India has sent a senior diplomat to Baghdad, stepping up efforts to free three of its nationals held hostage in Iraq, and officials said negotiations with the abductors were progressing well.
Talmiz Ahmed, India's Arabic-speaking ambassador to Oman, was sent on Saturday to oversee talks with the abductors and officials of the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company, which employed the hostages, said E. Ahmed, India's junior foreign minister.
The father of one of the hostages told reporters that he had received a telephone call from the Indian prime minister's office saying the government had received "positive" feedback from Iraq.
"The officer told me, `Don't worry. There are positive signs,'" said Ram Murti, whose son, Antaryami, was among seven truck drivers -- three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian -- kidnapped while transporting goods in Iraq.
The kidnappers, who call themselves "The Holders of the Black Banners," have demanded the Kuwaiti transport company stop doing business in Iraq and pay compensation to families of people killed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. They also want the hostages' countries to withdraw all their citizens from Iraq, and all Iraqis held in Kuwaiti and US prisons to be freed.
The group threatened to kill one hostage every 24 hours starting on Friday, but eased the deadline after Sheikh Hisham-Al-Dulaimi, a tribal leader in Iraq, began mediating.
It was not immediately clear on Saturday whether the kidnappers had set a new deadline. Ahmed did not indicate if he had any information on this.
Meanwhile, residents of Una, the hometown of two of the Indian hostages, vowed to continue blocking a highway passing through the town until the drivers are released.
They have halted traffic on the road for the past three days and have threatened to burn down government offices if the Indians are not released.
About 30 trucks and buses were stranded on the blocked highway. Traffic was being diverted to smaller rural routes, police officer Vimal Gupta said.
On Friday, villagers stopped 37 foreign tourists traveling on two buses, but released them 18 hours later after police intervened.
Una is about 300km northwest of New Delhi. The third Indian hostage is from neighboring Punjab state.
Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company has said it would take "all necessary measures" to save their lives, but didn't say whether it would stop work in Iraq.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
RSS