independents is now 10 points higher, at 52 percent. Bush got an identical 10-point boost among independents in December 2003. For Bush, that lift proved short-lived, with the entire increase gone within six weeks.

How long Obama’s improved ratings will last is, of course, an open question. The fact that there was no movement in Obama’s approval on the economy — still the top issue by far in the country — offers a reminder of the challenges that remain for the White House. Obama’s 40 percent approval on the economy in this one-night poll is the lowest of his presidency in Washington Post polls, though it has been numerically lower in Pew surveys.

The Post-Pew poll was conducted by conventional landline and cellular telephone Monday evening, and included interviews with 654 randomly selected adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Polling manager Peyton M. Craighill also contributed to this report.

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]]> http://voteupindia.com/osama-bin-laden-killing-gives-obama-quick-but-limited-ratings-boost/feed/ 0 Royal wedding: Bunting out across UK for parties http://voteupindia.com/bbc-news-royal-wedding-bunting-out-across-uk-for-parties/ http://voteupindia.com/bbc-news-royal-wedding-bunting-out-across-uk-for-parties/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:21:52 +0000 prashant agarwal http://voteupindia.com/?p=9574
Royal wedding: Bunting out across UK for parties
Royal wedding watchers across the UK are hanging out the bunting as more than 5,000 street parties are held.

PM David Cameron will attend a party in Downing Street, where cupcakes baked by his wife Samantha will be served.

And St Andrews, the Fife town where Prince William and Kate Middleton met, will host 1,500 people for a breakfast.

The scenes will be replicated in streets, squares, pubs and churches across the UK, including the bride’s home village of Bucklebury, Berkshire.

Fancy dress

A wedding breakfast is being held in the hamlet of Chapel Row where the Middletons live, and Bucklebury Farm Park is staging a day of celebrations culminating in a proms-style fanfare.

The wedding will be broadcast live on big screens in various cities and towns, including in Southampton, where people have been encouraged to dress in patriotic red, white and blue.

Hundreds of revellers will hold a fancy dress party on the restored £39m Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

Continue reading the main story
Timetable (BST) on 29 April
1015 – The groom and Prince Harry arrive at Westminster Abbey
1051 – The bride, and her father, leave the Goring Hotel for the abbey
1100 – The marriage service begins
1230 – The bride’s carriage procession arrives at Buckingham Palace
1325 – The Queen and the bride and groom appear on the balcony
1330 – Fly past by the Royal Air Force and Battle of Britain Memorial Flight
Scotland: Breakfast for 1,500
London: Final frantic touches
Wales: Anglesey leads celebrations
Bucklebury: Fever pitch in Kate’s village
In Cornwall, which has strong ties with the Prince of Wales, there were 30 applications for road closures so festivities could be held.

Gloucester Cathedral will show the wedding on a giant screen, and parties are planned in the city and nearby Cheltenham.

In Tetbury, residents have been encouraged to bring picnics, while in Eastbourne, East Sussex, hundreds are expected to flock around a huge screen in Princes Park.

There will be 16 street parties held in Edinburgh, including one in Broughton Street for 250 guests.

In Leeds, where Kate Middleton’s father Michael was born, celebrations will take place across the city, and York is staging a fancy dress competition and high tea.

Sheffield is planning a number of street parties, with the focus in the city centre at Devonshire Green.

Organisers of a royal wedding street celebration in Marple, Cheshire, on the other hand, have been planning their event since Christmas.

The Marple Bridge Association in Cheshire has been planning its town centre party since Christmas, and has sold 800 tickets.

Almost 250 street parties will be held across Wales, with Cardiff leading the way with more than 50.

On Anglesey, where the couple will live, thousands will watch the ceremony on a giant TV screen at the island’s agricultural showground.

Whilst in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, fans will dress in full wedding attire for royal breakfasts in community centres.

And in London, RAF colleagues of Prince William who could not make it to Westminster Abbey will stage a fly-past, and mosques are holding several events billed as “a day of joy for all of us”.

But in Edinburgh, there is expected to be a protest, and a large unofficial party in Glasgow has been criticised by the local council.

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]]> http://voteupindia.com/bbc-news-royal-wedding-bunting-out-across-uk-for-parties/feed/ 0 William and Kate wed with world watching http://voteupindia.com/william-and-kate-wed-with-world-watching/ http://voteupindia.com/william-and-kate-wed-with-world-watching/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:00:06 +0000 superblogger http://voteupindia.com/?p=9576
Amidst much fanfare, Prince William and his longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton, were married on Friday in one of the largest and most-watched events in decades — an interlude of romance in a time of austerity and a moment that may shape the future of the British monarchy.

Arriving after around 40 minutes after her husband-to-be, Middleton rode to Westminster Abbey to offer a first glimpse of her wedding dress — a creation by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen in white and ivory, with a two-metre train, that had been the object of furious speculation. She wore a delicate veil with intricate lace on the neckline and a diamond tiara lent for the occasion by Queen Elizabeth II.

A little over an hour after they arrived at the abbey, the newlyweds emerged on a red carpet onto the streets to a peal of bells to step into a 99-year-old, open, horse-drawn carriage. While they started the ceremony as a prince and what the British call a commoner, they emerged as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge —- their new titles granted earlier on Friday by the queen.
The ceremony — a British specialty in pomp and circumstance — was designed as much to celebrate their marriage as to inject national pride after years of calamities within the royal family. Reveling in the pageantry, the couple waved to jubilant crowds as their procession, escorted by equestrian guardsmen in scarlet tunics and silver breastplates, traversed the streets of London towards Buckingham Palace.

The service followed Anglican tradition, with the prince and Middleton both saying “I will” to the wedding vows Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the Anglican denomination. Middleton however, did not pledge to “obey” Prince William, as was once usual, but instead to “love, comfort, honor and keep” him. “With this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee honor; and all my worldly goods with thee I share,” William said, repeating the words of the archbishop.

The wedding’s guest list has been the source of some controversy. Former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were not invited, though their predecessors, John Major and Margaret Thatcher, were. The crown prince of Bahrain voluntarily gave up his invitation last weekend in the face of criticism over violently suppressed protests in his country. On Thursday, amid questions in British newspapers about the attendance of ambassadors from Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe, among others, the Syrian emissary to London, Sami Khiyami, had his place revoked. The wedding guests ranged from the singer Elton John to Prince Albert II of Monaco and the leaders in Britain of faiths from the Church of England to Zoroastrianism.

After the ceremony the couple were to host a reception at Buckingham Palace. At 1:25 pm local time, they would appear on a balcony there, kiss for the public for the first time as a married couple and witness a fly-past by vintage airplanes. Before the service, in ascending order of royal rank, Middleton’s new in-laws-to-be and members her own family had driven to the abbey in a variety of Rolls Royce, Bentley and Jaguar cars, cheered on by crowds standing 10 or 15 deep along the way. Just before the bride reached the abbey, the queen arrived wearing a primrose dress and hat and accompanied by Prince Philip at the same place they were married in 1947 and where she was crowned in 1953.

The couple’s relationship, which began when they were both students of art history at St Andrews University in Scotland more than nine years ago, had been broadly welcomed among Britons who followed the royal family through tortured years of dashed hopes and scandal, much of it centering on the doomed marriage of William’s mother, Princess Diana, to his father, Prince Charles. Charles himself attended the ceremony with his second wife, the former Camilla Parker-Bowles, now the duchess of Cornwall, whom he married in 2005 and who was once criticised by Diana as the “third person” in her marriage.

Kate Middleton would be known as the Duchess of Cambridge after her marriage, and also the Countess of Strathearn and Baroness Carrickfergus. According to British protocol, she would not be able to formally call herself Princess Catherine because she was not born a princess.

Hundreds of thousands of people converged on London’s streets on Friday, craning for a glimpse of the royal family and the 1,900 other invited guests holding the hottest ticket in town inviting them to the ceremony at the centuries-old abbey.

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]]> http://voteupindia.com/william-and-kate-wed-with-world-watching/feed/ 0 Lightning hitting Empire State Building three times http://voteupindia.com/lightning-hitting-empire-state-building-three-times/ http://voteupindia.com/lightning-hitting-empire-state-building-three-times/#comments Sun, 17 Apr 2011 04:19:41 +0000 superblogger http://voteupindia.com/?p=9520
A video of lightning striking the top of the Empire State Building in New York three times in a row during a severe thunderstorm has become the latest YouTube clip to go viral this week.


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]]> http://voteupindia.com/lightning-hitting-empire-state-building-three-times/feed/ 0 India regrets military action against Libya http://voteupindia.com/india-regrets-military-action-against-libya/ http://voteupindia.com/india-regrets-military-action-against-libya/#comments Mon, 21 Mar 2011 02:14:00 +0000 superblogger http://voteupindia.com/?p=9448
NEW DELHI: India on Sunday regretted the U.N.-sanctioned air strikes launched by the U.S.-led forces in Libya and urged all parties to resolve their differences through peaceful means, abjuring the use of force.

“India views with grave concern the continuing violence, strife and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Libya. It regrets the air strikes that are taking place. The measures adopted should mitigate — and not exacerbate — an already difficult situation for the people of the country,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.

“Spoke to Ambassador Manimekalai in Tripoli a short while ago. She is cool and calm.

Harrowing Saturday night though, with jets screaming above, she says,…” Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said in her tweet.

The Ministry said India hoped that the air strikes would not harm innocent civilians, foreign nationals and diplomatic missions and their personnel still in Libya. “India calls upon all parties to abjure the use, or the threat of use, of force and to resolve their differences through peaceful means and dialogue, in which the U.N. and the regional organisations should play their roles.”

The U.S.-led coalition started pounding Libyan defence targets on Saturday, as Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi vowed to open his arms depots to his people to retaliate against the western aggression.


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