Hundreds of people blocked traffic in northern India on yesterday in protest against the government's failure to win the release of three men held hostage in Iraq, as a deadline set by the kidnappers drew near.
Villagers squatted on a state highway leading to the home of Antaryami, one of seven foreign truck drivers being held by militants, who threatened to kill one of them by 7pm yesterday.
His captors released a videotape showing a masked man pointing an automatic rifle at Antaryami, who looked frightened and was sweating.
"If something happens to him, we will burn government offices and the government will be responsible," said his sister Harjinder Kaur in Una in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.
Groups of protestors sat on railway tracks, disrupting train services.
The kidnappers have demanded that the Kuwaiti transport company the seven men worked for should stop doing business in Iraq or they will behead the men one by one.
Three Kenyans and an Egyptian, employed along with the Indians, are among the hostages of an Iraqi group that calls itself the "Black Flags." It has not said who they would kill first.
Antaryami's father urged the kidnappers to free his son, saying they were poor people.
"I fold my hands and ask you to release my son, your demands have to do with the government and not with poor people like us," Ram Murthi said.
India has no troops in Iraq, but hundreds of poor Indians have gone there to work -- many as support staff, including chefs, kitchen assistants, accountants and bus drivers for the US military.
The Indian government voiced its deep anxiety about the three and stressed none would return if freed, the foreign ministry said after guerrillas threatened to kill on yesterday one of seven men they were holding.
"We are are deeply disturbed by this development and share the sentiment of concern and anxiety of the family members," Junior Foreign Minister Edappakath Ahamed said in a statement.
Ahamed urged the guerrillas to set the Indians free, saying they were poor men who had gone to Kuwait to find jobs and were not working for forces in Iraq.
The government's latest expression of anxiety came a day Pakistan confirmed that two of its nationals, employed by an Arab firm doing contract work for a US company in Iraq, were executed by their kidnappers.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term