Karzai pledges peace at Rabbani funeral

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed to continue efforts to broker a peace deal with the Taliban as he led thousands of mourners at the funeral of his assassinated peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani. 
  Rabbani was president of Afghanistan during the 1992-1996 civil war

Afghan President Hamid Karzai vowed to continue efforts to broker a peace deal with the Taliban as he led thousands of mourners at the funeral of his assassinated peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Mr Rabbani, president of Afghanistan during the 1992-1996 civil war and chairman of Mr Karzai's hand-picked High Peace Council, was killed by a turban bomber purporting to be a peace emissary from the Taliban leadership.

He was the most senior national leader assassinated in Afghanistan since the 2001 American invasion.

Following the killing of Mr Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, his kingpin in the south, and last week's 19-hour siege of the US embassy, the government has never seemed weaker in the face of the ten-year Taliban insurgency.

But the president insisted that the murder would not derail efforts to make contacts with insurgents, despite keeping up the fight.

"The blood of the martyred and other martyrs of freedom requires us to continue our efforts until we reach peace and stability," Mr Karzai said.

"We will continue our efforts to reach peace which was the wish of martyred ustad (professor) but at the same time, we consider it as our responsibility to fight the enemies of peace with determination."

Meanwhile, police fired into the air to disperse a large crowd gathered near where Mr Rabbani was due to be buried later.

"There is no security threat, the situation is under control," Mohammad Zahir, head of the Kabul police Crime Investigation Unit said.

"Many people gathered near the hilltop to attend the burial but they had not been searched or checked. Police fired into the air to disperse the crowd."

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Palestine to apply for full UN membership

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to apply for full membership of the United Nations today in a move strongly opposed by both Israel and the US.

Mahmoud Abbas is set to ignore calls to drop Palestine's UN application

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is due to apply for full membership of the United Nations today.

The move is strongly opposed by Israel and the United States, which has said it will use its veto on the Security Council to prevent it, if necessary

Meanwhile, diplomats from the international "Quartet" of Middle-East mediators are trying to craft a statement that would resolve the impasse and enable direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume.

Reports from New York say envoys from the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations have continued to work constructively on the issue and will meet again today.

US President Barack Obama insisted in a speech to the UN General Assembly that kick-starting the negotiations with Israel - which broke down a year ago after the Jewish state resumed settlement building - was the only path towards a lasting peace.

But the address sparked angry demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza, with Palestinians accusing Mr Obama of double standards for praising the Arab spring protests while seeking to block Palestinian dreams.

The speech did "not meet Palestinian hopes for the freedom and independence that the US administration is calling for for all people, except the Palestinians," said top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.

"Despite this unfair position and all the pressure, President Abbas will submit tomorrow a request to admit the state of Palestine at the UN via the Security Council," he stressed.

The Obama administration seemed resigned yesterday to the fact that Mr Abbas would snub their calls to drop his UN membership bid.

"I think it is important to note that regardless of what happens tomorrow in the United Nations, we remain focused on the day after," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

She told reporters: "I remain committed to working with the parties to obtain the goal that the United States supports, that is a two-state solution."

 

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Saleh calls for ceasefire after Yemen return

President Ali Abdullah Saleh unexpectedly returned to Yemen after three months in Saudi Arabia, calling for a ceasefire.

Spent three months in Saudi Arabia

President Ali Abdullah Saleh unexpectedly returned to Yemen after three months in Saudi Arabia, calling for a ceasefire between his supporters and opponents after five days of fierce fighting in the capital.

Mr Saleh's reappearance raised big questions over the future of the Arabian Peninsula state, which has been paralysed by protests against his 33-year rule since January.

Violence in the capital Sanaa broke out earlier this week, when a months-old standoff between loyalist troops and forces backing anti-Saleh protesters turned into a full-blown military showdown that killed more than 100 people in five days.

The country also faces a worsening insurgency by al-Qaeda, an uneasy truce with Shia fighters in the north and separatism in the south.

Moments after state television's announcement of his return from Saudi Arabia, where he had been recovering from severe burns received during an assassination attempt, the capital's streets erupted with bursts of gunfire and fireworks.

Shelling was also taking place in the capital's Hasaba district.

Mr Saleh called for a ceasefire so that talks could be held.

"The solution is not in the mouths of rifles and guns, it is in dialogue and stopping bloodshed," the defence ministry quoted Saleh as saying.

Many Yemenis saw his return as an attempt to rally for war and said they now expected more bloodshed.

His return sharply divided Yemenis, with supporters joyfully predicting that he could restore order, and opponents saying they feared his presence would unleash bloodshed.

Radio stations blared celebratory music and thousands gathered at a pro-Saleh rally waving flags, beating drums and honking horns.

A newsflash on Yemen TV warned people not to fire into the air in celebration in case stray bullets hit bystanders

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Pope praises Martin Luther's passion

On the second day of his state visit to his homeland, Pope Benedict XVI has praised Martin Luther for having been a passionate Christian.

Pope Benedict on state visit to Germany

He was speaking in the east German monastery where the man who inspired the Protestant Reformation studied five centuries ago.

After meeting leaders of German Lutheranism, he urged their followers and Catholics to focus on what united them in a secularised world.

The 84-year-old Pontiff said that what constantly exercised Luther was the question of God, which he described as "the deep passion and driving force" of the reformer's whole life journey.

He warned that the significant progress in improving understanding between the two Christian denominations was threatened by a watering down and destabilisation of the faith.

Later the Pope led an ecumenical service for around 300 invited guests including Chancellor Angela Merkel who is the daughter of a Lutheran pastor.

There have been protests about the Pope's visit to Germany.

Yesterday, peaceful demonstrators behind police barriers rallied against Benedict's views on issues ranging from gay rights to the paedophile priest scandals.

Benedict told reporters demonstrations were "normal in a free society marked by strong secularism."

 

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Speed of light may have been broken

 Scientists are puzzled by results of experiments in which subatomic particles appeared to travel slightly faster that the speed of light.

Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity is under threa

Scientists are puzzled by results of experiments conducted between the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Switzerland and a laboratory in Italy, in which subatomic particles appeared to travel slightly faster that the speed of light.

Researchers said physicists spent nearly six months checking and rechecking before making an announcement.

The result, which threatens to upend a century of physics, including Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, was published overnight on Cornell University's website.

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, told Reuters that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.

"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently."

If confirmed, the discovery would undermine Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, which says the speed of light is a "cosmic constant" and that nothing in the universe can travel faster.

That assertion, which has withstood over a century of testing, is one of the key elements of the so-called Standard Model of physics, which attempts to describe the way the universe and everything in it works.

The totally unexpected finding emerged from research by physicists working on an experiment dubbed OPERA run jointly by the CERN in Geneva and the Gran Sasso Laboratory in central Italy.

A total of 15,000 beams of neutrinos - tiny particles that pervade the cosmos - were fired over a period of three years from CERN towards Gran Sasso 730km away, where they were picked up by giant detectors.

Light would have covered the distance in around 2.4 thousandths of a second, but the neutrinos took 60 nanoseconds - or 60 billionths of a second - less than light beams would have taken.

"It is a tiny difference," said Mr Ereditato, who also works at Berne University in Switzerland, "but conceptually it is incredibly important. The finding is so startling that, for the moment, everybody should be very prudent."

Mr Ereditato declined to speculate on what it might mean if other physicists, who will be officially informed of the discovery at a meeting in CERN today, found that OPERA's measurements were correct.

"I just don't want to think of the implications," he told Reuters. "We are scientists and work with what we know."

Much science-fiction literature is based on the idea that if the light-speed barrier can be overcome, time travel might theoretically become possible.

The existence of the neutrino, an elementary subatomic particle with a tiny amount of mass created in radioactive decay or in nuclear reactions such as those in the Sun, was first confirmed in 1934, but it still mystifies researchers.